Word: art
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...colorist as he is a draftsman. His heavy, almost garish, coloring emphasizes how far he has turned from the nice distinctions of tone and shade in eighteenth and nineteenth century Japanese prints. This very simple style, more Western than Oriental, mainly produces naive results; the childish, pseudo-folk art atmosphere of Stones in Water and Hawk Woman is most disturbing. However, the best color print, Nirvana, is so excellent that one is sorely tempted to modify one's attack on Munakata's color schemes. Here, in this haunting, mystical picture, color plays a positive and entirely thought-out psychological role...
...Paul Schuster Art Gallery is displaying now a good cross section of the woodcuts of Shiko Munakata, preeminent among modern Japanese printmakers. From this show, it is plain that Munakata has much in common with Western graphic artists, especially the Expressionists Nolde and Heckel. At the same time, Munakata does not deny his Oriental heritage; the masterful balance of simple forms, a famous feature of old Japanese prints, can be found in almost every work of this exhibit...
Many of the black and white prints are genre studies, impishly comic or decorative, such as the delightful Autumn. This sort of divertissment is amusing and impresses the viewer with its formal cohesion. These qualities, Occidental aspects of Munakata's art, are almost entirely missing from Visiting in Evening, the simplest, most "Japanese" print of the exhibit. With its understatement and perfect balancing, the print testifies to Munakata's complete mastery of the conventional techniques of his country's art...
Still, it is in his desire to reassert in individual terms vitality of the tradition that has underlaid Japan's artistic achievements in the past that Munakata experiments so extensively with Occidental styles. In this devilishly difficult task, he has succeeded; his art, at its best, is entirely personal and modern, yet also perfectly Japanese...
Rounding out the four-man squad, heavyweight Bob Wynne holds a 1-0 record, having been out of competition for three years. The only Crimson wrestler besides Foster to survive the first round in the Easterns, he pinned Art Giorgini of Brown...