Takashi Murakami and superflat

First Day of Summer, June 21, 2011

First, I have to apologize for not writing for a while-- I've been in the process of moving to a new city, and I've just about finished setting up things in my new apartment (including an internet connection), and have been quite busy. At any rate, I wanted to jump back in with yet another form of media altogether. After some thinking, I thought maybe it's about time to do something that is related to anime and manga, so I did a little reading, and came across Takashi Murakami (村上 隆).

Sunrise at Futamigaura, Kunisada

When I started out my research on this topic, I had one question really in mind: where did the visual style of anime and manga come from? Part of the answer came in the form of the term superflat. This term was coined by Murakami to describe the general aesthetics of Japanese art. Whereas as western art had developed a tradition of trying to convey depth and a sense of three dimensions, Japanese art has been characterized by compositions of 2-dimensional shapes and large fields of color. This can be seen, for example, woodblock prints called ukiyo-e (浮世絵).


Murakami took this analysis a step further, applying the term superflat to Japanese society after the end of the second World War, when social stratification became less pronounced, and there has been a perceived lessening/shallowing of emotion, and an increase in consumerism.

Self-Portrait of the Manifold Worries
of a Manifoldly Distressed Artist

Murakami has taken the aesthetic principle and social ethos of superflat, and used this as an opportunity to create art. The imagery Murakami employs is as visually striking as it is labor intensive, relying on the creation of many layers of simple, 2-dimensional figures, such as the field of flowers seen to the left. Murakami also relies on a blurring of lines between high art and low art, as he incorporates stylings from anime and manga and borrows from otaku subculture to provide a wider social commentary.

Murakami has written extensively about Japanese art including Superflat, where he discusses the history behind contemporary Japanese visual art, and Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture, which explores the artistic and social history of anime an manga.

読んで、ありがとう。