© Fondation Foujita / ADAGP, Paris & JASPAR, Tokyo, 2024 E5785
The big exhibition at the Sompo Museum of Art, located in Shinjuku's skyscraper district, is "Les 7 Passions De Foujita" (French for "The Seven Passions of Foujita"). The show looks at seven important themes in the art of Leonard Tsuguharu Foujita, a painter born in Japan in 1886 who ended his life as a Catholic Frenchman in 1968.
Foujita is well-known and well-loved by modern Japanese, according to the Sompo's young curator, Ryo Furutate:
Foujita is well-known and well-loved by modern Japanese, according to the Sompo's young curator, Ryo Furutate:
"In my opinion the reason he is liked is because he was very technical and original in that he introduced Japanese style painting into Western style oil paintings. That shows he is a forerunner of modern times in Japanese art. That is his artistic specialty and originality. That is the point of his popularity, I think."
Another reason for his fame is his iconic image, with his bowl-cut hairstyle, round glasses, and (usually) a toothbrush moustache. This allowed him to become as well-known as his art.
Unlike the last big Foujita exhibition, held in 2018 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of his death, the show at the Sompo is constructed thematically with seven "passions" of the artist.
"This exhibition is organized by the French art historian, Ms. Sylvie Buisson," Furutate explains. "She has written Foujita's biography and done important research on him."
The seven passions are (1) himself, (2) the sky, (3) the avant-garde, (4) the East and the West, (5) women, (6) children, and (7) angels and paradise, all of which Furutate admits are somewhat arbitrary.
Personally, I was surprised that one of the "passions" was not cats, as this is a recurring motif in Foujita's work and one of the most likeable things about his art. The Sompo seems to agree with this, as the exhibition design includes several nice "catty" touches.
"The cat elements were included by my request to Sylvie Buisson, so I agree," Furutate says, "because her story did not contain cats at first. But I think cats are very, very interesting and important motifs by Fujita."
Perhaps the solution to this riddle is that Foujita, as someone who remained stubbornly independent, closely identified himself with cats. In other words, the cats are his first passion, namely himself!
"In my personal opinion, not as a curator, I think the cat is representative of Fujita," Furutate adds.
Much of the interest in the show is taken up by paintings of female nudes, such as "Les deux Amies, Youki et Mado" (1927), where he employed a milky white palette and emphasised lines more than substance in a very Japanese way.
These images have an odd, ghostly, haunting quality, and often the cats that fleetingly appear in them seem more vivid and real. These works were often inspired by his various wives and long-term partners (I counted five!).
"Women are one of his most important motifs, but he was unstable in his relationships," Furutate adds, "so he varied his perspectives. His interest was very changeable."
Another interesting part of the story is the effect of the war, not only on Foujita's art, but also his life. One of the most intriguing paintings is "Vue de Hailar-Mongolie, intérieure" (1940), an earthy street scene of a town now in Inner Mongolia. At the time this was actually in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, and reflects Foujita's move back to Japan and his work in the 1940s as a patriotic war artist.
His attempt to reconnect with his Japanese roots, however, was doomed, both by Japan's defeat and by resentments from other Japanese artists.
"World War II was a turning point for Foujita," Furutate explains. "After the war, he was accused by other painters for his war work and for cooperating with the national mission."
His ability to get on with the US Occupation forces just deepened the resentment, with some of his fellow artists even accusing him of being a kind of 'war criminal.' It was this that appears to have finally pushed him to leave Japan again and move permanently to France.
Here in the 1950s and 1960s his final two passions -- children and religious themes -- came to fruition. His paintings of children, with their wizened and precocious expressions, are particularly loved by Foujita fans. Artistically, they recall the styles of the Northern Renaissance. Elsewhere, some of his religious art, like his intense lithographs, showing scenes from Hell and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, evoke the influence of Albrecht Dürer.
It is the ability of Foujita and his art to generate many interesting storylines and references that continues to make him a figure of fascination.
The exhibition, which runs until the 22nd of June, also includes an additional section featuring Japanese artists influenced by Foujita, including Riichiro Kawashima, Kinosuke Ebihara, and Seiji Togo, an artist of particular importance in the Sompo's own permanent collection.
Exhibition details
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