Autobiography
IORI KIKUCHI
Chapter3 Art and I / You and I
It was my best friend, A, who inspired me to enter the world of expression. I admired his dazzling figure and followed him. Then I met many people through my expressions.
The First Encounter with Art
There was another figure that drew me into the world of painting, Claude Monet.
When I was about ten years old, I was already winning prizes in elementary school poster contests. It made me happy to be recognized by people for my drawings, and I began to think that voice can be heard here. In those days, I often learned how to draw by playing a game called Egokoro Kyoshitsu (Art class). It was a real game that explained briefly about art history and helped me learn how to draw and color.
Then, I fell in love with one painting. It was called Impression, Sunrise. I did not even recognize that the painting was by Monet at the time. I just fell in love with it. I felt the same emotions when I first saw a cherry tree's expressive wonder in full bloom. I was attracted by something I could not name about that tree. I was totally into the personality and talent of the artist who had created the marvelous Impression, Sunrise. As a child, I intuitively said, “I love this!” How could I have realized then that Monet’s painting is often credited with inspiring the very name of the Impressionism bloomed in Paris?
Through this game, I learned that being a painter is a real profession. Then I became interested in how Monet became a painter. I found out only later that Monet was quite famous. He was one of the pioneers of impressionism. It was then that I realized that this painting I fell in love with gave rise to that historical movement that changed the face of art forever. When I also found out later, that his paintings had the power to bring a new perspective to art history; I became smitten with his paintings and himself even more. Artists can tend to have a somewhat crazy image associated with them. Yet Monet also found the time to fall in love, have a family, and make a successful name for himself with his paintings. I admired this life. I wanted to fashion my own life after Monet. I knew that I had the love to be an artist, but I also knew that I desired to succeed in the profession.
I admired Monet so much that I studied painting in earnest. First, I went to a children's painting class. But it was very dull because it was meant to be for kindergarteners. Anyway, I wanted to hone my skills. That is when I discovered a culture center. I decided to go to a watercolor painting class that was for older adults who had retired. The average age of the students around me was about seventy-five years old, and I was the only one learning at age twelve. I was amazed at how well the old people’s hobby range of painting seemed very professional. The teacher was also a working artist who graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts. He taught me the art of painting as well as he did the adults. I loved that environment and always looked forward to the lessons every other Sunday. As a result of this experience and instruction, I learned how to paint in earnest for three years in junior high school.
I always wanted to learn at where Monet did. This was never possible for me, but I attended a high school in Paris where I could learn French. I went to France for the first time in the spring of my freshman year of high school. It was also the first time I could finally see that painting of Monet’s. I was able to see Impression, Sunrise in person! I was so moved that I cried. I tried to calm down, but I could not stop crying and the security guards supported me and took me to a rest area. That is how affected I was by this painting, and eventually all of the other paintings that were created during this period. There was a light in that picture that was completely different from what I had seen on the screen in the game. It was the first time I had ever cried looking at a painting, which surprised me.
In the end, I did not go to a university in France; I went to school in New York. Many of the current artists also studied art history from the masters. But even now, Monet remains my most devoted inspiration. I wish I could paint like him.
This world I am living as an artist is best described as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. There is no one place where things stop. In the midst of the constant movement of things, I traced one encounter or thought after another, which might be a moment, or even a lifetime. Whenever I think back on them, I wonder what kind of heavy, intense days they must have been. Through my experiences abroad, I have had so many other encounters through Monet and his works that I cannot even describe them all.
I will graduate from university soon. I still want to live in the world of expression. I am very happy to have met and embraced this world. Somewhere in the real world, we are all living in our own time, doing our own thing. The people I have met through art in the past have this similar sense of awareness. We may work together again someday, or we may never meet again. The world is small and also broad.
Art and I
As a Generation Z person who looks at a smartphone every day, the frame of that small screen has always bothered me. A square frame separates me from that phone. It never comes off, so I cannot go inside it. Even if I could, the phone itself is impenetrable for me. Then I realize that this same concept must apply to a painting as well. Then I remember in an enlightening way, the famous French painter, Claude Monet.
I have always adored Claude Monet who brought me into this world of art. However, I have always felt uncomfortable with the way I say “I love Monet.” His works are different because they are done a different time. I cannot help but lump them together and say “I love Monet.” Meaning all Monet. Even with my apparent discomfort at idolizing him, which puts me at odds with myself, I like his paintings so much that I can cover almost all of his works. More than even that type of loving, I love the world that Monet was looking at. I have always longed for his eyes as he stared into that world.
His landscapes were always made up of light, mixed with materials. Without light we would never be able to see anything. Beauty is made by light. We can only squint at the glare of the light and gaze at the landscape with a mixture of blinks. Monet’s paintings remind us of this reality. It may be that Monet's eyes know better than anyone else that beauty is a dazzling thing. That is why I like Monet's vision. That is why I never wondered why his paintings were merely produced upon a simple square, as are those of other artists. Nor did I ever think they were narrow, in the sense of not being wide, or in the sense of his worldview. From the beginning, I never saw just a square frame.
At first glance, the squares on the museum’s wall that housed his artwork, appear to me to be like windows. For example, when you look at paintings lined up at the museum entrance, it is like looking into another world. However, more deeply than that is the fact that I, with an artist's eye and sensibility, really am looking into another world. That is what appreciation of an artistic work is all about. The painting is there physically because of its frame, and we feel that we are looking into another world, be it a very small one. But in reality, the frame is only a medium, a small entryway into some larger and impossible dimension than the simple materialistic presentation. Through that medium, we borrow the eyes of someone who is looking at another world from inside another world. The more I love a painting, the less I need to realize the contours of the painting. The eyes gradually connect with the eyes of that distant painter.
When I first view another’s art, perhaps in a newspaper article referring to it, or online where I may see a jpeg image of a painting, I know that the things they create are dazzling and beautiful. But to me normally, a painting viewed up close, as in a museum, is not as dazzling as I thought it was when I first became aware of it. I would imagine how amazing it would be, when being physically connected to it.
Yet looking at some of Monet’s paintings, my eyes are full of light. After going outside, even as I enter into the light of the sun, I think again that Monet’s paintings which I saw earlier were dazzling and sublime in a way no common light can ever be. This is because all at once, I feel the light inside my body, but in a way that also feels like a calming coolness running through me. This strange combination of sensations lingers in my body, as if I were jumping into the burning light, while being protected by an impossible calm from that feeling’s opposite.
I have been to Monet's garden in Giverny, France. While walking through Monet's place, I thought the flowers and the landscape in a painting of his were much more beautiful than in reality. I could feel the warmth of his human presence. To be more precise, I imagined that Monet must have been here when I saw that painting and this place was more beautiful. Maybe this place did not exist before Monet. It may be that this was only a scene in Monet’s mind. I think the value of looking at a painting lies in this type of apparent contradiction. The senses conflict, but that reaction is perhaps what Monet was seeking, because it makes the mind awake to a reality of alternate dimensions. I find a view inside of me so strikingly deep that neither Monet nor I can see it, and that it does not exist in this world because it is unlike any other thing that exists.
You and I
Whether it is called happiness or just a moment of forgetfulness, each person is living in one body and at one time alone. There is no everyone here that is all inclusive. No one turns around when someone says to another, world.
I paint something. I create something. I say something. I explain something. But I don’t believe that words ever really get through to a large population of people. It is the same thing with paintings. There is no such thing as a painting that can connect and unite the hearts of many people. Paintings, of course, cannot be understood honestly and sincerely to others. People understand the meaning of each painting through their own individual and unique lives, experiences, and environments, so there is no such thing as a common meaning. As artists, we may be trying to convey something and get someone to look at something, but it is impossible to completely understand what the person in front of us sees in his mind’s eye. Maybe that is what makes the person who they are or what they are, to themselves and to others, in this place where countless people have lived and breathed, even if they remain alone; even as just a mere isolated entity, not to be erased and drowned out. Being alone is fine. Yet if you are alone, you are not immune to happiness, because it takes many forms. You do not have to try to fit in with the happiness that the word “everyone” entails. You do not have to deny that you are “alone,” and you do not have to hurt yourself because of it.
I do not mind if my motive for starting to paint is not about conveying a message or a meaning. No matter how you started your dream or your creation or how you started anything, it is inevitable that it will be finished in one way or the other. There is always at least the first frame and then it is relegated to a faraway place. I want to say here that, for me, a picture is not really an intention to project a message. If you want to convey a message, you can write it on paper with letters that form words that form sentences. There is that definite process involved that can be seen immediately. If your ultimate goal is to convey a message, then your paintings will become merely secondary actors subordinated to the background. I want the painting to be the final goal. I cannot have a narcissistic motivation that I want to paint something for your sake. But I paint and create something that you may see true self, you in front of my painting, as if there was a chair reserved only for you.
Maybe all the words I have written here and also in other precious chapters may seem like a lie to you, because I do not even know whether I want to tell you anything or not. However, I do know this; I am very happy that my paintings are reflected in your eyes. I feel like I have meant something to you, when I see your eyes squint and strain to pull something out of what you are seeing. Or when you light up with an open smile, or even when your face may turn down from tears. For then I know that you can meet you.