- 著者
-
大谷 省吾
- 雑誌
- 美術研究 = The bijutsu kenkiu : the journal of art studies
- 巻号頁・発行日
- no.411, pp.27-38, 2014-02-21
Part II What observations can be made from the present study? An infrared photographic investigation of Landscape with an Eye was carried out in 2010 by Shirono Seiji of the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo. Two types of techniques were used, near-infrared reflection photography (light radiates from the object’s surface and the reflected light is captured), and near-infrared transmission photography (light radiates from the back of the work and the transmitted light is captured). Infrared light permeates more than visible light, and since materials such as pencil lead and charcoal absorb infrared rays, those areas show up on an infrared photography as black. Thus underdrawings and other elements of lower layers of a painting beneath the surface layer can be discerned. A comparison of the underdrawing imagery that emerges in such photography and the completed painting allow us to surmise the production process involved. The reflective near infrared photographs reveal to a degree the shape of a lump prior to the painter’s application of pigment in the sky area. The finished painting has a sense of volumetric mass, but in the underlying pigment layers, in other words, in the initial stages of the painting process, free and generously curving lines made up the form, and thus we can imagine that he gradually decided on the overall shape. Another noteworthy point can be found in the horizon line on the right edge of the composition that can be considered an important element in titling this work a landscape. In the lower pigment levels it is not a horizontal line, but rather is an unclear depiction that seems to be connected to the round form. In other words, during the production of this painting, it can be thought that more so than a landscape, it was an indeterminate shape that can only be called an object. Examination of the near infrared transmission photography reveals that in the initial production states an extremely unusual shape is depicted that differs from that in the finished version (in the photograph, the section that appears as dark black is not what was first painted, but rather is the top pigment layer that unfortunately was painted in pigments that include charcoal, and thus must be deducted from our consideration). While it is hard to determine exactly what this shape is, at the very least, the lion theory introduced in Part I of this paper does not seem possible. The most noteworthy element in this photograph, the eye in the center of the composition that can be considered the crux of the finished work, is not visible in the photography. In other words, this means that the eye was not painted until a much later stage of the production and indeed was painted in the surface layer of the painting. In essence, in the first stages of composition, Ai-Mitsu did not necessarily intend to depict a mysterious image that looks like an eye radiating piercing light in the midst of chaos, and rather the eye image emerged as he groped through the painting process. Dali influenced many of the painters of the day in Japan who had been taken by surrealism, and thus we can see paintings that include symbolic messages in their horizon line compositions. In those cases, the theme was determined before the painting process began, and then the composition was considered based on that theme. Once the image had been conceived, underdrawings were created and painting proceeded in a calculated fashion. By comparison, the groping painting method seen in Landscape with an Eye is quite special. Another example of this same painting method by Ai-Mitsu can be found in his Flower Garden (1940). The single butterfly that flies amidst the confused foliage in this work leaves a vivid impression. It has been recently confirmed that the butterfly did not appear in a picture postcard produced at the time of the painting’s display. In other words, Ai-Mitsu first proceeded with the depiction of the confused grasses and flowers, and at the end depicted the butterfly. If that is the case, then in the same way, just before finishing the Landscape with an Eye, it can easily be imagined that Ai-Mitsu struggled with the confused lump in the state of the landscape without the eye. Another noteworthy element of the production process of Landscape with an Eye is the collection of curved lines that can be seen in the lower pigment layers that seem to have emerged from amidst the pure gestures that surpassed the painter’s intentions. These curved lines are reminiscent of the lines in Max Ernst’s The Kiss (1927), although in Ernst’s case it seems as if images of people and other forms emerge from the accidental, while in Ai-Mitsu’s case the imagery cannot be easily identified. It would seem that in order to avoid explanatory depiction, he would destroy anything that seemed like it might emerge as a concrete image. In other words, the layering of pigment in order to grasp the sense of mass of an object, and the freely curving lines that seem to emerge from the painter’s own body rhythms, came to be layered on this single canvas. Therefore, in the end we cannot determine if this lump is a lion, or a lump of flesh or a tree stump. Ai-Mitsu may have been aiming at that state between meaning and meaningless, the state of being just unable to identify a concrete image. It is said that the Landscape with an Eye took more than two months to paint, and during that time he seems unable to have decided whether this misshapen lump of unknown form should have a concrete meaning, whether lion or tree stump, and he seized its existence alone in his hands, leaving it in the state of indeterminate form. This extremely unsettling sensation can be found in the climax of Sartre’s Nausea (1838). It recalls the scene where Roquentin is seated on a park bench,and feels nauseous as he looks at the roots of a chestnut tree. Since Ai-Mitsu did not know of Sartre, this comparison is nothing more than an arbitrary association. And yet, in the immediate post-war era Sartre’s existentialism gathered support from many cultured members of Japanese society, and there was a group of painters who sought to depict images of people who are aware that they have been hurled into the irrational world and exist in rivalry to it. The most important of these painters were Tsuruoka Masao and Asô Saburo who had formed the Shinjingakai with Ai-Mitsu during the war. In light of such facts, Ai-Mitsu’s Landscape with an Eye can be then seen as foreshadowing their postwar works. For example, Tsuruoka emphasized depicting objects rather than immaterial subjects, while Asô asserted, “I believe that realism is something whereby the power of the gaze and dissection are the same.” These comments by Tsuruoka and Asô from the postwar era can be seen to greatly overlap the production policy carried out by Ai-Mitsu in Landscape with an Eye. If, for that reason, we position Landscape with an Eye as a “Japanese Surrealist painting,” then we are in the dangerous position where its connection with the earnest search for realism that faced the reality of postwar society can tend to be overlooked. In that sense, I question whether or not it is good to consider Landscape with an Eye as a “Japanese Surrealist painting,” and I cannot easily answer that question in the affirmative. All the more so, this work stands out as an extreme example amidst the groping for realism thatsought to see reality as it is during the difficult era of the latter half of the 1930s, and the assertion that Tsuruoka and Asô continued the awareness of this issue means that this work can be considered to live on in history.