Kenzo Okada
Japanese , 1902-1982
Insistence , 1956
oil on canvas
76 × 52 in.
SBMA, Museum purchase, Donald Bear Memorial Fund
1959.69
Undated photograph of Kenzo Okada
RESEARCH PAPER
I. THE SBMA PAINTING “INSISTENCE” – DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS
A. DESIGN – COMPOSITION, LINE, SHAPES
The lines and shapes are not bordered by hard edges but are soft and blurry. Some extend beyond the edge of the canvas: the top rectangular shape, the edge of the triangle upper right, and some of the lines. There is a sense of movement, due to the balance of staid horizontals and the lively diagonal lines. The lines, of varying width, are lively, flowing and assertive. The lines hold most of the action (the doubling gives them force), and their repetition gives a slow deliberate rhythm and unifies the composition. The shapes together create a diagonal from bottom left to top right, and the composition is balanced but not symmetrical.
B. COLORS
Okada’s harmonious colors are pale and faded, airy and light-filled. There are tans, pearls, creams, ivories; several tones of gray (medium muddy, dark charcoal, a greenish charcoal); a delicate light celery green. The background “empty space” is enlivened by subtle shifts of color.
C. TECHNIQUE
Okada probably used a paint roller to cover the background. For the next layers of paint, he used a wide brush and perhaps a palette knife. In some areas, the paint is allowed to drip slightly. The canvas was prepared so that paint seeps into the canvas in places. The lines and shapes are made with a broad brush, and a close look reveals two or more layers of color – for example a brown undercoat with charcoal gray on top.
D. REFLECTIONS OF NATURAL FORMS
The muted colors will remind some of water, hillsides, haze and mist, or a forest of birch trees. Some shapes evoke the patterns of rocks and flowers, and at the top area, the floating dots are like falling leaves. There is an overall haziness, which speaks of rocks submerged in water. “All this rich, painterly play produces something strangely parallel to nature’s own effects, close in fact to textures and tones such as we treasure in rocks and leaves and ageing wood, in the earth itself or in loving waters.”
“[N]ature is always present…in Okada’s art, and it is here that his identity with Japanese painters who lived five centuries ago is established, even though he has virtually nothing in common with them stylistically. …[H]e modifies natural forms strongly in the direction of modern abstraction, not as an intellectual exercise, but to extend our visual world into areas of contemplation at once joyous and serene.”
II. INFLUENCES ON OKADA AND HIS ART
A. JAPANESE TRADITIONS
1. BUDDHIST TRADITIONS; CALLIGRAPHY
Okada does not prepare sketches in advance but allows the painting to come with spontaneity, which he reaches through a form of Zen Buddhist meditation.
Japanese artists and Buddhist monks have practiced calligraphy for centuries, and we see the influence of calligraphy in Okada’s long, flowing lines.
“The great skill in the use of brush and ink by Japanese painters became even more evident in Japan’s medieval period … The cultural influence of Zen in the fifteenth century was so pervasive that many major temples established painting studios, and some monks … became specialized as artists.”
“Beneath the overlay of Westernization, there is a delicacy of approach and an economy of treatment in Okada’s paintings, that evoke … years of rigorous training in the demanding skill of calligraphy. These brushstrokes create a fresh and lively canvas, with a feeling of spontaneity and intensity.
2. INFLUENCE OF CHINESE PAINTING
Japanese painting is influenced by traditions imported from China. “The Six Principles of Painting” by Chinese artist Hseih Ho has informed Japanese painting since the 5th century. Important for Okada’s work are the first three principals: spirit-resonance (rhythm) and life-movement; structure-method and brushwork; and figuration of shapes in conformity with objects.
3. RELATIONSHIP AND CONNECTION WITH NATURE
The Western approach shows a clear distinction between man and nature; a rational and objective man imposes his will and logical order over nature. Western art is based on Aristotle’s theory of imitation - art reproduces an objective view of the external world.
By contrast, the Japanese consider Man to be an integral part of nature, not separate from it. They adopt a more non-rational, intuitive and poetic attitude, and their art expresses the vital energy and unity of all living things.
“One characteristic [of Japanese art] is a deep understanding and respect for nature…. For example, there is great respect for the natural materials from which a work of art is created. … In painting, it remains clear that we are looking not only at the subject, but also at ink or colors on paper or silk.”
4. COMPOSITIONAL ELEMENTS
Characteristic of Japanese art is the “importance of space, often empty space allied with asymmetrical compositions. … Symmetry often implies rationality and timeless balance, while the asymmetry and open space of Japanese art can suggest emotion and a sense of movement and change.” Also important is the use of contrasts, opposites and extremes. Lastly, there is often a sense of humor and playfulness.
B. INFLUENCES FROM THE WEST
1. JAPAN OPENED TO WESTERN INFLUENCES IN 1868
After 250 years of shogun rule, the emperor took power in 1868, and Japan was opened to the West. Within a generation, Japan was swept up in enthusiasm for all things Western; this influence was felt in fashions, architecture, painting and sculpture. Art students viewed reproductions of Western art, and studied under foreign teachers in Japan or abroad. In 1889 The Tokyo School of Fine arts was founded in 1889 to foster traditional Japanese art; the School later opened a department of Western style painting.
2. NEW YORK – ABSTRACT ARTISTS
Okada’s work was influenced by artists working in New York during the 1950s, known as “abstract expressionists.” Some influences include:
Barnett Newman – He created canvases of a single, uniform color, which “have a solemn concentration suggestive of deep inward revelation…”
Mark Rothko – He was interested in the “transcendental experience, and in his paintings, “atmospheric zones of color seem to hover in uneasy relation to each other.”
Jackson Pollock – By 1949, Pollock “began to do away with recognizable images and to drip, splatter, and pour paint onto canvases...” … “[T]he tangle of lines distributes the viewer’s attention over the surface as a whole, emphasizing its indivisibility rather than disclosing any carefully calculated set of relationships between the parts. … The … painting records the artist’s physical movements – the act of making – and the sense of direct contact with the artist and his state of mind thus results.”
Okada’s work is “abstract” but not totally aligned with Western abstract traditions. Unlike “Geometrical Abstract” artists, he does not attempt to reduce the natural world to a geometrical composition; unlike “Abstract Expressionist” artists, he does not attempt to express the inner world of the self through purely compositional elements such as color, line and form.
III. OKADA’S PERSONAL VIEWS
A. THINKING ALWAYS OF THE WEST
In Japan, Okada was a well-known teacher and a much exhibited realist painter. But, he was always thinking of the West. First he went to Paris 1934-1927, then to America in 1950. Okada recalled: “When I lived in Japan, I thought only of the West, and now that I am here I dream only of Japan.” His move to the West as an adult helped him to understand his own country of Japan. He said: “To know your childhood, you must be an adult. To know your country, you must leave it.”
Describing his decision to move to New York, Okada noted the limited aspects of Japanese art circles and also the rigid traditions in France. Okada was in search of a freedom in which he could freely express himself, and said: “The only place that such a liberty could be found, I felt, would be in the United States, a country that was still young…”
B. EAST / WEST INFLUENCES
From his experiences in both cultures, Okada came to this understanding of the difference between East and West: The West stresses the dichotomy between man and nature, and brings out our rationalism and objectivity. The East has a non-rational attitude, and their attitude is more intuitive and poetic. In earlier Japanese language, people would avoid the use of subject and object (“I” and “You”) because it highlighted the separateness of the individual from others and from nature. Japanese artists would attempt to unite the self and the world with a delicate balance of abstraction.
Okada’s works are both “abstract” and “realistic.” Sometimes they contain recognizable people and objects, but they are depicted in a way that creates a new world – a world that has “a floating detachment from an objective world.”
C. SOURCE OF SENSE OF BEAUTY
With age, Okada came to understand that the source of one’s sense of beauty comes from a foundation created during childhood. At age ten, “the childhood mind is so clear, so pure, without knowing. … After that foundation, [the] grown-up kind of experience is built on that.”
Prepared for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art Docent Council by Christine Vanderbilt Holland, December 2005
FOOTNOTES
Washburn, Gordon, Director of The Asia House Gallery: “Kenzo Okada, Paintings 1931-1965,” The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright-Knox Gallery (Buffalo, N.Y., 1965).
Canaday, John, “ ‘Beautiful’ The Painting of Kenzo Okada,” Marisa del Re Gallery, Inc., New York (1986).
Id.
Addis, Stephen, “How To Look At Japanese Art,” Ch. 3: “Secular and Zen Painting,” p. 58.
“Kenzo Okada, Paintings 1931-1965,” Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, “Forward” by Director Gordon M. Smith.
Addis, Stephen, “How To Look At Japanese Art,” pp. 55-58.
Id., pp. 8-9.
Id., p. 9.
Musterberg, Hugo, The Art of Modern Japan.
x. Id., p. 324.
xi. Id., p. 361.
xii. Williams, Robert, Art Theory, An Historical Introduction, page 209.
xiii Id
xv. Id., pp. 207-208.
Washburn, Gordon, “Kenzo Okada, Paintings 1931-1965,” Buffalo Fine Arts Academy.
Prokopoff, Stephen, “Kenzo Okada: A Restrospective of the American Years 1950-1982,” The University of Iowa Museum of Art (Iowa City, 2000).
Washburn, Gordon, “Kenzo Okada, Paintings 1931-1965,” Buffalo Fine Arts Academy. Id.
Okada Interview, Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
COMMENTS
Kenzo Okada was born 1902 in Yokohama City, Japan. From his childhood days he loved art but his father, a businessman, discouraged him from studying art, noting that artists often live difficult lives. However, after his father died when Kenzo was 20, Kenzo enrolled at the Tokyo Fine Arts University, where studied for several years in the department of Western art. Okada moved to Paris where he stayed for 3 years, living the impoverished life of an artist, learning from the works at the Louvre museum and from painting from live models. He worked with a famous Japanese artist then living in Paris, Tsuguji Fujita, and was influenced by his use of line. Okada had one showing in Paris, at the Salon d’Automne in 1927, and shortly thereafter, returned to Japan. He was 25 years old.
He continued to paint, and worked at his home and studio in Tokyo for many years. He married in 1935. His work was in the realistic or naturalistic Western traditions. However, he notes that during the time of WWII, painting in the Western style was not well accepted. “…[One] could not paint except for demonstration of [the] Army and Navy. Some popular artists were doing paintings in connection with the war to show everybody about the war.” During the war years, he and his wife lived in the countryside, and Okada painted landscapes and “some things from my imagination.” They returned to Tokyo at the end of the war, and he continued his professional career, having an exhibit in Tokyo. Okada was a successful artist, attracting approval from the public and the art critics. He won many prizes during the next two decades of his career, and was a member of the prominent association of contemporary artists in Japan, the Nikakai Group.
After the war years, he keenly felt the need to explore new artistic opportunities and styles. He felt that Europe, and specifically Paris, was no longer the center of the newest ideas, and in 1950 he moved to New York city, settling with his wife in Greenwich Village. At that time, he was strongly interested in Western art traditions, but had no knowledge of “abstract art.” Later, reflecting on the reasons for his move to New York, Okada said that he felt he was limited by the rigid traditions of Japanese art and was in search of a freedom to express himself. He came to New York to find a “fresh atmosphere.”
He saw the work of New York abstract artists, and became acquainted with prominent artists in New York such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Franz Kline, and other painters working in abstract art. He painted constantly, and after about three years, he met gallery owner Betty Parsons, who introduced him to many New York artists. Parsons saw his work and offered him a one-man show. Thereafter, she continued to represent him for decades, and he had many shows at this gallery. He had a very successful career in the United States, winning awards and prizes, such as the Annual Prize of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1954, the Carnegie Institute International Prize in 1955, and a prize from the Ford Foundation in 1960. He became an American citizen in 1960.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Okada and his wife lived part-time in the countryside of New York State; the natural beauty of the area reminded him of the Japanese countryside. He eventually lived half the year in Japan and half in the United States. He continued to paint throughout his life, and succumbed to a heart attack while working in his studio in 1982.
SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS
Okada studied art in Japan and then lived in Paris from 1924 to 1927. He returned to Japan and established himself as an artist. In 1950, he relocated to New York and soon had exhibitions at Betty Parsons Gallery, which was showing such luminaries as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1968, Okada reflected on his life in America and its impact on his art: “When I was in Japan I was always thinking about Western things. That trouble is gone because I am here in the West. And, step by step, every year my feeling was, oh, I am Japanese, and I was sort of haunted by Japanese traditions . . . before I came here I didn’t think much about Japanese things.” Okada’s clouds of color and the deft black lines that resemble a katakana character channel the ink and brush technique of traditional Japanese painting.
- Going Global, 2022