Japanese Emperor Naruhito and his wife, Empress Masako, will visit Kew Gardens on Thursday during their state visit to Britain, with the island nation’s connection to the famous London landmark on full display.
Scattered throughout the 330 acres of the botanical gardens are constant reminders of this long relationship. In a large greenhouse, bronze sculptures of bonsai trees—some nearly as tall as the room itself—pay homage to the Japanese art form of horticulture. A few steps away is the Japanese Gateway, an intricately carved cypress modeled after a Kyoto temple. Nearby, gravel is neatly raked into waves and swirls and surrounded by Japanese plants, reminiscent of a traditional tea garden.
Many dignitaries and heads of state frequently visit Kew during official visits, and with around 2.3 million visitors each year, it is one of London’s most popular tourist attractions. But for emperors and queens, the gardens may have even greater significance.
“We have a long and close relationship with Japan, which is reflected not only in several beautiful buildings on our landscape, but also in our biological collections and collections of economic botany and art,” said Richard Deverell, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which manages the site, recalling the month-long festival the gardens hosted in 2021 to celebrate the relationship between the two countries.
The Emperor’s Bloodline, 64 Dating back more than 15 centuriesmaking the Chrysanthemum Throne the oldest monarchy in the world. But like the British royal family, the role of Japan’s imperial family is symbolic and has nothing to do with the country’s government.
Thursday’s visit was part of a weeklong tour of the UK by the couple, a country they have long had personal ties to. Both studied at Oxford University in the 1980s – when the emperor was crown prince and the empress participated in a Japanese Foreign Ministry program that sends early diplomats to study abroad.
The relationship between Japan and Kew dates back to the early 20th century.
The royal and imperial families of Britain and Japan have maintained close relations since the early 20th century. In 1902, the two countries signed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which promoted cooperation and cultural exchanges between the two countries.
As Britain’s interest in its new ally grew, exhibitions of Japanese art became popular; the 1910 Anglo-Japanese Exhibition in London attracted more than 8 million visitors. According to the Japanese Embassy. Queen Mary was the wife of King George V and grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II. Avid collector of Japanese art.
Kew’s links with Japan have been around for generations. The Japanese Gate, a scaled-down replica of the main gate at Nishi Honganji Temple in Kyoto, was installed in 1911 and exhibited at the Anglo-Japanese Exhibition in London a year earlier.
After the restoration of the Nihonmon Gate in 1996, the Emperor’s sister, then Princess Nori, officially opened the temple replica and the new traditional landscape. In 2005, she married At the unveiling she planted a northern Japanese magnolia, which still grows at Kew Gardens today.
This tour will showcase the Japanese art of bonsai.
These little gems at Kew Gardens Impressive bonsai collection It will be on display during the royal couple’s tour of the historic Temperate Conservatory, one of the botanic gardens’ Victorian-era glasshouses.
Bonsai, the cultivation and shaping of miniature trees in containers, often takes years for highly skilled artists. Kew Gardens has a collection of 60 bonsai trees, the most notable of which include a miniature tree just 10 centimeters tall and another that is 180 years old.
Richard Kernick, a botanical horticulturist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, says that although bonsai trees are often thought of as dwarf trees, they are actually trees that have been professionally pruned and shaped to prevent them from growing to their maximum size.
“This intricate and precise art form transforms trees into tiny living treasures,” he said. “Living bonsai is a work of art that is never finished and often outlives the artist. Inheriting a tree is like a rung on a ladder – there are often many rungs behind, but hopefully there are many rungs up front as well.”
The conservatory also features a series of bronze bonsai sculptures by British artist Marc Quinn, as well as some of the rarest plants from around the world.
The Emperor will meet Yamanaka Masumi, Kew Gardens’ first Japanese botanical artist-in-residence, she will tell her story Miracle Pine Painting,became A symbol of hope after the devastating 2011 tsunami in Japan.
A visit to Kew Gardens was just one stop on the royal tour.
The couple arrived in the UK on Saturday and will also spend time with the British royal family. Prince William will meet them at the hotel on Tuesday at the start of their official visit, and King Charles III and Queen Camilla will host them at a formal state banquet at Buckingham Palace on the same day.
King Charles, 75, has a lot in common with the emperor — including the fact that they sometimes Niche interest and the public scrutiny of their marriage and obsession with their family life.
Both were relatively new monarchs. Emperor Naruhito ascended the throne in 2019When his father, Emperor Akihito, abdicated, Charles to be crowned king in 2022Members of the Japanese royal family will visit Oxford on Friday, the final day of a tour that will mark the end of a three-year mission following the death of their mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
The emperor and empress also visited several other places, including Japan House, a cultural center in London, and the Thames Barrier, one of the world’s largest movable flood barriers. While the barrier may have been a casual stop for the royal family, the emperor was likely more interested in it than many tourists.
His memoirs of his two years at Oxford are titledThe Thames and I” as a nod to the waterway’s influence on his time there and on his college thesis, which was on the history of shipping on the river in the 18th century.
Motoko Richie I contributed to coverage from Tokyo.
