Although throughout his career he explored trends such as realism, expressionism and different forms of abstraction, one of the best-known facets of Luis Nishizawa is his landscape work. Within this tradition, which has been so important in Mexico since the 19th century and with emblematic figures such as Jose Maria Velasco and Gerardo Murillo “Dr. Atl”, Nishizawa found his own place. He did it thanks to his mastery of the technique and the particular gaze that he modeled as a result of two circumstances: knowledge of Japanese art and culture - the influence of his father, the Japanese Kenji Nishizawa - and his own affective bonding with the different natural environments of the State of Mexico. In any case, the artist himself has recognized other inspirations: “I would love to be able to create that sky and that silvery color of the Valley of Mexico, which Velasco emphasized so well. However, the main influence I have on the landscape is from Francisco Goitia, who was not a landscaper, but his painting of La Hacienda de Santa María is one of the works that has impressed me the most.”[1]
When observing this work, the words that Raquel Tibol dedicated to the artist in a text from 1984 are significant. In them, she recalled his first exhibition at the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana (1951), where he already highlighted, “his poetic sense of simplification of forms and his deep understanding of nature that, after the filtering of his senses and his lines, acquires a metaphysical dimension that transcends it.”[2] That metaphysical dimension that permeates the image of the landscape is also tangible in this work, which was produced towards the end of the decade.
For art critics this treatment of the image is the result of the cultural intersection that the artist embodied: “The identification with his Japanese roots returned him to the cultivation of the beautiful image as a reaffirmation of dignity, and to the practice of landscaping with its monumentality and its implicit splendor. The valleys, the gorges, the high mountain peaks, the light from the open sky, were transcribed by Nishizawa in an essentialized and beautiful calligraphy evocative of traditional landscaping in the East. He knew how to use the white of the paper wisely to expand the landscape in breadth and depth.”
CGV-January,2021
References:
http://www.revistaimagenes.esteticas.unam.mx/luis_nishizawa_1918_2014
http://revistabicentenario.com.mx/wp-content/s/2014/07/BiC-23-Luis-Nishizawa.pdf
https://museoblaisten.com/Artista/324/Luis-Nishizawa
[1] Guadalupe Villa Guerrero, “El arte de Nishizawa”, in Revista Bicentenario, Instituto Mora, http://revistabicentenario.com.mx/wp-content/s/2014/07/BiC-23-Luis-Nishizawa.pdf, p. 77.
[2] This quote from Raquel Tibol comes from the book Los creadores y las artes. Realismo, expresionismo, abstracción, México, UNAM, 1984, where it referred to the work of the artist. This quote and the following one were referred by Monica del Arenal Martinez del Campo in her text “Luis Nishizawa (1918-2014)”, Imágenes journal, Institute for Aesthetic Research of the UNAM, September 9 2015, http://www.revistaimagenes.esteticas.unam.mx/luis_nishizawa_1918_2014
Although throughout his career he explored trends such as realism, expressionism and different forms of abstraction, one of the best-known facets of Luis Nishizawa is his landscape work. Within this tradition, which has been so important in Mexico since the 19th century and with emblematic figures such as Jose Maria Velasco and Gerardo Murillo “Dr. Atl”, Nishizawa found his own place. He did it thanks to his mastery of the technique and the particular gaze that he modeled as a result of two circumstances: knowledge of Japanese art and culture - the influence of his father, the Japanese Kenji Nishizawa - and his own affective bonding with the different natural environments of the State of Mexico. In any case, the artist himself has recognized other inspirations: “I would love to be able to create that sky and that silvery color of the Valley of Mexico, which Velasco emphasized so well. However, the main influence I have on the landscape is from Francisco Goitia, who was not a landscaper, but his painting of La Hacienda de Santa María is one of the works that has impressed me the most.”[1]
