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Masahisa Fukase "The Solitude of Ravens" - Weekly Discussion #20


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<p><em>I apologize in advance for not providing a single specific photo or even a small selection of photos for this discussion. The nature of the subject seemed to defy all of my efforts to narrow down the selection. And last week's Brassai discussion seemed to fare well as a general observation of his work along with specific examples provided by participants. I also apologize for the length. To paraphrase Twain, I didn't have time to write it shorter. --LJ</em></p>

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<p><br />It is difficult to discuss an individual photograph from <strong><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=masahisa+fukase&safe=off&rlz=1C2LENN_enUS490US562&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ei=3A9BU-KdPLXJsQTx94LgAQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1035&bih=596&dpr=1.1#q=masahisa%20fukase%20solitude%20of%20ravens&revid=1508592630&safe=off&tbm=isch">"The Solitude of Ravens"</a></strong> apart from the context of Masahisa Fukase's life itself as well as his best known artist's monograph, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/may/24/masahisa-fukase-ravens-photobook">described in 2010 as</a> "his most powerful work, and a kind of epitaph for a life that has been even sadder and darker than the photographs suggest." That same year the British Journal of Photography cited "Ravens" as the best photo book in the past 25 years.</p>

<p>And it is equally difficult to discuss the book in context because it is damned expensive, even in the third printing softcover version.</p>

<p>Yet, like the best music albums, with each track carefully arranged to convey the musicians' desired intentions, it helps to get a sense of the flow of the images in the book.</p>

<p>There's a small sampling of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2010/may/22/ravens-photograph-masahisa-fukase">a few of the most familiar photos</a> attached to The Guardian article. But those don't encompass the full range of images included in the book, not all of which are of ravens yet remain faithful to the sense of alienation that seems to reflect Fukase's inner life during that era.</p>

<p>For those reasons, I'd suggest viewing <strong><a href="

short 3:30 video</a></strong>, which offers a page-through view of "The Solitude of Ravens". The video itself is a bit more artsy than the usual page-through videos. (
)</p>

<p>The photographs vary in technique and subject matter, adhering only to a general core aesthetic of gritty, contrasty black and white. They also seem to show the influence of the <a href="http://icplibrary.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/provoke/">"Provoke" era</a> of Japanese artistic photography, which often showed a deliberate disregard for conventional concerns about technically correct or optimal printing technique. Some photos appear to employ conventional printing techniques. In others, Fukase appeared to have enlarged a tiny portion of the negative to emphasize the grain (and, perhaps, to eliminate unwanted or distracting objects). Still others show obvious dodging/burning halos and glowing outlines almost comparable to Mackie Lines.</p>

<p>Out of context one can imagine the unimaginative drudge of a judge schooled in conventional camera club or salon techniques marking up these "mistakes" in red crayon. Yet in the context of the Provoke era such techniques were part of an aesthetic that appeared in prints by Moriyama and other associates. But do those technically "flawed" photos stand on their own, apart from any context or knowledge of the photographer?</p>

<p>There is no official website, and many of his photos are reproduced on blogs and websites with links that may be broken a year from now. One of the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080429234351/http://www.photobookguide.com/review/masahisa-fukase/the-solitude-of-ravens/">better analyses, published in 2006 on the Photo Book Guide website</a>, has already fallen off the active web and is stored courtesy of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.</p>

<p>For a sampling of the variety of photos displayed in the book, see the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=masahisa+fukase&safe=off&rlz=1C2LENN_enUS490US562&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ei=3A9BU-KdPLXJsQTx94LgAQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1035&bih=596&dpr=1.1">Google image cache</a>, most of which are from "Ravens", juxtaposed against a few from his other less somber works.</p>

<p>"The Solitude of Ravens" seems a curious translation of "Karasu" (which may translate as crow or raven), the original title. Curious, in part, because corvidae - ravens and crows - are social birds. Yet almost every culture has imbued the crow and raven icons with similarly <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengu">eerie mythical characteristics</a>. We choose to disregard the social nature of the real crow or raven and characterize him as a harbinger, an avatar, impish and troublesome at best, a fearsome omen at worst.</p>

<p>Perhaps the publisher felt the English speaking viewers needed some help in interpreting the monograph that became Fukase's best known work. The photographer could not speak for himself to enlighten or appease curious fans. He spent the last 20 years of his life in a coma. Reportedly his most faithful visitor was the woman whose decision to divorce Fukase had contributed to the darkness that resulted in his most notable oeuvre.<br /><br /><br /> <strong>Additional notes:</strong><br /> While pop culture has embraced Fukase as the iconic lonely tortured artist, the role assigned to him by posterity seems to have overlooked his whimsical side, which produced the photo books "Bukubuku" (Bubbles) of self portraits in the bathtub; and "Sasuke, My Dear Cat" and "The Strawhat Cat" of his pet. One wonders whether - had he not spent the entire web generation unconscious - he might have embraced social media, posting amusing selfies and cat pix as many of us do.</p>

<p>Pop culture allusions:</p>

<ul>

<li><a href="

Corbies</a> - traditional Scottish folk song.</li>

<li>At the end of the official video for <a href="

Star's "Fade Into You"</a>, ravens or crows can be seen around utility pole. Fitting imagery for Hope Sandoval's weeping willow vocals.</li>

</ul>

<p>Links:<br /> <strong>"Masahisa Fukase's Ravens: the best photobook of the past 25 years?</strong> Brooding and shatteringly lonely, the Japanese photographer's series on ravens has been hailed as masterpiece of mourning" --<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/may/24/masahisa-fukase-ravens-photobook">The Guardian, May 2010</a><br /> <a href="http://www.utata.org/sundaysalon/masahisa-fukase/">Utata article on Fukase</a><br /> <a href="http://www.photobookstore.co.uk/photobook-sasuke,-my-dear-cat.html#.U0DiIPldWSo">"Sasuke, My Dear Cat" by Fukase</a><br /> <a href="

">Video page-through of "Ravens"</a><br /> <a href="http://photobookstore.co.uk/photobook-bukubuku-_bubbling%5E.html#.U0ENovldWSo">"Bukubuku" (self portraits in the water)</a></p>

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<p><strong>Finally...</strong><br /> Until last autumn I'd only encountered the name Masahisa Fukase on photo.net and elsewhere, usually in reference to generalized discussions about styles or themes. But I didn't remember having seen his photos before September 15, 2013. I remember the date because that's when another photo.netter remarked on the similarity of one of my themes to Fukase's.</p>

<p>I don't know how I managed not to have seen his photos.</p>

<p>The effect was jarring, like looking into a mirror and seeing, not my own reflection, but myself as a ghosted image of another artist's work.</p>

<p>A couple of years ago, feeling stuck in a rut, I had begun to explore a theme that was new to me. I called it Skaiku, as a play on words (sky and haiku). I took <a href="/photo/16767502&size=md">the first photos</a> in that theme on June 20, 2012, unaware of Fukase's death in June 2012 after 20 years in a coma.<br /><br /></p>

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<p>This is not so much a comment as an Additional Additional note to the above:</p>

<p>You can find a decent in-book sampling of Masahisa Fukase's work in the usually reasonably priced (used) <em>Black Sun: The Eyes of Four</em>.</p>

<p>And, his <em>Ravens</em>, for me always brings to mind Robert Franks's book, <em>Flamingos</em>. They are more different than alike, despite similarities in style and the use of birds. The <strong><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-78Yob5uXTLE/Uxsy2x5z85I/AAAAAAAAKJo/vNeuc5GzeBU/s1600/Bild+(1021).jpg">cover shot</a></strong> of <em>Flamingos</em> gives a clue. See some of its contents <strong><a href="http://neue-neue.net/blog/?p=2198">here</a></strong>. Two photographers coming from very different lifeways converging and diverging ... (though the Franks book is nowhere near as good as <em>Ravens</em>)</p>

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<p>It's dark and depressing. The technical issues I can attribute to the artist. Who's to say what is right or wrong in this context? I suppose it was a good subject to come upon on such a dreary morning as we are having but none of it makes me want to look further.</p>

<p>Rick H.</p>

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<p>As a biologist, I've always been fascinated by the journey of the individual within a sea of social conspecifics -- the abundance of gametes flying, walking, swimming through the biosphere, guided by behavior programs. I often ponder the meaning of our experiential world in this context -- indeed the significance of our very existence, if it has any.</p>

<p>I suppose it's in this context that I might appreciate Fukase's work on the ravens. I find his photos of individual ravens that have fallen to be particularly thought-provoking. Burned into my mind, but unfortunately not photographed by me during my time in Houston, is the somewhat common image of a fallen grackle whose body is speckled in feces -- the individual who failed to survive and literally fell out of the population, instantly becoming completely insignificant. </p>

<p>Also ingrained into my mind is a protracted scene I witnessed, in which migrating orcas munched on sea birds of some species (too distant to identify) as they swam along the coast. Their violent disappearance, one by one, representing the culmination of a long survival struggle from egg to adult, created little more than a second or two commotion as they became individual bites in another species' meal. And they appeared not to be missed.</p>

<p>I can't say that I take away much from Fukase's raven collection, other than that they are thought provoking. But they are that!</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>A couple of years ago, feeling stuck in a rut, I had begun to explore a theme that was new to me. I called it Skaiku, as a play on words (sky and haiku). I took <a href="/photo/16767502&size=md" rel="nofollow">the first photos</a> in that theme on June 20, 2012, unaware of Fukase's death in June 2012 after 20 years in a coma.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I find it fascinating when there are "coincidental" occurrences like that. I have to wonder about stuff like the collective unconscious and general "bigger than us"-ness.<br>

This yet another very interesting study on this weekly forum. Thank you, Lex for introducing me to a photographer that is totally new to me.<br>

It is interesting that many times the best art springs from darkness of the soul. Art is a way to express what we cannot say in words to my way of thinking. </p>

 

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<p><em>... viewers needed some help in interpreting the monograph ...</em><br>

An all too common attitude, and one which, I hope I can say without being misunderstood, infuriates me beyond measure. Photography is a visual medium and can speak for itself! Please please please, future “Weekly Discussion” posters, write “My chosen picture is this [Link]” and if necessary “Background info on the artist is here [Link]” – and then stop!<br>

I had not heard of Masahisa Fukase and am grateful for the opportunity to view some of his work. Having read the written introduction, I was none the wiser, but having viewed the video, although it is of course a travesty to go through an art book at flip-book speed, I have some sense of the work, and how both possible titles could be relevant, the literal “Ravens” and also “The Solitude of Ravens”, the loneliness of someone in the middle of a crowd. It figures (but is not necessary to know) that the photographer produced this work in the aftermath of a divorce. The printing technique is in the service of the mood of the work, if it were to give camera club judges heart failure, this could only be a good thing! A most interesting selection!</p>

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<p>Lex, thanks for the heartfelt and personalized introduction, your willingness not only to give us lots of info and references, but also to dig into your own relationship to Fukase and reasons for feeling the kinship you do. If photography is at all about sharing and communication, you've addressed that fluently.</p>

<p>My own take is that these photos are visual in a somewhat specialized way. Because they are so much a look inward. I see them mostly as metaphorical even when they are representational. While they clearly are, they also seem not to be pictures *of* something. It's as if they <em>emanate</em> <em>from</em> within a mind and imagination and sort of give the psyche some form, some description. They don't seem to "capture." They don't seem hunted. They don't seem waited for. They aren't pleasing. They're not mementos. If they are decisive moments, the timing is a bit beyond the ticking of a clock or setting of an alarm, beyond what we would normally categorize in the gaps of seconds, minutes, or instants. They're not serendipitous.</p>

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p>I have to absorb Lex's introduction a bit more, but especially attempt to understand the artist's approach and feelings more fully. My immediate reaction upon seeing his series of images (or what few I have been able to see to date) is that they are an expression of his torment and perhaps created as much as a personal catharsis as a project of art.</p>

<p>I guess that if I were to try to express to someone how dispair and pain felt to me while being limited to the potential of expression contained via a two dimensional artwork, I would look to something similar to the symbolism and imagery of Fukase, wherein its technical imperfections also convey a significant part of that message.</p>

<p>Not too related to Fukase's photo essays, perhaps, but his loneliness and despair are similar in some ways to the loneliness of Coleridge, which apparently influenced his 18th century poem "The Ancient Mariner".</p>

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<p>Thanks Lex for this fine choice. The weekly discussion is getting more and more interesting, as I see it.</p>

<p>For me, Japanese post-war culture has always fascinated me both as concerns films, novels and surely photography and here Fukase, together with his fellow photographers in the <em>Workshop</em> group, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/Tomatsu-04.jpg">Tōmatsu Shōmei</a>, <a href="http://ipnagogicosentire.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/eikohhosoe_manandwoman-62-1960.jpg">Hosoe Eikō</a> and <a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/dd7e7a3aec05970429db5f6b777e7e82/tumblr_msev3yUjij1rq0lo6o2_1280.jpg">Moriyama Daidō </a> and also <em >Araki Nobuyoshi </em>known for photos of tortured and violated women (no photos!) are the most important. They were all part of the so-called "lost generation" of artist in Japan, who's work were strongly marked by the devastation of the country during the war. Most of them, and surely, Fukase, by the end of his life, were clearly nihilists in their way of expression.<br>

<br>

I'm fascinated by the Ravens serie because their visual language is deeply rooted in Japanese history and culture. Not only by the choise of Ravens but also because one sees old ink paintings when looking at Fukase photos (here is J<a href="http://www.everettpotter.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/10.-Mynah-Birds_right_sm.jpg">apanese panel painting</a> and a <a href="http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/song-birds-at-dusk-michael-c-crane.jpg">Chinese example</a> and <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/T/T00/T00577_10.jpg">another</a>).<br>

<br>

Reading the personal history of Fukase and the background of how he started the Raven series, I can feel his horror and desperation of losing his wife. They are poems on loneliness and death. Great art. <br>

</p>

<p> </p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p>..)</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>I never had any idea that Japanese art and culture embraced existential thought until looking at Fukase's images. The "Ravens" photographs, through their exaggerated dark tonality, seem to view life without light, thereby exposing us to nonverbal expressions of the alienation, the aloneness, of "human reality." And the "Bubuku" are not simply cute, funny images; they address choice and survival. </p>

<p>Gratitude, Lex.</p>

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<p>Rick - I know that feeling. I can't explain why this particular work from Fukase connected with me. It isn't easy to like, if "like" is even the appropriate reaction. I don't even necessarily like some of my own photographs. But they're like moods, thoughts and attitudes. I don't necessarily like them, but they're mine.</p>

<p>Sarah - That one phrase, "And they appeared not to be missed", may be the single most incisive observation and motivation for why we do what we do as photographers. Perhaps we choose our subjects and approaches because we don't want that moment to be missed.</p>

<p>David - LOL! Had to laugh at myself: <em>"</em><em>Please please please, future “Weekly Discussion” posters, write “My chosen picture is this [Link]” and if necessary “Background info on the artist is here [Link]” – and then stop!"</em> <br /><br />Believe me, I intended to let the photos speak for themselves. I made the mistake of over-preparing. I began taking notes for this weeks ago and accumulated so much information I couldn't figure out how to write shorter. When overnight thunderstorms this weekend kept knocking out my internet connection I just posted what I had this morning while my ISP was up without paring it down enough.<br>

<br>

Some images are so introspective the effect seems akin to mind reading. I can't think of a more uncomfortable form of communication than actually being able to peek inside someone's mind. Fukase's "Ravens" seems to convey that more powerfully than his self portraits.<br>

<br>

</p>

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<p>Lex, I appreciate highly the effort you have put into this and the lengthy introduction and many links, which I have all visited, and even others. This is one type of introduction to the weekly discussion. Another extreme mght be just a link to a photo. For me both extremes have their quality. </p>
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<p>For me ...</p>

<p>... this kind of photography, when done well, is not metaphorical, unless you think of demons as metaphors. There is no "this is like that." Here it is "this IS THIS," and it is terrifying or mesmerizing in-itself, not as a reference to anything else.</p>

<p>It's as if all the ephemeral flavors and expressions that float in every part of one's experience, sounds, colors, fragments of intent that shimmer throughout every experience were to clot into thickness -- like the black mold that one sometimes find suddenly on one's hitherto good food. It's not about something else. It is, to the contrary, terrifying because it is right there, thick and menacing and NOT about something else.</p>

<p>The technical peculiarities of these pictures are not failings, they are exactly as they should be. This clotting, this thickness is not "sharp" -- it's not smooth-grained. Demons, or mold, or rust, or old age -- or death -- are not sharp or smooth-grained, or about something else. It would be nice if they were ...</p>

<p>This guy is not an ornithologist. I don't think he gave a s*** about birds. But neither are they abstract or metaphorical. They are meaty and clawed and thick and undeniable.</p>

<p>*****************</p>

<p>Lex, as a total aside, this morning's page in my Metropolitan Museum of Art calendar is <strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/april7_we_cat.jpg">THIS</a></strong> picture. <em>Dear lord!!</em> Et tu, Walker Evans?? And at the Met??</p>

<p>Made me think of you for some reason ...</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>... this kind of photography, when done well, is not metaphorical, unless you think of demons as metaphors. There is no "this is like that." Here it is "this IS THIS," and it is terrifying or mesmerizing in-itself, not as a reference to anything else.<br>

They are meaty and clawed and thick and undeniable.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Interesting points, Julie. So are you saying he was <em>documenting</em> (as opposed to alluding to) his own undeniable hell?<br>

I tend to think these works contain<em> </em><em>both </em>metaphor and reality, though I completely believe that the metaphor may not have been purposeful. I don't think metaphor has to be necessarily intended but the artist to still show up. In fact, I think many times it is it's presence that informs the artists and/or the viewers of the real state of the artist's unconscious.</p>

 

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<p>Ravens and crows are social birds, but they are shameless in thievery, arguments, and conceits. Sufficiently depressed, and perhaps Fukase was that depressed, his pictures would then be of 'humanity', not of crows, a metaphor for how he saw us. He wasn't wrong, but like the crows we are a complex species and crows groom each other too for reasons that don't seem self-serving. Crows don't get hung up on their contradictory behaviors, their bodies lead their minds, and crows' minds unquestioningly follow their bodies, their minds shifting from one compartment to another without self-examinations, egoless in that there doesn't seem to be anything present in a crow that can examine itself across compartments. Crows respond to the world that their body is in; and their minds are completely with their bodies. A crow's mind is not a representation, abstraction, or construct. A crow knows that it is a different river every day, that is to say, its body knows and its mind reflects only its body's presence in a world that is.</p>

<p>One documentary on the Golden Gate Bridge had a segment where a depressed fellow survived his fall and he described his experience. On the bridge, his body language was that of a hopeless, depressed, suicidal person. A couple approached him. He faced them and they asked him not "what's wrong?", but instead if he "could please take our picture?" He failed to see the humor of that moment (couldn't get outside of himself to see himself) and proceeded to jump. Down he went, and during his fall said that he experienced regrets and consequently shifted in air to survive. *(See Note) He survived only to find himself in very cold water with severe injuries. He then recounted how a harbor seal swam to him and kept him afloat until a rescue boat arrived, another species, a harbor seal whose mind, like a crow's, is its body, is a mind not based in representation, abstraction, or in constructs, but is the body. And the seal helped him in his distress, unlike the photo seeking tourists who had wanted a suicidal person to take of them for themselves a 'picture', a representation, an abstraction, a memorialization of themselves as a construct.</p>

<p>With that all in mind, I offer that Fukase's photos under discussion can only be photos of himself as a representation, an abstraction, as a construct. Had he experienced his oneness with the world at that time in his life he would have taken pictures of other things in a different spirit, where the horse leads the cart. His photos are of a self whose cart thinks it leads the horse.</p>

<p>* (Note: the fellow self-reported that he had regrets and that from regret he made his body shift. His self-reporting was wrong, was egotistical. It was his body that shifted first and his mind then followed his body, his body acted and then he experienced a feeling of regret. The mind often puts the cart before the horse when it is in fact the other way around.)</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Amy, no, no, not documentary. This is not about him in the sense of him looking inward or of his own personal feelings somehow filling up, being projected onto, the world.</p>

<p>It's a question of which way the 'power' moves. Is the picture <em>endowed</em> by the photographer with its meaning or force (which, to me points to metaphor); or is the photographer flooded with the "this-is!" of what he sees -- does the force overwhelm, overtake, flood into him when the eye meets the world -- which to me is what demons, gods, symbols [as opposed to metaphors] or any crescendo of what is always already there -- of being -- does. That latter is not metaphor; it is not endowed, it is discovered, in terror or in joy or anything in between. Having recently experienced grief or joy or terror will sensitize one to those kinds of events; make them bloom, but they do so in their own existant harmony or resonance, not because of the intent of the photographer.</p>

<p>My idea of metaphor is something that is <em>used</em> to fill out something that I have 'in-mind.' That which is 'in-mind' is primary and that which I use metaphorically is subordinate to it. The metaphorical imagery is sort of second order in that it never happens 'first.'</p>

<p>However, the visual (as opposed to the verbal) is often that 'first.' It doesn't need to be 'filled out' because, well, there it is. It is not endowed; it's already full.</p>

<p>In religions throughout the ages, crows and ravens have been dark angels playing all sides of good and evil, creative and destructive. They "arouse in us" a spiritual response that, to my mind, is not metaphorical but invasive, immediate and visceral.</p>

<p>However ... however ... I can understand that one might decide, after first impact, to then work with the idea of crows. I don't get that from what I see in <em>Ravens</em>, but many of the descriptions of the book use the work 'metaphor' repeatedly (I think, on reading what they say subsequently, that they misuse the word, that they should have used 'symbol' but maybe not).</p>

<p>For cultural reference, <a href="http://www.giarts.org/sites/default/files/reader-24-1.png?1359861282">HERE</a> is an Edo period ink and gold screen of crows.</p>

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<p>Julie, I like your way of writing about this mage and how you are reading it.</p>

<p>There is one question on Fukasa and his use of ravens as a metaphor that I don't understand (I'm sure there are many, in fact). Fukase being Japanese and deeply rooted in the Japanese culture and history would have been very much aware of the role of ravens in Japanese history, as you refer to it.</p>

<p>I Japanese mythology, at a very early stage, a three legged raven (or crow) plays a central role. It represent the will of Heaven or divine intervention in human affairs. Mostly it intervening in a positive way, helping humans in situations of danger. When Fukasa uses the image of ravens in his personal challenges, after his wife left him, it would either be because he believes it was "Gods will" she left, or because the "three legged bird" would help him to find his way. These very dark images would then either be seen as images of the beyond divine world, represented by ravens, or be metaphors for his way out of the lost. They are probably both.</p>

 

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<p>The distinction between metaphor and symbol is something to consider. I, and I suspect many others, have used these words interchangeably. Very interesting, Julie.<br>

Anders, thanks for some of the cultural background. Very interesting stuff.</p>

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<p>Anders, in the raven photos, do the birds really <em>look</em> like they could be 'helper' animals by any stretch of the imagination? The harbor seal is a nice warm helper animal, and a bright inquisitive shiny eyed crow could be a helper. But that type of crow/raven isn't what Fukasa chose to present to us in his photographs.</p>
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<p>Charles, I'm of course not sure about that. I'm not sure about anything on the matter, in fact.<br /> I see, that most interpretations of the Raven images of Fucase, that you can find in interviews and articles, underline the immediate feeling of despair, horror and even death, that also I first of all see.</p>

<p>But, given the Japanese mythology around birds, and especially ravens and crow: the three legged bird (<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Yatagarasu_A.jpg">Yatagarasu</a>), which surely Fucase was aware of, from early childhood on, they represent as mentioned also finding solutions and being helped. The images of Fucase are horrifying to watch, but so are many of the divine forces in mythology throughout the world. The horror we see might just be the horror of the divine because of their perceived immense power over powerless humans.</p>

<p>There is another interpretation, that I have found around Fukase's craven images, which refers to Fukase own experiences during the devastating war when he was a child. During the war Fukase lived on the city of Hokkaido (Northern Island of Japan), where he was born, which was bombed by enemy planes in July 1945 when he was 11 years old. The cravens in his photos were like the planes in the sky bringing death and destruction to his life in line with him losing his wife almost thirty years later, living in the same city.</p>

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<p>But Anders, and thanks for the reply, Japanese mythology around birds is dead superstition, just like those superstitions about birds are dead for the rest of the modern world. So I'm not sure that Fukase would in a good mood have taken pictures of rabbits running away from the camera and asked us to see in them the Easter bunny. If the Easter Bunny was intended, he would have in this hypothetical example, have taken pictures of their fecundity. So I take these particular works of Fucase at face value, that he was looking at crows as those uncaring creatures that pick the eyes out of our war dead and all that. From his experience as an 11 year old that your recount I would guess he was a witness to those and other horrors of war. It's not that I don't acknowledge the meanings of birds as messengers of the divine, I just don't see that here.</p>

<p>Rant: the guy was clinically depressed. You get over a wife leaving pretty quickly generally speaking, and what's nice is that opens up other opportunities. You go out dating at some point, not taking pictures of the worst kind of bird in their worst moments. Sorry he felt bad, but clinically depressed people should get talk therapy if the depression continues for an extended period of time. Mourning is one thing, it has resolution. Resolution delayed: no one should go through a loss without a lot of help if it last too long, what too long is only the bereaved would know.</p>

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<p>Charles, a bit of a digression, but your comments on depression remind me of a scene in Moscow on the Hudson. Not a great movie, but it has some great scenes and dialog. There's a scene where Robin Williams' character is debating a friend over the issues of sadness, depression, and loss of family. And he says something I believe resonates with many folks who have experienced loss and depression:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"When I was in Russia, I did not love my life...</em><br>

<em>...but I loved my misery.</em><br>

<em>You know why?</em><br>

<em>Because it was my misery.</em><br>

<em>I could hold it.</em><br>

<em>I could caress it.</em><br>

<em>I loved my misery."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's something no one can take away from you. Misery, unlike happiness, can never be taken away by force or changes in fortune. It's yours and you own it for as long as you want it. And many creative people do channel their misery into creative output. Who's to say that's wrong? Who decides that "happiness" or any alternative to depression and misery is a better fuel or motivator for creativity?</p>

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<p>""<em>Japanese mythology around birds is dead superstition, just like those superstitions about birds are dead for the rest of the modern world</em>.""<br>

<br>

Not more dead or superstition than the belief in the force of innumerable number of representations of Gods, divinities hanging on walls and standing on tables throughout the world. I still have a horseshoe hanging over my main door. It might brings luck !<br>

Anyway, what is at stake is not necessarily a strong belief in in the "reality" (bad term, I admit) such mythological history of a country, but the use of the visual language which is connected to it. By using cravens, Fukase communicated to his people using a shared world of symbols and metaphors. Shared culture is not the same as share belief, necessarily. A little like you, if you are American, might use balled eagles and other fellow Americans would know what you are talking about, or I would use a cock or a couple of sitting lions to show strenght and national pride. All that is very much alive as visual language. Its called culture and artists like Fukase finds their visual language by drawing on it.</p>

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