Broadcast writer Mitsuyoshi Takasu fantasizes with guests to make the world more interesting, and TOKYO FM’s program “Fantasy Media” proposes plans without permission. The painter Yoshitomo Nara appeared on the broadcast on Sunday, December 20, 2020.
(From left) Yoshitomo Nara, Mitsuyoshi Takasu
◆ Sports boy when I was a student !?
Takasu: Did you like drawing since you were a kid?
Nara: It was a level that was “good to draw”. I didn’t like it.
Takasu: What kind of boyhood were you?
Nara: I’m always called by high school students and art school students who are aiming for art school, but I didn’t know what to talk about (laughs). Most of the time, those people are painters and sculptors, and they are studying painting in order to aim for such an artistic system. But I had never thought about that. When I was in junior high school, I was in the judo club (laughs).
Takasu: Was it a judo club !?
Nara: Under the influence of a manga called “Judo Straight Line” (Shonen Gahosha). However, do you say that the sensibility itself is feminine? I thought that the flowers blooming in the field were beautiful, so I hated it and couldn’t help it. I wanted to be more masculinity, or more sweaty (laughs).
Takasu: I chose judo because I wanted to be the exact opposite (laughs).
Nara: I wanted to go to the judo club in high school, so I joined the experience-based club after the entrance ceremony. Then (senior students) dropped the new students with chokehold. It must have been a tradition for that department. So I got disgusted and left the club room. Then the next thing I found was the rugby club (laughs).
Takasu: It smells like a man again (laughs). How was it in rugby?
Nara: You were always in the top 8 in the prefecture.
Takasu: Isn’t it amazing!
Nara: Rugby was a lot of fun. I think it was because I originally liked running.
Takasu: If you could draw a picture and run fast, wouldn’t it be popular when you were a student?
Nara: At that time, I didn’t know that I could draw. However, at the school’s school festival, I decided to make a lantern that would appear at the Nebuta Festival. So, when I was asked “Who draws a picture?” In class, my classmate when I was in elementary school suddenly said, “Nara was good at drawing” (laughs).
Takasu: (laughs).
Nara: That’s why I decided to draw a picture, and I was given a picture that was about the size of a postcard and was like a Chinese woman dancing. I drew the picture with a calligraphy brush at a size of 2 meters or more. Then … I was able to draw well (laughs). At that time, I realized that I was good at painting. With that experience, when I was thinking about my career path, I began to wonder, “Is there an option for art school?”
◆ Determined to travel to Europe using tuition fees
Nara: When I went to art school, I realized that there are many people who are better at painting than I am. I was surprised that there are so many “geniuses”.
Takasu: At art schools nationwide, there may be people with even greater talent.
Nara: After I started thinking about that, I started to feel that school was boring (laughs). At the end of my first year of college, when I was about 20 years old, I thought, “I’m going to be in my second year as it is …”, so I decided to go to Europe with my second year’s tuition.
Takasu: Amazing! It’s light.
Nara: You went to Europe in February and came back after the Golden Week holidays in May. Then you can’t pay the tuition. Besides, I can’t talk to my parents. So I decided to drop out, and from the middle I went to a public university in Aichi.
Takasu: That’s right.
Nara: But since I went to Europe, I became fond of meeting people and traveling. Also, there are a lot of wonderful works of art in Europe. By seeing them, I changed my way of thinking about people around me who I thought were geniuses. I started to think, “It’s good, but I don’t have my own personality.”
Takasu: The eyes and sensations of seeing pictures changed as you traveled to Europe. It’s amazing.
Nara: So, when I said that I wanted to wake up to art after going to Aichi school … I haven’t woken up yet (laughs).
Takasu: Please show us the power of Nara-san (laughs). What kind of picture were you drawing at that time?
Nara: At that time, Seiko Matsuda was popular, and I only drew her face (laughs). At school, there was a critique about once a month to announce the daily achievements. While everyone was drawing various pictures, I lined up a lot of pictures of Seiko Matsuda and Akina Nakamori, and the place was muddy (laughs).
Takasu: What are you doing (laughs)?
Nara: However, you had the intention of “doing something different from others.”
Takasu: I see. No one else would publish such a picture.
Nara: The teachers took care of me from the perspective of being a “strange student” rather than being talented.
◆ What I learned while studying in Germany
Nara: When I was in my fourth year of college, my friend asked me if I could become a prep school teacher, and I decided to become an art prep school teacher, but the students met me for the first time. They say “teacher”, and when you teach something, everyone shines their eyes and listens. And by teaching, I sometimes noticed within myself.
Takasu: It was a time when you noticed a lot.
Nara: That’s right. Before I knew it, the picture got really good. At one point, I asked the students, “What do you want to be in the future?” Then there was a child who said, “I want to be like a teacher.” At that time, I thought, “Isn’t it really me who should study art?”
Takasu: I see.
Nara: I used to teach painting at a prep school when I was in graduate school, but at that time I began to think seriously about what kind of painting I wanted to draw.
Takasu: The prep school you teach has become a “preparatory school to be taught”.
Nara: That’s right. Even after graduating from graduate school, I wanted to go to school, so I enrolled in a German school. You learned a lot in Germany.
Takasu: What did you experience there, and what is the most useful thing now?
Nara: It’s a way of being as a person. The Germans taught me how to deal with reality through expression activities such as painting, writing, and music.
Takasu: Your experience in Germany was an event that changed your personality all at once.
Nara: It was an era when there was no mobile phone or internet, but during my stay in Germany, I received many letters from the students of the prep school. I wasn’t bored reading it, and above all, I wanted to be a model for them.
Takasu: Mr. Nara is the type loved by people around him. After all, does people change when they see a lot of real art?
Nara: That’s right. I think you will feel the feeling of “Let’s find your true self.”
Program name: Fancy media
Broadcast date and time: Every Sunday from 25:00 to 25:29
Personality: Mitsuyoshi Takasu
Program official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QUUSOOMEDIA/
