Today’s Art — Reading Notes

01 — Why Does Art Exist?

As society develops, each person comes to function like a component in a machine. We lose sight of our purpose and can no longer see the whole. People drift further and further from the essence of life, gradually losing even the ability to perceive it. This is what we call “self-alienation.”

If the purpose of art had to be expressed in a single sentence, it would be this: art awakens the passion to remake oneself.

Perhaps you believe your judgement is honest enough. Or perhaps you have never thought about what art is, and therefore assume that you have no prejudices about it. Yet as we grow, everything we see and hear gradually becomes part of our store of knowledge and cultivation. This helps us understand and recognise things, but at the same time it weakens our innate intuition and our ability to perceive with the soul.

To understand everything according to common sense and convention is, to put it bluntly, to adopt a popular and utilitarian view of life. Such a view often causes us to lose the purity of the spirit.

02 — What It Means to “Not Understand”

Abstract painting sets aside the depicted object, which is unrelated to the essence of painting, and attempts to create a pure and moving beauty through the considered arrangement and resonance of pictorial elements—colour and form. This is its purpose. It might therefore also be called “pure painting.” Reactions such as “I cannot judge whether the painting is good, but the girl in it moves me,” or “The apples look delicious,” belong to a realm of tempting associations that abstract painting is hardly equipped to provide.

In other words, abstract painting does not ask, “What does it depict?” or “What does the depicted thing mean?” Art is not a riddle. We do not need to burden a work with unnecessary interpretation. It is enough to remain open, allow the soul to collide forcefully with the image, and receive its most immediate impact.

People constrained by common sense, fixed ideas, and worldly rules unconsciously polish their outward appearance while repressing their true selves. Art should be born at the moment when the depicted subject casts off this restrictive disguise. In dreams, even adults can move innocently through the imagination. The pressure of common sense then begins to crack, and the true desires and images hidden deep within us rise through those fissures to the surface.

This awareness, which exists deep inside us even though we do not fully understand it ourselves—what psychoanalysis calls the “unconscious”—is more truthful than the conscious mind distorted by social rules and common sense. The direct expression of our deeper consciousness is therefore a purer and more accurate form of artistic expression. Surrealism is not confined to dreams or madness. Through different techniques and unexpected combinations, it constructs new scripts. In other words, Surrealism pursues the irrationality inherent in human instinct.

Why, then, should we split hairs and worry about whether we can understand new Surrealist works created by our contemporaries? Such anxiety is unnecessary. These works are more modern than ancient stories and closer to the essence of art. Art—and life—means creating myths and legends of our own through the richness of the spirit, rather than applying images inherited from the past. We should abandon the mental habit of readily accepting whatever already exists and, with firm resolve, continue creating new myths.

At the very instant we feel that a work is good, we have already understood part of what makes it good. There is no need to worry about everything else we have not understood.

At all times, the essential condition is to look honestly with our own eyes. If we discover something, that “discovery” itself is “value.” A painting is not a puzzle, and we do not look at it in order to uncover a hidden answer. We should meet the work openly and courageously, free ourselves from past experience, and continually sharpen our capacity to feel. Then we may discover that something we once considered excellent is actually dull, while something that once held no interest for us can instead ignite our passion.

03 — What Is “New”?

Art is innovation at every moment; it can never rely entirely on imitation. Borrowing another person’s creation is obviously inadequate, but even reusing one’s own earlier work contradicts the essence of art.

To move ahead of the majority, to struggle against being misunderstood while raising questions, to uncover forms of beauty unlike anything that came before, to collide violently with society and drive it forward—this process demands enormous effort.

The same emotion appears when we choose clothes, ties, or accessories. These are everyday examples, but the principle also applies to painting. Many paintings wear the expression “I am art,” while inwardly they are merely a modernism designed to please. I must repeat: such works are not art. We should not casually equate something with art simply because it is a painting.

When an era changes and fashionable templates shift, modernism becomes outdated. Some paintings possess a value specific to their time and can offer the pleasure of “having tea in Ginza during the modern age of nineteen-something.” But in the next era, that attraction disappears. Many works have historical significance without possessing value that transcends their age; they are not acts of creation.

True art does not fall out of fashion as the times change, because it continues to bring inexhaustible freshness and emotion. Genuinely innovative art possesses not only the fresh impact of the moment in which it was born, but also an enduring life capable of transcending its age. In other words, “relative value,” belonging to a particular period, and “absolute value,” which surpasses time, are inseparable and essential aspects of creation.

Art is constantly coming to a standstill. Without stagnation there can be no breakthrough; after each breakthrough, a new stagnation appears. The movement of art lies within this recurring crisis.

04 — The Transformation of Artistic Value

Great artists reject accepted common sense with determination and resolve, thereby creating a new age. Their achievement is won by abandoning and surpassing their former selves and staking everything on a terrifying unknown world.

When we encounter their work, we must run alongside the artist rather than remain still. If we are left behind, we must struggle to catch up. Why did the artist paint such a thing? Why did the painting take this form? We must think and feel with the heart and mind, even mobilising the senses of the entire body, in order to narrow the distance between ourselves and the artist. Unless we confront the work with a tension equal to that of its creator—and with the will to go beyond the creator—we cannot understand genuine art. The viewer, too, must look with a creative state of mind.

When you actively engage with a great work of art, you inevitably feel the special tension of entering a world beyond your imagination. It is not a comfortable sensation. Put simply, to understand a work necessarily involves doubt and pain.

Does that mean there is no art we can enjoy unconditionally? There is: the kind of modernism described in the previous chapter, which fits completely into everyday life and produces no sense of dislocation or rupture. For older people, calligraphy, paintings, and antiques can serve the same function. Some of these works use highly refined and accomplished methods of expression; Matisse and Braque are typical examples. In their paintings we can perceive balance and harmony governed by delicate taste, as well as a quiet joy and happiness. But we cannot feel the force of “being alive,” its fear, or its essential delight. Such harmony and tranquillity are not the first principles of art and life, but forms of relaxation and leisure.

The reason is that “prettiness” is not something that moves the soul. It is a “pattern” determined by the typical forms and conventions of an age. If the “Hollywood beauty” becomes fashionable, many Japanese women will style themselves accordingly. To us today, a flat nose and broad, flat face may seem unattractive; had the same woman lived in the Nara period, she might have been considered a great beauty. A garment regarded as pretty is not necessarily beautiful in its form or colour. It merely fits the prevailing pattern of what a beautiful garment is supposed to look like.

“Prettiness,” then, is not essential; it is only an incidental pattern. Notice that I use the word “pretty,” not “beauty,” although the two are often confused. They are fundamentally different and may even carry opposite meanings. “Beauty” can exist in things that are unpleasant or coarse. An ugly thing can possess an “ugly beauty.” The strange, the frightening, the unpleasant, and the uncomfortable can all contain a chilling “beauty.” Strictly speaking, “beauty” has a deeper meaning not required by categories such as “pretty” and “vulgar.” This is why I distinguish beauty entirely from prettiness.

05 — Painting Is Something Everyone Must Create

It is singular and, at the same time, infinitely plural. This is where the life of art resides. Whatever a work may be in itself, if you feel that it is good, then it is good. Conversely, however good the work may be in itself, if your spirit finds it dull, then for you it will remain dull—even though the work itself has not changed at all.

I am not asking everyone to cultivate an interest and passively become an art lover. I am calling for a more active and confident experience of the emotion that comes from creation. A work is only a “result,” so there is no reason to believe that leaving no work behind means one has never created.

It is equally mistaken to confine creation within frames such as painting or music and declare, “I will create poetry, music, or dance.” This is an old way of thinking, led by the nose by a narrow, functional conception of art. Restricting oneself within such frames only makes creation more difficult.

Artistic ideas are not the whims of artists. As I have repeatedly stressed, they possess important historical and social significance and are closely connected to society’s modes of production.

Yet the fundamental meaning of today’s artistic revolution lies not only on the surface, but in a broader and more fundamental social foundation—and, more importantly, in the effect it has on contemporary reality. The essence of the revolution is that art is no longer the monopoly of masters with special skills. It has become something wider and freer that anyone can create.

It is not enough merely to believe that anyone can create art. I would go further and insist that everyone must create. Modern art makes no distinction between specialist and outsider, amateur and professional. There are no “experts” in the act of living. Likewise, everyone should take part in the artistic revolution as a creator. This is not fantasy; society has already reached this stage.

Look closely at the work of many hobbyists and a serious problem becomes apparent. Instead of the ease and bright spontaneity we might expect from amateurs, we often see strangely gloomy and listless images. It is deeply disappointing. The culprit is the desire to “imitate the experts” and the belief that “if it is not well painted, it is not a painting.” Many people still fail to understand the true meaning of “today’s art.”

In my view, instructors bear much of the responsibility. People who join an art club presumably enjoy painting and want to paint. But once they begin, their work may not reach a high level. That is only natural. It is not easy to paint a female model’s face vividly, realistically, and beautifully. Even when drawing a face from the front, rendering both eyes symmetrically requires skill. Giving the nose a convincing bridge is not simple, and portraying a living, breathing beauty is harder still.

The finished work therefore falls far below the artist’s expectations. Many immediately lose heart and decide they have no artistic ability. If the instructor then follows an obsolete model and ruthlessly points out shortcomings—“the drawing is too messy,” “the paint is applied incorrectly”—the student becomes even more bewildered. Having already wanted to paint “well,” the student concludes that the work is terrible and may even despair. Before long, painting ceases to be enjoyable. Anything forced out under such conditions will inevitably lack vitality.

We must escape this outdated and useless view of art as quickly as possible. Not everyone can paint with refinement. Apart from trained craftspeople who have spent years working day and night to paint skilfully, amateurs cannot produce truly polished work merely by trying harder. If they devote themselves to imitating stale professional painters, pretending to be experts and showing off, their colours will inevitably become muddy, their lines hesitant, and the final work neither simple nor interesting. Both maker and viewer will be disappointed.

From the perspective of both the age and the essence of art, it is unacceptable to instruct and intimidate amateurs according to standards inherited from the skilled artisans of aristocratic society. Such teaching deprives students of the joy of confronting art and leads them away from the direction of new art. As noted earlier, polished painting belonged to feudal society and depended upon the specialist techniques of craftspeople. Today’s amateurs are like blank sheets of paper. Nothing could be more absurd than imprisoning them within traditional models. If this continues, they will no longer know what they are painting and will lose confidence completely.

When people are given paper and a pencil and told to scribble freely, their hands often stiffen and they cannot begin. Why? Panic suddenly sets in. They may say, “Of course I can doodle,” yet when the moment arrives, the pencil will not move. At that instant they realise that nothing is more difficult than “scribbling.”

Scribbling founded on determination and responsibility is not truly random. Consider the word more closely. When people see an unconventional work of art, they often dismiss it as “just scribbling.” “Anyone could make that” is another common response. New art indeed requires neither exceptional skill nor years of accumulation; anyone really can make it. Yet without spiritual freedom, no one can create such a work.

This is why painters who cannot be called “true artists” remain stuck in old ways. They faithfully depict the nature before them—that is, they “imitate nature”—or trail behind outstanding foreign artists and the latest fashions, laboriously copying them.

The decision I ask you to make is very simple: take up a pen and paper and begin drawing. Draw anything at all. The question of art is not whether the result is refined or pretty, but whether you possess complete confidence in your own freedom and give it form.

As I have repeatedly emphasised, if art must be polished, pretty, comfortable to look at, and perfectly harmonious, everyone will retreat and decide that art has nothing to do with them. But when people hear, “It is fine if the drawing is clumsy or chaotic; the stranger it is, the better—that is art,” they begin to feel close to it. “Then perhaps I can do it.” “I can make art too!”

We may therefore tell ourselves that “art is no big deal.” Like the sudden urge to shout while walking down the street, or to break into a run, art is extremely simple. Joy, sorrow, lamentation—every kind of emotion surges within us, yet a passive way of living blocks the windows through which those emotions might escape, turning us into the deaf and the blind. We should not repress them. We should allow them to burst out through our eyes, ears, mouths, and every pore of the body. Then we can feel the spirit gradually filling with new vitality.

This is not only a question of painting. It concerns “humanity” itself. Traditional education based on passive listening carries a certain humiliation. Those raised under it may develop an inferiority complex they can never escape. We can treat art education as an experimental field: beginning with art, we can transform education at its roots into something that gives people clarity and an open state of mind.

Many students paint with purer feelings than their teachers and possess far greater expressive power. Teachers may also come to understand that countless trivial things in society have robbed them of human directness and confidence in freedom, and how poorly their present selves correspond to the title of educator. Only by remembering the purity and freedom of youth and working to recover them can teachers offer better education.

Children’s drawings possess a carefree, vigorous freedom and radiate tremendous charm. Their innocence can even convey a powerful force. Yet this charm cannot shake our lives or ourselves. Why?

Because a child’s freedom has not been won through struggle, suffering, and injury. It is an unconscious freedom, naturally permitted—but permitted only within a particular range. It therefore lacks power. It can make us happy or bring a smile, but it does not possess something essential.

The explosive freedom unique to the work of a great artist, by contrast, is the result of confronting and fighting society with the energy of the whole self. It blossoms only after solid and heavy barriers have been broken. The stronger the opposing force, the greater the energy accumulated through endurance. This human power is transformed into a moving force and held within the work.

06 — Our Foundations

Art is creation. It cannot apply existing models or repeat what has already been done. Repeating someone else’s pattern is obviously impossible, but even repeating oneself must be rejected. To do today what one did yesterday has no artistic meaning.

Consider the history of art. From ancient Egypt to the present, artistic forms have continually changed; they have never repeated themselves. Each turn of the page reveals an entirely new appearance. Art therefore necessarily carries a revolutionary character and develops through “eternal creation.” This is its essence.

When confronted with a painting in a fresh style, people often say knowingly, “That is the wrong path.” The statement is strange, because art contains no concepts equivalent to an illegitimate path and an orthodox school. As I have stressed repeatedly, the essence of art is to negate obsolete patterns and continually create things entirely new, beyond everyone’s imagination. From this perspective, what is dismissed as the “wrong path” may actually be the true path. Unfortunately, Japanese people tend to assume that anything unorthodox must be bad or inferior. This is the unfortunate result of formalist thinking from traditional artistic disciplines becoming deeply rooted.

The same applies to painters. When painters were still merely artisans, questions such as “What is painting?” and “What is art?” did not exist. They only had to complete a patron’s commission efficiently and skilfully. In the nineteenth century, however, painting became a question within the field of art. Painters began to pursue pure pictoriality, propelling painting forward—from Naturalism to Impressionism, Cubism, and abstraction, and from Dada to Surrealism. Painters thus took on the fate of modern art.

Art is different from craft. Skill is not indispensable to it. Even an inexperienced outsider can become an artist, provided they possess an exceptional sensibility and a firm will.

Sweep lines freely across the page and express yourself without restraint. With a sufficiently powerful will, you will naturally acquire new techniques. The stronger the will, the more techniques will emerge. The result may not be refined, yet it may become a great work. Conversely, even someone with excellent craftsmanship who practises from morning to night may produce something wholly unrelated to art. The latter situation is actually more common. This is what makes art both magnificent and frightening. Pretty and polished things can be imitated and copied, but the emotion that erupts from the depths of the human spirit cannot be reproduced.

Unfortunately, the authorities of the Japanese art world do not understand the difference between traditional artistic discipline and art. Listen to how they praise modern masters such as Picasso and Matisse: “They are extraordinary! But their work is the result of decades of accumulation; Japanese modern art cannot compare.” How absurd.

Picasso and Matisse both became internationally recognised masters of twentieth-century art in their twenties and thirties. What “seniority” or “decades of accumulation” did they possess? They became the masters we know precisely because their seemingly amateur methods overturned, in revolutionary fashion, the craft-based form of painting founded on years of experience and technical proficiency.

Publicly declaring “this is who I am” brings no advantage and often creates trouble, especially in Japan, where allowing others to speak for you rather than speaking for yourself is treated as a condition of authority. There are so many people skilled at guiding others into saying what they themselves want said that a direct statement—though it should be the most trustworthy—is instead disbelieved, resented, and mocked. People wait for you to stumble so that they can laugh. This is where “Japanese characteristics” become particularly visible.

A public declaration is a promise. Once you announce, “I am the true artist,” you alone must bear the consequences. Remaining silent is naturally safer. Yet sometimes we must force ourselves into a corner. Once we have made the declaration, we must assume responsibility for it completely and decisively. The larger the claim, the greater the responsibility. If we fail to carry it, we become a joke, a fool in the eyes of others, and lose social credibility.

We cannot prepare an escape by telling ourselves that everyone compromises, so we may as well compromise too. Depending on others or seeking their sympathy is equally futile. We must take one hundred per cent responsibility for our words. This naturally prevents arrogance and complacency. Far from becoming self-satisfied, we must engage in deep self-criticism—in other words, remain sufficiently humble before ourselves.

The “Japanese beauty” discovered by foreigners is ultimately different from Japanese beauty as understood within Japan; it is beauty seen through an outsider’s eyes. Japanese people themselves have declined in their ability to appreciate Japanese beauty, and this remains unchanged today.

Much of the “Japanese beauty” awakened by foreign standards possesses the exoticism foreigners expect.

Visitors to Japan often wonder why the Japanese are always trying to imitate Europe and America when Japan already possesses such magnificent traditional beauty. In everyday life, they may offer Japanese women an apparently reasonable opinion: “How elegant and beautiful Japanese women look in kimono! Why abandon such lovely clothing for Western dress that does not suit them at all? What a pity.”

Before accepting this opinion, we must consider the psychology behind it. Aside from a small number of intellectuals, what does “Japan” look like in the minds of ordinary Europeans and Americans? A woman in a long-sleeved kimono stands gracefully under a paper parasol. Mount Fuji and blossoming cherry trees appear in the distance, or perhaps a pond filled with irises, a small arched bridge, and a red torii gate. This is the Japan depicted on cheap mass-produced Japanese goods exported overseas—hanging scrolls, ceramics, and the like. Although the younger generation is now working to show the world Japan’s true appearance, it remains far from enough to dispel this misunderstanding.

To conceal present reality, continually cater to outsiders, and market only an idealised past is a profound humiliation to our culture.

Tradition, like art, can remain alive only by continually negating the past. To regard tradition as belonging solely to the past, refuse responsibility for it, and simply depend upon it is to turn tradition into an “antique” and kill its vitality. Extreme traditionalists flourish everywhere and greatly obstruct the passion of the young. Today we must adopt a powerful ultramodern consciousness, uproot false ideas of tradition, take responsibility ourselves, and create an entirely new culture.