Word: shimizu
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...wages of distraction make their appearance in no uncertain terms when Shimizu attempts to deal with the figure. In Wind Child, Rope Jumper and Red Mantle, the walls come tumbling down. Here are problems which cannot be sidestepped. Rope Jumper epitomizes the situation. Against a sensitively painted background Shimizu has superimposed a figure which does him no credit at all. It is coy, purposeless and arbitrary...
...course, one can't do it par excellence on every occasion. What hurts is that the best of Shimizu's work is weakened by the same deficiency. The poetic gift, is at a premium these days. It would be a shame to see Shimizu's very real talents stray along a path of lesser resistance...
Lovis Corinth, whose hundredth anniversary exhibition is now at the Busch-Reisinger, shares much the same fate. Corinth, of course, shows the experience which the young Shimizu lacks, but often not enough when the chips are down...
...fact that Corinth's instincts were always poetic makes his flaw particularly lamentable. Shimizu might take his cue. When Corinth does a watercolor like The Beautiful Imperia, a loose wash of lucid color, he arrives at a quality which most of his Teutonic contemporaries generally lack--a naive loveliness, (the word used wholly in complimentary fashion.). The same goes for Susanna and the Elders or Imperial Palace. But when he draws, or tries to draw, his linear Knight, the result is nothing short of inexcusable...
Most of the Corinths were done in the Europe of the early twenties. Shimizu, working in the America of the fifties, will have an even greater struggle with form because exalted amorphousness abounds in our day. The impetus, if it is to come, must come from within. Shimizu has the temperment and we shall all be fortunate if he succeeds...