Painter of Poetry, Poet of the Picture

M Scape, oil on jute 2009, 170 x 90 cm, © Leiko Ikemura, private collection Tokyo

"Sometimes paintings speak to you like a poem and poems could appear colorful with forms and shapes like paintings. In fact, many painters wrote poems and many poets painted pictures since a long time. This exhibition shows poems written by painters and paintings made by poets from the Meiji-Era until today."
(Quote: Homepage of Hakodate Museum of Art, deleted)

Since ancient times, it has been said in the West that "a picture is a silent poem, and a poem is a spoken picture”. In Japan as well, gasan and kotogaki (inscriptions and captions) played an important role in painting to form a unification of "poetry, writing, and painting". On the other hand, modern Western-style painting in Japan began under the influence of Western modern art, which aimed for independence from literature. Especially after the Impressionist movement, new forms of figurative expression were actively introduced, resulting in a great variety of works. However, it also brought another result that many of the works differed from real-life emotions. Kaita Murayama, Toshiyuki Hasegawa, Harue Koga, Kotaro Migishi, Kaoru Yamaguchi and others, while learning from Western modern art, left outstanding paintings based on literary and poetic sentiment. Furthermore, in the world of poetry, Kenji Miyazawa, Michizo Tachihara, and Shinpei Kusano created paintings with originality. In a sense, it can be said that the sentiments of poetic and literary rejected by modernism have been utilized to create a unique style of Japanese painting.

In recent years, some painters have actively approached the world of poetry and attempted to create new forms of expression. This exhibition brings together paintings and poems by poets and painters from the Meiji period to the present to examine the close connection between painting and poetry.

Painters:
Kosugi Misei, Shigeru Aoki, Takehisa Yumeji, Tetsugorō Yorozu, Shizuo Fujimori, Kōshirō Onchi, Kyokichi Tanaka, Kazumasa Nakagawa, Toshiyuki Hasegawa, Harue Koga, Yae Asano, Sumio Kawakami, Kaita Murayama, Yasunori Taninaka, Kotaro Migishi, Shikō Munakata, Rinjirou Hasegawa, Tatsuoki Nanbata, Kaoru Yamaguchi, Yasuo Kazuki, Keiko Minami, Shunsuke Matsumoto, Yoshikuni Iida, Yayoi Kusama, Seizo Tashima, Han Fujiyama, Fumio Nambata, Naoaki Yamamoto, Leiko Ikemura, Naoko Kanan, O Jun, Tomoko Konoike, Takanobu Kobayashi, Kyoko Murase, Yasuko Iba, a. o.

Poets:
Kōtarō Takamura, Kinoshita Mokutarō, Sakutaro Hagiwara, Haruo Satō, Junzaburō Nishiwaki, Kenji Miyazawa, Kamenosuke Ogata, Taruho Inagaki, Seiichirō Okazaki, Tarō Tominaga, Hideo Oguma, Katsue Kitasono, Shūzō Takiguchi, Shiro Hasegawa, Michio Mado, Michizō Tachihara, Seiichi Niikuni, Shinpei Kusano, Ken Kasugai, Gōzō Yoshimasu, Akirako Tahata, Naoyo Fukuda, Yoko Yamamoto, a. o.

Traveling Exhibitions Schedule
Sep. 19 - Nov. 8, 2015: The Hiratsuka Museum of Art
Nov. 17 - Dec. 20, 2015: Hekinan City Tatsukichi Fujii Museusm of Contemporary Art
Feb. 13 - Mar. 27, 2016: Himeji City Museum of Art
Apr. 9 - Jun. 12, 2016: Ashikaga Museum of Art
Jun. 18 - Aug. 7, 2016: Hakodate Museum of Art, Hokkaido

Sources: The Hiratsuka Museum of ArtIM

 

Hakodate Museum of Art
37-6 Goryokakucho, Hakodate
Hokkaido Prefecture040-0001
Japan+81 138-56-6311

Source: www.dokyoi.pref.hokkaido.jp/hk-hakmu/home_jp.html