TOBARI Kogan
I'm guessing that
art history doesn't yet have a place for
the early 20th C. Japanese artists like
TOBARI Kogan (1882-1927)
because they're in a kind of nether world
between Europe and Japan,
and now, a hundred years later,
they have no place in either the history of modern art
or in Japanese traditional arts.
Tobari, in particular,
pursued a genre that feels like
a figurative variant on that rough
unfinished quality of Wabi Sabi
and maybe sometimes not so rough
and sometimes feeling like a Japanese variant of Rodin.
But often his pieces seem to be
like ceramic pots
that are morphing into figures.
(and this is such a fine portrait -- and pot !)
i.e. it's more about clay,
and less about flesh
And we also have graphic work from this artist,
like the above drawing
which I think is less crude
than it first appears
And he made woodblock prints !
In a style I've never quite seen before at the print galleries ...
something approaching magazine illustration.
He even published a "how to" book on the subject
What to make of these things ?
They're kind of down-scale
from the elegance of Japanese tradition,
more like
"what do women really look like "
rather than
"here is a fantasy paradise of beauty
*************
It's too bad he died so young,
just like his teacher,
OGIWARA Morie (1879-1910).
Both of them traveled to France and America.
Ogiwara had met Rodin -- and he eventually encouraged
Tobari to switch from painting to sculpture.
art history doesn't yet have a place for
the early 20th C. Japanese artists like
TOBARI Kogan (1882-1927)
because they're in a kind of nether world
between Europe and Japan,
and now, a hundred years later,
they have no place in either the history of modern art
or in Japanese traditional arts.
Tobari, in particular,
pursued a genre that feels like
a figurative variant on that rough
unfinished quality of Wabi Sabi
and maybe sometimes not so rough
and sometimes feeling like a Japanese variant of Rodin.
But often his pieces seem to be
like ceramic pots
that are morphing into figures.
(and this is such a fine portrait -- and pot !)
i.e. it's more about clay,
and less about flesh
And we also have graphic work from this artist,
like the above drawing
which I think is less crude
than it first appears
And he made woodblock prints !
In a style I've never quite seen before at the print galleries ...
something approaching magazine illustration.
He even published a "how to" book on the subject
What to make of these things ?
They're kind of down-scale
from the elegance of Japanese tradition,
more like
"what do women really look like "
rather than
"here is a fantasy paradise of beauty
*************
It's too bad he died so young,
just like his teacher,
OGIWARA Morie (1879-1910).
Both of them traveled to France and America.
Ogiwara had met Rodin -- and he eventually encouraged
Tobari to switch from painting to sculpture.
6 Comments:
Have you any more views of the crouching woman (her right hand merging with/disappearing into the material)?
Hi Amanda -- I wish I had more views -- and it does appear that her right hand has disappeared -- while the left looks like it might have been run over by a truck.
Which is fine with me!
My aesthetic is very similar to theirs -- though, hopefully, my pieces feel as American as theirs feel Japanese. (and hopefully I'll live a lot longer)
This is more like it. Great post.
these are wonderful -- thank you.
i suppose they get thrown into the pot labeled 'shin hanga.' i mean there are westerners in that pot too.
and then i guess that those images, done by eastern or western artists, which have learned from or somehow incorporated the japanese prints, but don't show japanese subjects falls into 'japonisme.'
I just love those wood cut prints!
K
I'm surprised that this guy has turned out to be so popular!
A new Japanese print gallery has opened in town --I'll ask about Tobari the next time I'm there.
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