On a hot and humid summer day I found myself in a gently decaying resort town not too far from Tokyo. Like many such places in the countryside of Japan, it offers a faded reminiscence of a different moment. It is challenging to fully imagine what it all would have looked like new; the difficulty it has had with aging suggests a rather garish youth. Amidst the growing ruins of the bubble era, however, there remain a good number of buildings that do endure gracefully, often in a delicate relationship with their surroundings. It is striking that the same country’s architecture can display such sensitivity to time and place, while also producing so many structures dumb to such considerations.
The later hours of the afternoon were spent at an onsen (hot spring) that has avoided the somewhat melancholic fate of many of its neighbours. The concrete was worn and aged, with moss carefully encroaching, coaxing the building into its setting. It must have felt quite strange and uncomfortable when new, the awkward structure waiting to make peace with its environment. And that it now has. The colours of the building have a kind of faded luminance, softened with time but somehow gaining in intensity.
Watching the water ceaselessly weathering the rocks over which it flowed, I was struck by the different scales of time present. Gone were the divisions and partitions that provide regularity and comprehensibility. Such measures certainly have their uses, but at some point, there is a certain futility dictating order on a world so supple and alive. Instead, like trying to cup water to drink from a rushing stream, it might be possible to capture enough to drink some, but not enough to quench one’s thirst. Much of it slips through one’s hands; perhaps reality is like that.
Listening to the summer sounds fill the air, I was reminded of Kumagai Morikazu. A 20th century Japanese painter, he became known for a distinctive minimalist style composed of bright hues, contrasting cats, insects and plants against filled-in backgrounds of colours such as gold or blue. At the age of 17 he determined to pursue painting, studying art and then spending many years experimenting and practicing his discipline. His iconic work, the style that distinguished Morikazu as an artist, is something that he found and only fully reached in his 70s. There is something both remarkable and reassuring about Morikazu’s journey. It is not surprising that the definitive objects of his works were those of the natural world, living on their own times and rhythms, comfortably evading attempts to pin them down with grids and lines. Perhaps this is what Morikazu also achieved.
Meanwhile, we are left thirsty, vainly cupping our hands.