KURODA SEIKI / 黒田 清輝 (1866–1924)
Sakurajima volcano / 桜島 (1, 117 m - 3,665 ft)
Japan (Kagoshima)
1. In Explosion of Sakurajima (eruption), oil on canvas, 1914, Kagoshima City Museum of Art
2. In Explosion of Sakurajima (devastation), oil on canvas, 1914, Kagoshima City Museum of Art
About the painting
The "explosion" and "devastation" described in those two paintings follows the 1914 famous eruption of the Sakurajima. The volcano had been dormant for over a century until 1914. The 1914 eruption began on January 11. Almost all residents had left the island in the previous days, in response to several large earthquakes that warned them that an eruption was imminent. Initially, the eruption was very explosive, generating eruption columns and pyroclastic flows, but after a very large earthquake on January 13, 1914 which killed 35 people, it became effusive, generating a large lava flow. Lava flows are rare in Japan—the high silica content of the magmas there mean that explosive eruptions are far more common —but the lava flows at Sakurajima continued for months making of that eruption the most powerful in twentieth-century Japan.
Lava flows filled the narrow strait between the island and the mainland, turning it into a peninsula.
The island grew, engulfing several smaller islands nearby, and eventually becoming connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. Parts of Kagoshima bay became significantly shallower, and tides were affected, becoming higher as a result.
During the final stages of the eruption, the centre of the Aira Caldera sank by about 60 cm (24 in), due to subsidence caused by the emptying out of the underlying magma chamber. The eruption partly inspired a 1914 movie, The Wrath of the Gods, centering on a family curse that ostensibly causes the eruption.
The volcano
Sakurajima (1, 117 m - 3,665 ft) in Japanese: 桜島 which means "Cherry blossom Island" is an active composite volcano and a former island in Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu, Japan.
Sakurajima is a stratovolcano with 3 peaks : Kita-dake (northern peak), Naka-dake (central peak) and Minami-dake (southern peak) which is active now.
Kita-dake is Sakurajima's highest peak.The mountain is located in a part of Kagoshima Bay known as Kinkō-wan. The former island is part of the city of Kagoshima. The surface of this volcanic peninsula is about 77 km2 (30 sq mi).
The lava flows of the 1914 eruption connected it with the Osumi Peninsula.
The volcanic activity still continues nowadays, dropping volcanic ash on the surroundings, making of this volcanoes one of the most active in the world. Earlier eruptions built the white sands highlands in the region. On September 13, 2016 a team of experts from Bristol University and the Sakurajima Volcano Research Centre in Japan suggested that the volcano could have a major eruption within 25 years.
The most recent eruption started on May 2, 2017.
The artist
Viscount Kuroda Seiki (黒田 清輝) was the pseudonym of a Japanese painter and teacher, noted for bringing Western theories about art to a wide Japanese audience. He was among the leaders of the yōga (or Western-style) movement in late 19th- and early 20th-century Japanese painting. His real name was Kuroda Kiyoteru, which uses an alternate pronunciation of the Chinese characters.
Few artists have influenced Japanese art as much as Kuroda. As a painter, he was among the first to introduce Western-style paintings to a broad Japanese audience. As a teacher, he taught many young artists the lessons that he himself had learned in Paris; among his students were painters like Wada Eisaku, who were to become among the preeminent Japanese painters of their generation. Many students also followed Kuroda in choosing to study in Paris, leading to a greater awareness of broader trends in Western art on the part of many Japanese artists in the twentieth century; a number of these, such as Asai Chū, even went as far as going to Grez-sur-Loing for inspiration.Perhaps Kuroda's greatest contribution to Japanese culture, however, was the acceptance of Western-style painting he fostered on the part of the Japanese public. Despite their initial reluctance, he was able to convince them to accept the validity of the nude figure as a subject for art. This, coupled with the honors bestowed upon him later in his life, bespeak a broader understanding by the Japanese people, and by their government, as to the importance of yōga in their culture.
