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Exhibition Seventy Years Later: Sugimoto Tetsuro's Reproduction of Ajanta and Sigiriya Cave Paintings Wednesday, June 25 to Sunday, July 27, 2008 The Collections Hall, Galleries 8 and 9 The painter Sugimoto Tetsuro (1899-1985) was born in Shiga Prefecture. He studied under Yamamoto Shunkyo, a member of the Imperial Art Board, and graduated from the Kyoto Municipal School of Painting (Kyoto City University of Arts). However, in pursuing his own style, he was repudiated by his teacher and separated himself from the Kyoto art scene. He later took up ancient Indian Buddhist art and established himself as a painter of religious art-as can be seen in his reproductions of wall paintings from the Ajanta and Sigiriya caves from 1937 to 1938. @@Sugimoto chose to reproduce as his prime subject Padmapani (the bodhisattva with lotus in hand), one of the most famous images depicted in Cave 1 at Ajanta. The Sigiriya mural paintings can be seen on the side of a mountain known as the Lion Rock, which was thought to been the citadel of King Kasyapa I (reign c. 477-495). Sugimoto was the first non-native painter to reproduce the voluptuous apsaras ("celestial maidens"), which are also well known as the "Ladies of Sigiriya." @@After completing these paintings, Sugimoto donated them as a single set to the former Imperial Gift Museum of Kyoto (later, the Kyoto National Museum). An exhibition of these works at the museum in August 1938 amazed all its viewers. Imagine seeing these foreign cave paintings reproduced in actual size in an age when overseas travel was like a dream, and color photography and printing technology were quite primitive. Moreover, Sugimoto brought together his general knowledge of art history, and experimented with canvas and different paints to achieve a textural expression that was impossible with photography. In midst of the dark clouds of the Sino-Japanese War, one can only imagine what Sugimoto's first viewers saw these works. @@This year marks seventy years since these paintings were first exhibited. The current exhibition commemorates this event by exhibiting the complete set of reproductions as well as related materials to reexamine the historical significance of these works. The impressions of our predecessors can perhaps be recollected through these works. @
Padmapani (Bodhisattva with Lotus in Hand), Reproduction of Painting from Ajanta Cave 1
Mithuna (Generative Young Couple), Reproduction of Painting from Ajanta Cave 1
Apsaras (Celestial Maidens), Reproduction of Sigiriya Cave Paintings |
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