Okimono or sculpture in the form of a waiting rhinoceros. Of hammered, cold-chiseled and assembled iron. By Tanaka Isamu (born 1920 –). Showa 34 or 1959.

With a paulownia wood storage box.

This rhinoceros was made for exhibition at the 15th Nitten in 1959, and it is illustrated in the Nittenshi, volume 22, page 243, number 172. The piece was reportedly purchased directly from the artist’s family.

Tanaka Isamu studied metal arts under Shimizu Nanzan and Unno Kiyoshi at the Tokyo School of Fine Art. He returned to the University (now the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music) as an instructor in 1961 and was appointed full professor in 1978.

For other examples of his work, c.f. Selected Masterpieces from The University Art Museum, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, number 92, pages 216 – 217; as well as Kogei – A View of a Century of Modern Japanese Crafts, number 237, page 203.

This rhinoceros pauses, an image of power resting in the sun. Tanaka hammered the sculpture from iron ingots. Rather than raise it in one piece, he chose to work in separate sections joined with repeating rivets. This focuses our attention on the material, the techniques and the artist’s almost industrial aesthetic. One thinks of something as commonplace as sheet metal, and then shakes one’s head. The artist plays with a counterpoint of full, rounded volumes framed by hard, curving lines, of swelling mass above abbreviated legs, tiny bow-like ears perked forward over an immensely horned head. The narrow eyes seem half-closed against the sun, day dreaming. Behind comes a wonderfully playful tail, curving in an elegant twist to balance the conical weight of the animal’s horn.

After the misery of the Pacific War, the 1950s saw many artists abandon formality for work that seems playful and even joyous. The uchidashi hammering technique used by Tanaka shrugs off the pre-war precepts of his teachers, abandoning the idea of raising the piece from a single ingot. He laughs and rivets them together. This brushes tradition away but not the technically demanding, hammering skills needed to sculpt the appearance of soft surfaces from hard metal.

The rhinoceros seems real, yet machine-like; powerful yet sleepy; playful yet compelling. So it was in 1959 and remains today. A triumph of tradition and innovation meant to make us smile.