“浪漫の王道・新古典回帰”
作家・評論家 室伏哲郎
浮世絵版画の巨匠・歌川広重は、また、絵画理論で一家言を持っていた。 約１６０年前の１９世紀初頭・幕末期に、広重は「写真」という当時としては新しい言葉を独白に駆使して、 彼自身が「描くこと」の意味を説明している。 広重は言う。 「絵というものは、 画家が描くものではない。 表現者は、画家の描く対象そのものである。 例えば、富士山にしても旅人でも、その趣きのある美的存在や動きを表現している優れた表現者は富士山や旅人自体なのである。 従って、画家は、富士山なり旅人なりの、画家が心を勁かされる対象自身が表現している真実の姿を写すこと、つまりはそういう意味での “写真” の会得が大切だ」 と。
２１世紀の今日、 「俺様こそが表現者でござい」「描画は自己表現、自己表白」などと称する浅薄粗悪な迷画・怪画が巷に氾濫し、所詮「目くら千人目明き千人」の商業画壇や絵画市場でも不当な評価を与えられている。 愚者の楽園というべきだろう。
そんな風潮の日本の美術世界に、ひとり昂然として江戸の浮世絵師－立斉広重の言う“写真”、 つまりは表現者の真実の姿を 一貫して描き続ける現代の硬骨の絵師がいる。 村山直儀その人である。
広重は江戸八重洲の幕府定火消 (じょうびけし) の家に生まれた生粋の江戸っ子だが、村山は東京京橋で産声をあげたチャキチャキの江戸っ子気質。 その「粋 (いき)」への短兵急な思い入れが、先ず、ほんものの表現者の飽くなき探求とリサーチに、絵師自身を駆り立てる。
そのリサーチ自体が、 関心のある表現者の一瞬心を惹かれる動作や、 それに伴う存任感や美しさの発見であり、真実を全き共感をもって伝えるに値する描画対象の選別であり、同峙に、「写真」 創作の初期行勁ともいえる。
対象表現者の真実を漏れなく伝え写すためには、 精緻細心の匠 (たくみ) の卓越したメチエ (技術) と原表現者の存在感や一瞬の美にパーフェクトに感応する感性を併せもたなければならない。その点、村山は「絵筆は私の頭脳であり、最強の武器である。筆の中に絵がある」 と対象表現者の真実を写す独特のメチエについて言及、また一方、「自分が画面に遷（うつ）り、憑（つ）かれたような状況でマチエールを創るんです」 と入魂（じゅこん）の精確な写真創画の神髄を語っている。
村山の四半世紀に及ぶ画業を回顧すると、この対象の真実を描き尽くす絵師が、 生気と優美に溢れた躍動する馬や、存在それ自体が美の表現者である美女やバレリーナの生命の瞬間的な鼓動の真実を余すことなく写し、伝える営為に全身全霊を賭けてきたことがわかる。
いうまでもなく、 迫真のスーパーリアリズムと村山の真実を過不足なく写し尽くす真実の絵画との間には、物真似と本物の創意ほどの隔絶した格差がある。 しかも、その格差を際立たせる要素の一つは、 生来の都会人である江戸っ子広重の洒落た叙情性にも似た束京人・村山の凛としながらも情感に溢れて画而の奥深く底流を流れるロマンへの憧れにほかならない。
私は、１０余年前、 物象 (ぶっしょう) の真実を写し尽くす、 不世出の偉才画家Naoyoshi Murayamaの類い稀な才腕を日本洋画壇の珠玉と賞揚したが、その想いは、今日、以前にも増して強い。 刻々と近づく、世界画壇からの正当な評価の近未来を刮目(かつもく) して待ちたい。
室伏哲郎 （作家・評論家）
Orthodox Romanism and Return to Neoclassical
Hiroshige Utagawa, the great master of Japanese wood-block painting, had a unique opinion in regard to painting theory. At the beginning of the 19th century, in the last days of the Tokugawa shogunate (some 160 years ago), he independently and freely used what was for those days a completely new term. “shashin” (which means picture or photograph in contemporary Japanese),to describe the meaning of painting. Hiroshige said, “The painter is none other than the subject of the work itself. For instance,whether the subject of the work is Mount Fuji or a traveler, that which is actually expressing the aesthetic existence and movement of a particular orientation is none other than Mount Fuji or the traveler. For this reason, it is the job of the painter to copy, in a sense to transfer the mirror image, of the subject that stimulates him.”
In the 21st century, we are inundated with shallow misguided works making the claim, “I am the painter” and “painting is self-expression.” which receive unjust acclaim in both the business painting establishment and painting market where “for every person who sees there is another person who is blind.” It could well be called a “paradise of fools.”
Despite this unfortunate trend prevalent in the Japanese art world, there is one unbending modern painter who uniformly has continued to paint what the Edo wood-block painter Hiroshige Ichiryusai described as rendering the mirror image of the subject.
That painter is Naoyoshi Murayama.
Like the strongly spirited Edo native l liroshige, who was born into a shogunate fire fighter officer’s home in Yaesu, Murayama uttered his first cry at birth in Tokyo’s Kyobashi, and has the disposition of a true Edo-born native. It is this personal emphasis on elegance and refinement that first compelled Murayama in his research and quest to render the actual subject of the work.
This research simultaneously involves the immediate attraction to the subject, the discovery of the subject’s sense of presence and beauty, and the selection of the subject for its value in communicating reality with empathy. This could be called the initial stage of rendering the mirror image of the subject. Rendering the unadulterated reality of the subject demands both an outstanding eye for subtle detail and a sensitivity for responding to the presence and instantaneous beauty of the subject. In regard to the independent skill of reproducing the reality of the subject, Murayama comments, “The brush is both my mind and my greatest weapon. The painting is in the brush.” On the other hand, Murayama relates the essence of putting one’s heart and soul into the accurate rendering of the reality of the subject (which is actually expressing the work) as, “One becomes possessed by the painting, and it is in this state of possession that one makes the painting.”
When we inquire of Murayama’s painting experience over the last quarter-century, we understand that this painter who paints the absolute reality of the subject has devoted his body and soul to the occupation and act of wholeheartedly reproducing the true reality of the vitality and grace of a galloping horse, a beautiful woman whose very existence is the expression, and the fleeting heartbeat of a ballerina.
It need not be said that the divide between vivid super realism and Murayama’s paintings that are precise “no more no less”renderings of reality is the same as the disparity between a mimic and the actual subject itself. Like Edo-born and city-bred Hiroshige with his clever puns and lyricism, Tokyo-born Murayama is urbane and dignified, and this dignity, along with his surrender to emotion and his yearning for the romance flowing deep through the heart of the image, is part of what underscores this disparity.
Some 10 years ago, I praised the extraordinary ability of the remarkable painter Murayama to perfectly render the reality of his subjects, lauding him as the gem of the Japanese painting world, and that feeling of respect has become if anything even stronger over the years. I fix my eye on and await the near future when Murayama will receive his just appraisal from the international art world.
Tetsuro Murofushi (Authcr & Critic)