Toru Haga
A research theme: Artist's essays on art

Some artists concentrate on creation intently without leaving some text and analects. But, others tell their original works or classic works if they are asked, and write reviews about creation. However, we cannot judge easily which artists are better. At my seminar, by picking up some of texts, which are criticisms, essays, letters, diaries, records and etc, left by artists of Japanese modern painting, oil painting, ceramics, calligrapher and textile-dyeing, students can examine the historical meanings, the relative merits as essays on arts, relationship with works, literary merits and so on. Until now, we have discussed texts written by Narashige Koide (Oil paintings), Kagaku Murakami (Japanese paintings), Kanjiro Kawai (Ceramics), Shiko Munakata (Print arts), and Muneyoshi Yanagi (Essays on folk craft). While deepeningthem further, we will study texts written by Ryusei Kishida, Bakusen Tsuchida, Kaita Murayama, Kiyotaka Kaburaki, Kenkichi Tomimoto, Yuichi Inoue, Syo Ishimoto, and Fukumi Shimura. Each is interesting. We will try to read Gogh's letter, Gauguin's Tahiti things, Redon reflections, Matisse's analects and so on.

Affiliation society :

Japan Comparative Literature Association Societe Japonaise de Langue et Litterature Francaises The Japanese Society for Eighteen The Society for Japonisme The Society for Meiji Arts The committee of Japan Foundation The councilor of The National Museum The committee of Library of Congress and Kluge Foundation