Word: kotohira
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Kyoji Takubo gazes at the spectacular screen paintings surrounding him?201 floral studies on a field of luminous gold?and declares that this was the place where he decided to become an artist. Growing up in Kotohira, a backwater town on Shikoku island in southern Japan, he rarely gave any thought to art. But one of his best friends was the son of the head priest of Kotohira-gu, commonly called Konpira, an important Shinto shrine that is the town's great pride and that is said to date back more than 2,000 years. So Takubo spent...
...more than 40 years after his revelation, Takubo is back at Kotohira-gu, curating an exhibition of the treasures of the okushoin?the first time many of the pieces have been seen by the public in 125 years. Takubo says it is fate that he should return to liberate the works he loves more than all others by offering them to everybody. It all came about when his childhood friend, Yasutsugu Kotooka, who is the shrine's 22nd head priest, asked him a few years ago what special events could be held in 2004 to coincide with Senza...
...Right now, the art attractions at Kotohira-gu are not limited to the treasures of the okushoin. Current exhibitions there also include four other galleries of paintings, sculptures, scrolls and screens from various periods. One fascinating show is a retrospective of the work of Yuichi Takahashi, one of the first Japanese artists to adopt Western oil-painting techniques. His still lifes and landscapes, from the second half of the 19th century, are a fascinating glimpse of an artist struggling to master a new and foreign style while remaining traditionally Japanese in his subject matter...
...good measure, there's also the sheer beauty of the architecture at Kotohira-gu. Alongside the dozens of historic wooden shrines, one new addition is a stunning mountaintop building that houses offices as well as a reception area for religious ceremonies?an ultramodern edifice of rusted iron and glass built into the hillside in a way that complements the main shrine building surprisingly well. Takubo helped design the new building with architect Ryoji Suzuki. Its innovative use of light and space?many of the rooms are actually freestanding boxes in the middle of a glassed-in atrium?has made...
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