A great river called the Mogami flows through Yamagata Prefecture. There was a painter who spent his life painting this river alone: the Western-style painter Keiji Mashimo.
A painter who kept standing by the Mogami River
Keiji Mashimo was born in 1914 in Tsuya, Tozawa Village, Mogami District, Yamagata Prefecture. He painted the scenery of the Mogami River, and is said to have kept standing on its banks until his later years.
Even the same river shows a completely different face depending on the season, the time of day and the weather. I think that by looking at one subject for so long, there were things he came to see all the more.
Mogami River Art Museum (Keiji Mashimo Memorial Museum)
Keiji Mashimo's works are displayed at the Mogami River Art Museum (Keiji Mashimo Memorial Museum) in Oyodo, Murayama City. It stands on a height overlooking a great meander, one of the three most dangerous stretches of the Mogami River.
It opened in 2004 as the "Keiji Mashimo Memorial Art Museum," a project marking the 50th anniversary of Murayama becoming a city, and was renamed the "Mogami River Art Museum" in 2016. From the lounge you can look out over the same flow of the Mogami River that appears in his paintings.
Keeping your eyes on one thing
I paint for many different people, so my way of working is different from Keiji Mashimo's. Even so, I am drawn to his stance of "continuing to look at the same thing."
While I finish a painting, I think back on the person many times. That there are places you can only reach by continuing to look is one of the things I have learned from the painter who kept painting a river.
Mermaid nao's commissioned art, too, is work that looks carefully at one person and distills them into a single painting.
Sources
Murayama City (Mogami River Art Museum)
Keiji Mashimo: A Western-Style Painter Who Kept Painting on Site (official website)
Yamagata travel guide (Mogami River Art Museum)
Yamagata Landscape Stories (The flow of the Mogami River seen from the Mogami River Art Museum, Keiji Mashimo Memorial Museum)
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