The Life and Art of Master Kimono Painter Kunihiko Moriguchi
October 15, 2021
Petitjean follows The Heart: Frida Kahlo in Paris (2020) with another piquant tale of an artist from afar in that bright art mecca. Young Kunihiko Moriguchi made the long journey to France by ship from Japan in 1963, determined to find his own way as an artist, free of the oppression of tradition in the ""austere"" household run by his father, a kimono painter so advanced he was named a Living National Treasure. Moriguchi excelled in his studies abroad, but his quest for autonomy was curbed by his close friend, the painter Balthus, who revered Japanese art and encouraged Moriguchi not to squander his cultural inheritance. Writer and documentary filmmaker Petitjean absorbed Moriguchi's meditative attentiveness as he filmed the artist at work in Kyoto on his radically innovative kimonos after he, too, became a Living National Treasure. Petitjean fluidly conveys Moriguchi's dreams, sacrifices, commitment, and cross-cultural inspiration as he mastered demanding techniques to create exquisitely kinetic patterns inspired by op art. An affecting, contemplative, and eye-opening portrait of two generations of artists who devoted themselves to enriching and sustaining a glorious tradition.
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