13799

ARAKI MINOL (1928-2010)

Subject: Mt. Fuji

Signed: 荒木實 (Araki Minoru)

Sealed: 荒木實 (Araki Minoru)

Dated: July 1978

Dimensions: 19 x 45 in. (inclusive of mount)

13 1/2 x 13 1/2 in. (exclusive of mount)

Media: Ink and color on paper

Format: Hanging scroll

Price: $ 13,000

In this painting, Araki Minol takes on the daunting subject of Mt. Fuji, the outline of which he renders in a series of delicate lines of ink. His signature splashed ink, which washes over nearly the entire painting, create three-dimensionality and perspective as it builds upon itself in ever-darker layers. A slice of unpainted paper on one face of the mountain suggests a flash of sunlight on snow. This whiteness then drifts up from the mountain’s peak like a plume of smoke. In the foreground of the painting is a cluster of trees, rendered in abstract daubs of ink.

Though it is perhaps the most frequently rendered subject in Japanese art, Mt. Fuji only appears in a handful of Araki Minol’s paintings. Born to Japanese parents living in Manchuria, Araki grew up studying Chinese painting. It was not until 1945 and the end of World War II that Araki first set foot in Japan. Even then, Chinese painting would continue to have a profound impact on Araki’s artistic development. In the 1970s, he studied under renowned Chinese painter Zhang Daqian (1899-1983), and many of his iconic sweeping landscapes depict scenery in China. Nevertheless, Araki did begin to incorporate elements of Japanese painting into his repertoire, particularly later in his career.

An artist who lived between many worlds, Araki Minol was a prodigious talent who successfully bridged the painting traditions of China and Japan, nature scenes and portraiture, classicism and modernity, and later, the artistic styles that had taken hold in the East and West. His unique hybridity, both biographically and creatively, laid the foundation for his vigorous paintings that not only synthesized these various influences but further revealed a highly original artistic viewpoint. Delicate botanical studies, intimate in scale, were as much a part of his repertoire as soaring mountain vistas, which could grow to multi-panel, room-sized installations. Works of this scale are in the permanent collections of Western institutions including the Minneapolis Institute of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Saint Louis Art Museum. Significant works by Araki can also be found in major museums, such as the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.