Sacrifice (from "Dam" series) いけにえ（ダムシリーズ）

In 1954, Kojin Toneyama visited the "Sakuma Dam" construction site. On two occasions, for about a month each time, he lived with the laborers, seeing with his own eyes the enormous and difficult project in which many men lost their lives. In his report, he wrote, "Should I not, through my actual experience of life there, cut through the material elements that first strike me visually and directly reach the reality that gets hidden behind." The work that resulted was his Sakuma Dam series. 《Sacrifice》, from the series, was shown at "the 8th Yomiuri Independent Exhibition". Reportage paintings, which have social incidents as their theme, became very popular for a time in the 1950s. These works fervently pursued the contradictions and problems besetting post-war Japan. In the sense that it too deals with a social theme, "Sacrifice, from 'Dam' series" belongs to this line of works. Most reportage paintings, however, were based on Surrealism and to a great extent involved documentary elements or political, propagandistic aims. In contrast, Toneyama's painting tries to communicate symbolically what the Sakuma Dam construction was like through a combination of abstract images. Contained here is one artist's response to what he felt first-hand by throwing himself wholeheartedly into the subject he was trying to depict.