Artworks Gathered in “Ship of Diversity”
“Ship of Diversity” = Artwork Collection Concept of the Tokyo International Forum
By Tatsumi Shinoda (Selection Director for Tokyo International Forum Artwork)
Series No. 16 Artist in the Spotlight
Masaaki Yamada
A big blue painting painted by a Japanese leading expert of modernism paintings. There are fans who regard Yamada as a painter of blue. Certainly, the total impression of his painting is blue.
When you talk about a blue painting, it reminds me of the “Blue Period” of Picasso's. It is said that Picasso heavily used blue paint in his poor youth as it was cheap.
In old Europe, there was a time when blue paint was more expensive than gold because a mineral substance, lapis lazuli was used in it. It was mainly used to paint sacred things.
“Almost Transparent Blue” was a title of a best-selling book. However, the blue of Yamada's is not transparent.
It is not the blue of youth, nor the sacred blue and nor the transparent blue. That is Yamada's blue. In addition, there is not only blue. There are yellow, green, gray and red colors.
When you look at this painting, things appearing together with the blue are squares divided into small ones. These are precisely painted in every corner.
The first place I visited after I started my career as an art critic was Yamada's former house in Tokyo where his atelier was located. His house was built along a steep slope. After entering the house from the entrance, I walked down the stairs. The atmosphere was modern. His stripe work was in the room.
As he has been painting only stripes for a long time, I thought his eyeballs might be different from ordinary people.
The blue painting placed at the Tokyo International Forum is flat. I can understand if you align square panel boards, but what he did was purposely divide one flat canvas and paint every corner of each square. You would be amazed with the elaboration.
It seems Cezanne's painting will be one painting, even if you cut anywhere out of it, and I thought Yamada's divided painting may be relevant to Cezanne's and I started talking to him.
The blue color seems to be the lowest common multiple in order to easily unify the entire picture which may be uncoordinated with different colors.
It was not a painting to speak up with the expression of colors but his fondness for colors has not changed from his early years. He likes blue and the karashi color (yellow).
“Please come again,” said a painter of medium height with a thin body and critic's eyes, as I was leaving.
A house on a slope may change its figure according to the change of the town and age, but paintings with flat and strong stripes and paintings of a square surface do not change. I have recently come to think this way.
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