風景のざわめきを絵筆の歌へ 木下長宏（近代芸術思想史）
近代から現代へ。技術は急速な進歩を遂げ、知識の量も圧倒的に増加した。われわれは、つい、自分たちが文明の頂点と最先端にいるように思い込んで、世界の情況や昔の文化を、現代の知識と技術の尺度で計り、解ったつもりになっている。その結果、近代以前の人びとの感じかたや考えかたを切り捨て顧みなくなっていはしないか。2011年のフクシマの出来事は、そのことを告げる一例である。これは技術の世界の問題なのだが、現代の人間は、技術を、人間の手によってコントロールできると思い上がってしまったのではないか。
「現代」の果てを生きる思いを抱え、「芸術」という世界と向かいつつ、安喜万佐子は、この問題を、フクシマの事件が起る前から、彼女の画家人生の始まりのときから、みずからの裡に投げかけ、絵筆を執ってきた。技術や芸術の可能性へ畏怖の念を忘れず、近代の呪縛を解き放つ一歩になる絵を描きたい、描かねば、と。
この問いに「正解」はない。日々、問いかけては問い直し、描き進めては出直す。その繰り返し。
彼女の制作は、あるとき彼女の眼と身体に飛び込んできた「風景」から始まる（安喜はそれを「風景」から逆照射されると言う）。それを「絵」にすれば、答に近づけるのでは、と彼女は絵筆を執るが、やっぱり「正解」には至らない。それでも、なにかがつかめそうで、また、絵筆を執る。この「風景」の逆照射に立ち竦み、あるいは彷徨うなか、安喜万佐子の喜びと苦悩が発酵して、一つの作品がそこにある。
「風景」を、彼女は、高い空から見下ろす視点に立ち（これは俯瞰ではない、むしろ東洋画の三遠の一つ「深遠」の視点である）、そういう高くから見下ろす絵を、フロッタージュのような地表を擦る方法で描き（これは仰ぎ見上げる「高遠」の初原的な姿勢だ）、松林を描く絵では、文字通り「平遠」の眼差しで「絵」にしようとしている。
空からの視点も、地表を這う視点も、「平遠」の視点も、「近代の人間」の視点から離脱しようとしている点で共通している。
そして、そういう視点を試みるために選ぶ絵具や画材は、テムペラや岩絵具、金箔、銀箔といった近代以前の工人が親しんだ、現代人には使い勝手の悪い画材。安喜は、近代以前の人びとの思考と感性につながる道を、こうして開こうとしているのだ。
「風景」は人間の身勝手な眼差しの彼方にある。彼女が求める「風景」は、「風景」という光と影と地熱の戯れが奏でる「ざわめき」といったほうがふさわしい。この「風景のざわめき」を、安喜は、絵筆で一つの「歌」にしようとする。
その絵の前に佇って、絵筆が歌い始める歌に耳を傾けよう。彼女の歌声にそっと和するとき、その絵にわれわれが出会うときである。観る者と作る者（画家）がいっしょに歌をつくるときである。その絵は、そんな悦びを、奥に隠している。
When Whispering Landscapes Become Songs on Canvas
Nagahiro Kinoshita (History of Thoughts and ModernArt)
Throughout the modern age, the rapid progress of technology and the enormous increase of knowledge have been remarkable. We, the children of the technological era, are apt to think of ourselves assituated at the pinnacle of this world, and have become accustomed to understanding its history and current state through access to masses of information standardized by technology.
As a consequence, are we in danger of undervaluing the precious thoughts and feelings of our ancestors? And are accidents such as the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake and resulting tsunami typical examples of breakdowns in the field of technology? Are we getting ahead of ourselves in our drive for progress because of a belief in the power of the human intellect to control technology?
Technology and art, which both have their origin in the Greek word techne and its classical Latin translation ars, are arguably still today entwined in the existence of contemporary art. Masako Yasuki was sensitive to such problems as an artist long before the incident at Fukushima. While painting, in awe of the possibilities of the technology and art, she considers their relationship and fate, and seeks to open a way to emancipate herself and us from the bondage of modernism.
Yasuki’s work is a testament to her struggle to defeat these problems, and her success in doing so.
Yasuki’s work begins with the discovery of ‘landscape’ through eyes and body. It is the living landscape that strikes her, but it is nothing like ‘landscape’ in the sense used in modern painting. It is a sum greater than its parts, as if it were existence itself. Yasuki calls this experience a visit to ‘the inverse perspective of the landscape’. She doesn’t only observe the shape of landscape, but also wants to feel it, and to be captured by a kind of heat of the earth.
Yasuki uses three methods to paint such landscapes. The first is to look downward from an elevated vantage point. This is not a bird’s eye view, but akin to shin-en, an ancient East Asian method of painting that looks deep, but not with depth perspective, from a high point of view. The second is frottage, a means in which she rubs the surface of the earth, and which is reminiscent of ko-en – looking up high while crawling on the earth’s surface. This is also a method of old East Asian art used for landscapes. The third is hei-en, another ancient East Asian method which entails looking at landscape from the horizon, and which Yasuki realises in her Pine-Trees Landscape works.
The method Yasuki choses is influenced by the distance from the modern stage she wants to assume in order to access the ancient thoughts and feelings that modernism has abandoned. Regarding painting materials, she selects from, among others, the tempera of medieval European paintings, natural pigments of old oriental paintings, kin-paku (gold leaf) and gin-paku(silver leaf). By becoming accustomed with these inconvenient and old-fashioned materials, she intends to open a path of communication with the ancient arts.
From a modernist point of view, all things are liable to understanding by man. Landscape, however, exists over and beyond such regard. The ‘landscape’ that Yasukiwants to realise on canvas is, as it were, a whispering or rustling landscape that is brewed from light and shadow by the heat of the earth. It is this whispering or rustling that she tries to put into song with brush on canvas.
Let’s stand in front of Masako Yasuki’s paintings and listen to the faint song that her paintbrushes make, for the moment of our meeting with her paintings will truly be born when we tune into the delicate lines of her songs. Then and there is the pleasure of looking at her works.
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