The Tales of Bamboo and Tiger

The panoramic vista and vibrant color palette stand as Tiger Tateishi's signature artistic practice, sustaining his fame as a preeminent surrealist painter. A master in creating a mesmerizing visual and surreal imagery which is imbued deeply with the Japanese mythology and tales, Tiger Tateshi's panoramic painting incorporates various imagery collages. This particular style pervaded in the Japanese surrealist movement, which was launched at the 16th edition of the Nikakai Exhibit in 1929. Harue Koga, Seiji Togo and Kigai Kawaguchi were among the leading artists of the movement. According to a critic at that time, the aim of surrealists was to employ the technique of photomontage with a lyrical style and a sophisticated, urban taste. Their perception of reality was visualized through the juxtaposition of architectural, mechanical and human images, which are central to 20th Century civilization. In Electric-brain Fuji (Lot 599), the artist places the Fuji Mountain at the center, besieged by an array of mechanical oddities. The grotesque convolution of mechanical machinery stands in jarring contrast with the serene, snow-capped Fuji, lending a fantastical and bizarre edge to the painting; it might be the artist's visceral response to the rampant digital culture that insidiously encroaches on historical traditions. Unlike the tumultuously compact composition of Electric-brain Fuji, The Tales of Bamboo and Tiger (Lot 600), depicts an otherworldly land, with imposing mountain Fuji towering over in the background, and a tiger with transparent body pacing desultorily in the foreground, whose tail is connected to the slender stem of the bamboo, reminiscent of a mythical creature in an extraterrestrial realm. Tiger Tateishi's vivid portrayal of the different tales amalgamated together, creating a new form of dialogue that crosses the boundary of time and space, a majestic vista that invites the viewer to submerge into his world of imagination.