Popular Protest in Post War Japan: The Antiwar Art of Shikoku Gorō

Panorama with Red Ball

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum displays atomic bomb materials and exhibits about the 1945 atomic bombing, nuclear history, and hibakusha. For conservation and curatorial reasons, the Museum has undergone several major renovations since its establishment in 1951. The East Building built in the early 1990s originally welcomed visitors in the opening gallery with an extensive exhibition about Hiroshima’s modern history before the war, war and imperialism that lead to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima, and a panorama of the city one second after the atomic bomb exploded. A red ball hanging from the ceiling represented the nuclear device as fireball. In this drawing, Shikoku shows museum visitors leaning on the railing around the panorama, and notes in the text below, “As I was sketching, visitors from abroad stood staring intently. Visitors who take the trouble to visit from afar doubtless have already learned about the destruction of Hiroshima. To truly know something, however, one must grasp it intellectually and with the senses. I understand this from drawing. In the panorama, there was some thing that summoned a single conclusion, regardless of country, religion, or ideological stance” (p. 155).
As part of a major renovation of the museum in 2019, the panorama with the red ball was removed. It was replaced by a “white panorama,” which is a computer graphic projection of the bomb explosion and the city seen from above, based on aerial photographs by U.S. military. 
 

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