Tsunetomo Morita "Grapes"

Tsunetomo Morita was born in the village of Tamai (now known as Kumagaya City), in Saitama Prefecture. Aspiring to become a painter, Morita came to Tokyo in 1901, where he first studied at Fudosha, a painting school organized by Shotaro Koyama. However, in the following year, he entered the Western Painting Department of Tokyo Art School, from which he graduated in 1906, and advanced to the post-graduate art research institute. In the following year, however, he left the institute and began publishing the art magazine Hosun, with Hakutei Ishii and Kanae Yamamoto. The magazine became a vehicle for his illustrations and opinions on art. Also in 1907, his Lakeside was selected for the first Bun-ten. In 1908, Morita joined a magazine company, Sunday, where he was responsible for producing political cartoons. In 1911, he joined the Imperial Newspaper Company (Teikoku Shimbun-sha) in Osaka, but soon quit and returned to Tokyo. Between 1914 and 1915, he traveled to Europe to study paintings and came under the influence of Cezanne. When he returned in 1915, he joined the Nika-kai, but quit in 1917. In 1916, he joined the Japan Art Institute's (the Nihon Bijutsu-in's) Western Painting Department, but in 1920 he again dropped out, this time with Misei Kosugi and Kanae Yamamoto, who helped him found the Shun'yo-kai in 1922. From mid-career, Morita produced many paintings in India ink and demonstrated his strength in painting poetic rural landscapes such as the plain along the Tone River. In the meanwhile, with the founding of Imperial Art School (Teikoku Bijutsu Gakko) in 1929, Morita was appointed head professor of the Western Painting Department, where he taught many painters. His best known works include Castle ruins (1916) and Heiya satsu (1928, Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art). In 1934, his posthumous collections were published under the titles of Tsunetomo Gadan (On the Paintings), Ga seikatsu yori (A Painter's Life) and Heiya zappitsu (Miscellaneous Essays on the Plains).

Reflecting the influence of Cezanne which he felt during his stay in Europe, this small painting is a structurally accurate depiction of grapes. Although Cezanne was known to have painted apples, pears, peaches and cherries, he painted very few still lifes of grapes. Furthermore, Cezanne used fruit as a motif to examine the existence of substance or to construct space, while Morita appears to have used grapes to express the refreshing feel and beautiful colors of fruit. In this, the work is similar to Monet's painting entitled Nature morte aux fruits (1880), which hangs in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg. In this sense, the work has a touch of the warm, sentimental, Impressionist style.

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Tsunetomo Morita
(1881 - 1933)
Grapes

Oil on canvas
32 x 41cm