Scene with the Waterway

Watanabe studied under Manjiro Terauchi from when he was still a student at Tokyo School of Fine Arts and submitted his works to the Kofukai exhibitions. In 1941, he won special recognition at the new Bunten. In 1944, he became a member of Kofukai. In 1955, he went to France and began landscape painting. In 1985, he won the Nihon Geijutsuin Award and became a member of the academy in 1988. He served as chairman of Saitamaken Bijutsuka Kyokai, the prefectural association of artists, from 1990.

This is one of Watanabe’s landscapes depicting a thicket of trees in Musashino. It was submitted to The 58th Kofukai Exhibition in 1972. The grass portrayed in warm colors rich in nuance and the faint red coloring the treetops of the Japanese alders convey a feeling of early spring. The waterway and the rows of trees lead the viewer’s eyes towards the distance in a composition employing perspective and the brushwork varies in density leaving a drawing-like touch. Such features demonstrate the artist’s refined, sound capability to draw. While the overall atmosphere is soft, the shadows of the trees reflected on the surface of the water are depicted rather distinctly as if to reveal the coldness remaining in the clear stream. Brimming with poetic sentiment, this painting aptly captures the turning of the season. Watanabe said, “Musashino looks very good in the winter,” and depicted views like this with affection, but such scenes gradually disappeared from around this time.