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(★)(棟方志功板画集)(Shikoo Munakata, regarded by most Japanese as their greatest contemporary woodblock artist, is probably also the best known in the West. Sometimes called the ´Japanese Picasso´, Munakata combined in a truly unique fashion a mastery of the techniques of traditional ukiyo-e prints, an appreciation for the rigour and directness of popular Mingei crafts, and an acute awareness of modern Western art.／ Inspired by a reproduction of Van Gogh´s ´Sunflowers´, he decided to become an oil painter, but turned to making woodblock prints after studying the work of French Post-Impressionists who had been influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e prints.／ Munakata was perhaps most deeply influenced by the folkcraft tradition and medieval Buddhist prints of Japan, combining as they did the craftsmanship of the artisan with the inspiration of the artist. The founder of Japan´s Folk Crafts Museum (Nippon Mingeikan), Sooetsu Yanagi, was his patron and he worked together with the potters Shooji Hamada and Kanjiroo Kawai to promote the popular crafts.／ In his own unique way Munakata was a deeply religious man who learnt the teachings of Shintoo and their profound implications for the craftsman while hammering iron and steel at his father´s forge. Later, the Mingei potter Kanjiroo Kawai explained the mysterious secrets of Zen Buddhism that were to haunt his work throughout his career.／ At home and abroad his work was highly-acclaimed by prominent art critics. Munakata was the first Japanese artist to be awarded an international prize since the war at Lugano in 1952. The artist went on to win further awards in Sao Paulo and Venice. Munakata travelled widely in the United States and Europe. An Impetuous man of vibrant energy, Munakata produced a body of work over a forty-year span as a print artist that was truly prodigious both in quantity and in scope.／ This collection of the artist, Shikoo Munakata´s woodblock prints holds special interest because it ranges from his early work, such as ´Yamato Shi Uruwashi´ and ´Utoo Hangakan´ with their powerful heritage of Japanese mythology and wild imagination, to the later works of his career --expansive murals full of rich gaudy colours and expressionist imagery. Here in one convenient volume, Munakata´s life and career is retold by the people who knew him best : his patron and spiritual mentor, Sooetsu Yanagi, the internationally renowned Mingei potters Kanjiroo Kawai and Shooji Hamada, and the deeply revealing words of the artist himself. This, the first collection of Munakata prints to be published outside of Japan for a number of years, honours his extraordinary achievement with over one hundred prints in both black-and-white and colour. Includes a previously unavailable introductory essay by the American writer Oliver Statler.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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