Masamitsu Saito has been researching and collecting bamboo art for 40 years. Remarkably he has put together a collection of close to 1,000 significant works in bamboo, ranging from the Edo period (1603-1868) to today. His activities extend to advising on the mounting of art exhibitions in Japan and abroad, including ‘Lines and Shapes, Lines and Spaces: The Bamboo Work of Iizuka Rokansai and Tanabe Chikuunsai’ at Musée Tomo in Tokyo in 2018 and ‘Fendre l’Air, Art du bambou au Japon’ at musée du quai Branly in Paris in 2018-19. Some of the bamboo baskets he has owned are now in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
Mr Saito mentions that the earlier pieces in his collection are karamono. Literally meaning “Chinese things”, the term refers to objects that were imported from China as well as Southeast Asia and appreciated for their foreign flavour. Discussing the production of bamboo art in Japan, Mr Saito mentions the two main regions of Kantō, which comprises Tokyo and its surrounding areas, and Kansai, which encompasses Kyoto, Osaka and Nara. As an example from the Kansai area, he shows us a fine basket by Sakaguchi Sounsai (1899-1967), who was associated early on with the atelier of Tanabe Chikuunsai (1877-1937).
From the Kantō area, he presents a flower basket by Nakata Kinseki (1902-1959) made with split strips of slender smoked bamboo woven using an open yotsume technique, or square plaiting. Nakata Kinseki was active in the atelier of Iizuka Rōkansai in the early to middle part of the 20th century.
Mr Saito’s favourite bamboo artist, and the one he owns the most pieces by, is Iizuka Rōkansai (1890-1958). Rōkansai achieved fame at an early age thanks to his innovative approach to bamboo basketry and his technical mastery, elevating bamboo craft to an art form. This is well illustrated in three of the baskets Mr Saito presents in the video.
The Rōkansai basket in the shape of a boat is unusual for its dynamism and verve. It takes significant amounts of strength and care to cut the bamboo stem so that it does not split but can then be bent back on itself to create the fine weaving that forms the hull of the boat. The main strands are tied back at the other end and finished with elaborate plaiting.
Next Mr Saito shows us his favourite piece in his collection. Displaying an attractive off-balance composition, it is made of smoked bamboo whose deep brown colour is the result of long-term exposure to hearth or kitchen fires (in the process soot from the fires coats the bamboo, allowing oils from the soot to permeate, colour and preserve the bamboo). The basket’s upper part is made of madake, a species called timber (or giant) bamboo and which can reach over 15 cm in diameter.
The bundled-plaited technique (tabane-ami), one of Rōkansai’s signature innovations, is beautifully illustrated in Kokkō, the work he unveils for us especially. The title can be translated as “The Fragrance of the Nation” and the basket’s main motif is that of the chrysanthemum, a flower that was evocative of the imperial family as symbol of Japan. Rōkansai was one of the first bamboo artists to give poetic names to his works.
This video was produced with the support of the Toshiba International Foundation.
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