Page 32 - Studio International - November 1965

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1 On his return to Tokyo at the end of the war, Taro elements with which they are charged, and the more
God of the Winds 1961
91 X 65 in. formulated his own philosophy of art which he named fiercely will the spark of creation glow. One must,
'Taikyokuism'. The word means literally: two poles in concludes Taro, ceaselessly search for disequilibrium
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Gladiator 1962 conflict, that is to say-according to the artist-a by playing on one of the two poles in order to provoke
91 X 73 in.
simultaneous duel to the death between man and the automatic reaction of the other.
3 himself and between man and the exterior world. It is a In 1948, two years after launching this manifesto,
The Animal 1959 Taro joined with the critic Kiyoteru Hanada in organizing
Stone 16 ft. high conception of the world which is equally applicable to
Erected in Sports Land of Tokura all the domains of human activity. The artist must be the Yoru no Kai (Evening Group) which had an impor­
4 spiritually 'torn in two' (dechire is the word Taro used tant influence on postwar Japanese art, and in 1951 he
Amour propre 1962 in translating the Japanese text to me) and must accept held a large retrospective show in Tokyo of the work
Monument to his mother
on bank of river Tamagawa this 'tearing' (dechirure) gladly and hopefully. The he had produced since the war. The clash of opposing
tension and the incandescent power of a work of art currents described in his manifesto was fully evident
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The Wall of the Sun are the function of the acuteness of this 'tearing' in his painting of that period: colliding, black geometric
20 X 13½ ft. process and the artist's degree of awareness of the outlines, zigzags and angry circles whirling in space,
Ceramic fresco: Main hall of the
Tokyo Municipality Building. One of experience. It is necessary for the artist, insists Taro. to rimmed with fierce or livid colours; or writhing morpho­
eleven murals for the building
recognize and cultivate all the contradictions inherent genetic shapes, hovering and swooping menacingly,
in the human condition. The greater the distance and wrought in brilliant green, orange or red against back­
the estrangement between the opposite poles, the grounds in pale, dull tints slashed by thick, wayward
more fruitful will be the collision between the violent black lines.
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Taro's violent palette has never ceased to shock and
astonish, and sometimes also to dismay or even outrage
not only traditionalists but also modernists in Japan.
Taro, who has always stood very much aloof from both
rival schools. reminds his critics that two tendencies
have co-existed historically in Japanese art: that of gay,
bright colours. and that of sombre, restrained tints.
He incorporates both these tendencies deliberately
into his painting-another example of the 'confronta­
tion' he seeks to record. He has been accused of being
an aggressive, destructive painter. But he could, if he
cared to do so, point out that, on the contrary, he is
supremely interested in Japanese artistic traditions and
in the constructive unity of the arts. For example, in
1954 he set up the Contemporary Art Research Centre
and began devoting himself to a study of the problem
of unifying the arts. He also began travelling to various
parts of Japan in an effort to rediscover the nature of
the Japanese tradition. Some of the results of these
associated researches were incorporated into several
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