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Tom Nakashima
Japanese-American, born 1941
Six Images, 1995
Oil and mixed media on Byobu folding screen
© Tom Nakashima
Purchase, Museum Purchase Funds
1997.105
Tom Nakashima is a Japanese-American artist who grew up in the U.S. While teaching at West Virginia University, he began to investigate his cultural heritage. In the 1980’s he moved to Washington D.C. and started producing the large and imposing Japanese type multiple panel folding screens, or Byobu screens, for which he is best known. These screens are usually constructed from layers of rice paper or from wooden panels. Painted on both sides, they often feature one side that portrays action, while the other displays a more contemplative scene. In the course of his career Nakashima has studied many different cultures and incorporated what he learned from them into his works. Japanese culture, his own heritage, has had the most profound influence on his work. It has been pointed out that in Nakashima’s art, “there is reference to Shinto stories and Giotto as well as his own allegorical iconography. Some viewers will read a Freudian interpretation of his screens while others will discover Japanese precedents in his fish, shadows and Japanese landscape.” (Steinbaum Krauss Gallery) In addition to his Japanese background, the artist’s American roots are also evident-- especially in the boldly expressionistic manner in which he applies the paint on the action side of the screen, allowing thick drips of paint to serve as part of the composition.”
The Muscarelle’s Six Images is typical of Tom Nakashima’s work. This double sided screen can be described as the projection of a duality that stems from the simplicity of his subject matter. His choice of format and media compounds the innate symbolism of his simple forms. The piece itself is composed of six hinged wooden panels with both sides intended for display.
One side portrays a view of Mount Fuji, spread over all six panels. The dark green mountain slopes gently against the black sky. The mountain is backlit by a shimmering light with a goldish-red hue. Nakashima used layers of paint and various brushstrokes to create a visible texture.
On the other side of the Six Images, each panel features a different subject. All of these are brought together through a uniform color scheme of black, white, and gray, along with several other muted colors.
The first panel portrays a stark, leafless tree in the center of the panel. Nakashima defines this simple form with thick unblended light and dark strokes which create a stark contrast of highlights and shadows. The background here is composed of gray bars, shaded lightly in the middle, close to the trees, then increasing in darkness towards the edges.
The second panel depicts a cylindrical shape, with a web of dark lines surrounding the outer regions. Nakashima cut into this panel, leaving empty and windowpane-like spaces. The background color scheme here is a wash of mint green, blues, and browns.
The third panel portrays a one-eyed face or mask in which painterly lines indicate a nose and a mouth. The lower portion of this panel is painted in gray and seems to represent shoulders or a chest. Black lines spring out from the sides of the head suggesting energy radiating from the object or acting upon it. The face is painted in shades of blue, mauve, and green.
The fourth panel is filled by a circular spiral with a curved fish laying on its belly at the lower right side. The fish’s scales are more highlighted and detailed on its head and upper body, while the lower body and tail are darker and less defined. The meaning of the ring-like spiral behind the fish is unclear. The fish, on the other hand, is a common motif in Nakashima’s art. It serves as a representative of the artist’s observation of salmon populations and their unchartered annual migrations. Nakashima once said that: “I started to equate salmon with people and the trials and tribulations of life.” (Steinbaum Krauss Gallery). “Nakashima explains that the salmon…has at various times represented his father, himself, the brevity of life, male aggression/obsession and reincarnation.” (Kopolos 153) The spirals are more ambiguous. Still, whether intentional or not, the transition and contrast of light and dark from the fish and this ring-like form is visually reminiscent of the graph of yin and yang, a fundamental idea in Daoist belief.
The fifth panel contains a flattened tin can, actually made of metal. The can itself takes up most of the space in this panel, while the background shows a group of short lines in black, blue, gray, orange, and green.
The sixth and final panel displays a simple, three-leaved plant painted in numerous shades of green. Since life & death is a common theme in Nakashima’s artworks, this panel and the first panel could symbolize the circle of life. In which case, the leafless tree from the first panel symbolizes death while the three-leaved plant symbolizes the birth of life out of death, or simply the start of a new life. The background is painted in gray, while the ground is black with a white shadow cast upon it. This white shadow is relatively small on the ground, implying a source of light from the above.
Nakashima was very influenced by his Japanese heritage, and traces of ancient Japanese landscape paintings, like Sesshun Toyo's Winter Landscape, are evident in his works. Consequently, it is appropriate to apply a Daoist perspective to the Six Images. This is especially useful since ancient Japanese landscape paintings looked to and were influenced by still older Chinese landscape traditions rooted in Daoist belief. For instance, Sesshun Toyo himself started as a disciple of ancient Chinese landscape painting techniques and was well-acknowledged by his contemporary Chinese artists.
From the Daoist, mountains were viewed as the centers of the natural world for their "greatness." A Daoist "greatness" is only "great" because it embraces both the infinitely small and infinitely large. This dual-natured greatness is perfectly embodied in mountains. In Daoist belief, a mountain in itself can have ten thousand faces and yet without some of its smallest components, like a single bouquet of mountain flowers, it would not be a mountain. In other words, mountains have an infinite capability of expansion, and can simultaneously embody the smallest aspects of the natural world and be resembled by them as well.
This logic from Daoist ideology helps to explain Nakashima’s Six Images. The side with the view of Mount Fuji embodies the six unique panels and is composed by them. From this perspective the first, fourth, and sixth panels all depict relatively smaller elements from the natural world—a leafless tree, a fish, and a small three-leaved plant. Whereas the second, third, and fifth panels can be viewed as symbols of human beings or human activities. Taken as a whole, Six Images exemplifies this Eastern understanding of how the macrocosm (the Fuji mountain), both embodies and is composed of the microcosm of the natural world (that is the six individual panels).
-Stephan Zhou, '23
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