Visual Arts Library
Imperial Ordinance
Artist: Yasuo Kazuki
Date:
1970
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 162.1 x 111.6 cm
Event: World War II in Asia
Motif:
Faces
At the end of World War II, Kazuki was taken prisoner in Siberia. He could not return to Japan for two years and did not portray this experience in his work until 1956. Once he started to face the past, his Siberia series eventually expanded to include 57 canvases, each representing his prayer for friends who did not survive the harsh environment in Russia. He intentionally leaves the edges of his canvases unpainted, creating images as flashbacks of his memory. Imperial Ordinance(1970), one of the later in the Siberia series, imprints the faces of people turning anonymous under imperial orders, resisting the waning memory about them. Kuzuki attempts to capture the suffering brought on by imprisonment while also denouncing the inhuman treatment of the prisoners by the Russians and the lack of any criminal investigation of the emperor.
Credits: Photo courtesy of Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art.
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