River Grace

The following comes from the latest Image Update:

Makoto Fujimura, a highly-regarded New York visual artist and founder of International Arts Movement, has just published a slim book, River Grace, which is based on an essay Image proudly published in its Tenth Anniversary Issue (#22).

The story Fujimura tells in the essay is multi-layered and dense with resonances: among other things, it is about the ancient tradition of Nihonga painting, his struggle to balance the competing claims of art and family life, the nature of vocation, his conversion to Christianity, the poetry of William Blake, and the relationship between art and faith.

At the center of the essay, and gracing the cover of the book, is his masterful painting, Twin Rivers of Tamagawa. The painting itself ties all of the essay's strands together. The images of trees, rivers, and bridges represent Fujimuras spiritual journey toward Christian faith. Bridges unite things that are separated; the flowing river is a metaphor of our journey through life. Gold and silver, applied in thin sheets according to the method of Nihonga, struggle for supremacy. As Fujimura notes, silver is the symbol of death, and a reminder of the betrayal of Judas, whereas gold is the color of heaven. The gold at the top of the painting represents the New Jerusalem.

Fujimura makes a powerful argument for art by citing the passage in the Gospels when Mary anoints the head of Christ with expensive perfume. He sees this as a warrant for art: something apparently luxurious and useless which somehow becomes an essential gesture of our humanity. The only earthly possession Christ wore on the Cross was the very aroma of the perfume Mary poured upon him.

Rather than reading the essay in Image, we strongly recommend that you get this book for the extras it offers, including several other color art reproductions and an appendix on Nihonga painting. There's even a special limited edition of the book available in a hand-crafted box made in Japan. All proceeds from the volume go to benefit IAM.

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Sam Bush - The River's Gonna Run.