"Searching For Essences"
Akiro Ito

By Andy Couturier(c) 1999
Yamanashi, Japan

 
 
Articles from the Japan Times series "Alternative Luxuries"
(each article will be rewritten into a book chapter in the forthcoming: A Different Kind of Luxury)
  
     
 
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  Mr. Akira Ito is an exceedingly modest and soft-spoken man, whose eyes reveal a wisdom and generosity of spirit uncommon in our times. His wispy beard, callused hands and concave cheeks give a quiet humility, almost a sadness, to his demeanor.  
   
  He spends most of his days either at his home in a small mountain village near Mt. Fuji, or as an itinerant artist painting handmade books in India and China. He also occasionally travels to Tokyo to exhibit his paintings, or to give lectures at conferences on the disappearing cultures of tribal minorities in India. In his sixty two years he has worked as an electrical engineer at a petroleum refinery, a labor union official, an archivist, an editorial designer, and an anthropological researcher at Delhi University. He also has done extensive research in theoretical astrophysics. Nowadays, his income comes primarily from illustrating children's books.  
   
  When I first met him at an exhibition of his hand-made books, he shared with me a couple of his formative experiences.  
  "I was ten years old when the town next to me was bombed by US fighter planes at the end of World War II. I survived the firestorm unhurt, but I was very frightened. I started to wonder, 'When is it that I will die?' A few years later, I read an illustrated article in a children's science magazine entitled, 'The Earth's Very Last Day,' which described how the sun will someday expand and explode, and burn up our planet completely. From that time on I wanted to know everything I could about the universe; I needed to find an answer to the question, 'Why are we humans here, alive now, and where are we going?' "  
  It has been the insistent nature of this question that caused him, at twenty eight, to quit his job at the refinery, and, like many philosophical seekers before him, look for the answer in art.  
  He journeyed across the Asian high plateau via the trans-Siberian railroad and studied in an art academy in Milan, Italy. He then traveled through Europe studying the techniques of Hieronymous Bosch, Goya, Bruegel, Van Gogh and, especially, Gauguin.  
  But Mr. Ito's main artistic influence came from much closer to home. "It may sound strange to your ears," he says as he hands me a thick book of ink drawings and wood block prints mostly dating from the 1940s, "but this man is my teacher, even though I never met him." The tome turns out to be an anthology of the works of Takeshi Motai, one of the finest exponents of the Japanese folk art movement.  
   
  The pages of the large-format volume are heavy, and the simple, rough-edged lines match the mood of their subjects perfectly. Each is a sensitive and generous rendering of everyday life of the early Showa period: two men heading out in the snow with shovels, a young schoolteacher next to a desk talking to a pupil in a black uniform.  
  One can see Motai's influence in Mr. Ito's illustrations, and in the ink paintings which accompany the essays he submits to a monthly magazine on Indian art and culture.  
  "Mr. Ito's guiding concept is simplicity," explains Mr. Gufudo Watanabe, a long time associate and friend. "He avoids complexity of expression in his ink drawings because he feels that a lot of finely detailed drawings and paintings have no 'flavor' to them. He prefers hand-crafted and unsophisticated art, things made by common people. Without artifice or professionalism, the essence of an expression can shine through."  
   
  The seeking for the essential nature of things has been a guiding concept for Mr. Ito. "When I am painting," he says, "the most important thing for me is to condense the feeling of the entire environment into a single representative image, and when I am writing my essays, to express the mood of a place in a few key words."  
  His search for essences has also informed his research into theoretical physics. "I've developed my theory of the cosmos from many sources," he explains. "Of course I've studied all the major Western scientists such as Hawking, Schrodinger and Einstein--and Japanese researchers as well, such as Mr. Fumitaka Sato. But I never felt that Western science was sufficient in itself to really understand the functioning of energy in the universe. That's why a lot of my research is very practical, exploring energy through yoga and meditation. That's also why I've studied a lot of Vedanta, the Hindu theory of cosmology. Finally, about fifteen years ago, after many years of study and practice, I started to be able to see past the surface of physical objects and down underneath, into their energetic essence."  
  The effortless movement of Mr. Ito's conversation between particle physics, brush and charcoal ink painting and Hindu mysticism make these diverse disciplines seem little more than variations on a single theme. And indeed, for Mr. Ito, the concept of integrating a grand theory of the cosmos around the single theme of energy has been the star by which he has navigated his many investigations.  
  "Most people think that there's a complete vacuum of nothingness in the vast spaces between the galaxies; but even there, there's a very thin spread of energy in between: a fine field. Everywhere has energy. The universe is a phenomenon of energy, it is nothing more or less."  
  It's the expression of this same energy that his art attempts to convey. As he explains it, "Energy is vibration, of course you know that. A painting is the energetic vibration of light particles, and music is the energetic vibration of sound. The connection between these two is extremely deep."  
  Preservation of cultural traditions has always been crucial to Mr. Ito. Besides his study of the 108 statues of the goddess Kannon at Delhi University in the 1970s and his ongoing documentation on the effect of tourism and commercialization on the unique wall paintings of Mithila village in the Bihar state of Northern India, he has been particularly active in trying to rescue the dying art of making books by hand.  
   
  "In Nepal, I researched the ancient tradition of handmade paper and I recorded these methods by drawing illustrations and writing text in Japanese for a small book describing them. I had met a Tibetan monk who was an expert in wood block print making who agreed to carve my designs and lettering onto wooden templates. We used those blocks to print a book on the same handmade paper."  
  Indeed the small volume, which fits into a box about the size of two packs of cards, reveals an aesthetic sensibility both textured and filled with affection. Quite aside from the soft and woven surface given to the pages by the use of natural materials, the images and lettering display a bold yet warmly inviting style. Although the pictures treat the peasant life of the Indian subcontinent, the influence of Japanese folk art is quite evident as well.  
  It's just another way that Mr. Ito has been able to save traditions from extinction by reinterpreting them though a new set of eyes, and placing them in a new context.  
   
  When we finished our interview, Mr. Ito sat down to do his nightly practice on the qin, or Chinese table harp. As he worked patiently through his finger exercises, producing sound with either the finger nail or the finger tip, I mentioned how Westerners often prefer to be taught just a few things and then be allowed to fool around, to play, to improvise. I contrasted this to the Asian method of spending many years learning the basic techniques, the fundamental structure.  
  "Yes, that's true," he replied with characteristic calm. "Both ways have their merits."  
  As I watched him peacefully repeating the same very, very simple three-string sequences, I realized that he was surely right. For here was a man truly at peace, a man satisfied with his life.  
 
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