97-year-old Botanical Artist

I really enjoyed this interview with 97-year-old Chikabo Kumada, a botanical artist in Japan. His philosophy about life is every bit as lovely as his paintings. Here’s a snip:

Mr. Kumada, when did you start drawing illustrations of plants and insects?

I started to do it for work when I was twenty-six. I quit the graphic design company I’d been working at and switched careers without talking to my wife about it first. At that time, all the books had been burned in the war, and bunches of shoddy picture books had started coming in from the Kansai area and I thought, “This won’t do! I’ve got to draw some good picture books.” I love children. That’s why I started doing it. That was where my years of impoverishment began. (laughs)

Sadly, the PingMagMAKE site where the interview was posted seems to have gone on an extended hiatus. I was sorry to read this, as I've enjoyed perusing their articles.

--Shawn

97 Year Old Botanical Art Maestro

(Shawn Connally and Bruce Stewart are guest bloggers)

Discussion

Take a look at this

#1 posted by maryofkentucky , January 5, 2009 9:47 PM

That was sooooo great. Thank you, I'm glad I got to read that.

#2 posted by xaxa , January 6, 2009 2:43 AM

For anyone wondering why photographs haven't completely replaced drawings, it's because an artist can capture all the important bits with excellent detail, and everything is in focus.
(Though there are some techniques to take several pictures with different parts of the plant in focus and knit them together.)

#3 posted by Ugly Canuck , January 6, 2009 4:16 AM

A wonderful exemplar of a beautiful and old genre of painting/drawing. I know people who collect such things from the late 1700s/early 1800s. Mostly English in origin, some American.
I've wondered at the similarities that seem to exist in the aesthetics of Japan and England, merchant island nations both with a passion for tea.