Kusegata (Arc) by Yamaguchi Takeo is a quintessential painting by one of the most important pioneers of abstraction in the pre and post-war Japanese and Korean avant-garde. The striking piece is equivalent in style, palette and motif to the most prominent works by the artist, namely: Work – Yellow (Unstable Square [Fuantei shikaku]), 1958, held in the collects ion of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Taku, 1961, held in the collects ion of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1959, Work – Yellow (Unstable Square [Fuantei shikaku]) was prominently displayed on the ground floor of the Guggenheim’s rotunda during the museum’s grand inaugural exhibition – attesting to Yamaguchi’s international status and importance within the global narrative of abstraction.

Yamaguchi Takeo was born in 1902 in Gyeongseong (present-day Seoul) in Japanese-occupied Korea. After studying oil painting at the state Tokyo Art School from 1922 to 1927, Yamaguchi spent three years in Paris before returning to Gyeongseong. In the 1930s Yamaguchi sent works to be shown at the annual exhibitions of the Nika-kai (Second Section Association), a pivotal avant-garde group in Japan’s pre-war period. Later in the decade, Yamaguchi co-founded the progressive Kyūshitsu-kai (Ninth Room Association) alongside several artists including Yoshihara Jirō, who established the Gutai group after the war; as well as Saitō Yoshishige, whose students later originated the Mono-ha movement. It was within this exciting atmosphere that Yamaguchi’s defining artistic legacy began. In these pre-war years Yamaguchi painted landscapes with hints of Fauvism, which soon evolved into an early form of abstraction with an aesthetic strikingly similar to – and which pre-dates by over a decade – the first of Clyfford Still’s Colour Field paintings.

Yamaguchi’s signature style reached maturation in the 1950s. Building on from his early landscape-based abstractions, the artist progressively pared down both form and palette, reducing his choice of colour to two distinctive hues of either russet red or ochre yellow upon a deep black background. According to the artist, the two colours represent the soil of Korea and China respectively; and just as a farmer would toil patiently on his land, Yamaguchi repeatedly layered on at least seven to eight coatings of paint for each work, responding intuitively to each layer and permitting each shape to evolve with a life of its own. Critic Asano Tōru writes of Yamaguchi’s process as thus: “As the thickness of the paint increases, the voice of the colour also increases. He listens attentively to that voice with his whole body and proceeds according to the demands of colour […] somet.mes s [also] suppressing them. In that process the form is reborn through colour” (Exh. Cat. Yamaguchi Takeo and Horiuti Masakazu, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1980, p. 243).

Works from the late 1950s to early 1960s are Yamaguchi’s most distinctive works and coincide with his rising international acclaim. Paintings from this period are defined by idiosyncratic geometric shapes suspended within black voids which, on account of their palpable sculptural presence, seem to float mysteriously like creatures from space. The illusory movement exudes a rich chromatic vitality that runs counterintuitive to the austerity of form and severe limitation of colour: with only a single hue of yellow against black, Yamaguchi was able to achieve depth via texture, illusion via structure, and movement via organic form. The final form floats up, buoyed and enlivened by the artist’s intuitive nurturing. Asano observes that the artist “tries to give shape, in accordance with the laws of natural form, exactly like the farmer working the earth, to things taken from nature, things widely expanding and overflowing, things towering and soaring upwards, things stable and unshakable, things usually in movement, and so on” (Ibid., p. 244).

Yamaguchi’s quiet yet arresting aesthetic was a solitary voice within the Japanese post-war avant-garde, which was at the t.mes largely dominated by Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel. Furthermore, in comparison to the flat surfaces of American Minimalism which developed in the late 1950s, Yamaguchi’s heavily impastoed monochromes carved out a distinctive space within the global canon of abstraction. Yamaguchi found recognition in the West as early as the 1950s and 1960s when he represented Japan at the Sao Paolo and Venice Biennales; while at home, unbeknownst to the international world, Yamaguchi played a direct role in nurturing – financially as well as artistically – the young frontiers of the Asian avant-garde. Amongst his protégé was Lee Ufan, who openly acknowledged Yamaguchi’s influence on his work and thought, as well as Kim Whanki, to whom Yamaguchi supplied brushes, oils and canvases during difficult t.mes s. Yamaguchi was also universally loved and respected by his Japanese students at the Musashino University of Art, where he taught for two decades. As such, Yamaguchi’s vision played a critical role in defining Asian post-war abstraction, paving the way for Mono-ha’s emphasis on nature and materiality as well as Dansaekhwa’s minimalist process-based aesthetic in the 1970s.

《弧》由山口長男所創，是這位二戰前後日韓前衛抽象藝術先鋒的重要作品。本作與藝術家不少鉅作的風格、色調與主題相同，包括《作品——黃（不安定）》，1958年作，紐約所羅門・R・古根海姆美術館藏；《Taku》，1961年作，紐約現代藝術博物館藏。1959年，古根海姆美術館舉行盛大開幕展，在地面圓形大堂的當眼位置展出《作品——黃（不安定）》，足證山口氏在國際抽象藝術界的地位。

1902年，山口長男出生於日據時期的韓國京城（現首爾）；1922至1927年，他赴東京藝術學校學習油畫，在巴黎生活三年後重返京城。在三十年代，山口氏每年均獲日本戰前重要前衛藝術團體「二科會」邀請參與年度展覽，數年後更與幾位藝術家共同創立更進取的「九室會」，成員包括戰後具體派創立人吉原治良及斎藤義重，後者的學生更成為物派運動的始創人。在如斯熾熱的藝術氛圍熏陶之下，山口氏的創作事業與藝術傳奇從此誕生。在戰前時代，山口氏的風景畫作略帶野獸派痕跡，不久後轉變為早期的抽象形式——其美學與十多年後克里夫・斯蒂在四十年代末創作的首批色彩繪畫驚人地相似。

山口長男的標誌風格在五十年代完全成型。他以早期的抽象風景作品為基礎，將形式與色調逐漸簡化，只採用赤褐與赭黃兩種鮮明顏色點綴深黑畫面。據藝術家自言，這兩種色彩分別代表韓國與中國的土地，就像一個在自己的農地上默默耕耘的農夫。山口氏每次創作時，都會堆疊至少七至八層顏料，讓每層顏料在畫面上自然融合、相互呼應，產生出獨一無二的生命力。藝評家Asano Tōru論及山口氏的創作過程：「隨著顏料的厚度增加，色彩之聲亦更見嘹亮。他傾盡全力細心聆聽那股聲音，沿著色彩的呼喚著手創作 […] 有時候亦會加以抑壓，形態便在色彩的變化過程中重生」（《山口長男與堀內正和》展覽圖錄，東京國立近代美術館，1980年，頁243）。

山口氏在五十年代末至六十年代初完成的作品至為矚目，這與他當時與日俱增的國際聲譽相符。這個時期的作品以懸浮在黑色虛空中的獨特幾何圖形見稱。這些圖形充滿立體感，看似伸手可及，猶如在外太空中飄浮的神秘生物。這種錯視動感煥發出豐富的色彩活力，衝破了嚴謹的圖象形式和極簡用色的限制——他在黑色之上僅用黃色，已能通過紋理創造畫面層次，又以構圖營造幻象、以有機形態帶來動勢。藝術家憑直覺揣摩，使圖案的最終形態懸空升起，在畫面上悠然漂浮，生氣盎然。根據Asano觀察所得，山口氏「根據自然法則創造形態，如同農夫默默耕耘，自然之跡形形色色，或取法自然，或擴散滿溢，或高聳而立，時而無堅不摧，時而行動如流」（同上，頁244）。

山口長男靜謐迷人的美學，在抽象表現主義及不定形藝術大行其道的戰後日本前衛藝術圈中獨出機杼。此外，相較在五十年代末興起的美國極簡主義平面作品，山口氏的單色厚塗風格在全球各地的抽象藝術流派裡可謂另闢蹊徑。早於五、六十年代，山口氏已代表日本參加聖保羅及威尼斯雙年展，受西方藝壇讚譽。雖然他的國際名聲在日本不見經傳，但他積極培育並資助多位亞洲前衛藝術家，例如韓國知名藝術家兼哲學家李禹煥；李氏亦明言山口影響了他的創作和思想。另一位藝術家金煥基在困難時期曾受山口長男慷慨照顧，獲贈畫筆、顏料和畫布。山口氏在武藏野美術大學執教二十載，深受日本學生尊敬愛戴。山口長男憑著他的藝術視野，協力界定亞洲戰後抽象藝術的面貌；他為專注探索自然和原材料的物派，及在七十年代興起、強調創作過程的單色畫美學開闢了新方向。