A Quiet Head Wind 静かな向かい風

Although both portray human figure, a full statue and a bust have very different qualities. The classic Greek statue were made after the ideal in the proportions of human body; the bust, very popular in ancient Rome, expressed the person’s character and age only by the head, and the neck and below was only the base for the head. Katsura Funakoshi’s “A Quiet Head Wind” is more or less a bust in that the head, with a quiet expression and memorable features, is supported by the torso that serve the base. But the torso, which includes the abdomen and is very large for a bust, is slightly leaning, suggesting that the center of balance lies where it should be if this was a full statue. In that sense, Funakoshi’s busts combine the two Western traditions of statue and bust and fall somewhere in between. On the other hand, the marble inset eyes represent a Japanese tradition that dates back to the “Amitabha Triad” (1151) at Chogaku-ji, Nara prefecture. The son of the renowned sculptor Yasutake Funakoshi, and a Catholic like his father, the artist created his first work of wood sculpture, “Mother and Child” (1977), for the Trappist monastery in Hakodate. In his busts, the traditions of Western sculpture and Japanese woodcarving thus intermix inseparably.