 The World of Abstract
Abstract by Country
Abstract Masters
|
Presentation of Three Books On Miro In Japan 1970 Limited Edition Miró, Joan 22.75 in. x 30 in. Buy at AllPosters.com Framed It is very difficult to understand what types of Japanese art have influenced the West and to what extent. Some Japanese woodblock prints have been introduced in Paris in 1856, and in the last hundred years there have been various influences from Japan on the movements of contemporary art in the West.
The interest that began with the wood-block prints now focuses more on calligraphy and ink-drawings by Zen Buddhist monks, in collaboration with other works by the same spirit. In the field of architecture, foreign interests seemed to favor the architecture related to the tea ceremony - a simple, functional style which Japan has developed over the last four centuries and landscapearchitecture of a similar nature. In other words, the West was to find various different Japans over the last hundred years and is finally beginning to appreciate the fundamental characteristics of Japanese art - the simplicity, openness, and depth.
It may be that Shinto, the original religion from Japan for over two thousand years, was primarily responsible for encouraging above all the clarity and simplicity. Geographically, the humidity is extremely high here was almost enforced cleanliness and a clear impression of the design of the inhabitants. Chinese philosophy of Lao Tzu and Taoism, which emphasizes simplicity and as primitive, was imported to Japan nearly fifteen hundred years, to be greeted by people, especially poets and artists. This naturally gave a deep philosophical background of the original preference for simplicity. Japanese Buddhism, also nearly fifteen centuries, has been strengthened in the second half of its history by the Zen sect, which appealed deeply to the Japanese spirit.
The focus on extreme frankness in the religious attitude and simplicity in daily life have been demonstrated by Zen encourage native taste for these qualities yet. Black ink painting, in which the reality of the universe was made with a few strokes, became not only people's favorite type of art, but the most respected. The fact that Chinese characters from pictographs, the Japanese borrowed from China, have the art of calligraphy to be developed in an abstract expressive drawing. The two cases of practical necessity and demand artistic calligraphy of Japan has developed perhaps further than the Chinese in the sense of abstract design.
The tea ceremony, with its architecture and landscapearchitecture, owes most of its fundamental features of Zen Buddhism, and in everyday life, the most fundamental functionalism was performed by an authentic intuition. Perhaps there may be some degree of misunderstanding about Zen. There are those who take it for a mystic, but I think the pure functionalism, which is both intuitive and extremely efficient - in its design and implementation of thematic architecture - to persuade people to believe that in addition to be directly intuitive, zen is super-rational instead of irrational and far from being purely mystic. Clarity and simplicity, at first encouraged by the indigenous religion, have gained very strong support of Zen and developed the various arts.
It is significant that the word for "fine art" does not exist in Japan until about 1870. This does not mean that the fine arts did not exist in Japan. Instead, art permeates the life of the nation so widely and deeply that there was no word for art, or even a concept that means something separate and apart.
Piet Mondrian once said: "Art will be realized in our daily lives." Not only Mondrian, but many modern abstract artists have dreamed of this, and the changes we see in architecture, industrial design, and contemporary lifestyles, this dream has become, or at least becomes real.
It is one of my beliefs as "the realization of art in life" used to be more fully and perhaps most beautifully realized in ancient Japan, under the influences of Zen Buddhism, the tea ritual, and art and nature lovers the character of the people. This aspect of Japan is less known abroad as the decorative and picturesque. But it should be clear that in the absolute simplicity and functionalism of the Katsura Palace, or pure abstraction Ryuanji stone and sand garden, we do not see an exception, but simply an example of the best. The question then is - why do not we continue on this straight line?
After 1870, Japan began accepting Western civilization in all its aspects - politics, economics, industry, and overall lifestyle, including the concept and the word "fine arts". Curiously, at this very moment where the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists were busy learning the plastic parts of Japanese woodblock prints, the Japanese government has been sending young artists in France and Italy to learn the realism - if not downright photographic naturalism - the nineteenth century Western "fine arts".
Kakuzo Okakura (1862-1908) - who was a student in the American professor of philosophy, Fenolosa at Tokyo Imperial University, and helped to draft Epochs of Chinese and Japanese art - has become an influence in the world of art, and urged a revival of idealism in Oriental art and life. It brought together a group of artists who worked in traditional media Japanese water-color and ink painting and writing in English the book now famous tea, which appeared in 1906.
Since that time we had two styles, nihon-ga - Traditional water-color and ink painting, oil and yoga - west and watercolors, which are held almost as a symbol of the duality of contemporary Japanese life.
The City Gallery in Tokyo was built in 1926 with miles of wall on which it is possible to attach more than two thousand paintings. The gallery has a full program throughout the year, it presents innumerable articles, almost seventy percent are also paintings of calligraphy sculpture, crafts, photography, and flowerarrangements. In addition, a dozen department stores to keep the galleries, the largest with an area of ??about two hundred works of art. In addition, there are many galleries around Tokyo. They may show, however, only a fraction of the total output of artists and craftsmen. In fact, the art world in Japan is a bit crowded, and although generalizations about trends and tendencies are dangerous, I must nevertheless attempt a description of present artistic activities.
Photographically realistic works (such as Japan met when she began to experience the West largely) are still seen, although the general trend in the West since that time has been a movement towards the abstract.
It seems that in general, ancient Japan was "new" news that the West, while the new Japan is apparently older than either the old or new West Japan itself. Few countries have achieved more abstract fine (or at least abstractionistic) art that Japan's old, on the other hand, few people in the world are more in love with photographic realism that today's Japanese . In Japan, in fact, became a most difficult place for modern abstract artist living and working in. However, since the twenties, a number of painters and sculptors have recognized the inherent values ??of modern abstract art West and worked along this line against a taste generally negative and hostile public. Onchi and Kawaguchi, older members of the club in Japan Abstract art, were precursors such. Others are younger artists whose work has become abstract in the thirties. "
In 1937, I published abstract art, a book fully illustrated with reproductions of works by Mondrian, Kandinsky, Brancusi, Arp, and other important Europeans. This was the first book to illustrate the concepts of modern abstract art in Japan. In the same year, the Jiyu Bijutsu (Free Arts) held the first of its annual exhibitions, including paintings, sculptures, and constructions by Murai, Masaki Yamaguchi, Nishida, Ueki, and myself. This was the first important step groupshow exclusively abstract art. Takeo Yamaguchi and Yoshiwara in another exhibition, at about the same time, began to show strong abstract tendencies.
|
More Art Zones
|
RSS Feed XML Sitemap HTML Sitemap Contact Us Privacy Policy
