学術雑誌論文

本学関連学会

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The Journal of the Asian Conference of Design History and Theory. 2016, 1, p. 73-81

Kakutaro Yamazaki, His Visit to the West, and His Influence on Urushi Art Education at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts

Itani, Yoshie

Osaka University Graduate School of Letters

英語

text

2016-03

Theme II : Design Education in the age of the Bauhaus

Kakutaro Yamazaki (1899–1984) was an innovative urushi ( Japanese lacquer) artist who taught at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (now Tokyo University of the Arts) for two decades. Notable among his efforts to update traditional urushi technique was his development of colored urushi, which contributed to the growth of modern urushi art and gave his pupils opportunities for new artistic development. A major turning point in Yamazaki’s artistic career was a 1937 research trip to the West, sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. What he encountered during these travels set his own work on a new developmental course, especially in terms of design, which in turn influenced urushi art at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. Yamazaki taught at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts during the late 1920’s and early 1930s, a “golden age” during which students enjoyed the tutelage of several of the greatest modern urushi masters—Gonroku Matsuda, Shisui Rokkaku, and Yamazaki himself—all of whom would become leading urushi specialists in the modern period. Yamazaki was especially well known, both as an artist and an educator. His simple, modern designs honored tradition, but also took advantage of new multicolored urushi techniques. Partly through Yamazaki’s influence, urushi art was able to make the transformation from its more traditional makie (“sprinkled gold”) craft style to embrace designs more appropriately viewed as “fine art.” The uses of urushi also broadened from the more traditional “container” type works (boxes, shelves, etc.) to applications like decorative panels. Yamazaki published his experiences and observations in the West in a report titled “Recent Trends in Western Decorative Art.” This gave special focus to describing decorative art in Paris, which, unlike the linear and faceted designs of movements like Bauhaus and the Austrian decorative arts, tended to find elegance in the artist’s enjoyment of simplified design. Yamazaki’s report was well received, and his subsequent works took on a new direction. Pieces like “Gibbons” (1939, submitted to the Third Bunten Exhibition) were noticeably different from his previous works, which had cleaved to more traditional motifs in the vein of “Small box with sprinkled gold image of Acala”(1924). Yamazaki’s new style would greatly influence later pupils, notably Setsuro Takahashi, and contributed to the development of urushi art education in modern Japan.

10.18910/90886

90886

Kakutaro Yamazaki, His Visit to the West, and His Influence on Urushi Art Education at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts

Itani, Yoshie

Osaka University Graduate School of Letters

英語

2016-03

The Journal of the Asian Conference of Design History and Theory

1

73

81

https://hdl.handle.net/11094/90886

10.18910/90886

https://doi.org/10.18910/90886