著者

田中 淳

雑誌

美術研究 = The bijutsu kenkiu : the journal of art studies

巻号頁・発行日

no.393, pp.61-78, 2008-01-28

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This review considers three recent retrospective exhibitions that featured the arts of three painters whose oeuvres span the early Shốwa era from the Second Sino-Japanese War through World War II through the contemporary age.1. Kojima Zenzaburô, Tsuruoka Masao, Ai-Mitsu This section presents a review of three retrospective exhibitions and their catalogues seen by the author in June and July 2007. "Pastoral Splendor-KOJIMA Zenzaburo 1893-1962," Fuchû Art Museum, Tokyo "TSURUOKA Masao A Centenary Retrospective," Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura "AI-MITSU," National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo These exhibitions allowed visitors to consider how each of these painters experienced the war time years as a "simple soldier," particularly as seen in a work exhibited in the Tsuruoka exhibition, Turned Head (1950, bronze).2. The Novelist Hino Ashihei as the same kind of "soldier" Hino Ashihei (1907-1959) was born in 1907, the same year as Tsuruoka (1907-1979) and Ai-Mitsu (1907-1946). The three men were all drafted in the same year and the novelist Hino was sent to the Chinese continent as a "simple soldier." During his time in the military Hino was awarded the Akutagawa Prize and then transferred to the army press corps where he wrote and published his work whose title can be translated as Wheat and Soldiers. This record of his time in the military quickly became a best seller in Japan. However, the text published at the time was censored by the military and many sections were removed. After the war, the author restored it to its original form, including the final section about the execution of prisoners. Reading Hino's work provides an opportunity for consideration from a different vantage point of how an artist experienced war as a "simple soldier."3. Lost Lives, Lost Works I found out something I did not know at the Ai-Mitsu exhibition. This was the existence of a doctor named Kurokawa Setsuji who supported artists such as Ai-Mitsu in Ai-Mitsu's hometown of Hiroshima. Kurokawa ran a clinic and collected art as an art aficionado. Part of his collection was evacuated from the city just a week before the bomb was dropped and remains extant today. Kurokawa himself, and his clinic, were at ground zero in Hiroshima and Kurokawa lost his life when the bomb was dropped. On the other hand, I did know that the younger brother of Kawakami Ryôka (1887-1921) lived in Hiroshima and preserved the works created by his late brother. Just as Ryôka's works were being assembled for evacuation, they were lost to the bomb. How, indeed, should we consider these quirks of fate, both human fate and the fate of art works. This review thus includes critiques of the retrospective exhibitions of three painters, while also considering the effects of war on artists and their works.