Now, my head is full of MONYOU, the Japanese traditional pattern. Veins
of leaves and flowers, bark of trees, wings of a dragonfly, clouds in the
sky, the ore, raindrops onto the window glasses, grain of wooden chests
or tables, and even the trees of the forest outside look like MONYOU. The MONYOU in my head transfers itself into maps, streams of
rivers and even into elements of air.
In my imagination, I sometime look up at the columnar joint and I am fascinated
by the HUUMON, the wind-wrought pattern on the sand hill, by the desert
or by the workrooms of the Rinpa artists and of the UKIYOE painters in
the EDO Era. In this way, MONYOU makes me travel all over the world and see Émile Gallé,
too.
The world around me changed completely when I
was moved by the pleasure.
I struggled to take the whirling thoughts of MONYOU out of my
head and to find out the best way to grasp it which only I can see. And at last,
I reached the improvisation by cutting. The Japanese word SOUSAKU means “creation” and
it also means to cut materials by a knife. I cut WASHI by a designing cutter, aiming at a new creation of
my own MONYOU by cutting.
Then, I
will explain about the reason I stick to WASHI.
I have once worn an overcoat of WASHI, which was a blue and gray one of crumpled WASHI coated with Persimmon Tannin Juice. I will never forget the warmth of the coat
beyond description at the time I wore. It was too light for me to be conscious of
wearing, but it gave me some comfort of being held tight. I gave up getting it, because it was the only
one of its kind extant and very expensive. But since then WASHI became
indispensable for me.
Strangely, when I touch WASHI, I feel so comfortable that I can
go to another world even when I am annoyed with daily troubles.
It seems to me that MONYOU has such power as
it exists sometime beyond time and sometime beyond space.
Drawing
takes much time rather than cutting. I can embody my imagination by dyeing and
cutting WASHI as I like. This unique way of expression suits to my motif and
thought best.
More than 1500 years ago, MONYOU was brought through the Silk Road over
to Japan in the east end of the Eurasian Continent.
The MONYOU, which came to Japan with Buddhist arts, developed independently
in the climate peculiar to Japan. And it has been still fascinating the
European painters and craft men as the Japonisme. There are now many European
artists who follow their style assimilating the Japonisme like their own.
This is the very evidence that MONYOU has supported its pendulum movement
of the fertile culture on the stage of the Eurasian Continent. So it is
one cultural ambassador living beyond the ages.
I myself, who live far in the east of
the Eurasian Continent, have a desire to carry a part of abstract expression by
MONYOU. And I named this original world of mine "Eurasian Art Craft".
Nobuo Tsuji,
a scholar of art history, has mentioned "play, decoration and
Animism" as the Japanese characteristic arts. And Shizuka Shirakawa, a
scholar of Chinese characters, has said that "play is the world of an
absolute freedom and of full of creation".
MONYOU continues developing as a means of
expressing human original desire for decoration. I was once calmly impressed when I knew that Augusto Giacometti, who learned
the decoration art, painted a colorful abstracts.
Now
intuition, MONYOU which only I can see, drives me to the world of abstract
expression, looking for much more development of the "Eurasian Art
Craft".
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