East meets West, a piece of Japan in Lugano

Lugano’s international vocation has always entailed, almost as a consequence, the presence of great art collections. Some of these have contributed to enriching the city’s heritage, such as the creation of the Brignoni Collection which lead to the Museo delle Culture. Others, for instance, have found their final destination outside Ticino or have been unfortunately dispersed, such as the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. Irrespective of their fate, all collections have a profound meaning and value even if they have been objectively bound to the human aspect of those individuals who wanted, influenced, and created them. The collector is essential to the collection, not only because they created it but also because they ensure its authenticity, interpreting the spirit of the times.

From this point of view too, Lugano is deemed a cosmopolitan city mainly being the place of choice for collectors of international standing who have found here the possibility to cultivate their passions peacefully, a stone’s throw from the rest of the world. One of the world’s leading collectors of Japanese art, Jeffrey Montgomery has lived in Lugano for fifty years. His passion for the Orient was set early on. At the age of 15 he was already buying art with his pocket money. At age twenty the discovey of Japanese civilization led him to begin a desire for inner reflection, based on the beauty of simplicity of which he has been developing ever since. Perhaps this is the reason why the thousands of works in his collection, worthy of a museum, possess a surprising cohesiveness, even though they showcase manifestations of very different genres: ceramics, textiles, sculptures, furnishings, refined objects of daily use. Also combining the works known at every level is a second common thread that he has chosen to follow in building his collection.

For Jeffrey Montgomery, the most sublime expressions of creativity are given by the craftsmanship of making an object perfectly fit for its purpose, from the ergonomic design to the purity of a decoration that expresses its authenticity in an environmental and cultural context in which it lives. Almost as if craftsmanship becomes art when the essential ingredients of form and function find their perfect balance. Each of the works in his collection is consequently the result of a well-considered choice: instinct before aesthetic, with traits very close to the philosophy of art that Japanese civilization has developed over the centuries. In other words, Jeffrey Montgomery started from his own personal awareness, from his inner world, to meet the profound reasons of Japanese art, and to experience authentic harmony with them. His many trips to Japan and his personal acquaintance and relationships with numerous masters of the traditional arts of the archipelago have consolidated a specific competence that has allowed him to move with confidence in a world that has become increasingly familiar to him. From another point of view, the reasons Jeffrey Montgomery’s choices have found harmony in traditional ideals is that they aim toward the Japanese «aesthetic». These ideals are now popularized in fashionable concepts, now known even outside the circle of specialists. And it is here that the Montgomery Collection probably expresses its highest value.

Through the works preserved today in Lugano it is possible to understand the meaning of concepts otherwise difficult to approach, such as: shibumi, simple, subtle, and unobtrusive beauty; mono no aware, translated as «an empathy toward things» or the emotional participation in the beauty of nature and human life; or the wabisabi «a world view» centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection; yohaku, a space that has been consciously left empty which represents profound beauty. All concepts are united by the values of the Buddhist beliefs «particularly Zen» and mujō «lit. «impermanence», for which inner peace passes through the acceptance and celebration of the fact that nothing lasts, that nothing is finite and that nothing is perfect.