Nude

Born in Edo (present-day Tokyo), Fusetsu spent his childhood in his mother’s hometown of Nagano. He moved to Tokyo to study Western painting and joined the Fudosha School where he studied under KOYAMA Shotaro and ASAI Chu. He traveled to Europe in 1901, studying in France under Raphäel Collin. Later, after an introduction from KANOKOGI Takeshiro he entered the Akadémie Julian where he studied under Jean Paul Laurens. After his return to Japan he became active in the Taiheiyo Gakai, and was selected to judge the Bunten (Ministry of Education Art Exhibition). He produced the cover for MORI Ogai’s book, ‘Hito no issho - hikoki’ (The Life of a Man - Airplane), and also wrote the calligraphy for OGAI’s gravestone.
The work shown here is an oil study of a nude man that he produced while he was studying under Laurens at the Akadémie Julian in France. Several of his works featuring the same model remain in existence. There is virtually no background; he focuses solely on the body of the man sitting down with his arm on the back of the chair. It is said that Laurens taught Fusetsu to begin by making charcoal sketches of the model’s hands and feet and we can see the results of this training in the way the hands have been depicted in this work.