LOT 0026 INOUE YUICHI Tori (Bird) Framed
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Name
Size
Description
Translation provided by Youdao
121.7×215.5cm
材质:ink on paper 形制:Framed 著录:出版 Masaomi Unagami ed. Yu-ichi (Yu-ichi Inoue); Catalogue Raisonné of the Works, 1949-1985. Vol. 2, 1970-1976 (Tokyo: Unac Tokyo, 2000). Plate 76056. 拍品描述:展览 Tokyo, Japan, Gallery Iida, ‘77 Solo Exhibition, 1977. Sealed Yuichi;on reverse signed, titled and inscribed in Japanese, dated 1976.3.20 来源 Private Collection, Japan On reverse the artist inscribed in Japanese, A poem by Basho: This autumn, why do I feel so lonely and old as seeing a bird flying through and disappearing in the clouds–. This artwork was born in the last day of these 3 months which I created 1,000 pieces since spring 1976, by Yuichi Inoue himself, in 15 July 1978, at Soshu Okami yashiki. A friend saw this bird at Ida Gallery, copied the music tape of –œSong of Birds– by Pablo Casals and sent to me. I am happy to have him as a friend; This backboard was attached by Yuichi himself. Yuichi Inoue‘s ichijisho – single character inscriptions – form the main body of the artist‘s work produced after the late 1950s. The character tori, Japanese for bird, was a favorite subject of Yuichi‘s, and he created many versions of the work over his career. However, this specific piece stands out for its bold, expressive composition, and the deeply personal inscriptions that document the significance of this painting to the artist. Yuichi was meticulous about discarding unsatisfactory works, throwing out tens of thousands of paintings over the course of his career. This piece represents the final result of 1,000 copies painted over the course of 3 months, differentiating it as the culmination of a lengthy, exacting exercise in aesthetic perfectionism and dedication. Yuichi’s inscriptions on this work also provide brief glimpses into significant years in Yuichi’s life; 1976, the year this work was completed, was also the year that Yuichi reached retirement age and was finally able to fully dedicate all his time to the art of calligraphy. Yuichi had spent most of his life as a primary school teacher, but this year marked the beginning of an extraordinarily prolific period in the artists’ career. This productivity would only accelerate in 1978, the date of the second inscription, when Yuichi was diagnosed with the liver cirrhosis that would eventually cause his death in 1985. These dated inscriptions thus capture moments from an important period of Yuichi’s life, marking the precious years when he was able to devote himself to his passion. Perhaps Yuichi was already aware of how precious his remaining time was when he completed this masterpiece; the haiku poem that accompanies this painting, by the Edo era poet Matsuo Basho, expresses in simple and elegant terms the weary nostalgia that comes with the autumn, old age, and the disappearance of birds from the sky. Yuichi Inoue was a true master of the calligraphic arts, who understood that the gestures of a brush could reveal much more than the painted characters themselves. The strong stability of Yuichi’s broad horizontal strokes and the power of his upward splatters imbue Tori with an expressive spontaneous energy. Yuichi treasured the moment when a friend, inspired by this work, introduced him to the Catalan cellist Pau Casals’ famous arrangement of –œSong of the Birds–, a Catalan lullaby that had been reinterpreted into a call for peace in protest of Franco’s regime in Spain. The same sense of profound tragedy and anger had inspired Motherwell’s famous series of paintings Elegies to the Spanish Republic. Though Yuichi never attributed political meaning to his works, Tori is nonetheless filled with the same raw emotion and energy as the music of Casals and the paintings of Motherwell. His art took Japanese calligraphy and added new layers of meaning, pushing the expressive potential of a traditional art to new heights.
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