Artists in Dialogue: Rouault / Fujimura
Many readers of Commonweal are familiar with the great twentieth-century Catholic painter, Georges Rouault — the contemporary of Matisse and Picasso whose oeuvre combined elements of medieval stained glass and highly modern, Fauvist art. A search of this blog will turn up four references in just the last couple years.
But I wanted to draw your attention to an unusual exhibition that puts Rouault’s work in an interesting context.
Starting today at the Dillon Gallery in New York (555 West 25th Street), you can take in “Georges Rouault / Makoto Fujimuira: Soliloquies,” which pairs the French artist’s work with that of a contemporary Japanese-American painter.
Fujimura, an evangelical, paints in the ancient Japanese Nihonga tradition, which uses crushed minerals. His work is abstract and semi-abstract and the pieces in this exhibition are part of a series he did in deliberate homage to Rouault.
To my eye, the dialogue between the two artists (visual and spiritual) is enriching and evocative. I hope you’ll get down to the Dillon Gallery to see it for yourself.
Georges Roualt, Automne
Makoto Fujimura, Soliloquies: Grace
The Japanese fascination with color goes back centuries. It is interesting (at least to me) to read elaborate discussions in their literature of the 8th century about what color combinations and shades are appropriate for seven layers of clothing in Court dress, where maybe only an inch or two of each sleeve layer might be showing.
Japanese art mixes simple lines with complex (in the sense of subtle) shadings of color. Sometimes it seems to may that color takes a leading role and line steps into the background. Sometimes it’s the other way around. But it is beautiful to me to see a Japanese artist do homage to a painter like Roualt on the basis of color.
I’ll try to find some, but I have seen some Japanese prints from the turn of the century (and I have one myself) that l would almost guess were influenced by Roualt. I wonder if I can get my scanner to work.