Do you like museums? I do love going to museums! I feel my life enriched to see the real arts for myself, which were created hundreds years ago. For me it is so wonderful as meeting new people who will influence my way of life. I like learning how the creators lived their lives and imagining what they put into their works.
I went to a Japanese painter’s exhibition last week and I would like to review it. The exhibition was held between March 28 and May 21 at National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. It commemorated the 120th anniversary of his birth with an unprecedented opportunity to view a full range of works from his early years in Paris to the latter years.
Leonard Fujita (1886-1968) decided to become a painter when he was 14 years old. He graduated what is now the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and went to Montparnasse in Paris in 1913, where he met and became friends with Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Amedeo Modigliani. After World War II he became a naturalized French citizen. He was baptized as Leonard, and that is why he has French name.
My first impression was that he has a distinctive style, which doesn’t seem similar to other artists that I have ever seen. The exhibition begins with the self-portrait painted when he graduated from the art school, where Seiki Kuroda taught him arts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiki_Kuroda
However, I don’t like his dark and murky works in early his age, since I like bright and soft pictures like Monet, Renoir, and William Bouguereau. Actually, that is why he was not appreciated by his teacher at school and then he choose France to live his later life. When he met several maestros like Picasso and Matisse and they showed their works at their studios, he thought that what he had learned at school was not art, and wanted to throw his painting tools away, as he said later. He also said that it is only France where he (you) really can do what he wants (or you want.) Japan was not that generous to recognize his distinctive style.
I liked the works in his late life, of children that he said they were created by his imagination but any models didn’t exist. The children with up-angled eyes are not adorable like angels of William Bouguereau, yet attract us. You don’t get bored looking at each child imagining their personalities and what they have in mind. I am impressed with Fujita’s creativity. I see something common between Fujita’s children and those of Yoshitomo Nara.
Here is the link to see several his works in the exhibition:
http://foujita.exh.jp/hightlight.html
YOSHITOMO NARA
