Pastoral 田園

AI-O founded the Group Jitsuzaisha together with Masuo Ikeda and other young artists in 1955 (Showa 30). This work was first shown in the group members' successive exhibitions held at Forme Gallery in 1956, and was also shown at "The 8th Yomiuri Independent Exhibition" in the same year. The title was taken from the theme of the successive exhibitions, yet it symbolizes the artist's determination, together with the inscription at bottom saying "To my parents, brothers, and sisters who till the earth to eat and survive," to build a new life in war-beaten postwar Japan. In the large picture, painted on four panels of plywood, men and women with bodies simplified into ovoid shapes march toward the front in orderly ranks. They are presented in a bold, exaggerated perspective, and very aptly express the newly budding hopefulness of the time. Two years later, AI-O moved to New York and there started to work on his "Rainbow" series.