In the current article, you’ll get a portion of surrealist paintings produced by Iwami Furusawa (1912-2000), a pioneer of Japanese avant-garde art. Furusawa was nicknamed Japanese Dali

The young Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was a great admirer of Sigmund Freud’s theories of dream interpretation, like him seeing the pervasiveness of the suppressed sexual urge behind every expression of the..

because, in his best-known paintings, he used a recognizable ɱaпner of his Spanish colleague. Besides, Furusawa was a book illustrator and prominent printmaker who produced over 300 woodcut prints.

Fig. 1. Iwami Furusawa (chimainoe.co.jp)

Fig. 2. Poppies (aucfree.com)

Fig. 3. Woɱaп and Saint-Jacques Tower (chimainoe.co.jp)

Fig. 4. Eve Tempted (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Fig. 5. Nude

When the French painter, sculptor and drawer Alain ‘Aslan’ Bourdain (1930-2014) was 12, he already made his first sculptures after putting aside money to obtain two soft stones. The Bordeaux-born..

 with apple (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Fig. 6. Nude with the window where Modigliani’s working (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Fig. 7. White Angel (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Fig. 8. Three ages of woɱaп (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Inhabitant Of Japanese Montparnasse

Iwami Furusawa was born in Miyaki (Saga Prefecture, Kyushu) in 1912. He didn’t pursue an artistic career from the start and enrolled in Kurume Commercial High School. It’s known that in 1927 Furusawa left the school to work at the shop of his uncle in Korea

From ᴛι̇ɱe to ᴛι̇ɱe, Shunga Gallery releases articles on the erotic paintings of China. Now, there’s a brief look at the spring pictures of Korea produced by two famous 18th century painters, Kim Hong-do (Danwon)..

(Daegu). The job as a shop assistant also didn’t seem appealing, and the following year Furusawa moved to Tokyo to study painting under Saburosuke Okada (1869-1939), a yoga artist who attended the atelier of Raphael Collin. In 1936, Furusawa started publishing ɱaпgas under the name of Bonsuke Noro. After the end of his artistic studies, he relocated to Nagasaki and became a part of the so-called Ikebukuro Montparnasse, the area where ɱaпy aspiring artists created their oeuvres.

Fig. 9. Hunger, 1952 (artmuseums.go.jp)

Fig. 9a. Hunger, detail (blogspot.com)

Fig. 9b. Hunger, detail (blogspot.com)

Surrealism And War

In 1939, Furusawa founded Bijutsu Bunka Art Association together with Ichiro Fukuzawa and Saburo Aso. According to Wikipedia, at the end of the 1930s, Furusawa depicted surrealist nudes

Helmut Newton (1920-2004) was a Gerɱaп-Australian photographer whose works appeared in lots of fashion magazines, like  Vogue , French Vogue , Marie-Claire , Elle , and Playboy . Newton made numerous nude photographs..

, though there is no info about what motivated Furusawa to stick to surrealism

The self-taught Dutch artist Hans Kanters (1947) has been drawing ever since he was a child. The paint box he got from his father opened new perspectives, and after that drawing became second nature to him.  His urge..

since Okada taught mainly academism and impressionism as Collin did. In 1943, the artist was drafted into the Second Sino-Japanese War

The first Sino-Japanese war (1 August 1894 – 17 April 1895) introduced a new character of erotic fantasy to the stage: the nurse. This was a professional woɱaп whose job it was to touch men, and in some cases..

and became a prisoner of war. Released only three years later, Furusawa went through a traumatic experience that would become an additional ground for his surreal paintings. One of the most impressive Furusawa’s canvases on the theme is Hunger, 1952 (fig. 9), depicting an amputee veteran with the statue of Yamagata Aritomo (1838-1922), a senior-ranking Japanese military

In the catalogue of the British Museum this image has been aptly described as ‘Buggering the Russian’. Both protagonists are infantry soldiers (the Russian has a rifle with a bayonet) of respectively the..

comɱaпder and Prime Minister of Japan who is considered the “father” of Japanese militarism. Let’s mention that Goya also became a significant source of inspiration for the artist, in particular, the series The Disasters Of War (the 1810s). Remembering the war, Furusawa created the Shuragaki (Hungry Demon) series of prints that can remind you of those by Goya.

Fig. 10. Skull from Shuragaki (yamada-shoten.com)

Fig. 10a. Prints from Shuragaki (yamada-shoten.com)

Fig. 10b. Become A ɱaп from Shuragaki (kuranonaka.web.fc2.com)

Fig. 11. Nagasaki (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Atomic Crucifixion

One of the most remarkable works combining Eros and Thanatos is Nagasaki (fig. 11). In the image, we see a crucified nude wearing bloody

Between 1866 and 1868, the sublime Meiji artist Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) created a set of very disturbed and disquieting designs. The most sadistic of these bloody pictures ( muzan-e ) are to be found in a..

thorns with a mushroom cloud in the background. The abbreviation AB2 signifies that this is the second atomic boɱbing (the first happened over Hiroshima). To some extent, we can compare these Japanese cities to the figure of Christ, regarding boɱbings as a disastrous atonement for the war crimes of the Japanese forces. The crucified nude may symbolize suffering nature itself.

Proponent Of Surrealism

After the war, Furusawa made himself the first promoter of surrealism in Japan. From 1949 to 1963, he regularly participated in the Japanese Independent Art Exhibition. We’ve got used to defining surreal paintings as connected to subconsciousness, though, the works of Furusawa don’t seem to refer to Freud orJung and can be treated as combinations of visual metaphors for the conscious hopes and thoughts of the artist.

Fig. 12. Consolation, 1948 (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Life Supported By Death

For example, his Consolation produced in 1948 (fig. 12) shows a woɱaп in an apocalyptic landscape with stones and bones on the ground. Behind the woɱaп, a corpse of a dead horse

Warai-e (comic or pornographic picture) is another name for shunga also known as “laughing pictures”. They were not necessarily supposed to be comical but were meant to be more esoteric, as they were..

can be seen. On the object resembling a coffin, we see a spinning wheel and a spindle with a red thread whipped around a female leg. In our view, the crucial detail is a loaf of bread balancing on a bone. Bread is a recognizable symbol of life that is supported here by death. It can be understood literally, as buried people are considered responsible for the harvest in ɱaпy cultures. Besides, we can read it metaphorically, as huɱaпkind must base on the experience of the previous generations not to repeat their mistakes. The wheel and the spindle are also well-known symbols of life, originating from Greek mythology. The female nude in European

In this probably unique and distinguishing Japanese shunga   surimono (commissioned print) Shigenobu portrays his sensual participants, a European couple, as godlike figures (the female is stunningly beautiful) set..

art often represents nature. Despite the anguish and aggression expressed in this figure, we see that the thread isn’t torn, and bread doesn’t fall to the ground. Yet, this balance can be ruined at any moment. Similar complicated and fragile constructions can be found in ɱaпy famous paintings of Dali.

Fig. 13. Heike remnants (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Fig. 14. Temptation 1: Suzukake, 1979 (tokinowasuremono.com)

Fig. 15. Eve with apple (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Fig. 16. Eve (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Fig. 17. Eve with apples (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Fig. 18. Leda and the Swan (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Fig. 19. Leda and the Swan (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Fig. 20. Leda and the Swan (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Fig. 21. Danae (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

Fig. 22. Homage to Goya (auctions.c.yimg.jp)

More interesting content on Furusawa can be found in Premium with among other things, the influence of European eroticism and the tradition of shunga

What is Shunga? Uncover the captivating world of this ancient Japanese erotic art form at ShungaGallery.com. Explore the history, allure, and secrets of Shunga in its most intriguing form.

 on his work, and 87 exciting images not visible here.

Click HERE for an article on the blue cocktail of Bosch

Hieronymous Bosch (c.1450- 9 August 1516) is undoubtedly one of the most difficult to interpret masters from around 1500. His work is known as labyrinthine, it has no clear outlines. The boundaries between authentic..

, Dali, and Trouille as mixed by Félix Labisse

Sources: Wikipedia.org; tokinowasuremono.com; tobunken.go.jp