F erocious, provocatively primal, yet charged with electrifying grace, Kazuo Shiraga’s Hokei from 1992 is a deeply evocative and writhing example of the artist’s post-Gutai work. Shiraga’s tendency towards minimalistic colour in the early part of his career makes the present work a uniquely superlative piece for its resplendent use of white, black and yellow punctuated by moments of fierce red. Created 40 years after the artist first swung across a canvas to kick and heave paint with his feet, Hokei remains as striking and powerful in its dynamic gesture as the artist’s earliest examples of abstract expression. Despite the thrilling visual tension of the contrasting colours that are seemingly enthralled in a visceral struggle, Shiraga’s wide, loose strokes hold a natural elegance, reminiscent of the classical Japanese tradition of calligraphy. Shiraga's output in 1992 was relatively small, mostly works whose palettes are dominated by a single colour; the red, black, and yellow monochromes of these compositions seem to amalgamate in the explosive Hokei. Embodying the profound intellectual link between the great Japanese artist and classical Chinese culture, it is Baoji, in Shaanxi Province, the well-known historical city in China with deep cultural roots, that Shiraga takes as his subject for Hokei ('Baoji' in Japanese).

Shiraga’s series of works inspired by the characters and sites of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms began in 1979. After a lifelong interest in the classical culture and religion of China, it was in 1981 that Shiraga made the first of his two trips to the country, an event that would have a profound impact on the artist. Twelve years later he made his second visit to historical sites in China, which corresponded with characters and places described in Luo Guanzhong’s 14th century novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. During his childhood, Shiraga’s father gave him a picture book version of the 12th century Chinese literary classic Tales of the Water Margin, otherwise known as Suikoden in Japanese, a series of tales that would go on to inspire one of the artist’s most acclaimed series. Years later, Shiraga reflected that he was “so mesmerised by the story that I bought a book published by Shoumuin Shokan for Chinese children and eventually started trying to read the original literature as I got older.” (Kazuo Shiraga, “How I became to paint with my feet”, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, June 16, 1985, in Hiroshi Ikuta, Ed., Kazuo Shiraga, the record of lectures 1985 – 2001, n.p). This literary foundation for Shiraga’s compositions are thus “negotiated through narratives of the hero, where the hero’s status is defined by his bravery, noble deeds and physical prowess” (Kunimoto Namiko, Shiraga Kazuo: The Hero and Concrete Violence, 2013, p. 158).

Given Shiraga's love and understanding of Chinese culture, and in particular for the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, he found natural inspiration in the city of Baoji and its deep historical roots. Located beyond its southern outskirts is the Sanguan pass, one of the four major mountain passes in China, the rugged topography of this mountain pass gave it the ancient name of "the Sichuan/Shaanxi throat," and the pass had great military and strategic significance. A great military crossing through the treacherous path by Cao Cao and his army is detailed during the Three Kingdoms period, a thrashing intensity and heroic resonance that can be felt in the great swatches of violent pigment of the present work. Much as Kosha, the great “yellow sand” work of the same year, gives rise to the meteorological phenomenon in Asia whereby high-speed surface winds and intense dust storms carry yellow sand from the deserts of Mongolia and Kazakhstan wisping ferocity, so too does Hokei bring forth visions of the great cavernous spaces of the Chinese countryside, and the stories which have been told there. From Shiraga’s known paintings from 1992 recorded in the artist’s catalogue raisonne, the three other works feature red, yellow and black monochromes, colours which come together to form Hokei, as if the painting was the final crescendo of these stories.

Born in 1924 in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture to the family of a kimono business owner, Shiraga was exposed to traditional Japanese art from a young age: calligraphy and antiques, classical theatre and cinema, ukiyo-e prints and ancient Chinese literature. After studying traditional Japanese painting in Kyoto, Shiraga began to move away from the figurative style and pursue a more emotional direction of art, which, in the early 1950s, was marked by a desire to challenge artistic forms. It was in 1954 that Shiraga turned away from the conventional practice of painting with a brush, instead, fastening himself to a rope and using his feet to spread thick visceral layers of paint across his canvas surfaces in vital, gestural movements. While Shiraga's drastic act of discarding the paintbrush in favour of the human body aligned him with celebrated Western artists such as Yves Klein, who utilised naked women as ‘human paintbrushes’ in his Anthropometries of 1961, Shiraga’s art utilised his irreducible corporeality to battle with and awaken the raw vitality of matter itself. Such a paradigm epitomised the mission of the post-war Gutai artists who, literally uniting ‘instrument’ (gu) with ‘body’ (tai), rose fearlessly from the rubble of post-Hiroshima Japan to advocate a reinvigorating philosophy of ‘concreteness’ in their war-torn country.

In Hokei, Shiraga allows thick, heavy streaks of crimson, sun yellow, and snowy white to spread freely along the paths of his body movements, spreading towards the extremities of the canvas. The deliberate unevenness of the mix of colours evokes the struggles and standoffs between the powers of history and legend, and they are inseparably tangled by virtue of the fluid qualities of the pigment. These colours of animalistic intensity and naturalistic solidity ignite against the tension of the deep black background in a dramatic display of power. History is captured in the turbidity, the arcing lines and flying pigments, and the sense of speed and action in this painting. These powerful forces rage against the limits of the painting’s frame of Hokei, with the artist’s technique bringing together the heroic deeds and folkloric legends of the era from which it gets its inspiration.

白 髮一雄的《寶雞》創作於 1992 年，風格狂野原始，充滿挑釁，卻又散發出令人震撼的優雅氣息，是藝術家後具體派時期的代表作，透過扭動的線條激發深刻的情感。在其藝術生涯中，白髮一雄早期作品更偏愛極簡主義用色。相比之下，本作在白色、黑色和黃色中點綴著熾烈的紅色，華麗風格讓它成為白髮一雄最獨特的頂級之作。白髮一雄在創作《寶雞》的過程中，盡情在畫布上揮灑顏料，用腳踢和拖拽顏料。雖然他在 40 年前就開始這種創作方式，但筆觸的動態仍然引人注目，充滿力量，足以媲美他最早期的抽象風格代表作。色彩的對比呈現出驚心動魄的視覺張力，彷彿陷入一場內心的搏鬥，但藝術家寬闊、鬆散的筆觸卻流露出一種自然的優雅，一如日本的傳統書法。白髮一雄在 1992 年的作品數量相對較少，而且大部分以單色為主，例如紅、黑和黃，但在《寶雞》中，這些單色卻以爆炸性的筆觸融為一體。本作體現了這位偉大日本畫家與中國古典文化之間深厚的思想連繫。寶雞是陝西省一座歷史悠久的名城，文化根基深厚，白髮一雄就是以這城為靈感創作這幅作品。

自1979 年起，白髮一雄開始以《三國演義》的人物和場景為靈感創作系列作品。他畢生沉醉於中國古典文化和宗教，並於1981 年首次造訪中國，這次旅行對他的藝術創作產生深遠的影響。12年後他再次到中國，按照中國14 世紀羅貫中的名著《三國演義》中對人物和地點的描述，遊歷對應的歷史景點。12 世紀的中國文學經典《水滸傳》亦對他產生深遠影響，這一切都源自小時候父親送給他的一本《水滸傳》圖畫書，書中的精彩故事在他心中埋下種子，促使他創作出一系列深受好評的作品。多年後，白髮一雄回憶道，「我太喜歡《水滸傳》了，甚至還專門買了Shoumuin Shokan為中國兒童而出版的版本。隨著年紀漸長，我終於可以開始嘗試閱讀原著。」（白髮一雄，摘自〈我如何開始用腳作畫〉，兵庫縣立現代美術館，1985 年 6 月 16 日，編輯：Hiroshi Ikuta，《白髮一雄，1985 – 2001 年講座記錄》，無頁碼）。因此，白髮一雄藝術作品的文學風格源自「以英雄視角敘事，透過英雄勇敢而高尚的行為和強大的體力，塑造英雄氣概」（Kunimoto Namiko，摘自《白髮一雄：英雄與暴力》，2013 年， 頁158）。

白髮一雄熱愛中國文化，了解中國文化，尤其是《三國演義》 ，寶雞市深厚的歷史底蘊很自然激發他的創作靈感。寶雞南郊的大散關是中國四大關口之一，地勢巍峨險峻，自古以來因其重大的軍事戰略意義而被譽為「川陝咽喉」。三國時期，曹操曾率大軍穿越這條險要的關口，這一驚險軍事壯舉在《三國演義》中有詳細描述。白髮一雄用富有暴力色彩的顏料，在本作中恣意揮灑，呼應這種激烈的壯舉和英雄氣勢。《寶雞》描繪了中國鄉村的廣袤景象和發生的故事，其風格與畫家同年創作的另一幅傑作《黃沙》頗為相似，亦激發起觀者對亞洲地域性氣候的強烈聯想：在蒙古和哈薩克斯坦的沙漠，罡風伏地而過，掀起遮天蔽日的沙塵暴。白髮一雄自 1992 年起創作一系列著名的作品，另外三幅為紅、黃、黑單色調，但《寶雞》將這三種顏色融為一體，彷彿是這些故事的最終高潮。

1924 年，白髮一雄生於日本兵庫縣尼崎市的一個和服商人家庭，從小就在日本傳統藝術中耳濡目染，如書法和古董、古典戲劇和電影、浮世繪和中國古典文學。他在京都學習傳統日本繪畫後，開始逐漸擺脫具象風格，追求更偏向於情感表達的藝術方向，在20世紀50年代初期，這種方向表現為他對各種藝術形式的挑戰。1954 年，白髮一雄放棄用畫筆勾勒的傳統方法，開始將自己綁在繩子上懸於半空中，用雙腳在畫布上踢、拖拽一層層厚重的顏料，以生命力十足、姿態靈動的動作創作。白髮一雄摒棄畫筆，轉而用身體的劇烈動作為創作方式。這與伊夫・克萊因等著名西方藝術家的觀點頗為相似，但兩者之間也有區別：克萊因在 1961 年的《人體測量學》中，將裸體女性視為「人體畫筆」；但白髮一雄則以自己的身軀作為一種對抗工具，喚醒物質本身的原始生命力。這種創作理念代表戰後具體派藝術家的使命，他們結合「器皿」（具）與「身體」（體）的概念，以無畏的態度在日本廣島後的廢墟中崛起，在飽受戰爭蹂躪的祖國宣揚一種重新振作的「具體」哲學。

在《寶雞》的畫面中，白髮一雄透過身體的動作軌跡，讓深紅、明黃和雪白等顏色的粗重紋路自由蔓延，延伸到畫布的末端。他故意不調勻顏料，透過顏色的混合展示古老傳奇力量之間的對峙，再以顏料的流動性讓這些力量緊密糾纏在一起。這些色彩散發出如野性般的強烈氣息和極具自然主義的硬朗感，在張力十足的深黑色背景中，彷彿被點燃的火焰，以誇張的方式展示力量。畫面的混沌感、揮灑的弧線和顏料、線條的速度感和動感、將歷史凝於其中。藝術家從英雄事蹟與民間傳說汲取靈感，將其融入畫中，並利用獨特的技巧，展示出足以衝破作品框架束縛的強大力量。