De-Creation in Japanese Painting: Materialization of Thoroughly Passive Attitude

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the method and meaning behind the argument that contemporary philosophers have found the key to “de-creation” in potentiality by implementing it in artwork. While creation in the usual sense seems to imply an active attitude, de-creation implies a passive attitude of simply waiting for something from the outside by constructing a mechanism to set up the gap to which something outside comes. The methods of de-creation are typically found in representations of reality using “Kakiwari,” which is commonly observed in Japanese art. Kakiwari was originally a stage background and has no reverse side; that is, there is no other side to the space. Mountains in distant views are frequently painted like a flat board as if they were Kakiwari. It shows the outside that is imperceptible, deviating from the perspective of vision. The audience can wait for the outside without doing anything (“prefer not to do”) in front of Kakiwari. It is the potentiality of art and it realizes de-creation. This paper extends the concept of de-creation by presenting concrete images and methods used in the author’s own works that utilized Kakiwari. This orients to the philosophy of the creative act by the artist herself.