(Hiroshi Noda)
＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
Recently, “hyper-realistic paintings” (or simply “realistic paintings”) have been quietly booming and attracting a lot of attention. In an age without cameras, it would have been meaningful to “record the true state of things,” but does it still have meaning today?
In this article, we would like to introduce super-realistic paintings and the history of painting.
1. what is “super-realistic painting”?
Super-realistic paintings, like botanical art, are attractive because they “depict the essence of the subject. This is “not unlike photography.
I first encountered super-realistic paintings at the “Andrew Wyeth Exhibition” held at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto in Okazaki, Kyoto in 1974. Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) is a representative painter of “American Realism. He painted poetic portraits of people living in the countryside of the eastern United States with a gentle eye.
（Andrew Wyeth）
Hiroshi Noda (1936- ), a leader in the world of realistic painting in Japan, is known for his portrait of the Emperor and Empress Heisei, which took about four years to complete in 2008. In his book “Introduction to Realism Painting,” he states
Realistic painting is an attempt to confirm that something is there (exists) through the act of painting. It is a kind of reckless attempt to depict the entirety of the existence of things in a two-dimensional world. An attempt to depict things as they appear, as they touch, as they sound, as they smell, and as they taste.
A realistic painting is sometimes said to be like a photograph, but while a photograph is “a picture seen from a single point,” or “monocular,” the human eye is “binocular” and perceives perspective through parallax.
Moreover, unlike a photograph, the human eye is able to perceive the perspective through the eyes of the person who painted the picture, and the emotions or sentiments of the artist, so there is something extra to the picture.
In this sense, it can be said that realistic paintings depict “what the painter saw with his/her own eyes and felt with his/her own heart.
This “realistic painting” is distinct from the “super-realism” that has emerged in recent years, especially in the United States, which uses “photography” to create clear paintings.
From my point of view, contemporary Japanese super-realistic paintings are even superior to Western painters such as Botticelli, Giorgione, Angle, and Vermeer in terms of skill.
I think “super realistic paintings” are like a “return to the origin of painting. I feel that this is not unrelated to the recent trend toward “realistic depiction of scenery” and “poetic depiction of scenery” in animation films, such as those by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli and Makoto Shinkai, whose “Your Name” and “The Weather Child” are very popular, which can be appreciated by adults. I hear that there are many “pilgrimages to sacred places” of famous anime scenes. I believe that this kind of “realistic depiction” has sublimated manga (anime), which used to be targeted only at children, into a highly artistic work that moves and captivates adults as well.
（Nobuyuki Shimamura)
(Sosuke Morimoto)
(Hiroshi Ikushima)
（Ryo Shioya)
２．The Hoki Museum of Art
The Hoki Museum of Art* in Chiba City is Japan’s first “museum specializing in realistic paintings” established in 2010 by businessman Masao Hoki.
The museum has a collection of 480 realistic paintings by about 50 artists, ranging from masters to young artists.
The Hoki Museum of Art’s representative artists’ definition of realistic painting is as follows.
All figurative works other than abstraction can be considered realistic. Among them, those that are highly reproducible and finely drawn.
Realism is neither the reproduction nor the imitation of the object in front of one’s eyes, but the encounter with something much deeper than the object itself.
It is to continue to look at the essence of things and to depict their existence.
There is also realism, which eliminates the emotional aspects of the subject and approaches the reality of the subject.
Unlike sketching, it is a process of creating one’s own world by looking at an object in a forward-looking and disguised way, and recreating nature in a new way.
(*) Hoki Art Museum
Location: 3-15 Asumigaoka Higashi, Midori-ku, Chiba-shi, Chiba 267-0067
Phone: 043-205-1500
Hours: 10:00-17:30
Closed: Tuesdays
Admission: Adults: 1,800 yen, High school students, seniors 65 and over: 1,300 yen, Junior high school students: 900 yen, Elementary school students and under: free
3. history of painting from classicism and romanticism to realism
As a meander, I would like to look back at the history of painting leading up to realism.
(1) Classicism, Baroqueism, and Neoclassicism
The “Renaissance” was a cultural movement that took place in Italy in the 14th century to revive the culture of classical antiquity, and eventually spread throughout Western Europe through the 16th century.
“Classicism” is a spiritual movement that emerged in Europe in the 17th century, following the Renaissance, that ”considers the Greek and Roman classics and antiquity as ideals and looks up to the arts and culture of that period as role models.
In the world of painting, French painters Poussin and Roland are representative of this movement.
On the other hand, “Baroqueism” is a style of art and culture that emerged in Italy from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 17th century and spread throughout Europe. In contrast to the Renaissance style, which aimed for “harmony and balance,” Baroqueism” was characterized by “dramatic fluidity” and “excessive ornamentation.
In the world of painting, the most representative painters are Rubens of Netherland (Flanders), Rembrandt and Vermeer of Netherland (Holland), and Velázquez of Spain.
Around the time of the French Revolution in the 18th century, “neoclassicism” began to be advocated against baroqueism. In contrast to the aristocratic Baroque, Neoclassicism is civic. Against the backdrop of opposition to the decorative and sensual Baroque and Rococo styles of the past, the art of classical antiquity, especially Greek art, was taken as a model in search of a more solid and solemn style.
In the world of painting, the French painters David and Angle are representative of this movement.
(2) Romanticism
Romanticism was a spiritual movement that took place mainly in Europe from the end of the 18th century to the first half of the 19th century, which placed emphasis on “sensitivity” and “subjectivity” in contrast to the “rationalism” and “rationalism” that had prevailed until then.
In the world of painting, “Romanticism” was represented by painters such as Goya of Spain, Delacroix of France, and Turner of England, while Takeji Fujishima and Shigeru Aoki are known in Japan.
Later, as a reaction, the realism and naturalism movements emerged.
(3) Realism
In the world of painting, “realism” was proposed by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) in 19th century France. In contrast to “Romanticism,” it aimed to “express everyday life and reality as it is. Millet (1814-1875) of the Barbizon School was also a realist painter.
I can understand “Impressionism” by Monet, Renoir, and others. However, it is difficult for me to understand the subsequent trends in contemporary art, such as the fanciful and fantastic “Surrealism” of artists like Chirico and Dali, the “Cubism” of Picasso and others that incorporated a three-dimensional sense, and the “Abstract Painting” of artists like Kandinsky and Mondrian. In particular, “abstract paintings,” which look as if they were made by slapping paint and splashing it around, look like vertical and horizontal scribbles.
However, if you look at Picasso’s drawing studies as a boy, you will see that he is a brilliant realist, so even I can tell that he is not a bad painter. However, I have a hard time understanding the way he reconstructs and incorporates multiple viewpoints into a two-dimensional painting (forcing three-dimensional elements into the painting).
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