Kazuki Yasuo

Kazuki Yasuo ( Japanese 香 月 泰 男 ; born October 25, 1911 in Misumi, Yamaguchi Prefecture ; died March 8, 1974 ) was a Japanese painter of the Shōwa period in the Yōga style. His work is shaped by his imprisonment in Siberia.

life and work

Kazuki attended the private Kawabata School of Painting ( 川端 画 学校 Kawabata ga-gakkō ) from 1929 and studied design there. Then he switched to the Tōkyō State Art School (Tōkyō bijutsu gakkō) and trained in oil painting under Fujishima Takeji . In 1934 his picture "Landscape in the rear of Japan under snowfall" ( 雪 降 り の 山 陰風景 Yukiburi no San'in fūkei ) was accepted at the 9th exhibition of the Kokuga-kai ( 国画 会 ), whereby Umehara Ryūzaburō and the art critic Fukushima Shigetarō ( 福島 繁 太郎 ; 1896–1960) commented on it with approval .

From 1938 Kazuki was a teacher at the Shimonoseki High School for Girls, where he continued to submit pictures to the Kokuga-kai. In 1940 he received the Saburi Prize ( 佐 分 利 賞 ) and was accepted as a member of the Kokuga-kai.

In 1943 Kazuki was drafted and sent to Manchuria . There he was captured by the Soviets in 1945 and was taken to a camp in the Krasnoyarsk region (Siberia), where he had to work as a woodcutter.

Kazuki was fired in 1947 and the following year he got a job as a teacher at Ōtsu High School, his old school. He took up his painting activity again and showed the picture funeral ( 埋葬 Maisō ) at the exhibition of Kokuga-kai in 1949 and painted pictures with motifs from the experience of war, defeat and camp life over the next twenty years. He was seen at a number of exhibitions, so on Nihon kokusai bijutsu-ten ( 日本 国際 美術展 ), Gendai Nihon bijutsu-ten ( 現代 美術展 ) and also at the exhibitions of Kokuga-kai. There was also a solo exhibition.

The 58 works on display include memories from wartime, such as “Sunset in Hulun Buir ” ( フ ル ン ブ イ ル の 洛陽 ; Furumbuiru no rakuyō ; 1950), “To the north, to the west” ( 北 へ 西 へ Kita e, nishi e ; 1959 ), “Frozen Ground” ( 凍土 Tōdo ; 1965), “Imperial We” ( 朕 Chin ; 1970), “Appeal” ( 点 呼 Tenko ; 1971). Held in brown, gray and black, the works convey his protest against the war and the memory of the dead. Everyday topics were usually presented in a heavy and dark way.

Remarks

1. ↑ Today part of Nagato .

literature

• Suzuki, Toshihiko (Ed.): Kazuki Yasuo . In: Nihon daihyakka zensho (Denshibukku-han) . Shogakukan, 1996.
• Japan Foundation (Ed.): Japanese Painting in the Western Style, 19th and 20th Centuries. Exhibition catalog, Cologne 1985.
• Tazawa, Yutaka: Kazuki Yasuo . In: Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art . Kodansha International, 1981, ISBN 0-87011-488-3 .

Web links

• Oil paintings in the Kazuki Yasuo Museum in Misumi

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Kazuki is the family name, Yasuo the first name.