Studio: international art (71.1917)

Studio- Talk

STUDIO-TALK.

(From Our Own Correspondents.)

LONDON.—Mr. K. Takekoshi must be
numbered among the more promising
recruits recently joining the ranks of
—' the etchers. The son of a provincial
Governor of Japan, he came to Europe about
three or four years ago in pursuit of his study
of architecture, visiting Italy, Switzerland,
France, and England. When he came to this
country some eighteen months ago he was
unable to speak English. He now not only
speaks it fluently and has been practising with
a well-known firm of London architects, but has
passed with distinction the examinations which
qualify for Associateship of the Royal Institute
of British Architects, a success to which an
essay in English on Japanese architecture
contributed. His industry and enthusiasm
have carried him further still, for following the
practice of so many of his British confreres
he has. in his restricted leisure, learnt etching,

aquatint, soft-ground, dry-point, etc. Our
illustration, Trafalgar Square, Winter, represents
Mr. Takekoshi's first attempt at aquatint and
incidentally it is the only one of his plates in
which one can discern even a slight trace of
Japanese influence. Equal success followed his
initial effort in soft-ground etching and other
methods.

" What strikes one most in nearly all the
plates Mr. Takekoshi has executed," writes
Mr. Frank Emanuel, to whom we are indebted
for the information here given, " is the abso-
lutely European eyes with which he appears
to see his subjects. One might suppose from
this that the young generation of Japanese
artists (Mr. Takekoshi is twenty-eight years old),
owing to the atmosphere of Western ideas in
which Japan is now bathed, no longer inherits
the Japanese or Oriental vision, but is born
with the Occidental way of seeing things. Mr.
Takekoshi, whose elder brother is a Professor
of the Government School of Art in Tokyo,

' S. PIETKO, ASSISI " ETCHING BY K. TAKEKOSHI

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