Japan Art and Divine Simplicity (Tomas Gösta Tranströmer)
Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
The artist Tokuoka Shinsen (1896-1972) was born in the environs of Kyoto. Hence, it is easy to imagine how Koyosan, Kyoto, Nara, and other areas of high culture influenced his artistic soul.
The Hiroshima Museum of Art says, “A Japanese-style painter in Kyoto circle, and active as one of the representative pupils of Seiho Takeuchi during and after World War II. After creating the originally realistic style affected by the western-realism, he opened a new style in Japan, driving the simplification and decorativeness rooted in Japanese classicism.”
The art above is by the contemporary artist Sawako Utsumi who hails from northern Japan. Her art often focuses on various aspects of culture, religion, and nature – along with other themes related to Japan and Europe.
The Blossoming of Life Before the Shadow is the title of this art piece. It fuses naturally with the words of Tomas Gösta Tranströmer (1931-2015).
In part of the distinguished poem below by Tomas Gösta Tranströmer – he writes divinely:
Despondency breaks off its course.
Anguish breaks off its course.
The vulture breaks off its flight.
The eager light streams out,
even the ghosts take a draught.
Each man is a half-open door
leading to a room for everyone.
The final art piece is by Kubota Beisen (1852-1906). He witnessed the social convulsions of the late Edo Period when relatively young – to the modernization processes of the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912). Accordingly, his artistic development flourished during the changing sands period from the old world of Edo to the dynamics of Meiji.
Henry Pike Bowie (American Diplomat and artist) was born in 1848 and died in 1920. In the 1890s, he visited Japan for the first time and met the esteemed Kubota Beisen.
He wrote, “Kubota was so skillful in sketching that while traveling rapidly through a country he could faithfully reproduce the salient features of an extended landscape, conformable to the general rule in sketching, that what first attracts the eye is to be painted first, all else becoming subordinate to it in the scheme.”
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-blossoming-of-life-before-the-shadow-sawako-utsumi.html – The Blossoming of Life before the Shadow by Sawako Utsumi
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-blossoming-of-life-before-the-leaves-fall-sawako-utsumi.html – The Blossoming of Life before the Leaves Fall
http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/sawako-utsumi.html – Sawako Utsumi and where you can buy her art, postcards, bags, and other products. Also, individuals can contact her for individual requests.
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