Kaburaki Kiyokata Memorial Art Museum

Tucked into a quiet residential lane just off the bustle of Komachi-dori, the Kaburaki Kiyokata Memorial Art Museum is one of Kamakura's most rewarding small museums - a tranquil pocket of refined beauty a stone's throw from the city's busiest shopping street. It stands on the site of the home where Kaburaki Kiyokata (1878-1972), one of the great masters of modern Nihonga - Japanese-style painting - spent his final decades, and the building recreates the gentle, cultured atmosphere in which he lived and worked.

Kiyokata was celebrated above all as a painter of bijinga, images of beautiful women, but his art is far more than decorative. He came of age in the vibrant world of late-Meiji Tokyo, working first as an illustrator for newspapers and popular novels, and he brought a storyteller's eye to painting. His women are shown in the ordinary intimacy of daily life - reading a letter, cooling themselves on a summer evening, walking through the old downtown of Tokyo - rendered with exquisite line, subtle color and a deep nostalgia for the vanishing culture of the shitamachi, the low-lying merchant districts of the old capital. His masterwork, a portrait of the tragic heroine Tsukiji Akashi-cho, is a designated Important Cultural Property, and his influence on twentieth-century Japanese painting was profound.

The museum is deliberately modest in scale. A single-story building set around a small garden, it holds a rotating selection from its collection of the artist's paintings, sketches, illustrations and personal belongings, changed several times a year around seasonal or thematic lines. Because the space is intimate, you can study each work closely, appreciating the delicacy of brushwork that photographs never quite capture. The atmosphere is hushed and contemplative - a complete contrast to the crowds a few dozen meters away on Komachi-dori.

The visiting experience is short and civilized: perhaps forty-five minutes to see the current exhibition, admire the garden, and browse the small selection of prints and cards. There is no need to be an expert in Japanese art to enjoy it; Kiyokata's images are immediately accessible, full of human warmth and quiet drama, and the setting itself teaches you something about the taste and lifestyle of a cultivated early-twentieth-century artist. English labelling is limited, but the paintings largely speak for themselves.

It makes an ideal counterpoint to a day of temple-hopping or shopping. After fighting the throngs on Komachi-dori, step into this cool, gracious refuge, slow down, and let the images of another Japan settle over you. To find it, walk from Kamakura Station's east exit into the Yukinoshita neighborhood behind Komachi-dori - the museum is signposted down a side street, about seven minutes on foot. Admission is very reasonable for the permanent display and a little higher during special exhibitions. For lovers of painting, or anyone seeking a moment of calm in the heart of Kamakura, it is a small treasure.