Illustrated is a rich
and fluid ink water color by Ningen Kokuho, Tomimoto Kenkichi. Most likely
rendered during the 1940's, this design shows the vivid and casual designs he
was well known for earlier on in his career as well as a bit of inspiration
from William Morris and the Arts & Crafts movement. The form is classic
Tomimoto and was used through out his career but these well conceived but more
naturalistic designs gave way to his more detail oriented and constructed
design for which he is best known for today. I really admire his early works
which included slip trailed, carved, raku and simple sometsuke pottery and
shows his pathway to the complex iro-e style of enamel painting that he was
made Ningen Kokuho for. What is clearly seen in the ink wash is Tomimoto's
impressive use of space and color and whether it is paper or porcelain, his
mastery of materials, technique and design stand out among the best of the artist-potters
of the 20th century.
You can see a previous
blog post which shows another ink wash by clicking on the link provided;
http://albedo3studio.blogspot.com/2012/11/its-wash.html