The Japanese Interpretation of Mondrian's World Through the Imagery of Katsura-rikyū

Abstract

This paper examines the reception of Piet Mondrian in Japan during the mid-twentieth century, focusing on two fundamental interpretative frameworks. First, it analyzes Akane Kazuo’s hypothesis, which associated the Dutch artist’s painting with the architecture of the Katsura-rikyū, based on the photographs published by Ishimoto Yasuhiro in 1960. These images, however, reflect a modernist gaze shaped by Bauhaus principles, suggesting that the affinity between Mondrian and Japanese architectural space was retrospectively constructed, functioning more as an aesthetic representation than as evidence of a real influence. Second, the study explores the reading of “emptiness” in Mondrian’s work, particularly in the context of avant-garde calligraphy promoted by Hasegawa Saburō and the Bokujin-kai group. Calligraphers such as Ueda Sōkyū, closely associated with Bokujin-kai, recognized in Mondrian’s geometric compositions a spatial notion akin to Buddhism and Eastern thought, though reinterpreted within pictorial abstraction. Nevertheless, the rise of Art Informel and the predominance of spontaneous gesture limited Mondrian’s consolidation as a central reference in postwar Japanese art.

Thus, the Japanese reception of Mondrian cannot be understood in terms of direct influence, but rather as a process of cultural reinterpretation in which European geometric painting served as a counterpoint for redefining contemporary calligraphy. This analysis contributes to a broader reconsideration of Japan’s image within global artistic modernity and reveals how Mondrian functioned less as a formal model to emulate than as a catalyst for aesthetic reflection.