Before the Second World War, Yamaguchi Takeo garnered attention primarily for figurative works characterized by bold colors and brushwork, but in the 1930s he turned to abstract painting. After the war, he limited his color palette, and developed a style in which simple forms were composed by applying red earth and ocher-colored paints on black backgrounds. Eventually, the black backgrounds contracted, and he began covering his canvases with reddish or ocher colors, a development that won plaudits both at home and abroad. Yamaguchi referred to these colors as his “personality colors,” and said that the reddish color was derived from the climate of the Korean Peninsula, where he was born, and that the yellowish color was inspired by the climate of southern China. The work’s title in Japanese, which is pronounced ki, also means the tracks of a wheel, and the work certainly resembles a rut carved in ocher-colored earth.
（KASHIWAGI Tomoh)
Before the Second World War, Yamaguchi Takeo garnered attention primarily for figurative works characterized by bold colors and brushwork, but in the 1930s he turned to abstract painting. After the war, he limited his color palette, and developed a style in which simple forms were composed by applying red earth and ocher-colored paints on black backgrounds. Eventually, the black backgrounds contracted, and he began covering his canvases with reddish or ocher colors, a development that won plaudits both at home and abroad. Yamaguchi referred to these colors as his “personality colors,” and said that the reddish color was derived from the climate of the Korean Peninsula, where he was born, and that the yellowish color was inspired by the climate of southern China. The work’s title in Japanese, which is pronounced ki, also means the tracks of a wheel, and the work certainly resembles a rut carved in ocher-colored earth.
（KASHIWAGI Tomoh)