Tag: japan

Seiganto-ji & Nachi Falls in Wakayama, Japan

Photographer Unknown, Seiganto-ji & Nachi Falls in Wakayama, Japan

The Seiganto-ji Temple is the oldest structure in Wakayama. It is registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site as part of “Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.” Though the year of is establishment is not recorded, there are signs that nature worship has been carried out since ancient times in the area and a legend that the temple was founded during the 4th century.

From the middle period to the early modern period, the temple along with the adjacent Kumano Nachi Taisha Grand Shrine flourished as Shugenjo, a place for ascetic training.

The main highlight is a three-story red pagoda reconstructed in 1972. Its main hall, built in 1590, is designated as Important Cultural Property of Japan and exhibits a waniguchi drum, the largest Buddhist altar drum of its kind in Japan. The enshrined principal image, Nyoirin Kannon, Bodhisattva of Compassion, is said to grant any wish, including wishes for wealth, wisdom, and power.The public may view Nyoirin Kannon only on one day once a year, on August 17th.

This 3-meter high wooden image that was carved by Shobutsu Shonin during the reign of Empress Suiko which was from 592 – 628 AD. Inside the chest cavity, there is a small golden image of Kannon said to be just “1 sun 9 bu”, about six centimeters tall. This tiny golden Kannon was said to be the personal image that Ragyō the hermit enshrined in his hermitage in the 4th century. However, it is more likely to have been the personal image belonging to Empress Suiko.

Sawada Shinichi

Figurative Sculptures by Sawada Shinichi

Shinichi Sawada was born in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. Diagnosed as autistic, he found employment in the hospital bakery of the Ritto Nakayoshi Sagyojo (institute for the mentally disabled, in the city of Kusatsu). In 2001, the professor directing the workshop where Sawada worked with clay, launched the construction of a small potter’s cabin: it was located a few kilometers from the institution and deep in the wilds.

Here Sawada creates his sculptures silently and with unflagging regularity. His works – demons, monsters, masks – are characterized by hundreds spikes of clay that give them an intricate and frightful beauty. He plants these one by one into the either round or cylindrical shapes constituting the central body of each piece. After shaping the bodies, he fires them in a large wood-fired kiln built of earth and ignited only twice a year. This gives them their brownish-red hue in lighter or darker shades, depending on the flames.

These monstrous and magical creatures seem to be the fruit of a personal mythology, maybe inspired by the old Japanese traditions of imaginary beasts, ghosts and spirits. We can find affinities with the masks of Nō Theatre,  manga characters, and African tribal arts.

Hiroyuki Tajima

Hiroyuki Tajima, “Unforgettable Altar B”, Color Woodblock, 1984 Edition of 50

Hiroyuki Tajima was was born in Tokyo in 1911 and graduated from Nihon University in 1932. In 1943, he graduated from the Western-style painting division of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. Tajima  created his first print in 1946, and joined the Bijutsu Bunka Kyokai’  a group dedicated to exploring and reviving the abstract and surrealist painting ideals that had been suppressed during WWII. He  also studied with Nagase Yoshi, an artist of the Sosaku Hanga school. In 1963, Tajima became a member of the Nihon Hanga Kyokai, the Japanese Print Association.

In order to create his unique woodblocks Tajima developed his own ink using powdered color mixed with the plastic medium phenol formaldehyde resin (Bakelite). He uses this ink for a pattern block and then prints again with a water-based ink or dye, which color the areas not printed by his special water-resistant ink.

“Every Tajima work seems to glow from behind, as though it incorporated a fluorescent light shielded by a mysteriously textured fabric. … Tajima’s technique consists of brushing intensely colored dyes over a dark-colored medium, imparting luminosity to the white areas while enriching the basic colors of the print. The textured areas fade off into dark planes, seeming to float on a cool liquid. Thus the fascinating, bubbly shapes are set off by simple, relaxing ground forms. In this end, this rare combination of intricacy and confident simplicity makes Tajima’s work both exciting and reassuring.” -artist, author, and art curator Francis Blakemore

Izumi Sukeyuki

Izumi Sukeyuki, Snake and Frog Kimono, Wood Inlayed with Horn and Shakudo, Meiji Era, Late 19th Century, Japan

Sukeyuki lived in Omi Province, present-day Shiga Prefecture, in the town of Bamba. He was a master carver of butsudan or family Buddhist altars. On a visit to Hida-Takayama he was amazed to see the okimono and netsuke by the carver Sukemizu, and resolved to start carving similar pieces. Famous for his frog netsuke, Sukeyuki also used the Go or art name Gamatei Sukeyuki.

Sukeyuki’s kimono in the form of a hungry snake conversing with a plump frog, is carved from a single piece of wood. The eyesare  inlaid in horn and the snake’s tongue is made of shakudo. It is signed on the reverse with an inlaid seal form wood plaque,

Ikebana Basket

Ikebana Basket (Gourd Shaped), Late Meiji Period, Split Bamboo with Tied Bamboo Rope, Japan

The Meiji Period of Japan extended from Ocotber 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. This period corresponded to the reign of Emperor Meiji after 1868 to his death. It was the first half of the Empire of Japan during which Japanese society moved from being an isolated feudal society to its modern form, affecting social structure, politics, economy and foreign relations.

Ikeban is a the Japanese art of floral arrangement. Sculptural art baskets have been used since the inception of ikebana over 500 years ago to be one of the primary ikebana containers for the craft’s practitioners.  They range from randomly woven nested baskets to more formal, tailored pieces.

Kaneko Tomiyuki

Paintings by Kaneko Tomiyuki

Japanese artist Kaneko Tomiyuki was born in Saitama prefecture, 1978. Since childhood, he has been particularly interested in Japanese folklore and the spiritual world. His interest has led him to study in the Tohoku prefecture, which was the birthplace of “Legends of Tono”. As an undergraduate student he studied Japanese style painting in Tohoku University of Art & Design and graduated the postgraduate of the same university in 2009. Even after he finished studying, he continues to “substantiate” mythological creatures such as: yokai, spirits and the gods by painting.

Kaneko believes that the stratum of unconsciousness called the “Manas-vijnana” in Sanskrit (the seventh stratum of the eight within the world of Yogacara) is the origin of “evil” in everyday life, beginning with Yokais and many other evil creatures. Compared to the animalistic nature of the eighth stratum, “Alaya-vijinana”, “Manas-vijinana” is the unique feature of human and the unconscious emotion of attachment. It is always around us and constantly puts us into trickery. However, this unconscious emotion of attatchment is what makes humans human. The human’s strength to struggle is where all art is created, and by intercrossing with localized imagination it has formed as the yokai.

Calendar: March 23

A Year: Day to Day Men: 23rd of March

Blades of Grass

March 23, 1910 was the birthdate of Japanese film director and screenwriter Akira Kurosawa, regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in cinema history.

Kurosawa entered the Japanese film industry in 1936. After years of working on numerous films as an assistant director and scriptwriter, he made his debut as a director during World War II with the popular action film “Sanshiro Sugata”, known as “Judo Saga”. After the war, the critically acclaimed film “Drunken Angel” made in 1948, in which Kurosawa cast then-unknown actor Toshiro Mifune in a starring role, cemented the director’s reputation as one of the most important young filmmakers in Japan.

His film “Rashomon”, which premiered in Tokyo, became the surprise winner of the Golden Lion Award, the highest prize at the 1952 Venice Film Festival. The film’s multiple conflicting eye-witness testimonies, the sound complexity, and the experimental cinematography combined to produce a classic film. The commercial and critical success of that film opened up Western film markets for the first time to the products of the Japanese film industry, which in turn led to international recognition for other Japanese filmmakers.

Kurosawa directed approximately one film per year throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, including a number of highly regarded (and often adapted) films, such as “Ikuro” in 1952, “Seven Samurai” in 1954, and “Yojimbo” in 1961. After the 1960s he became much less prolific; even so, his later work—including his final two epics, “Kagemusha” in 1980 and “Ran” in 1985—continued to win awards, though more often abroad than in Japan. These two epic films, particularly “Ran”, are often considered to be among Kurosawa’s finest works. After the release of “Ran”, Kurosawa would point to it as his best film, a major change of attitude for the director who, when asked which of his works was his best, had always previously answered “my next one”.

Akira Kurosawa wrote the original screenplays “The Sea is Watching” in 1993 and “After the Rain” in 1995. While putting finishing touches on the latter work in 1995, Kurosawa slipped and broke the base of his spine. Following the accident, he would use a wheelchair for the rest of his life, putting an end to any hopes of him directing another film. After his accident, Kurosawa’s health began to deteriorate. While his mind remained sharp and lively, his body was giving up, and for the last half-year of his life, the director was largely confined to bed, listening to music and watching television at home. On September 6, 1998, Kurosawa died of a stroke in Setagaya, Tokyo at the age of 88.

“One thing that distinguishes Akira Kurosawa is that he didn’t make one masterpiece or two masterpieces. He made, you know, eight masterpieces.”- Francis Ford Coppola

“Let me say it simply: Akira Kurosawa was my master, and … the master of so many other filmmakers over the years.”- Martin Scorsese

Tadanori Yokoo

Illlustration by Tadanori Yokoo

Tadanori Yokoo’s work, while highly successful commercially, is deeply personal. Employing his own themes, pictures, and references to himself and his anti-modernist collage style, his approach is instantly recognizable and individual. He has said that he learned in the late 1960s “to escape from compromise when designing by linking my creations directly to my lifestyle.”

Yokoo’s work crosses the border between design and fine art. Seemingly devoid of limitations or rules, his paintings are warm, autobiographical, and mystical and draw on a variety of seemingly incongruous influences such as spiritualism, Japanese aesthetics, the psychedelic posters of the ’60s, science fiction, and comic art. It also consciously draws on Ukiyo-e, or “the art of the floating world,” whose themes express the impermanence of life.

Several motifs recur in Yokoo’s work. His fascination with waterfalls borders on obsession. In 1999, in a group exhibition titled “Ground Zero Japan” at the Mito Museum of Art, Yokoo filled an entire room from floor to ceiling with postcards of waterfalls which were reflected in a black mirrored floor. Other exhibitions on the subject include “Craze for Waterfalls” at the Kirin Art Space Harajuku and “Tadanori Yokoo’s Magical Make a Pilgrimage Round” exhibition. In 1992, Absolut Vodka commissioned him to design an advertisement titled Absolut Yokoo featuring twenty-five of his waterfall paintings.

Yokoo is also known for his science-fiction posters and Ken Takakura gangster-film posters, and his designs have been used for theater sets in Japan and Italy.

Hiroshi Fuji

 

Hiroshi Fuji’s, “Toysaurus”

Japanese artist Jiroshi Fuji’s art revolves around “ways of transforming existences that are not valued by society into special existences.” One of the ways he does this is by using recycled materials in his art and inviting others—kids, artists, the public in general—to participate in its creation. He started a toy exchange system called “Kaekko” 13 years ago with over 5000 events having taken place in over 1000 locations across Japan and other countries as well.

Fuji brought together over 50,000 toys collected over the years in the “Kaekko” project and created an installation that included works such as this “Toysaurus” made from the recycled toys.

Calendar: January 21

Year: Day to Day Men: January 21

The Small Silver Medallion

The twenty-first of January in 1598 marks the birth date of Matsudaira Tadamasa (松平 忠昌), an early to mid-Edo period Japanese samurai and daimyō, a feudal lord. He was noted for his skill in the martial arts and distinguished himself in combat by his prowess with the spear.

Matsudaira Tadamasa was born in Osaka as the second son of Yūki Hideyasu (結城 秀康), a respected samurai and daimyō of the Fukui Domain in Echizen. In 1607, he was received in an audience by his grandfather Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川 家康), the First Shōgun of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, and his uncle Tokugawa Hidetada (徳川 秀忠), Second Shōgun of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Hidetada arranged to raise the nine-year old Tadamasa in the Tokugawa household with Ieyasu’s tenth son Tokugawa Yorinobu (徳川 頼宣), who was four years older.

In 1607, Tadamasa was assigned a fief of ten-thousand koku, and became First  Daimyō of the Kazusa-Anegasaki Domain. He accompanied his uncle Hidetada during the 1614 Siege of Osaka; however, he was frustrated that, due to his youth, he was not allowed to participate in the battle. Tadamasa petitioned his uncle to perform his genpuku ceremony, a classical coming of age ceremony, before the start of the Osaka military campaign in the summer. Hidetada agreed and granted him a kanji, which is a script character for his name, and the court rank of Senior Fifth Rank, Lower Grade as well as the courtesy title of lyo-no-kami.

At the 1615 Battle of Osaka, Matsudaira Tadmasa proved his prowess with the spear; his weapon from that battle  became an heirloom of the Echizen-Matsudaira clan. As a reward for his service in battle, he was given in 1615 a fief of thirty-thousand koku and transferred as Seventh Daimyō to the Shimotsuma Dormain in Hitachi Province. When Shōgun Matsudaira Tadateru (松平 忠輝) was relieved of command and exiled, Tadamasa became Daimyō of the Matsushiro Domain in Fukui with a fief of five hundred-thousand koku.

 In 1626, Tadamas’s rank was raised to Senior Fourth Rank, Lower Grade. He accompanied Shōgun Tokugawa Iemitsu (徳川 家光), the Third Shōgun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, to Kyoto in 1634. During the Shimabara Rebellion in 1637, he was disappointed that he did not receive orders to lead his troops into battle; he visited the battle as a private citizen with twelve retainers. Tadamasa ordered construction work in 1643 for the rebuilding of the Mikuni Harbor as the main port for shipping in the Fukui Domain.

 Matsudaira Tadamasa died at the age of forty-seven in September of 1648 at the domain’s residence in the city of Edo. Upon his death, seven of his senior retainers committed junshi, a honorific suicide ritual for the death of their lord. Matasudaira Tadamasa is buried at the Temple of Eihei-ji in Fukui.

Notes: The koku, a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume, is equal to about one hundred-eighty liters or one hundred-fifty kilograms of rice. In the Edo period, one koku of rice was considered a sufficient quantity of rice to feed one person for a year. 

Amida Nyorai

Amida Nyorai (Amida Buddha), Lacquer, Gold and Pigment on Cypress (Hinoki), Crystals, 12th Century, Japan, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Amida Buddha, also known as the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Limitless Life, resides over the Buddhist western paradise or heaven. He is the most loved Buddha in East Asia. Since the introduction of Buddhism to Japan during the 6th century, Amida Buddha has become the most popularly worshiped icon.

Until the 12th century the Amida Buddha was usually represented seated on a lotus flower waiting for our arrival to the afterlife. However during the Heian and Kamakura periods the concept of raigō (welcoming decent) became popular and Amida Buddha was often represented in a standing pose descending from the heavens to fetch his devotee and personally transport them back to his blissful paradise.

Amida Buddha displays one of nine different mundra (hand gestures) that determine the nine possible paths for the dying to enter paradise. This gesture ‘jōbon geshō’ is one of the best known gestures in Japanese Buddhist imagery.

Another distinguishing feature of the Amida Buddha is the extended lobe on top of his head to accommodate his advanced understanding of the truth. His large ears allow him to hear all people in need. The rose coloured crystal set amongst his curly hair emits rays of light to display his supreme knowledge. A single white spiral of hair on his forehead indicated by a white crystal shows his love and affection for humanity; and the folds on his neck indicate compassion to all people.

Yuichi Ikehata

Photography / Sculpture by Yuichi Ikehata

Japanese photographer Yuichi Ikehata’s series ‘Fragments of Long Term Memory’ sculpts human body forms by scaffolding the models with clay, wire, and paper. He then photographs and composites his subjects together.

Ikehata was born in Chiba, Japan in 1975 and graduated from Tokyo’s Sokei Academy of Fine Art and Design in 2001. His work has been exhibited in Japan and was included in London’s 2015 FLUX Exhibition at the Royal College of Art and the 2014 +81 Gallery’s “Vol. 65” show in New York City.

“Fragment of Long Term Memory (LTM), an ongoing photographic series, conveys an unrealistic world through fragments of reality. My understanding of reality comes from its moments of beauty, sadness, fun, perfection, and those days when nothing special happens. Many parts of our memories, however, are often forgotten, or difficult to recall. I retrieve those fragmented moments and reconstruct them as surreal images.” -Yuichi Ikehata

Noriyuki Saito

Noriyuki Saito, Bamboo Insects

Capturing anatomical essences with uncanny skill, Japanese artist Noriyuki Saito constructs life-sized insects using bamboo. The natural material’s versatility lends a surprisingly wide range of colors and textures to each creature. And although the first impression is of insects that are ready to crawl or fly off the page, Saitoh engages a thoughtful process of paring down each bug to its essential forms that give the impression of life.

As the artist writes on his website, “Since we are not preparing specimens and replicas, we strictly measure the [overall] dimensions and prioritize the appearance, impressions, features, and senses rather than proportions being created exactly…reality as a work is born if you thin out the elements and leave room to imagine.”