日本におけるアヴァンギャルド美術の展開と歴史的観点

Abstract

The first thing that comes to mind about Japanese avant-garde art would be the shinkō bijutsu undō (the new art movement) in the Taisho period. As one could guess, the Japanese shinkō bijutsu undō — yet to be called the avant-garde movement at this point — occurred at the same time with the European avant-garde movement during the 1910s, and was considered an important part of Japanese history. The avant-garde movement had its roots in socialism. This was in line with shinkō bijutsu undō in the Taisho period, which was also considered leftist, with lots of artists having interest in social problems. However, in the mid-1930s the Japanese government began to suppress the artists’ involvement in political issues. There had been movements claiming to be avant-garde in the 1930s, but these movements had no political implications anymore. Instead, they were simply an adoption of abstract painting and surrealism from the European style. The fact that the Japanese art movement developed at the same time as Western art is not irrelevant to the development of Japanese imperialism, which should be noted when analyzing the 1930s avant-garde movement. The Taisho avant-garde movement came from both European and Russian influences. The latter was developed around the time of Russia’s October revolution. It is important to acknowledge its relevance to socialism. Russia and Japan, in an attempt to “rebel” against western art, searched for an original style of art in Cezanne’s realism.