Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation, Tokyo, Japan
Location History:
Kishida Ryūsei completed Woman with a Pumpkin on 6 July 1914 during the period when he was living in Yoyogi, Tokyo. It was exhibited later that year at Kishida’s solo exhibition in October 1914, where it received a notably critical response from Ishii Hakutei. The work subsequently entered the collection of the Ishibashi Foundation, then associated with the Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo. Its presence in the collection is firmly documented by the museum’s 1977 “New Acquisitions Exhibition,” which specifically listed Woman with a Pumpkin among works acquired in the 1976–77 acquisition years. It remained part of the Bridgestone/Ishibashi Foundation collection and was later transferred into the collection of the newly established Artizon Museum, where it is currently preserved and exhibited as part of the Foundation’s collection.
Woman with a Pumpkin (1914) is an oil painting on canvas by Kishida Ryūsei, 80×60.2cm in the owner of the Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation, Tokyo. At first glance, the painting appears to be a portrait painting of a woman, just holding onto a pumpkin, but Kishida gives this ubiquitous home item a sense of symbolism and monumentality. In the background, there is a landscape consisting of red earth, green plants, and a distant blue sky.In the background, there are trees and bushes growing in a red, earth-tone material, and a blue sky. The fixed frontal position creates a peculiar stillness in the figure, while the features are simple and the proportions are unusually elongated, which creates a strong contrast in the overall image with the large pumpkin, which seems to be a counterweight to the figure. The colors of the background are natural and earthy, emphasizing the similarity between the object and the environment.
It is believed that the woman is Kishida's wife, Shigeru, who was painted about three months after the birth of their daughter, Reiko. But Kishida does not create a traditional portrait, but takes away much of her own identity. Her face becomes almost impersonal, and she is able to play the part of a symbol within the landscape. The form of the topmost curve in the composition also hints at the form of a devotional painting of the Renaissance, adding a sacred and monumental character to the seemingly mundane scene.
This is also an illustration of Kishida's evolution from an artist influenced by European Post-Impressionism and Fauvism to a painter in the tradition of fine detail realism that would become one of his most characteristic styles. Immersed in the modern works of Europe by Shirakaba, Kishida was drawn to Dürer and Renaissance painting and developed a desire to seek more precise and systematic visual language.
What is important about Woman with a Pumpkin is that is the transformation of the ordinary into the symbolic. Instead of depicting his wife or a bucolic scene, Kishida creates an image where woman and earth and harvest seem to be interwoven. Now then, the painting is an important transitional moment in an artist who will go on to adore the natural world, to look for something deeper, more spiritual in his work and to have a predilection for uncovering meaning beneath the surface. Western art influences, personal symbolism and modernity in Japan combine to make it a major work in Kishida's personal style of modern Japanese realism.
I was surprised initially that the artist was of Japanese origin as the style reminded me of European Renaissance. The colours used are blended together in a way that makes the woman blend into the background, not unlike an icon painting in the Renaissance without a halo of divinity, making her a symbol but not divine.
