[Kitaoji Rosanjin]
Kitaoji Rosanjin (北大路魯山人) is a gourmet and ceramic artist. He is also known for being the model for “Yuzan Kaibara” who appears in the national food manga “Oishinbo.”
Kitaoji Fusajiro, a.k.a. Kitaoji Rosanjin, was born in 1883 in a family of a shrine family at Kamigamo Shrine in Kyoto. However, as a child born of his mother's infidelity, he was destitute and spent his childhood moving from one family to another without a place to go. It is said that his interest in cooking began at the age of six, when he started cooking in a house that eventually took him in. Later, Fusajiro, who grew up with a deep knowledge of the arts, took the name “Ro (stupid) Sanjin” and opened the “Bishoku Club” in 1921 and a members-only restaurant called “Hoshigaoka Saryo” in 1925, where he personally demonstrated his culinary skills. He even began to make dishes to serve his creative cuisine to the world's leading personalities.
Rosanjin was very studious. He was well-versed in a wide range of genres such as calligraphy, seal engraving, ceramics, and gastronomy, and became well-known for his skills in all of them. While respecting the four seasons and learning from his predecessors, he never forgot his playful spirit. With such an attitude toward beauty, Rosanjin is widely known for having laid the foundation of Japanese cuisine. In many of his books, he praised people he admired, but he was also a relentless critic of artists and foodies with whom he disagreed, even the world-famous painter Picasso. His personality is described as arrogant, irreverent, and insane. All of his six marriages failed. Although Rosanjin threw himself into the world of art as if to overcome his unfortunate upbringing, and left a legacy of achievement, he was a maverick who repeatedly clashed with the people around him.
In order to develop his sense of beauty to the utmost limit, Rosanjin saw and ate an enormous number of things, honing his eyes and skills, and created approximately 200,000 pieces of artwork during his lifetime. In ceramics, he tried his hand at a wide range of techniques, including Oribe, Bizen, Shino, Shigaraki, and Seto ware, and although he was designated a living national treasure for Oribe ware, he declined the title, hating the title. Rosanjin's works shine even more brightly when they are “used,” and as he said, “A vessel is a kimono for cooking,” he carried his aesthetic sense that a vessel is not the star by itself, but only when it is actually used to serve food, into the creation of his works. His humble way of thinking, which does not seem to be connected to the appreciation of his personality, his love for the changing seasons and nature, and his free and generous works seem to express his single, pure desire for thoroughgoing “beauty” that lies at the root of Rosanjin.
The “Kahitsukan Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art,” which quietly blends into the Gion area of Kyoto, houses the Kitaoji Rosanjin Collection, which is said to be one of the best in Japan in terms of both quality and quantity. The museum was named after the desire to maintain a spirit of freedom to question established theories with a “what if” attitude, and opened in 1981. The “Koutei (light court),” a tsuboniwa garden on the fifth floor, offers us different expressions of the four seasons in the natural light.
Kahitsukan Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art
http://www.kahitsukan.or.jp/frame.html
Showroom Information
https://www.shokunin.com/en/showroom/
References
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/BQURABprjz3tIA?hl=ja
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8C%97%E5%A4%A7%E8%B7%AF%E9%AD%AF%E5%B1%B1%E4%BA%BA
https://www.leon.jp/lifestyle/114999
https://www.leon.jp/lifestyle/115010
