Exhibition Introduction by the Group
There is a genre of painting called “war paintings.” Such pictures were painted with the aim of passing on war stories and arousing a strong fervor for going to war, but the painter of such works also perhaps sought to achieve an artistic effect and display his skill. Because such “war paintings,” created under military orders in the Japanese Empire, served to promote the tragedy of war, it is hard to view them as art. After spending a year investigating “war paintings” from an artist’s perspective, along with researchers and other people, we now present our results in this exhibition, in the form of contemporary art.