Martin LaFlamme, sulle pagine di JapanTimes, racconta quale sia l’obiettivo di Kenji Hinohara, curatore di una mostra aperta sino al 26 luglio all’Ota Memorial Museum of Art di Shibuya Ward: rivalutare e far conoscere Paul Jacoulet in Giappone.

Everything sparkled in the South Pacific — the plants, the birds, even the people. Color was intoxicating, each hue mesmerizing. No wonder French artist Paul Jacoulet loved it. He was in his 30s when he visited for the first time in March 1929, landing on Chuuk, an atoll in the Federated States of Micronesia, then under Japanese colonial administration. Immediately, he was hooked. He returned several times in the following years, hopping between Palau, Saipan and Yap, sketching and drawing, absorbing everything he could from the lush tropical surroundings. The memories never left him. A successful artist during his lifetime, Jacoulet sank into obscurity after his death in 1960. Even today, his work remains poorly known. This is something author and curator Kenji Hinohara wants to change.

Martin LaFlamme traccia il profilo dell’artista, nato in Francia nel 1896, raccontando come Jacoulet fosse uno straniero che violava le convenzioni al punto da essere considerato un eccentrico, ma che conosceva alla perfezione il Giappone e la sua lingua, che scriveva e leggeva perfettamente.

Jacoulet was an intriguing character: a foreigner who chose the life of a Japanese artist, a man with an ambiguous sexuality, an occasional cross-dresser in a conservative society, a fantasist who claimed that his art was not the product of his imagination but a true reflection of the world as it was. In his time, he was an eccentric. Today, he would be a social media star.

L’artista aveva una precoce inclinazione per tutte le arti e in questo era costantemente sostenuto dalla madre. Jacoulet non è stato l’unico artista occidentale nella prima metà del 20° secolo che ha prodotto stampe in stile giapponese, ma nessuno era così immerso nella società giapponese e nei suoi costumi.

Jacoulet displayed a precocious inclination for the arts, which his attentive mother enthusiastically encouraged. He was 11 when he took his first lessons with French-trained Seiki Kuroda, who played a key role in introducing Western art to Japan. Two years later, Jacoulet began studying nihonga, Japanese-style painting, with Terukata Ikeda and his wife, Shoen, both of whom had an enormous influence on his development as an artist. At 17, he registered for lessons in dance, shamisen and gidayū, a form of singing used in bunraku puppet theater. In between, he was also tutored in calligraphy.

Un’altra caratteristica davvero unica di Jacoulet è che fu uno dei pochi artisti che si occupava direttamente anche dell’edizione dei suoi lavori e nel 1933 fondò a Tokyo l’Institut de gravure Jacoulet per il quale reclutò i propri artigiani.