Miniature landscapes inside wooden columns. Sculptures by Keisuke Tanaka

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Destroy to create and kill to live. Such a gloomy philosophy is hidden in the amazing creative works of a Japanese artist and sculptor. Keisuke Tanaka, which is known for carving miniature worlds inside solid pieces of wood, be it a frame, a massive column, or an ordinary log. Forests and mountains, clouds and plains, tiny houses or entire villages, the author carefully carves and paints by hand, which takes him many weeks, or even months of work. The result is impressive, and not only because the detailing of wooden sculptures is worthy of a separate award - often the author works with such huge arrays of wood that his miniature landscapes take up half of the room, and carved columns with clouds, exquisite pagodas and fantastic palaces rest their top right on ceiling.

By the way, clouds, temples and pagodas are recurring motifs that Keisuke Tanaka uses in each of his new works. They are a kind of symbols, demonstrating the inextricable connection between man and nature, as well as reminding how important a component of his life is spirituality. And here we come to the very question of the gloomy philosophy that hides behind the amazingly talented sculptures of the Japanese author. The fact that these works are made of wood ironically indicates that beauty comes from destruction, and in order to give life to man-made works of art, trees have to be cut down, thereby committing a kind of murder.

The theme of life and death, creation and destruction has recently been increasingly encountered in the works of contemporary representatives of the creative community. You can get acquainted with the work of one of its most prominent representatives, the Japanese sculptor Keisuke Tanaka, on his website.