The month of March symbolises the beginning of cherry blossom or sakura season in Japan. For centuries now people in Japan have been celebrating Hanami, a ritual of coming together and indulging in feasts and sake under the blooming sakura or cherry blossom trees. Once limited to the elite and aristocrats of Japan, the country now welcomes over 63 million people annually during the blooming period from March right up till May. With a hefty contribution of 2.7 billion dollars to the local economy, the season is testament that nature and culture are an integral factor for visitors to explore any city or country.
Last year there was a 40 per cent jump in the number of Indians visiting Japan. But the cultural confluence and exchanges between India and Japan can be traced to decades ago. Earlier this month, the Odisha-Japan festival concluded after two days of festivities. An initiative of the Indo-Japan Friendship Centre in Puri and the Japan India Club, the festival has been encouraging cultural dialogue and harmony, music and dance fusion between East India (Odisha) and Japan for two decades now.
In western India, when Shrikant Inghalikar visited the Japanese village Inakadate and saw the rice paddy art being done he was spellbound. In an attempt to boost tourism footfall in 1993, the local community in Inakadate decided to beautify their rice paddy fields with an artistic landscape using the ancient craft of Tambo Ato. Drawing inspiration from Japanese folklore and global pop culture, the rice fields were painstakingly landscaped with a myriad shades and seeds with a cornucopia of artworks. Mount Iwaki, Mona Lisa, Napoleon Bonaparte, the list is endless and elaborate today and welcomes over 200,000 visitors in a village of only 8,000 people.
Shrikant’s travels fuelled in him the ambition to start a similar initiative in his village Donje Phata in Maharashtra. After several challenges and three laborious months, his 3D art came to life. Today, he hopes that this cross-cultural influence can also invite several tourists to his village, engage with the cultural and social messages that are illustrated and also celebrate the local history.
The conversations that art has the power to spark are limitless. The possibilities of artists to depict, display and express also has no bounds. Using art as a tool to connect and collaborate is an almost idyllic way to foster strong bilateral connections. A soft power tool that the Indian and Japanese artists can harness to continue developing strong relations. When Tokio Hasegawa began collecting India’s folk art he had not foreseen that his new found passion or collection would have such a powerful impact.
Fascinated by the Madhubani Paintings by the Padma Shri Madhubani artist Ganga Devi he successfully researched the art form. This led Hasegawa to convert a humble schoolhouse in Tokamachi into the Mithila Museum. Housing over 2000 original art works of which, 36 are by Late Shri Ganga Devi, the museum delivers a powerful message that art transcends all borders.
A perfect example of two cultures feeding off one another, an Indo-Japan art movement commenced in the early 1900’s when Tenshin Okakura and Rabindranath Tagore met in Calcutta. Okakura was interested in learning about the revivalist movement spearheaded by Tagore in Bengal while Rabindranath Tagore was deeply keen to know more about Sumi-e, an ancient Japanese art technique.
Tracing its origins from China with Zen Buddhist monks, Sumi-e has been derived from two Japanese words. ‘Sumi’ refers to ink and ‘e’ means painting. Tagore embraced the Sumi-e technique into the Bengal school popularising it as the wash technique. Soft, subtle tones of colour, minimalist in appearance, the technique was accepted by artists ranging from Abanindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose to Somalal Shah.
But the commonality in the 1900s was not limited to the wash technique. There was the practice of painting the same subject matter too. Explorations with nature, the relationship and interaction between man and animal, mythology, folklore and philosophy. Comparing art works such as Ashoka by Abanindranath Tagore and Kutsugen (Qu Yuan) by Yokoyama Taikan solidifies this. The blending tones of sepia, these are delicate yet powerful compositions.
Perhaps this is what lures Indian artists to Japan and vice versa. Both standing proud as a melting pot of ancient cultures and traditional techniques with the common philosophy of impermanence.
Then there were also artists such as Hiroshi Yoshida who travelled extensively in India fascinated by the historical monuments, exploring the interaction of light amidst architectural marvels. Using a Japanese technique of woodblock printing, Yoshida’s work was a beautiful amalgamation of Japanese technique and Indian subject matter.
Similarly, a number of Japanese artists have embraced India’s dance forms. Be it Mayumi (Rajasthani Madhu on Instagram) who was inspired by Rajasthan’s Kalbeliya and Ghoomar and started her own journey into learning and now teaching the dance form or Sachiko Murakami whose life changed after attending an Odissi recital in Osaka.
After decades of learning, in 2015, Murakami established The Odissi Dance Center in her hometown Osaka. This was her way of giving back, a collaborative initiative where she aims to inspire more people to learn and practice the dance form.
Today the interplay between tradition and modernity is a powerful tool both Japanese and Indian artists have the ability to explore yet retain their own individuality. But what will be intriguing is to see how contemporary artists from both nations continue to rediscover technique and identity between both cultures.
Will the creative interplay of the two ancient civilisations and the countless possibilities of confluencing the cultures continue in a world spearheaded by technology?