LIVING WITH ART

HAIKU

I dare not go out today
 but there are two birds on the tree
In the cold wet falling sleet.

December 2009©

I can never see birds in the tree outside my window without thinking of the

Japanese printmaker Shiko Munakata.
Here are some of his prints of birds in trees

His work is just a perfect expression of how I feel 50% of the time the other 50% is made up of other feelings.
I empathize with his work
No not really his “work” but his “ being” his energy.
Poetic , erotic, committed to celebrating life.

But I want more............. more simplicity............... more metaphor , “more of less” more to ponder

I love the way he takes complex scenes and simplifies them ;transforms them from the complicated experience of human life and the natural world into to the innocenct perception of childhood.
This is largely a function of the medium of printmaking itself .

However, the choice to use the medium for this particular purpose is not one that everyone takes on board with such vigour which was ultimately a religious fervour for Munakata.

He said “ I want my body and my soul to become totally united with my work...I want to reach a state where there is no boundary between self and other or between body and soul, and everything is absorbed into the print itself” This was made when he had transcended the “ego of the artist” as part of his Buddhist practice.

his desire to transcend ego drove him on and he left a body of work that connected us to earthly things... and unearthly things to the everyday  a paradox indeed .

It is snowing heavily now ...... I consider the birds of the air
Google to see more of Shiko Munakata