Toshio Saeki: Erotica For Thought
- PINE.
- Jan 31, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 2, 2020
The Japanese illustrator Toshio Saeki passed recently, therefore this piece is on his immense rebellion against the norm of his culture's restrictions and hidden messages (for you and whatever you gain from them) in his vibrant violent paintings. The inspiration behind this particular style came from a childhood of certain films Toshios mother would put him on to. As well as the mystery behind horror and its raw aura of being ignored from society and shunned from public especially in japan at the time in the 70's. Inspired by such films as Yakuza-B movies and jidaigeki samurai films it sparked perhaps this visionary of works to come about, allegedly this man mostly painted things from visions, dreams, and small details from old films he watched as a child.
The pieces over time changed from being unintentionally humorous at times as well as even more gruesome than borders you thought he already crossed, however some will say he helped drive the cogitation from being looked down upon, to his work being put on postcards near the 2010's.
ANALYSIS
Every painting has a fortitude of careless truth, almost hysterical ambiance through the reflection.
This man who has nails/pins in his face with no other facial features but his teeth are showing and there isn't a struggle. As if the pain inflicted was predisposition-ed and accepted his fate.
Pain from his own wrong doings but had no care about the consequences, or chose the stabbings because of his suffering being too heavy to bare therefore joyful for the tribulations to come. To go deeper into this one perhaps society was ignoring the warning signs from its people's suffering and took the extremities to new heights upon their faces, and the people have no choice but to act blind, deaf, incoherent to these doings for their own bliss and safety of their family.
The woman has a beautiful garment that almost matches that of the explosion behind the river of crying heads. My immediate depiction of this is a symbol of greed and immense lust for SEX. The explosion is a symbol of these men's lives crushing and burning to the ground, they were weakened already before by the temptation of the foreshadowing woman in red cloth which resembles romanticism, following after her steps whilst drowning in their sorrows of loneliness, despair, and self-sabotage. They have nothing to lose now so with their heads floating in mucky brown the vision is already too shattered for them to put effort into their equities, the woman is all that matters and they're blinded by their penis thrusting thinking head; tears from their eyes foretell an honest acknowledgement of their actions, this is the demise and defeat of their accomplishments and will forever be remembered but the sadness no longer out weighs the dark lust.
The boy and girl. They're dressed in the same color so perhaps close or on the verge of breaking simulation. Allegedly fighting and the boy seems to look like he is pushing her back down into the abyss while she is trying to pull him down. A playful innocent day of what looks like fishing churned into selfish crabs in a bucket trying to make the other sink. Is it jealousy from their fight of who is better? While she is in the water, is it a sign of her already in the midst of falling behind; he shoves her presence back down to stay, on the contrary she may have first tried to take him down to the same subterranean level of drowning, so he defended himself....lot to see here.
Toshio was named the Godfather of Japanese Erotica brought up thru the underground. For these bold stories of transcending barriers and comfort-ability for people while being brilliantly rebellious. He never liked to analyze his work or think deeply about it, he was just confident that it was coming from his soul. Exposing parts of self that weren't talked about and the mystery behind the shrouded figures masked in society, to uncover the vulnerabilities we try to ignore, to open up doors to our dark secrets.
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