Morita Shiryu

What is directly manifest here is that that which is written is also that which writes; that, instead of form producing form, form is produced by what is without form.
–Hisamatsu Shin’ichi¹ 

The history of Japanese calligraphy began when ancient Japanese travelers imported the Chinese kanji (Han characters) system into the country. What followed next was an extraordinary process of internalization and adaptation: one involving an intuitive negotiation with the act of writing itself, which allowed for the gradual capturing and evoking of subtle nuances in the indigenous Japanese language. It is to such reflective roots that avant-garde calligraphy Japanese artists returned during the country’s regenerative postwar period: by unraveling the elusive yet resilient linkages between writing and text, form and meaning, the sacred heritage of kanji was reinvigorated with a ferocious dynamism – one infused with the radical defiance of Western abstract expressionism while being firmly grounded in the spiritual and intellectual essences of Far Eastern tradition.

Among the most important of postwar Japanese art groups was the Bokujin-kai (Ink Society). Co-founded in 1952 by five Kyoto-based calligraphers, the Bokujin-kai’s influence was quiet yet far-reaching, ultimately gestating the phenomenal cult of “the spontaneous gesture” known as Euro-American action painting.² Under Morita Shiryū’s leadership, the Bokujin-kai partook in extended intellectual and artistic exchange with Western art circles that proved to be reciprocally rewarding: the Bokujin-kai calligraphy revolution became enriched by a range of theories and practices, while Western artists looked to Japanese calligraphy in their search for a universal language of gestural abstraction.

Complementing Morita’s tireless advocacy was the Bokubi arts and literary journal, founded and edited by Morita and first issued in 1951. For the inaugural issue Morita used an image of Franz Kline’s work for the cover and published a heartwarming letter from the American artist. Featuring prominent artists including Isamu Noguchi, Mark Rothko and Mark Tobey, Bokubi proved to be a dynamic forum for artistic discussion between the East and West and was instrumental in raising international awareness for the Bokujin-kai. In 1954 the Museum of Modern Art in New York presented the pivotal “Abstract Japanese Calligraphy” exhibition, which marked Japanese avant-garde calligraphy’s official ascension onto the international art stage.

Alongside Morita, who was the most visible member of the Bokujin-kai, the reclusive Inoue Yūichi also received swift international acclaim during the postwar period. Exhibiting alongside the likes of Jackson Pollock, Yves Kline, Hans Hartung and Pierre Soulages at the São Paolo Biennials (1957, 1959 and 1961) and documenta II in Kassel (1959), Inoue and Morita stunned audiences at with their large, powerfully gestural ichijisho (single character paintings) executed via gigantic brushes applied to paper or panel on the floor. Detaching their concerns from mainstream aesthetics and semantics, both artists focused on the pure, unencumbered channeling of their inner states of mind via their entire body and being. Uniting mind, body and brush at the sublime pinnacle of meditative concentration, their paintings confront the viewer with formidable gestural force and emotional depth.

Inoue once said: “Large single-character works can be seen by the contemporary eye as a rediscovery of the art of calligraphy. The gestural, ideographical and structural nature of kanji are emphasized to the fullest when a single character stands alone.”³ In Lot 1006, the essence of Inoue’s single character 香 "ko" (fragrance) is emphasized by its deliberately asymmetrical placement: hovering at the right-hand edge of the frame, the character defies the rules of traditional calligraphy to evoke a transcendent lightness. With colossal strokes that miraculously contain quivering tremors and intricate rivulets, Inoue’s execution of ko evokes the drifting, hovering weightlessness of emanating aromas and scents – such that the very ink itself seems to breathe, threatening to float completely out of the frame.

While Inoue preferred the kaisho (square or printed) style, Morita’s more fluid strokes whirl within a vortex of increasing abstraction. In Lot 1001, Morita’s interpretation of the character 龜 "kame", meaning “turtle” (literal) or “longevity” (cultural inference), constitutes a breath of life itself, embodying the vital essence and spontaneous irreversibility that underscores the medium of calligraphy. In Morita’s own words: “When one writes calligraphy, it is the emotion, the rhythm of life itself that emerges and is given shape upon the paper. […] The vital rhythm of life, or the entirety of the artist and his world at the time of writing, is transformed into the movement of the brush, takes shape, and forms space, with the meaning of the written character simply acting as a vehicle.”⁴ Executed with lacquer and ink on panel instead of paper, the piece demonstrates Morita’s virtuosic mastery of the medium by preserving the aesthetic, rigor and spiritual essence of traditional Asian calligraphy while being incontestably contemporary and international.

¹ Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, Zen and the Fine Arts, trans. Gishin Tokiwa, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1982, p. 69. Hisamatsu Shin’ichi is a scholar, philosopher and frequent contributor to Bokubi, the arts and literary journal of the influential avant-garde calligraphy group Bokujin-kai co-founded by Inoue Yūichi and Morita Shiryū in 1952

² Alexandra Munroe, Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky, Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York, 1994, p. 132

³ Akimoto Yuji, A Retrospective: Yu-ichi Inoue 1955-1985, Kamimori Paper Foundation, Tokyo, 2016, p. 25

⁴ Refer to 3, p. 25