Everyday Beauty: Japanese Art and Culture

Join Classical Pursuits director Melanie Blake on a journey into the heart of Japan’s artistic and spiritual traditions. October in Kyoto offers the perfect balance — mild weather, fewer crowds, and gardens just beginning to shift with the season. Over six days in Japan’s cultural capital, we’ll explore grand wooden temples, serene gardens, and centuries-old crafts that reflect the refinement of Japanese conceptions of aesthetics from the medieval Heian period through today.

Led by expert local guides and enriched with small-group seminars, this journey combines cultural immersion with time to discuss and synthesize what we see and experience. Our readings include The Tale of Genji, the world’s first novel, and waka, the elegant verse form that shaped courtly life and literature in the Heian period. We’ll also read Gardens of Awakening: A Guide to the Aesthetics, History, and Spirituality of Kyoto’s Zen Landscapes, a perfect companion as we explore the very gardens it describes.

From Kyoto, we travel to Naoshima Island, home to Japan’s most celebrated contemporary art. Staying at the extraordinary Benesse House — part museum, part resort — we’ll explore installations by artists such as Claude Monet, James Turrell, and Lee Ufan, all set in dialogue with the natural world. We conclude in lively Osaka with its historic castle and dazzling neon neighbourhoods.

Whether this is your first time in Japan or a long-awaited return, this tour offers the chance to experience the classical and contemporary, and how they interact — all the while guided by leaders who bring warmth, insight, and a deep love of Japanese culture. Come with curiosity and return with a new way of seeing.