Monday, April 06, 2009

What's that Painting?



Japanese artist Matazo Kayama's work from 1961 made of gouache, metallic gouache, and opaque white on dyed paper mounted on paperboard also resides at the Smithsonian.
I love this painting.
I find the history of Japanese painting or "Nihon-ga", to be an overwhelming subject since it begins as early as 300 B.C. and there is a wealth of recorded information for each period. I believe his work is most strongly associated with the 17th century decorative screen tradition called "Rimpa." He is probably considered the most important Japanese artist of the 2oth century. Matazo Kayama was born in 1921 and died in 2004.
In 1990, he painted an art car for BMW. You can see a video here which shows some of his techniques. It is in German.
Please comment and add any info you might have about anything in this post.

2 comments:

Kathleen Krucoff said...

Wow. I'm so happy you are doing this Tracey; I love learning about other artists. Thanks.

Elizabeth Seaver said...

All I want to say is how powerful the painting is. I love it--thanks for showing it.