靉光

Born in Mibu-chō, Yamagata-gun, Hiroshima-ken (the present Kitahiroshima-chō) in 1907. Real name Ishimura Nichirō. In 1914, he was adopted by an uncle living in Hiroshima-shi. After finishing higher elementary school, his wish to become an artist was opposed, and he served as an apprentice designer at a printery in the city of Hiroshima. However, unable to give up his dream of becoming an artist, after studying at Tensai Gajuku, a private art school in Osaka, for a short time in 1923, he moved to Tokyo in 1924 and studied at Taiheiyō Gakai Kenkyūjo (Pacific Painting Association Institute). He began using the name “Aikawa Mitsurō” from his Osaka days and soon shortened it to “Ai Mitsu.” The correct reading of the kanji was “Ai Mitsu,” but his close friends are often said to have called him “Ai Kō.” Ai Mitsu’s work was accepted at the 13th Nika Art Exhibition for the first time in 1926. In 1927, he received the Encouragement Prize at the 2nd 1930-nen Kyōkai (1930 Association) Exhibition. For several years after that, he underwent a period of groping, through which he changed styles at a bewildering pace such as van Gogh-, Matisse-, or Roualt-like. Besides the Nika Art Exhibition, he submitted his works to a variety of exhibitions inviting entries from the public such as those organized by Chūō Bijutsu, Taiheiyō Gakai, Hakujitsukai, Kōfūkai Art Association, and Kaijusha. He also continued to submit works to exhibitions held in his hometown Hiroshima. It is well-known that Ai Mitsu lived in the Ikebukuro area in Tokyo and associated with the so-called “Ikebukuro Montparnasse” artists, but it should not be overlooked that he regarded involvement in his hometown Hiroshima just as important as his work in Tokyo and continued both throughout his lifetime. In 1929, Tsuruoka Masao and others who had been dismissed from Taiheiyō Gakai Kenkyūjo protested by forming a new group, Kōgenkai, and Ai Mitsu also took part in it. The group was later reorganized as NOVA Bijutsu Kyōkai (NOVA Art Association), and Ai Mitsu submitted his works to their exhibitions from the second show held in 1932. It was at these exhibitions that he presented unique small works employing melted crayon and referred to as so-called “rōga (wax painting).” In 1934, Ai Mitsu married, and life became stable thanks to the support from his wife who worked at a school for the deaf, but the groping in his art continued. It was in 1936 that Ai Mitsu came to a turning point. “Lion” (The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) won the second prize at the Chuō Bijutsu Exhibition. This was one of a series of paintings of a lion based on sketches he did at Ueno Zoo. The lion is transformed so drastically that it can hardly be recognized as a lion at first sight. It is presented as a heteromorphic existence, in which its presence as a substance stands out. The Lion series were also accepted at the 6th and 7th Dokuritsu Bijutsu Kyōkai (Dokuritsu Art Association) Exhibitions and developed into a further visionary “Landscape with an Eye” (originally presented as “Landscape,” 1938, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), which won the Dokuritsu Prize at the 8th Dokuritsu Bijutsu Kyōkai Exhibition. This painting is often referred to as “a representative example of Surrealism in Japan,” but the influence is not so simple. What would appear more noteworthy here is the point that Ai Mitsu had already realized “depicting ‘things,’ not ‘ideas,’” (“Bijutsu hihyō” 26, February 1954) an epoch-making phrase voiced by Tsuruoka Masao, which met with great response, prior to his friend’s statement. The way this painting portrays the overwhelming presence of an unnameable something keeps encouraging diverse interpretations from the viewer in the threshold between generation and disintegration of an image. Ai Mitsu ceased presenting his works at the Dokuritsu Bijutsu Kyōkai Exhibitions after the 9th show in 1939, and later took part in Bijutsu Bunka Kyōkai (Bijutsu Bunka Art Association) formed by Fukuzawa Ichirō and other avant-garde artists. As evident in “Hanazono (Flower Garden)” (private collection / on long-term loan to The Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu), which was presented at their first exhibition in 1940, Ai Mitsu proceeded toward a style infused with extraordinary phantasm expressed by means of dense depiction. Besides oil paintings, using a very fine “mensō” brush, he also experimented with mysterious, detailed drawings, in which the human body, machine parts, etc. were joined at random, and tried to publish them in the association’s bulletin “Bijutsu Bunka.” However, at a time when Surrealistic works were beginning to be regarded as dangerous, the editor decided not to include them in the bulletin. Furthermore, once Bijutsu Bunka Kyōkai leader Fukuzawa Ichirō was arrested along with art critic Takiguchi Shūzō on suspicion of violation of the Peace Preservation Law in April 1941, Bijutsu Bunka Kyōkai exercised further self-restraint on avant-garde activities. Ai Mitsu found this suffocating and formed a new group, Shinjingakai (New Artists’ Group), together with Asō Saburō, Itozono Wasaburō, Inoue Chōzaburō, Ōno Gorō, Tsuruoka Masao, Terada Masaaki, and Matsumoto Shunsuke in 1943 and held exhibitions in Ginza, Tokyo. Nevertheless, a draft notice was delivered to Ai Mitsu, too, and he left for the front in May 1944. “Self-Portrait,” which he had entrusted to a friend, was submitted to the 3rd Shinjingakai Exhibition held in September that year, and this became the last display of Ai Mitsu’s work during his lifetime. The war ended when Ai Mitsu was in China, but he developed pleurisy and amebic dysentery. Unable to receive adequate treatment and food, he died aged thirty-eight at the base hospital in Shanghai in 1946. After being called up into the army, Ai Mitsu disposed of many of his works. Moreover, the works kept by his adoptive parents in Hiroshima were lost in the atomic bombing. Consequently, the number of works remaining to this day is not at all large. Posthumous exhibitions organized by his friends at Hokusō Gallery in Tokyo and Asahi Hall in Hiroshima attracted the attention of a number of people, and through exhibitions such as “Exhibition of Four Artists” (The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1955) and “Ai-Mitsu and Sekine Shōji” (The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, 1967), the historic worth of Ai Mitsu was established. During the 1950s and 1960s, he was often ranked as an artist who met an untimely death at war, a “heretical artist,” or a “resistant artist.” On the other hand, through exhibitions such as “Chōgenjitsu kaiga no tenkai” (Development of Japanese Surrealistic Painting) (The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1960) and “Surrealism in Japan 1925–1945” (Nagoya City Art Museum, 1990), he came to be generalized as a leading artist in the context of the reception of Surrealism in Japan. (Ōtani Shōgo / Translated by Ogawa Kikuko) (Published online: 2024-05-15)