Abstracts

Biography and Works of Tamura Goko, a Japanese-style PainterNAGASHIMA Keiya
Curator (The Niigata Bandaijima Art Museum)Japanese-style painter Tamura Goko
（1873-1940）
was born in Minamiuonuma, Niigata, and moved to Tokyo to study under Satake
Eiko（1835-1909）, a follower of Tani Buncho School. Goko showed works at numerous exhibitions in the late Meiji era.
The purpose of this thesis is to recompile information about his biography and works. This time, I was fortunate enough to not
only have his works and writings for my investigation, but also the opportunity to interview living members of his family.
In this thesis, I describe: Goko’s upbringing, his exhibition history, his contact with Niigata during his Tokyo era, the only
collection of art he published, titled Goko Gafu （published in 1909）, the change of his signature, his creative attitude and thefeatures of his works, results of a survey of his major existing works, and his activities in his later years. The end of the paperfeatures a list of works contained in Goko Gafu .
Throughout my investigation, it became clear that:（1）Goko placed his primary focus on landscape paintings, and painted hisimpressions of the scenery based on his own trips to the places he depicted,（2）Goko played a part in the modernization ofnanga by integrating his own unique style of shading based on Western painting techniques,（3）he insisted on the importanceof individuality in artistic expression in the Taisho era, and tried to change the style of painting while being conscious of newtrends in art,（4）in the Meiji era, Goko used his success in Tokyo as a foothold to become active in artwork production inNiigata, drawing several ceiling paintings in shrines and temples, and（5）a number of prominent figures, mainly in the Niigata
prefecture, owned Goko’s works historically.

Regarding Kumaoka Yoshihiko's Woman with Her Shoulders Bared and A
Study for Volendam（2）IZAWA Tomomi
Curator (The Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art)

This is a report on two pieces in our collection, A Study for Volendam（2）and Woman with Her Shoulders Bared and otherrelated information.
Kumaoka Yoshihiko（1889-1944）traveled to Europe at a time when he was developing a reputation as a mid-career painter inthe art world in order to build skills to use later when he returned to Japan. Woman with Her Shoulders Bared painted during
Kumaoka’s time in Europe, shows the influence of Edouard Manet, whom Kumaoka studied. Because this work was exhibited29

at the 7th Kaijusya Exhibition（1930）, which demonstrated the achievements of Kumaoka’s time in Europe after his return toJapan, and from the exhibition slip on the back of the wooden frame, it was determined that this piece was also exhibited at theArt Exhibition in Li Royal Family Deoksugung Palace.
Kumaoka produced A Study for Volendam（2）from materials gathered in Volendam, Holland, at a time when painters from allover the world gathered there to learn traditional customs. The study is one of the original sketches produced for the painting

Woman in Volendam , which was exhibited at the 2nd Prince Shotoku Commemorative Association Exhibition in 1930, and you
can see the process of trial and error leading up to the final work.
Both works are interesting in terms of conveying Kumaoka's interests and the results of his time in Europe, and I would like toexplore how I can utilize them in the future.

Yorozu Tetsugoro’s “Chaos”, Interpreted in the Context of Zen
SAWADA Keizo
Senior Curator (The Niigata Bandaijima Art Museum)

The words "I am a dark chaos" are written in a sketchbook believed to have been used by Yorozu Tetsugoro（1885-1927）
while visiting his hometown of Tsuchizawa, Iwate with his wife and children. I would like to attempt new interpretation of hisworks, focusing on the word “chaos”（konton ）, in the context of the Zen that Yorozu experienced from middle school to aftergraduation.
In an article he published in a newspaper during this visit to his hometown, Yorozu also used the word "chaos" to describe hisown beliefs toward his creations. The Japanese word for chaos, konton , as defined by a Japanese dictionary, means “a myth ofcreation, in which the heavens and the earth are not yet separated and are in a mixed state,” and the word even appears as far
back as Nihon Shoki , one of the earliest written works in Japanese history. I will also discuss how Yorozu wrote in the same
article about chaos as it appears in Zen, and presumedly that he would have experienced in his Zen training（such as in teisho ,a form of direct instruction on Zen texts, or in koan , catechetical questions for Zen meditation）. Furthermore, I will connect andinterpret a self-portrait photograph of Yorozu taken while he was a student at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts and another selfportrait painted during his homecoming period through the concept of chaos.
In this way, through the Zen he experienced in his youth just before becoming a painter, Yorozu assimilated the concept ofchaos, and began exploring the path for creation as a painter with this concept in the center of his mind.

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About the Magazine of Calligraphy Hibiki Edited and Published by Eguchi
Sogen
MATSUYA Kuninori
Senior Curator (The Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art)

Eguchi Sogen（1919-2018）presided over and published a learning magazine of calligraphy named Hibiki（1956-1976）, which wasfor children and students.
This article unravels the thought and practice of Sogen from the whole contents of all 250 issues of Hibiki which published over21 years, and testimony from pupils who actually learned with Hibiki and received guidance from Sogen. Also, it touches on therelationships between Sogen's own work and his activities with Hibiki .

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