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- A Single Ray of Brightness (Into the 20th Century)<\/a>
- Seiki Kuroda (1866 – 1924)<\/a><\/li>
- Hasui Kawase (1883 – 1957)<\/a><\/li>
- Tamako Kataoka (1905 – 2008)<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li>
- Myth of Tomorrow (Mid 20th Century)<\/a>
- Taro Okamoto (1911 – 1996)<\/a><\/li>
- Tadanori Yokoo (1936 -)<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li>
- Lost Decades (End of the 20th Century)<\/a>
- Tetsuya Ishida (1973 – 2005)<\/a><\/li>
- Akira Yamaguchi (1969 -)<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
A Single Ray of Brightness (Into the 20th Century)<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Seiki Kuroda (1866 – 1924)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Disappointing his parents, but thrilling (and occasionally scandalizing) Japanese art lovers, Seiki Kuroda abandoned his study of law, the purpose of a decade long decampment to France, to take up the brush. Moving from Paris to the artist\u2019s colony at Grez-sur-Loing and embracing plein-air<\/em> impressionist painting with gusto, Kuroda mastered the skills that would in time see him acknowledged in his native land as “the father of Western-style painting.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
On his return to Japan, Kuroda\u2019s elegant use of color to suggest light and atmosphere, was considered revolutionary, and he became an immediate inspiration to many younger artists. But the real influence of Kuroda\u2019s unconventional European education was felt in ripples rather than great waves, as across the 20th Century Japanese artists chose not to imitate or conform to western styles, but to selectively learn from and utilize whichever elements of them they felt best served their art. A process, it hardly needs saying, that was eagerly mirrored in the west.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seiki Kuroda\u2019s work forms part of the collection of Artizon Museum<\/a>, Pola Museum<\/a> and the Hiroshima Museum of Art<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hasui Kawase (1883 – 1957)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Under skies that are dark and velvety and bursting with the silence of snow, or shimmering and glinting with the crystalline joy of a fresh spring day, but always marvelously magically blue, Hasui Kawase picked out the beauty of Japan and recorded it with unparalleled clarity. From the 1920s onwards, the shin-hanga<\/em><\/a> (New Prints) master\u2019s depictions of scenic and everyday Japan added western style elements of realism to the centuries-old traditions of ukiyo-e<\/em><\/a> printmaking, resulting in ozone-packed images that seem genuinely alive, absorbing the viewer as fully as the paper absorbed the ink in their creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hasui Kawase\u2019s prints form part of the collections of the National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo<\/a> and the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tamako Kataoka (1905 – 2008)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Emerging from technicolor fields of flowers and jaunty forest groves of green and gold, Tamako Kataoka\u2019s blazing red (or sky blue) Mount Fuji<\/a>(s) are daunting and magical, but at the same time carry an air of cheerful and homey familiarity. Skillful use of this bold but cozy design aesthetic kept Kataoka\u2019s modernist Nihonga<\/em><\/a> (Japanese-style) nature paintings one step away from outright psychedelia, while imbuing them with a vibrant sense of the artist\u2019s joy in art and existence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Taro Okamoto’s Tower of the Sun. Photo: Kojikamei <\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Tamako Kataoka\u2019s work forms part of the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, and can be seen in ceramic form at Tsukijishijo Station <\/a>and Sunshine City<\/a>, Ikebukuro.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Myth of Tomorrow (Mid 20th Century)<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Taro Okamoto (1911 – 1996)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Glowering above the elevated walkway that connects JR Shibuya Station to the Mark City shopping complex, is Taro Okamoto\u2019s sinister but darkly exuberant mural Myth of Tomorrow.<\/em><\/a> Nightmarish clouds and ultra-vivid plasmic tentacles swirl around the painting\u2019s central figure, a starlike human skeleton engulfed in flames, that seems to explode in every direction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Okamoto\u2019s monolithic reminder of Japan\u2019s painful birth into the atomic age, is a dark twin (having been conceived of simultaneously) to the unfading art-superstar\u2019s best known work, Tower of the Sun<\/em>.<\/a> That gentle giant\u2019s three faces continue to stare out over the site of Osaka\u2019s Expo \u201970, from where they once issued a celebratory invitation to the world, amid the optimism of Japan\u2019s economic miracle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Public works<\/a> by Okamoto can be seen at the United Nations University Plaza in Shibuya, and Sukiyabashi Park in Ginza as well as other places around Japan. The artist\u2019s former home and studio can also be visited in Minami-Aoyama<\/a>, as well as the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art<\/a> in Kawasaki.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tadanori Yokoo (1936 -)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Taking inspiration from everywhere and anywhere, and spreading it generously in his wake, Tadanori Yokoo couldn\u2019t help but absorb Japanese graphic traditions, even as he trod all over them. In his retina-rattling 1960s posters and prints, the Japanese cultural underground burst spectacularly into the streets, where samurai and kabuki actors shared space with astronauts and art deco nudes, often picked out against a lysergic rising sun. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ultra-prolific artist and designer\u2019s pop-art fingerprints can be found all over modern Japan, and he has designed countless posters, books and record covers, as well as making hundreds of paintings and enjoying a long-lasting collaboration with Issey Miyake.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n