Matazo Kayama

Mural in a hotel in Owani Onsen, Tsugaru.

Matazō Kayama ( Japanese 加 山 又 造 , Kayama Matazō ; born September 24, 1927 in Hamada , Shimane Prefecture ; died April 6, 2004 ) was a Japanese Nihonga- style painter .

life and work

Kayama's father had designed uniforms at the beginning of the Meiji period , and his grandfather was also a painter. He himself graduated from the Kyoto Art School in 1944 ( 京都 市立 美術 工 芸 学校 , Kyōto shiritsu bijutsu kōgei gakkō ) in the subject "Japanese Style Painting" (Nihonga) and continued his studies in the same subject at the Tokyo Art School ( Tōkyō bijutsu gakkō ) away. In 1945 he was conscripted and worked in various parts of Japan during the war. At the end of the year he was back in Kyoto.

In 1946 Kayama went back to Tokyo and continued studying, one of his teachers being Yamamoto Kyūjin ( 山 本 丘 人 ; 1900-1986). He earned money by studying posters, graduating in 1949. In the same year the picture "God of Wind and Thunder" ( 風 上 雷神 , Fūjin raijin ) was accepted for the 2nd exhibition of the Association for Creative Painting ( 創作 美術 画 会 , Sōsaku bijutsu gakai ). In the following years he exhibited regularly, and his works were awarded many prizes. In 1978 he created the mural “Snow, Moon and Flowers” for the National Museum of Modern Art , a theme that he had executed in 1967 as a six-part screen.

In 1966 Kayama became a professor at the Tama School of Art ( 多 摩 美術 大学 , Tama bijutsu daigaku), in 1988 a professor at the Tokyo School of Art . In 1997 he was recognized as a " person with special cultural merits ", and in 2003 he was awarded the Japanese Order of Culture .

On the one hand, Kayama felt obliged to the Japanese painting tradition, as his numerous works based on the decorative style of the Rimpa school show. On the other hand, there are large-format, often gloomy, wintry landscapes in which he shows his very own style. Figures are rare in his pictures, people are not at all. There are camels and birds, occasionally horses, giraffes. Life-size nudes, also designed as screens (two-part, six-part), form a separate group of works. Kayama decorated some bowls in Rimpa fashion and painted fixed fans with black and gold peonies and other motifs.

Remarks

1. ↑ The mural is a modern depiction of the classic theme of " snow, moon and flowers ".

literature

• Asahi Shimbun (Ed.): Kayama Matazō. Asahi kurabu bessatsu, 1979.

Web links

Website with information about Kayama