[Futaba] is just that, it’s hope. Hope that grows. A small feeling grows a stem, forms leaves, spreads its branches and becomes a large tree…it’s the beginning of this process. It exists, and there are people who plant it.
S prout the Ambassador is an iconic, thought-provoking work by Yoshitomo Nara, featuring two of Nara’s most famous motifs—the large-headed little girl as an ambassador and the futaba (two-leafed sprout), rendered in a tondo-esque composition. Belonging to the very first batch of iconic Ambassador series that Nara created in the early 2000s, it is one of the only six circular acrylic on cotton mounted on FRP works featuring both motifs mentioned above. It is also the only one from the series that is household-friendly in scale, as the majority are over one meter in diameter. Marking a turning point in Nara’s career, works from the series have been highly sought after. The first Ambassador painting on canvas, The Little Ambassador (2000), sold in 2016 was, at the t.mes , the second-highest auction record for the artist. Under the Hazy Sky (2012), featuring Nara’s sprout-holding protagonist, was featured prominently in the Artist’s recently concluded retrospective at Hayward Gallery, London. Executed in 2001, this work stems from the concave disks that Nara began exploring extensively shortly after returning to his native Japan from twelve years in Germany, where he had been immersed in Western art history and surrounded by classical masterpieces. Delicate Renaissance-esque brushwork along the surface of the fibreglass typifies the artist’s mature 2000s aesthetic, culminating in a striking portrayal of a fearless little girl eager to explore, encounter, and challenge the unknown. With penetrating eyes, she glares defiantly out at the audience, raising the delicate yet resilient sprout in her hand, as if to commence her duty as an ambassador with a speech.
“...I’m not an anti-war artist. I’m simply an individual who believes that any war should be avoided.”
Sprout the Ambassador constitutes Nara’s peace-advocating oeuvre, and this is his painterly response to his visit to Auschwitz in the year before he painted the present work. The sprout is a favoured motif that can be found throughout Nara’s oeuvre, ranging from his large canvas paintings to his works on paper and cardboard. Having grown up in the small town of Hirosaki, located 400 miles from Tokyo and near a US Air Force base, Nara has long been engaged with Japan’s complex and painful history with war and nuclear weaponry. Not alone in his exploration of World War II’s enduring impact on society, many artists of his generation have sought to examine the war’s legacy through their work, exemplified by Takashi Murakami and his theory of “Superflat”, reflective of the consumer culture that arose after World War II. Articulating deeply rooted sent.mes nt against war and conflict, Nara’s works often express his sincere desire for peace. For Nara, the sprout, is a symbol of hope and peace. “It’s just that, it’s hope. Hope that grows. A small feeling grows a stem, forms leaves, spreads its branches and becomes a large tree…it’s the beginning of this process. It exists, and there are people who plant it.” (Nara quote in “In Conversation with Yoshitomo Nara”, Exh. Cat., London, Hayward Gallery, Yoshitomo Nara, p. 73) It is also worth noting that a decade after painting the present work, in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, Nara famously uploaded his “No Nukes” anti-nuclear painting to the internet, allowing people to print it out and take it to demonstrations. Since then, his sprout-holding heroines returned and propagated significantly across his artistic creations through a wide range of media. This t.mes , the sprout.mes ant a lot more, as he commented:
"How many children have I depicted holding a futaba sprout...? I don't think many people have noticed that the nuclear plant in Fukushima is located in a place called Futaba."
Upon Nara’s homecoming to Japan in 2000, one year prior to the creation of Sprout the Ambassador, the artist’s style evinced subtle technical maturations – a disintegration of sharp lines into nuanced, meticulous and poetic brushwork, and a warming of his palette with pastel colours. In the present work, the surface texture comprises multiple layers of translucent colours and a multitude of intricate tones, which imbue the otherwise flat composition with an enigmatic sense of depth. Nara explicitly cited the pre-Renaissance Italian painter Giotto as an influence to his stylistic shift in the 2000s, and parallels can be observed between the two artists through Nara’s extensive formal experimentation with patchwork composition. The patchwork method of painting is reminiscent of how Giotto painted his frescoes, finishing compositions patch by patch on freshly plastered areas of the wall, which were painted while the plaster was still wet. This enhances the refined painterly quality of colour layering, which Nara, in an interview, noted:
“ …these ones which are rendered on patchwork cotton are much more painterly, with many layers of colour.”
The rounded form of the present work, reminiscent of Renaissance tondo paintings, is also worth noting. Commenting on his round paintings, the artist once said, “There is no necessity of having corners.” A Renaissance term for a circular work of art, the word tondo derives from the Italian rotondo, or ‘round’; created since Greek antiquity, tondi (plural of tondo) was revived in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy. Historically, tondi featured enclosed scenes, with the circular composition serving to focus the viewer’s attention on the central characters. The background scene in a tondo is either simplified or omitted altogether – a stylistic strategy that is echoed in Nara’s modus operandi.
By synthesizing diverse sources from different traditions and different eras of art history, Nara’s oeuvre operates simultaneously as a universal emotional vehicle through which viewers excavate childhood memories, and a powerful entry point into a re-evaluation of the canon of figurative painting, representation, and storytelling through art.
[雙葉]正是如此，代表著希望，會滋長的希望。細微的感受萌發，長出莖榦，結生葉片，枝椏蔓延，長成參天巨樹⋯⋯這就是成長的起點，它真的存在，而且有人親手栽種。
《芽苗小使者》是出自奈良美智手筆的經典傑作，別具啟發深意，奈良採用圓形畫幅描繪兩大個人典型主題，包括以使者造型現身的大頭女孩和雙葉芽苗。本作源自2000年代初奈良創作的首批《使者》系列，為其中僅六幅在繃裱於玻璃纖維強化塑膠的圓形畫布上以壓克力彩描繪小使者與芽苗的畫作之一。本作亦是六幅畫作中唯一尺寸適合粉飾家居的作品，其餘大部分是直徑超過一米的大型畫作。這個系列標誌著奈良在藝術生涯上的重要轉折，所以備受藏家追捧。首幅繪於畫布的《使者》畫作是繪於2000年的《小使者》，2016年上拍，創下當時奈良第二高的拍賣紀錄。《朦朧天空之下》（2012年作）描繪奈良的招牌大頭女孩用雙手拿著小芽苗，這幅作品在最近倫敦海沃美術館為奈良舉行的回顧展展出。《芽苗小使者》創作於2001年，奈良如此繪畫本作的做法，源於2001年他剛剛回到祖國日本，開始在繃錶了小塊畫布拼貼的凹碟上繪畫，此前他居於到處都是古典傑作的德國，浸淫於西方藝術史中長達十二年之久。奈良以具文藝復興風格的細膩筆法在玻璃纖維上繪畫，展現自己在2000年代已發展成熟的創作美學，最終造就這幅撼動人心的矚目之作，呈現出無畏無懼的小女孩勇於探索，迎接未知的挑戰。小女孩以略帶挑釁的眼神凝視觀眾，目光穿透人心，她舉起手中嬌小而強韌的芽苗，彷彿要以使者的姿態發表演說。
「⋯⋯我不是反戰藝術家，我只是個堅信應該避免任何戰爭的普通人。」
《芽苗小使者》是奈良用以宣揚世界和平的作品，他在到訪奧斯威辛集中營後一年，繪畫本作作為對參觀集中營的回應。芽苗是奈良喜愛運用的主題，在他的大型畫布作品和小型紙本與卡紙畫作中，都可見到芽苗的蹤影。奈良在弘前市出生和成長，這個小鎮距離東京約400英里，位於一個美國空軍基地附近，因此日本與戰爭和核武器之間複雜又痛苦的歷史，對奈良而言絕不陌生。他並不是唯一以藝術探討第二次世界大戰為社會帶來長期影響的藝術家，他的許多同儕藝術家也透過他作品檢視戰爭遺留下來的影響，村上隆以「超扁平」理論反映和回應二戰後衍生的消費者文化正是其中一個例子。奈良的作品訴說他從心而發的反戰和反衝突情緒，也闡述了他由衷渴望和平的想法。對奈良而言，芽苗是希望與和平的象徵。「正是如此，代表著希望，會滋長的希望。細微的感受萌發，長出莖榦，結生葉片，枝椏蔓延，長成參天巨樹⋯⋯這就是成長的起點，它真的存在，而且有人親手栽種。」（引述奈良美智，〈與奈良美智對談〉，載於《奈良美智》展覽圖錄，倫敦，海沃美術館，頁73）同樣值得留意的是，在奈良創作了《芽苗小使者》十年後，2011年發生福島第一核電廠事故，他隨即上載反核畫作《No Nukes》到網站供公眾翻印，帶到反核示威上抗議。自此以後，手持芽苗的小女孩回歸到奈良的作品，並不停現身於各種媒材的創作中，持續發展。此時，芽苗已經承載著更深遠的意義，正如奈良所言：
「我畫了多少個手持雙葉芽苗的孩子⋯⋯？我想沒多少人注意到福島核電廠的所在地名字就是雙葉。」
2000年奈良重返日本定居，在他創作《芽苗小使者》的前一年，他的創作技巧漸見嫻熟，銳利的線條轉化成細緻入微、富有詩意的精細筆觸，他運用淡粉色彩，讓整體色調變得溫暖柔和。奈良曾直言前文藝復興時期意大利畫家喬托是讓他在2000年代畫風大變的重要影響，而透過他在畫布拼貼和圓形畫作上進行的各種形式實驗，的確可看出兩位藝術家的相似性。奈良運用的畫布拼貼技法，其實近似於喬托繪畫濕壁畫的方式，喬托在牆面塗抹新的灰泥，在灰泥仍然濕潤時，以逐個小塊拼砌的方式繪畫整幅壁畫。如此一來加強了色彩套疊的精緻感，奈良在訪談中提及：
「⋯⋯這些繪於畫布拼貼的作品更有繪畫質感，呈現豐富的色彩層次。」
本作的圓形構圖令人聯想起文藝復興時期的圓形畫作，這點也值得一提。奈良談及自己的圓形作品時說：「稜角是沒有必要的。」文藝復興時期的圓形藝術品稱為「tondo」，此字演變自意大利語的「rotondo」，意即「圓」。這類作品始於古希臘時期，至十五和十六世紀在意大利再度復興。歷來圓形作品都用以描繪緊密細緻的場景，以圓形構圖讓觀者目光聚焦於中心主角身上，畫作背景大多被簡化或省略，這種風格形式與奈良的創作手法遙相呼應。
透過糅合不同傳統和藝術史上各個時期的創作元素，奈良的創作一方面勾起童年記憶，令觀眾產生共鳴；另一方面作為強而有力的切入點，重新評鑑具象繪畫、圖像表現和透過藝術訴說故事的界限。