Koga Harue - Article
Koga Harue - Article
Koga Harue - Article
NAGATA Ken’ichi
Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo
Koga’s painting Sea was a riddle in many ways. In the middle of the painting is a kind of
picture book portrayal of a sea-view that includes a submarine, fish, a galley and an airship.
On the right is portrayed a lady in swimsuit holding her right hand straight and up high,
whom Koga positions in concert with an industrial plant composed of a tower, factory
chimney, etc. on the top left hand side of the painting. Despite the picturization of imposing
compound objects like the submarine and industrial plant, their overbearing presence
diminishes giving way to the towering figure of the lady in swimsuit, whose impressive,
upright posture, in turn, dominates the whole painting. If seen in isolation, the individual
motifs, in themselves, are plain and simple. But, when they are seen in juxtaposition to each
other, like sheets overlapping to form an unrealistic spatial structure, as is in the painting, it
becomes difficult to grasp their meaning-in-context. Despite such a difficulty in com-
prehension, the composition of the painting, Sea, captures the viewer with an overwhelming
cohesive force and a sense of tension. Sea is contradiction in itself.
This research paper concerning Sea finds its point of departure in a vital comment
provided by Gotō Kōji. Gotō turned the attention of the viewer to the constellation of
analogical relationships positioned within the painting. It may be noted that there is a distinct
figurative semblance [6] between the lady in swimsuit on the right and the industrial plant
painted on the left. Quite visibly, an anthropomorphic image has been rendered to the
industrial plant. Such a figurative semblance between the two icons, in turn, supports the
argument for a contrastive, transitional, comparative, or metaphorical kind of meaning-context
that both the icons might be said to bear. Namely, that “the industrial plant is a woman,” or,
that “woman stands against industrialism.” Similarly, it has also been argued that the airship,
the submarine and fish too bear a meaning-context based upon their respective figurative
semblance. As Gotō has pointed out, there is no doubt that the key to understanding Koga’s
painting lies in seeking analogy between the various image motifs and the meaning-context
borne out of the constellation of those significatory relationships. But, as has been mentioned
in the beginning, his argument to attribute meaning-context to an allegorical relationship
between “mind and matter” is not convincing, though.
The extrinsic sources of many of the image motifs portrayed in Sea, beginning with the
lady in swimsuit, have hitherto been identified by research studies that have been mentioned
earlier. Furthermore, it is also widely held that the industrial plant possesses a characteris-
tically anthropomorphic configuration and, that its correlation vis-à-vis the icon of the lady in
swimsuit holds a pivotal significance with regards both the overall composition of the painting
and its interpretation. The anthropomorphic icon of the industrial plant had been considered
as the most significant clue that would help throw light on and interpret the mystery
shrouding the painting. But, despite being so considered, not only is its image source a matter
of undisclosed identity, but it in itself is a subject that has not been thoroughly scrutinized in
past research.
There exists a source that resembles the industrial plant portrayed in the painting. It is
the photograph (pl. 2) of a blast furnace that appeared in Peter Bünge’s article, “At a Blast
Koga Harue’s Sea (1929) and “Soluble Fish” 251
There is an interesting fact about Yanase Masamu’s CAPITALISMUS (pl. 7) that has not
been pointed out in past research. It is that the work has been conceived in such a way that it
can be viewed from all the four corners, thus incorporating a principle of rotation. Of
pertinent significance is the fact that the word “CAPITALISMUS” can be read when the work is
turned 180 degrees [12]. And, surprisingly, similar to this inversion is found an anthropo-
morphic depiction of a blast furnace, very much akin to that in Koga’s Sea. However, the
Koga Harue’s Sea (1929) and “Soluble Fish” 253
Lady in a sea-bathing suit, who connects all things to the family of fish in the sea
Seaweeds, with a new odor, burst forth
What strikes the reader is the use of the phrase, “see/n through,” in the second and last
line of the poem, as well as that it appears in connection with an image of “rotation.” So much
so that, the theme of “overturning,” “rotation” of the whole reality- ”The motor rotates, and
rotates”- runs across this poem Sea. Thus, it might be argued that the poem, as well as the
painting, is not to be interpreted on the basis of what is obvious. On the contrary, what is
important is that, while the concrete feeling of rotation or seeing through remains, the poem
evokes an experience of “seeing through things” and “rotation,” by going beyond that
concreteness rising to a level of imagery that seems to dominate the entire poem. And, as it is
an explanatory poem to the painting Sea, it would not be unreasonable to assert that an
analogy to the compositional principle of the painting is hidden within the poem. Thus, by
referring to the explanatory poem written by Koga, one may affirmatively locate a theme of
“transparency and rotation,” right at the heart of his Sea, which is closely identical to that of
“exposure and upsetting/inversion” found in Yanase Masamu’s CAPITALISMUS.
The poem Sea includes yet another clue that would aid interpretation of the painting Sea.
The last line of the first stanza goes: “50°north latitude.” Fifty degrees north latitude was
certainly not just another numerical to the Japanese around the year 1929. It coincides with the
northern limit to the southern half of Sakhalin (Karafuto) that Japanese won from the Russians
at the time of Russo-Japanese War. Being the one and only overland borderline Japan pos-
sessed with a foreign country, the borderline cutting across Sakhalin (Karafuto) separated the
territories of Japan and erstwhile Soviet Union. While, for the leftists of the time, it was the
place of connexion with what was called, “the native country of revolution”-in fact, it is the
same borderline crossing which the “Red Love-Escapade” was actually staged by western-style
theatre (shingeki) actress, Okada Yoshiko, and producer, Sugimoto Ryōkichi, who fled to Soviet
Union in the year 1938.
For the leftists of that day, the phrase “50°north latitude” connotes yet another meaning.
It is to be found in connection with Kobayashi Takiji’s representative literary work, Crab-
Canning Boat. It was completed on March 30, 1929 and was serialized in the magazine Senki,
during May-June the same year. And, in July, the following month, the serialized novel was
dramatized by the drama troupe, Shin-Tsukiji Gekidan, led by Hijikata Yoshi and staged as
Further North of 50°North Latitude at the Tsukiji Small Theater (Tsukiji Shō-Gekijō) that was
Koga Harue’s Sea (1929) and “Soluble Fish” 255
located in the Tsukiji district of Central Tokyo. It would not have been possible for Koga to
have been ignorant of all these echoes emanating from the phrase, “50°north latitude.”
Past research has made note of an interesting observation about Koga by referring to a
biographical sketch of him published in Koga Harue (Shunchōkai, Sep 1934), stating that Koga,
beginning year 1928, “took interest in new trends of thought and extensively read articles on
frontier research, as also books on sociology. His subscription of newly published magazines
ran to over thirty titles [15].” Past research conducted on Koga also alludes to his close associa-
tion with theoretician, Takenaka Kyūshichi, who attempted to unify Marxism and Surrealism
and professed something like a “scientific Surrealism.” But, with the exception of a major
investigation conducted by Nakamura Giichi [16], there was almost no rigorous attempt to
prove the relationship between Koga Harue and Marxism or, between him and the proletarian
art movement, on the basis of concrete reference to evidence found in his artworks.
This paper makes do for that long hiatus by proving that the painting Sea is itself the fruit
of an effort on Koga’s part to pursue the artist’s task of what he himself has called, “the role to
compensate for the incompleteness of reality and to help direct reality towards a future that is
complete [17].” The foregoing argument presented in this paper demonstrates his proximity to
proletarian art that was represented by Yanase Masamu. Yet, in spite of Koga’s proximity to
proletarian art, it must not be concluded that he bought wholesale the stance and principles
of proletarian art. Although “the transparency and volte-face of reality” is the primal prin-
ciple by which Koga’s Sea is composed, it certainly does not depict a class war as Yanase’s
CAPITALISMUS does so very starkly. The various individual motifs painted in Sea hold
multiple connotations and do not directly imply social conflict. Neither does the painting,
seen as a whole, inheres a singular meaning like, the inversion of capitalism. Thus, it be-
comes clear that Koga and Yanase, despite sharing a principle of transparency/exposure and
volte-face/inversion, decidedly differ from each other vis-à-vis the presence or absence of a
singular and socio-realistic meaning in their respective works. Thus, it should be stressed that
Koga’s Sea is made on the basis of a production principle which is different from that of
Yanase’s work [18].
This point will be discussed further in the following section. But before that, the mutual
influence that respective works had upon each other is an issue that needs to be taken up in
more detail. The blast furnaces painted by both Koga and Yanase, although visibly resembling
each other, differ from each other with respect to a minute detail. If one compares both these
depictions with the photograph that appeared in the aforementioned magazine Knowledge and
Progress, it may be noted that both Yanase and Koga have taken the same specimen, but
depicted it in respectively characteristic ways-for it very much seems that Yanase has
minutely reproduced one part of the blast furnace, while Koga has given minute attention to
another part. As for the smokestack jutting out of the blast furnace (not to be mistaken for yet
another smoke chimney, but a cylindrically-shaped construction to suck out the gas emissions
from the furnace, Gichtgasabsaugung, in German), it might be noted that the smokestack
depicted in Koga’s Sea is made up of two stories with different diameters, while that in
Yanase’s work is a single-storied smokestack with horizontal stripes running across its lower
portion.
256 NAGATA Ken’ichi
Max Ernst’s collage hier ist noch alles in der schwebe… (Here Everything is Still Floating…,
1920, pl. 9) [20] is an artwork that needs attention in
the context of a discussion on the production prin-
ciple that went into the making of Koga’s Sea. Made
towards the end of Ernst’s Zurich days, this work is
one among the collaborative productions that he
undertook with Hans (Jean) Arp who contributed by
penning the explanatory poems that go with the
works. This particular work was exhibited at a
collage exhibition of his (a 6-page catalogue had been
made for the occasion) held at the Dada art gallery Au
Sans Pareil in Paris, year 1921. It was Au Sans Pareil pl. 9: Max Ernst “hier ist noch alles in
that had provided the impetus and inspiration to the der schwebe…”(1920) Museum of
Modern Art, N.Y.
Surrealist movement of the times.
Firstly, it might be noted that the union or match between artwork and the accompa-
nying verse, as seen in relation to the works of Ernst, is found in the self-compiled Collected
Paintings, carrying the poems written by Koga Harue himself. Moreover, the portrayal of a
“see-through vessel = fish” by Ernst is also commensurate to that of the portrayal of a “see-
through submarine” by Koga. Moreover, one may also confer to the verses contributed by
Arp: “…Here is where the armada first received a definitive blow (hier wird die armada zum
1.mal definitiv geschlagen)…the vessel showing its bowels and the fish showing its skeleton de-
cided upon a second departure (der darndampfer und der skelettfisch entsclossen sich 2. aufbruch).”
These verses are conclusive proof that the images of “a see-through vessel” and “fish” are one
and the same.
Furukawa Tomotsugu did make a note [21] of the adoption of Ernst by Koga, with refer-
ence to “Gyofu (Fisherman)” (1929), but he stops short of just that comment and there has been
no further examination on the connection by others too. But, Koga Harue, despite showing an
affinity with proletarian art draws a clear line of demarcation with it, made possible because of
his “Sur-realism.” And, it is Koga’s adoption of this very collage work [22] by Ernst which is of
crucial significance in appreciating the “Sur-realism” of Koga.
Makeup Out-of-Doors (pl. 10) is another entry that Koga sent along with the painting Sea, at
the 1930 Nika Art Exhibition. The explanatory poem to it carries a phrase-“fish that dissolves
into the air/becomes air”-and the painting itself portrays a smoke-belching steamboat (pl. 11),
in the distant background that corresponds to that phrase. Needless to mention, “Soluble Fish”
(Poisson soluble) is the title of an “automatically” written book published by André Breton in the
same year (1924) after the publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism. And, there can be no
mistake that one hears the echo of Breton in Koga’s poem. But, nonetheless, what formed the
crucial link to the image of “soluble fish = smoke-belching steamboat” in Koga’s painting was
Ernst’s collage. In Koga’s painting, the motif that looks like the larva Zoea, with a body that is
transparent, is a submarine as well as a steamboat belching smoke. It also resembles a fish
258 NAGATA Ken’ichi
The art of Koga, although it did inherit the aforesaid principle, underwent a slight, but
very significant change from Sea of 1929 to Makeup Out-of-Doors of the following year. In the
latter, heavy, gloomy motifs of submarine and factory complex disappear and, in their place, a
parched brightness fills the whole painting.
Yet, even Makeup Out-of-Doors, like the painting Sea, has continued to be caught in a
mystery. Despite the fact that Hayami Yutaka found the source to the painted image of a girl
dancing on the top of a building in the magazine Asahigurafu (The Asahigraph) and provided a
260 NAGATA Ken’ichi
the bounds of the ‘romanticism of the machine’ that circumscribed even proletarian art.
Makeup Out-of-Doors, on the other hand, is composed of motifs that transcend the boundaries
of a ‘romanticism of the machine.’ In what is thought of as a study to Makeup Out-of-Doors
drawn in his sketch book, one may note that it prominently includes motifs of the kind of
‘romanticism of the machine’ found in Sea. However, in the final work of Makeup Out-of-Doors,
such an element is completely wiped out off the face of the whole painting. Even in the case of
the motif on the bottom-left, a bright, serene building structure housing a machine complex
takes the place of a dark, heavy machinistic world enveloped in noise, similar to that symbol-
ized by the steel manufacturing plant. Moreover, the antenna tower atop the building reminds
one of the world’s latest telecommunication technology of the day [31]. Thus, Koga made a
volte-face vis-à-vis the ‘aesthetics of machine’ in the very midst of the production process of
Makeup Out-of-Doors, throwing open the window to a world of ‘realism of the machine.’ He
sings a hymn to this new world in the explanatory poem for Makeup Out-of-Doors:
It is the very same image projected by Bauhaus and discussed in the foregoing passages that is
symbolized by this “new myth” which has been alluded to in the poem above.
5. Concluding Remarks
The investigation of the various themes identified in this research paper tentatively
concludes here [33]. In such a way, it was possible to revise the understanding of Koga
Harue’s representative work, Sea, to being a proclamatory painting of “Sur-realism” that he
carved out from within the thick of a tensive relationship between and betwixt the contem-
poraneous trends of art and design, namely, proletarian art, Dada/Surrealism and Bauhaus. It
was not a mere cut-and-paste job of some modern image motifs acquired from different
magazines and publications of that age. On the contrary, it was a result of a search that
happened to go, via a detour to Ernst, right into the heart of, but which touched upon a core
principle that lie at a much deeper level of Surrealism than that which has been hitherto
thought of, namely, the principle of a transmutation in meaning by way of contrapositioning
heterogeneous images, as is to be found in Ernst’s “soluble fish.” At the same time, the paint-
ing occupied a position that brought about a volte-face of ‘machine aesthetics’ in the process of
a movement away from proletarian art to an incorporation of Bauhaus imagery-certainly a
monumental work that situates itself right at the intersection connecting the various trends of
the age. In the light of the argument presented here above, could it not be said that it is but
now that this work Sea stands gallantly under the blue sky of Japanese modern art of 1929-30,
with its right arm held straight up high, and gathering all the vectors of the age in the name of
a ‘modern’ wind? Let us, for once again, hear the voice of Sea beckoning us:
264 NAGATA Ken’ichi
(This paper is an appended version of an oral presentation delivered at the Open Research
Meeting held in December 2004 and research for a part of this paper was accomplished under
the research fund(B)(1) allocated for year 2003-2004 for the research project “War and
Representation in the 20th Century/Art― Exhibition・ Image・ Print・Products― ” Representative
Researcher: Nagata Ken’ichi)
Notes
[1] “Introduction: Harue Koga: The Secret Behind Transformation” trans. Egashira Kikuko, exhibi-
tion catalog Harue Koga, 1991, pp. 127-134
[2] “Surrealistic Paintings of Koga Harue and Images of the Same Period,” Journal of Art History, Vol.
137-44, No. 1, Mar 1995
[3] “The Modern Girl of Koga Harue’s Sea,” Gendai no me: Newsletter of the National Museum of Modern
Art, Tokyo, Vol. 524, Oct-Nov 2000; “The Modern Girl of Koga Harue’s Sea, Revised” Gendai no
me: Newsletter of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Vol. 533, Apr-May 2002
[4] “On Koga Harue of 1929,” Annual Bulletin of Kajima Art Research: Supplementary Volume, No. 15,
The Kajima Foundation for the Arts, Nov 1998
[5] “Koga Harue Research: The Surreal As an Allegory,” Oral presentation at the 57th National
Convention of The Japan Art History Society, Keio University, Tokyo, May 23, 2004
[6] In fact, it was Kuraya Mika, researcher at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, who
pointed out this figurative semblance to the author way back in 1994. And, the concerned
research is a fruit of the discussions carried out between the author and Kuraya Mika.
[7] Wissen und Fortschritt: Populäre Monatschrift für Technik und Wissenschaft, Industriebericht G.m.b.H.
Berlin, SW18 (started April 1927). In fact, it was the catalog a very important exhibition covering
the multi-dimensional relationship between technology and art in the 1920s, held in 1980, that pro-
vided the opportunity for the author to focus upon this magazine (Kunst und Technik in der 20er
Jahren-Neue Sachlichkeit und Gegenständlicher Konstruktivismus, Hrsg,: Helmut Friedel, Lenbachhaus,
München, 1980). This catalog features a research article, entitled “Die neuesachliche Photographie”
and written by Ingeborg Güssow, that dealt with matter-of-fact, neo-realistic kind of photographs
which demonstrated the tendency of technology to affiliate with and symbolize nature. It carries
a number of photographs from Knowledge and Progress and also introduces the page shown in
plate no. 3, about which the author discusses in the subsequent passage.
[8] Strictly speaking, it might be a modified photograph with a phrase printed on it or with its
border altered. As would be argued in the following passages, there survives in Germany a
number of photographs of this particular blast furnace taken from almost the same angle. And,
as would be mentioned later on, the blast furnace in that photograph corresponds to the No. 1
blast furnace at a factory called, Herrenwyk Steel Factory (1908-1981) in the city of Lübeck.
[9] Moreover, it is also found that the same issue also features cutaway illustrations of submarines.
As for the image source of the submarine in Koga’s Sea, Hayami cites a Japanese magazine, while
Ōtani has referred to a French science magazine. But, the sketch of a submarine, made in what is
considered to be a study for making Sea, has a bow that is curved in shape, in distinction from the
image sources cited by both. This demonstrates that Koga, even at the preliminary stage of study,
sourced the image for his cutaway illustration of the submarine, painted in Sea, from a context
Koga Harue’s Sea (1929) and “Soluble Fish” 265
different from those cited by Hayami or Ōtani. On the other hand, the connection to Knowledge
and Progress and to Max Ernst, which would be discussed subsequently, may be considered to
provide the necessary clues.
[10] Veering away from the subject of a comparison between living creatures and machines, it is
worthy to note that during the summertime of 1929, when Sea was painted, Japanese newspapers
carried images of various objects that compared with the airship Zeppelin for many days on. The
August 12th edition of daily Tokyo Asahi Shimbun printed a photograph comparing it to The
Empire State Building. On the 20th of the same month, it carried photographs comparing it with a
sea plane and luxury liner. Although it might be said that comparison of the huge size of objects
in real-life was a matter of deliberate intention, it is also true that just a juxtaposition of photo-
graphs in itself brings forth an affinity between the respective images, generating a metaphorical,
but quite inadvertent, mediation between an airship, a seaplane and a luxury liner. It shows how,
even before the advent of Koga, such a collage of images delivered at the hands of ordinary
readers evoked a surrealistic experience, irrespective of their correspondence with real-life objects.
[11] The same issue also features large-size cutaway illustrations of coke storehouses, increasing the
possibility of these magazine issues to have served Koga the clues for his cutaway illustrations of
the insides of machines that characterize the painting, Sea.
[12] Incidentally, such an alterity in viewpoints also owes its affinity to that employed in the male and
female profiles painted by Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
[13] “Musings on Surrealism,” Atorie (Atelier), Vol. 7 No. 1, Jan 1930
[14] The year of its completion is not specified, however. Noda Utarō (“The Poems of Koga Harue,”
Collected Paintings of Koga Harue: To Stoke a Cow, Azuma Shuppan, 1974) suggests that one may
take the year of publication of Dai-ichi Shobō’s first print edition, 1931-32, as the year of com-
position of poems to which the year is not specified. If one accepts that hypothesis, then the
poem, Sea, should have been written after what is argued later on in this paper as a “volte-face of
machine aesthetics” that Koga accomplished in undertaking. But, even in that case, it does not
explain the other issues related to the painting Sea before such a volte-face.
[15] p. 185
[16] “A Different Surrealism-The Debate on Surrealism,” Nakamura Giichi A Historical Compendium
of Debates on Modern Japanese Art,” Kyūryūdō, 1982
[17] “Musings on Surrealism” op. cit
[18] The reader may take note of first line of the third stanza in the poem, Sea: “Inside the steel-mill for
a state-of-the-art German submarine.” There is found an interesting novel that relates to “an up-
to-date German submarine.” It is U-713 ou les gentilshommes d’infortune (U-713, Or, the Unfortunate
Gentlemen) written by Pierre Mac Orlan in year 1917. There was no Japanese translation of this
novel by the year 1929. It was translated into Japanese only in year 2000 under the title, Koi suru
sensuikan (Submarine in Love) (trans. Ōno Takashi, Kokushokankōkai). According to the com-
mentary given in the translated edition, Mac Orlan was a well-known writer in France at that
time and the said work was significant in terms of “bridging King Ubu and Dadaism.”
The novel revolves around the state-of-the-art German submarine, U-713, which is portrayed
as having been constructed as a “blend of an obedient body and steel possessing consciousness,”
thus infusing in it an innate mimetic ability. But, it so turns out to be that owing to its possession
of a free will, it defies the commander and falls in love with the daughter of a human being.
Eventually, the submarine drives out the commander and all other personnel, and also engages
in intercourse with the fish around, leaving behind a new generation of fish made out steel. In
other words, “it is a story of a submarine that falls in love with a songstress and, in defiance of the
orders of the commander, returns back to being a fish (p. 392)”.
It is improbable for Koga to have read the novel himself. But, as the opening line of the
second stanza in the poem Sea-Lady in a sea-bathing suit, who connects all things to the family
266 NAGATA Ken’ichi
of fish in the sea-suggests, ‘all things’ portrayed in the painting, including the submarine,
connect to and mingle with the fish in the sea at the gesture of the ‘lady in a sea-bathing suit’
holding her right hand straight up, high in the air. It is evident how the plot of the novel is
identical to the scheme of things portrayed in the painting and the related poem. There is
evidence based on which one may infer that Koga was fully aware of Mac Orlan around the year
1929. Mac Orlan is featured in the June 1930 issue (Vol. 8) of the poetry quarterly Shi to shiron that
was at the forefront of Japanese Surrealism. The quarterly was edited by Haruyama Yukio,
whose philosophical stance ran counter to that of the aforesaid friend of Koga Harue, Takenaka
Ryūshichi. Yet, in spite of their mutual opposition, the same issue also features an article by
Takenaka entitled, “Chō-genjitsu-shugi to puroretaria bungaku no kankei” (The Relation of
Surrealism to Proletarian Literature). All this evidence makes it highly probable of Mac Orlan,
whose novel U-713 ou les gentilshommes d’infortune must have been read in the close circles of
Koga, was a literary figure in the knowledge of Koga Harue.
[19] According to Kai Shigeto, a characteristic feature in common with that of Yanase’s CAPITALISMUS
is to be sought in the illustrative cover painting for Eroshenko’s Jinrui no tame ni (For Humanity).
It has been considered up till now that 1924 was the year CAPITALISMUS was produced.
Although there has not been any conclusive evidence to determine that fact, one may confirm its
year of production as 1924 owing to the fact that For Humanity was published in the same year.
Therefore, it is improbable for Koga to have influenced Yanase with regards the image of the
blast furnace.
[20] Cut-and-pasted printed paper and pencil on printed paper on cardstock, (16.5 x 21 cm), MoMA,
New York
[21] Furukawa Tomotsugu Kindai no bijutsu 36 Koga Harue, Shibundō, 1976, p. 65
[22] That Koga saw this work of Ernst’s by his naked eye is a possibility that cannot substantiated. On
the other hand, as of the present, the author has not stumbled upon any publication or any sort of
other media printed until the year 1929 that carries reproduction of the said work. Despite that
fact, the presence of a number of images of “soluble fish,” beginning with the submarine, in Sea
seems to ‘demand’ a possibility of Koga to have come to know of this collage, somehow or the
other. For, it is only when one assumes that Ernst’s collage was the definitive source for Koga’s
painting, then that one can comprehend the presence of those characteristic images. The pos-
sibility for people like the artist Tōgō Seiji to have brought back to Japan a printed illustration of
it and, for it to have made its way into the hands of Koga cannot be totally ruled out.
As the collage itself, it is a work dating to Ernst’s Dadaist times. But it is the one that set into
motion Surrealism. And, if one believes that Ernst was known as a Surrealist by the time Koga
adopted him and his work, then it would be evidence enough to prove that the “Sur-realism” of
Koga had its origins at a much deeper level than what has been hitherto thought of.
[23] Photograph of a stone engraving studio printed in the 2nd issue of Kenchiku kigen, 1929, p. 13
[24] Notable among them is Ōtani Shōgo “Koga Harue and Bauhaus-From a Design Point of View,”
Gendai no me: Newsletter of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Vol. 519 (1999/2000 12-1)
[25] Strictly speaking, Paul Klee was a faculty at Bauhaus and so it cannot be stated that the “Klee-
like” works of Koga were unrelated to Bauhaus. Yet, as far as this research paper is concerned,
what is meant by the term “Bauhaus-like” indicates the modern sense of “plasticity” in what has
been called, “The Utopia of Glass.”
[26] However, it must be noted that the representation of Bauhaus as a “new myth” took place at a
time when Bauhaus, during the directorial tenure of Hannes Meyer, was decolorized. It was in
summer 1930 that Meyer was relieved of his post on the charge of leading a “Red” Bauhaus,
which was what perplexed Mizutani Takehiko who had returned after studying during his
tenure. Indeed, it was Bauhaus that really experienced a volte-face, similar to the one from Sea to
Makeup Out-of-Doors.
Koga Harue’s Sea (1929) and “Soluble Fish” 267
List of Corrections
p.250, l.7: “on the top- left hand side of” → “on the top left hand side of” [June 30, 2012]