The life and art of a Living National Treasure

This thin work of non-fiction does not reflect its depth and substance. While Back to Japan may not be the most captivating title, it does the job of identifying the key event in the subject’s life. The subtitle offers readers much more information: “The Life and Art of Master Kimono Painter Kunihiko Moriguchi.”

The author, Marc Petitjean is a French writer, filmmaker, and photographer. He has directed several documentaries, including From Hiroshima to Fukushima about an atomic bomb survivor, Living Treasure (2012) , about Kunihiko Moriguchi, and Zones Grises, on his own search for information about the life of his father after his death. 

Several years ago while Petitjean was making the Hiroshima documentary, he met Kunihiko at the late, lamented Hotel Okura. Kunihiko speaks French thanks to his years in France where he went to study at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs after graduating from Kyoto City University. 

He and Petitjean talked about France, art, Japan, Japanese art and culture, and he gave Petitjean a catalog of his painted kimonos. It piqued Petitjean’s interest, which resulted ultimately in the documentary, Trésor Vivant and this book.

Kunihiko was born in Kyoto in 1941 where his father Kako Moriguchi was a master yūzen artist. Yūzen (友禅染) is a  resist dyeing technique that involves applying rice paste to silk to prevent the dye from bleeding into other areas of the fabric. Originating in the 17th century, the technique became popular as both a way of subverting the Shogun’s sumptuary laws on dress fabrics and as a way to produce kimono designs that were hand-painted with dyes rather than woven. 

The Moriguchis survived the war. The U.S. never bombed Kyoto, although Kunihiko recalls houses being torn down to create firebreaks in the event we did. Around the time he turned twelve, a student of his father’s came to live with them and was soon joined by two others. “According to the old school to which his father adhered, being a student meant not merely learning a craft, but living full-time with the master, cleaning the house, carrying out all sorts of thankless chores for the family, keeping quiet and obeying orders.” 

Rather than stay at home as another apprentice to his father, Kunihiko entered the department of modern painting in the Japanese tradition at Kyoto City University of Arts where “teachers and students alike were dazzled by American Pop Art.” He, however, distanced himself from that movement.

On graduation, he applied for a student grant from the French government, won one, and in August 1963 sailed to Paris where he was exposed to Op-Art (in which repeated shapes are used to produce illusions) and became a friend and protégé of the French-Polish painter Balthus. Through that connection, he met Jean Miró, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, and other artists. 

He finished his course of study at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs and was courted by French companies. Friends expected him to stay on in France, but he decided to return to Japan and learn yūzen painting from his father. He realized that it would be impossible to duplicate his father’s approach, telling him, “I think your kimonos are magnificent, but if I have to draw the same patterns as you—” Waterfalls, plum trees, cranes, chrysanthemums. “—I might as well stop right now. I need to know if following in your footsteps implies working in the same style as you. I might as well tell you straightaway, I’ll never be as good at it as you are.” 

Rather than insist Kunihiko match his patterns, Kako gave him permission to follow his own path. 

Kunihiko’s patterns resemble Op-Art. He called his first yūzen kimono “Hikari” (light). The design is made up of squares that push and pull the illusion of space on its landscape, creating a sense of movement.

The geometrically inspired patterns create different visual effects thanks to the interplay between the background and the foreground or the movement created when the kimonos are worn. Back to Japan includes photos of both Kunihiko’s and Kako’s kimonos; unfortunately they are not in color. And while these are garments meant to be worn, they are also works of art now collected in museums.

The book, smoothly translated from French by Adriana Hunter, not only sketches Kunihiko’s life (and suggests the life of a traditional Japanese artist), it discusses kimono, the art of yūzen, and Japanese culture generally. 

“For me,” says Kunihiko, “tradition is like the purity of spring water. There always needs to be water falling into pure water. When it’s dirty, it overflows. And so it’s always kept pure. And I’m just one droplet in history. That’s how I see tradition.” He is also, like his father, a Living National Treasure, a trésor vivant.