Yuichi Inoue (1916-1985)
Love(Painted in 1972)
Ink on paper
44 × 70 cm. 17 3/8 × 27 1/2 in.
Stamped with artist’s seal on bottom left
Note: An inscription by Unagami Masaomi with a seal is affixed on the reverse
Seeking for the Liberation of Calligraphy
Yuichi Inoue’s Soul of Calligraphy
“Write as you wish, and let go of all the vulgarity. Let the fierce wind blow! Those who risk their lives for calligraphy, take courage and pride and create a great history!”
——Yuichi Inoue
Out of Calligraphy but Beyond Calligraphy
The first and most impressive thing about Yuichi Inoue’s work is the wide open brushwork in the structure of the picture. As a representative figure in the development of modern calligraphy in post-war Japan, Yuichi’s attempt and span of calligraphy have long exceeded the traditional meaning of elegant aesthetics. He has broken through the inherent boundaries of calligraphy with his own unique attitude and will on the basis of the established tradition. Not only is it an expansion of the calligraphy’s aesthetics meaning, but also a response to the current situation of his own existence. In 1957, the Sao Paulo Art Biennial selected for the first time the works of Yuichi Inoue and other Japanese modern calligraphers: the modern calligraphy of Oriental, Asian, and Japanese origin has been included in the “avant-garde” international art trend, and merged with the popular abstract expressionism prevalent from the Western art world, formed the stage trend of East-West cultural fusion. This exhibition has led to the international recognition of Yuichi’s artistic achievements and has given him a unique place in the history of modern art.
As he wrote mostly in single characters or few characters, his works were mostly on square or rectangular paper, which visually resembled modern paintings, and was unique in appreciation at the time. In this spring auction, we present three works from the artist’s mature period in the 1970s: Shisso (Lot 83) and Ai (Love) (Lot 82), both completed in 1972, and Ko (Solitude, Loneliness) (Lot 84) completed in 1978, allowing us to enter the quiet but fertile artistic world of Yuichi Inoue.
Love: An Imagination of Sorrow and Happiness
From 1969 to 1973, one of the artist’s continuing themes is the word “love”. Ai (Love), made in 1972, is one of these works, in which he pines for his lover and pours out emotions: the whole character seems to lose its gravity and tilts towards the right, and the last stroke, which is not closed, seems to be the artist’s silent ending within. The traces of ink are like the ups and downs of a love affair with mixed feelings of sorrow and happiness...... If we connect these visual abstract compositions with the story of the artist, we can find that the seemingly simple black-and-white structure and Chinese characters indeed contain more meanings between the lines.
Shisso:Paint Calligraphy in the Simplest Way
In 1972, Yuichi created Shisso, a work that advocates embracing primitive nature in the midst of Japan’s booming material society. The work seems to have the composition of “painting and calligraphy as one” from Chinese landscape painting. The characters on the right side are like a large mountain that occupies the main frame, giving a rising momentum. Instead of emphasizing the “writing” of a single character, he uses the visual arrangement of “one piece at a time” to emphasize the act of “painting”, thus visually creating the ideal situation in the artist’s mind, in line with the meaning of “Shisso” in Japanese.
Solitude: A Lonely Heart Sings to the Sky
In 1978, Yuichi Inoue was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, and knowing that his days were numbered, he began to focus on creating his favorite monograms, and the four characters he wrote most often during that period were “moon,” “bird,” “tree,” and “solitude”. The former three words seem to contain the romantic imagination of the world, however, “solitude” is a summary of his lifelong art practice - it speaks to his state of life when he is accustomed to being alone and interprets his lonely state of mind when he is past his prime. The work Ko (Solitude, Loneliness) is framed in the form of a scroll, as it unrolls, it speaks of the artist’s inner mind- the two characters “子” and “瓜” are closely connected, as if life is entangled and converted. From left to right, top to bottom, the strokes of the work gradually move from halting and slow to smooth and fast, and the ink strokes change from burnt black to light. Ko (Solitude, Loneliness) is the artist’s “struggle from death to life”, which contains his most sincere thirst for life and hope.
“To write a word is to do your best on a word.” - This is the spirit of Inoue’s lifelong struggle with writing. He uses flowing black and white to capture the ever-changing modern world, his brush is like a dragon but his heart is like water. He writes the spiritual canon of contemporary literati with a style that connects both east and west, thus demonstrating the charm of calligraphy that transcends time and history.
