"The Land of Chōjū-giga: Fun Japanese Art"

2020/11/12

The most significant task for a museum curator is, after all, working on exhibitions. I develop plans and travel to various places in search of artworks. While new challenges arise from the works I encounter, I manage to organize my thoughts and go around borrowing the pieces. In my case, I also design the exhibition layout myself, which is also enjoyable. And when many people visit the venue, a sense of joy wells up from the bottom of my heart.

However, there is a unique fascination in creating art books that cannot be compared to exhibitions. While collecting works while considering the theme and structure is the same, books allow for arrangements that are difficult to realize in an exhibition.

Because "Chōjū-giga" (Scrolls of Frolicking Animals) is such a famous and popular work, I have felt a sense of frustration regarding its historical positioning. The brilliance of the drawings has been repeatedly explained, and extensive research has been conducted on the formation of the scrolls. Recently, it has even been hailed across eras as the ancestor of manga and anime. However, I wonder how well it is known that animal paintings inheriting the "Chōjū-giga" DNA have been created in later generations. There is a history of animal paintings that would not have been born without "Chōjū-giga," yet it has been neglected.

This book was created with the intention of planning an exhibition that looks at this history—that is, "Chōjū-giga" and its "subsequent history." I have gathered the "Chōjū-giga" from Kozan-ji Temple, several reproductions, and various works in which the "Chōjū-giga" DNA has blossomed. Some say that "Chōjū-giga" became widely known only after the Meiji era, but already in the Edo period, many painters such as Ito Jakuchu, Soga Shohaku, and Utagawa Kuniyoshi were depicting scenes of animals wrestling, just like in "Chōjū-giga." If such an exhibition were held, it would become clear that "Chōjū-giga" actually became a major source of Japan's delightful paintings. In addition, one would surely feel deeply, in front of the works, the history of the hearts of the Japanese people who have turned a warm eye toward the hearts of animals and cherished paintings that allow them to appreciate that.

This book is one in the "Fun Japanese Art" series. "The History of Humorous Japanese Painting" from the same series was turned into an exhibition three years after its publication under the title "Eccentric Japanese Art." Similarly, I cannot give up the dream that "The Land of Chōjū-giga" will also become an exhibition someday...

"The Land of Chōjū-giga: Fun Japanese Art"

Nobuhisa Kaneko

Kodansha

136 pages, 2,400 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations, job titles, etc., are as of the time of publication.