Japan is a country full of pockets within its dense urban centers and rural country. Everyone carves out their own small spaces within the narrow alleys and multi-story buildings of the cities, and the dense forests and sharp cliffs of the country. There are so many unique locations and perspectives that so many of them are overlooked and somewhat undiscovered. It can feel magical when you step into one.
I think the Kudou Teruhi Museum 工藤耀日美術館 is such a location.
Kudou Teruhi 工藤耀日 is an artist and painter born in 1939. Frustrated with the pressures and constructs of Japanese art and society, he sold all his possessions in 1986 and moved to China to discover his own identity. 18 years later, he returned to Japan and purchased the newly closed Masutomi Junior High School 増富中学校 in the north western mountains of Yamanashi Prefecture. He used the school building as his studio and opened the building to the public in 2008 as a museum to host his works.
Perhaps the most impressive showcase of his art is his massive mural lining the walls of the old junior high gymnasium.
The mural seems to cover a few periods of his life's work: his Women in Waves series inspired by the style of Pablo Picasso, his journey of Han Dynasty art represented by the dragon, and his paintings of Yamataka Jindai Zakura, the 2000-year old Cherry Blossom tree near the city down the mountain. He has been working on this for over 10 years.
Looking through old photos online, the mural was an evolving and continual effort over the last decade and it should continue to evolve in the future. There was a new piece on the floor in-progress.
The current location of the museum is in Sutama Town Obi District 須玉町小尾 part of Hokuto City 北杜市. When Masutomi Junior High School 増富中学校 was built in 1947, the area was Masutomi Village 増富村. The village would be abolished in 1959. One by one, each of the mountain villages in the area became incorporated into Sudama Town 須玉町 with Masutomi being the final piece. The area was named to Sudama Town Obi. Sudama was later renamed to Sutama in 1990.
Masutomi Junior High School closed in March 2004 due to further depopulation of the mountain villages. Any remaining students were transported by bus to Sutama Junior High School at the base of the mountain. Later that year in November 2004, governmental mergers combined all northwestern municipalities into a single city, Hokuto City.
Now, there doesn't really seem to be many people up here. Only the elderly folks who have lived here for over half a millenia remain.
When I arrived, I looked around to see if I was in the right place. I saw someone in the window and soon after an elderly man popped out of the main building. This was Kudou Teruhi 工藤耀日. He came out to greet me. I asked about the museum and he immediately pulled me into the gym to see the mural. He told me about working on the mural for over 10 years and about when he came here.
Next, he brought me into the main building to see the rest of his work. The entrance way displayed some of his contemporary works, a series of Chinese dragons. The first floor of the old junior high school had an open room (probably a multi-purpose room), the 1st-year homeroom, and 2nd-year homeroom. The open room displayed more murals of his women series. I think they were interchangeable screens used in his gymnasium mural.
The next room displayed his original work of his women series. He painted this series in 2005 and had photos of his exhibition of the series in Barcelona.
He took this time to explain his name. All of these paintings were signed as Kenji Kudou 工藤賢司, not his actual name, Teruhi Kudou 工藤耀日. For almost all his life, he used Kenji Kudou as a pen name for his work because it sounded much better. Much of his work and life was inspired by Pablo Picasso, and the name Pablo Picasso had a rhyme and rhythm that he absolutely loved. Kenji Kudou had a similar rhythm, so he used it.
It wasn't until he returned to Japan in his late 60s that he felt he had found his identity and wanted to mark his work as who he was, rather than someone else he was trying to be in his youth. His chapter as Kenji Kudou was complete and he could now be a painter as himself.
The next classroom displayed painted murals of Mt. Huangshan in China. While living in China, he hiked these mountains and was inspired as many artists have been in the past. Clouds cover most of the mountains, but when you climb the high peaks, you can see all the mountains in the range poke up from the white below into the sky.
It's apparently one of the most beautiful scenes in the world. He drew several sketches of the landscapes and painted those scenes at a large scale.
Upstairs, the personalized tour continued with the next room focused on paintings influenced by Han Dynasty history and culture. The painting above is titled "Animals From Han Dynasty."
In the next room, he had paintings from an assortment of series. He had a series that focused on Shingen Takeda and Yukitaka Sanada, two samurai legends of Yamanashi prefecture. He had a painting of Michael Jackson, and more recent Women paintings which bore his Teruhi signature, not Kenji.
The final room was devoted to a series of Sakura paintings. Much like most people, I love the aesthetics of Cherry Blossom trees. The pure white/pink petals blooming at the start of the year, representing youth and new beginnings set in front of the dark blackness of trees that have lived longer than any human and refuse to die.
This series focuses on Yamataka Jindia Zakura, an ugly gross tree that has lived over 2000 years. Kudou mentioned that the tree was not far away, so I went to visit the tree when I left. It's December, so obviously nothing is in bloom, but you can clearly view the skeleton of this monster tree.
Completing the tour of his museum, he showed me his workspace in the former staff meeting room. And he introduced me to his wife, who was studying Persian in the former staff room. At the front desk, I bought two of his books and paid for entry totalling 5000円. Entry was 1000円 and each book was 2000円. Expensive, but well worth the personalized tour and supporting this amazing artist.
I also signed his guestbook. Apparently I had been the only visitor since Wednesday.
This little space he had created in the world was incredible. However, the brilliance seems only matched by the difficulty of getting there. There are no trains. There are no busses (not really). It's located in an absorbed remote village that probably loses half its remaining population each year.
While they are many pockets of people in the dense mountain forests, I don't think there's anywhere else quite like it in Japan.
