On Nepal’s natural trails

Just completed trekking around the Annapurna Conservation Area Project, and the 78 years old Japanese man has already sketched 40 pictures based on his treks. Nepal and her beauty take in Masahiro Itoh, who is here for the fourth time. His work reflects Nepal’s art, culture, its natural diversity and speak of the Nepali traditions.

A resident of a village near Tokyo, the capital of Japan, Masahiro says, trekking among the high hilly area and painting the scenes that I see there are some of the pleasures of my life.”

He says that it takes him about half-an-hour to complete his sketches once a view or a thing is etched in his mind.
On his fourth visit, he started his trek from bensisahar of Lamjung and over the following three weeks, went through Lamjung, Manang, Mutang, Magdi, among others place.

So, his current sketches are all based on the scenes that he found along the way.
Altogether Masahiro has done over 150 painting on various subjects pertaining to Nepal.

“Nepal is a beautiful country and her diverse natural beauty and beautiful scenery are enough to lure foreigners,” he says, adding, “I was surprised to see such high mountains here because there are no high mountain in Japan. Mount Fuji at 3,776 metres, is the highest peak in Japan.”

And Masahiro feels “Machhapuchhre is the most beautiful mountain in the world.”
Masahiro started painting when he was just 20 years old and he says, “sentiment is essential while painting. Pictures cannot be drawn without an emotion. A painting without sentiment cannot be alive.”

He goes on to say that he feels relaxed seeing his painting of Nepal when he is Japan. And of course, he will be returning again, he says.