Shrine of Birds 鳥のほこら

In 1946 (Showa 21), Ryonosuke Shimomura came back to Japan from Taiwan as an ex-soldier. His native home had been destroyed by the war and his painting materials lost. He managed to buy paper and the glue to be used as distempering medium, and began painting using such materials as porcelain clay and india ink, which were available at hand, as pigments. His attitude of not adopting conventional materials in "Nihon-ga" without criticism, but searching for materials that best suit his purposes was already evident at that time. In 1948, he joined the "Pan Real" art association with Hidetaka Ono. Initially, he consciously chose themes that were unorthodox in "Nihon-ga", but later birds became his major motif. His birds, however, in being depicted with sharp lines in a Cubistic manner, were totally unlike the birds traditionally painted in the style of the Maruyama Shijo school of the "Edo" era. Then in the late 1950s, he started to paint birds in a more organic style. With the use of papier‐mâché, the addition of creped Japanese paper, and the subdued colors, he now emphasized the tactile impression. This work is from this period in his career. The panel divided into tall rectangles and the vertical bands of color give verticality to the looming figures of the birds in relief. The resulting solemnity makes this work worthy to be titled "Shrine of Birds".