Ono tadashige biography of mahatma

36 Views of Green Island No. 29 RED Green Island

Tadashige Ono was born in 1909 near the end of the Meiji era; four decades of industrialisation and military expansion under the imperial eye of the emperor. Japanese military victory over China on the Korean Peninsula led to the Chinese revolution of 1911, overturning 2000 years of monarchy with the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Other revolutions in Russia and Germany saw the rise of more REDS.

Communist posters and pamphlets were illustrated with proletarian art, seemingly carved from wood with a pen knife. Woodblock art, historically dismissed as plebeian, was now authentically primitive. The young Ono entering art school was energetically criticising industrial development and capitalism, while leading fellow artists to mount group exhibitions and publish magazines. His early black and white work was crowded with figures; at work, on strike, partying. He produced a 50-page graphic novel illus Biography of mahatma gandhi!