When I saw Mr. Junichiro Takamatsu’s paintings for the very first time,
I got the impression of encyclopedia of natural history of a northern forest.
It is the forest where the depressing swamp is covered with moss and liverworth,
where Dryad (wood nymph) is having immoral love with Nix (water nymph)
and it is the world where chaotic mixture of animals and plants emerge as creatures of marvel.
Mr. Takamatsu, who was brought up in the northern country,
seems to have been nourishing these forest fantasy dictated by everlasting twilight since his childhood.
The poet Gerard De Nerval, hankered after northern sentiment, wrote “ Le Soleil Noir de la Melancolie” ( Black Sun of Melancholy )
and Mr.Takamatsu also has odd Heliophobia ( dread of the sun) and Heliophila ( yearning for the sun ) living together in his mind.
Perhaps the sun may exist opposite to his tableau (painting table).
I can understand this well.
gallery1 (oil on canvas)
