Property from JAPAN SOCIETY, INC., N.Y.
MORITA SHIRYU (b. 1912)

細節
MORITA SHIRYU (b. 1912)

Untitled

Ink on paper, framed
36 x 26¼in. (91.4 x 66.7cm.)

拍品專文

In his "Editor's Note" of 1951 on calligraphy, published initially as "Henshu-shitsu yori" in Bakubi, no. 2 (July 1951) Morita Shiryu wrote,

I stress the world relevance of sho, so that we contemporary calligraphers will not wall ourselves in.

Secondly, we need to investigate thoroughly what makes sho the art of creating form [zokei geijutsu]. We must ask ourselves if we have not been too distracted by the meaning of the characters and the literary content of texts, and thus forgotten the formal quality [zokei-sei] of sho-- the fundamental element that makes sho genuinely sho and art. 1

1. Alexandra Munroe, Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky, exh. cat., (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in asociation with the Yokohama Museum of Art, the Japan Foundation, the Guggenheim Museum, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1994), p. 373.

A screen by Morita Shiryu was sold in these Rooms, April 26, 1995, lot 417.