I want to explain what I believe and what I do. I am not here to argue. You can
talk about art in a simple way and you can talk about art in a complicated way.
Why do we paint? Food makes us live in a physical way. But food is not enough.
Why don’t we want to die? Something makes us want to live. We love something so much
that we don’t want to be disconnected with the meaning and excitement of it. We want to
share it. It inspires us. It is a very deeply serious matter, yet it is very simple. Something
outside of makes us so. Some meaning makes us so. This meaning we want to tell in the
drawing and painting. The reality outside of us could be one apple, could be the whole
world. We don’t know how much we can discover the meaning to tell others. We have to
look for the truth in the truth which makes us love. We have to search with others for our
own growth.
Art seems very complicated in our time. Some think it understandable. Some think
it not understandable. Even the understandable art is not always inspiring.
We now live in a confused world. Up until the post-impressionists (World War I)
we did not have this confusion. Some people don’t know what is art, but can’t resist
painting because of human nature. The meaning of art is chopped into so many ways. The
realistic art seems stuck in surface copying. The unrealistic or abstract art is not
meaningful yet. It is very difficult to understand. It is very difficult to get the universal
meaning altogether. It is like a son talking to his father, “I want to be free of you. I want
to go my own way. Don’t try to tell me anything.”
The artist’s way of seeing the truth, the beauty which should mean something to
the people is like the elephant story. One felt the tail and thought the elephant was like a
rope. One felt the skin and thought the elephant was rough cloth, etc. These are all parts
of the truth, but not a complete truth yet. In our seeking, in our independence, each school
has some truth, but we don’t get universal excitement altogether, which great art had in
past history.
After the First World War, many ways of thinking developed in small way in each
country. We have to act in more genuine way to satisfy ourselves and each other.
In every life there is some meaningful thing. This is the purest motive. This is
what we have to search into and develop. Reality has more meaning than copy. We feel
more than copy. This is why we try to abstract, to get to the essence. Yet today’s art does
not give us this yet.
When you are away from your mother, you think of her in a certain way. This is
the essence of mother. This is what you miss so much. But in reality, when you are close
to her, mother looks sad, or tired, or angry. This essence is what we want to reach. This is
what we don’t see in art so much. It is difficult to reach there. This meaning, this value
takes a long time to reach. In what way is she the most beautiful? In what pose? With
what gesture? This essence which the genuine artist can reach can be shown to other
people. Is your mother there? No, but her smile is.
Hokusai made 100 series of Fuji. He caught Fuji in different ways, in different seasons,
skipping different things to get how he felt about Fuji. This was a tremendous effort for
the abstract. Abstract means to draw from, to pull out from something.
He made 1000 drawings just to catch one gesture of Fuji. He was never contented.
In the red Fuji, which is died in pink color early in the morning, his passion became very
strong. Fuji is so steep, so exaggerated. This feeling, which everyone has, inspired others,
developed their understanding. This picture became the most universal.
This is not easy. Truth crystallized in art is truer than truth in the reality. It is very
expressive, very exaggerated. It is the artistic truth of reality. Modern people know this,
but they are in such a great rush. Hokusai spent so much time seeking. “No, I feel much
more than this.” He was so honest, he was seeking in an ordinary human way, which
everyone can do.
The thing that gives us meaning could be simple. It could be big. So you start
from a simple thing which we have in front of us. This we share with everyone. It is a
bottomless deep thing. We have to be honest yet passionate. This is how we can live long.
You carry your own flag, so carry your own flag way high. Don’t drag it in the
street.
There was the old realism which was not true. Real realism is much deeper than
that. All the elements of old realism have been chopped off into separate ways. People
think they can get to the truth in separate ways. Some people think you can tell the truth,
reach the truth through color arrangement alone. Color arrangement is the most important
thing. But life has more meaning than wife arranged in the flat colors.
Some schools think the texture and pigment is the way to tell the truth. Texture is
important to life, no doubt about that. But there is something else to life.
Some think that movement is the life. They tried to express everything in
movement. A cat crosses the street. They see the movement of the cat’s legs. That is all.
But movement is not such a dizzy thing. This present is going somewhere. Legs moving
is not the movement of life. You have to analyze to catch a better future. This is the real
movement of life.
Some think they can reach the truth through composition alone. It is true that
everything is constructed. Each one’s body is a building. But there is more to a body than
construction.
So taking up each element from the reality, they are in much much rush to
compete with each other. All these things should be organized into new realist way. If we
take this way, art will be much more appreciated by others. It will be crystallized into
more meaningful way. This is a little example of what I feel that I can tell you in a given
time.
