I often see the technique of monochrome film being used for scenes depicting the past in recent color films.Are the pages of our youth that are brought back to memory when looking through nostalgic black and white pictures in the album of the blooming lotus flowers and dandelions in the fields behind the house or scene of a young girl weaving a crown of grass just a dream of the past? Sunflowers in summer truly looked as large as the sun. Where have all those people gone who set out to catch cicadas then? Have they flowed with the sands of time and journeyed to the present day? Or did they go their separate ways at the forked road of that village or this street corner? It seems as if mankind is living in a world which they have made to suit their own Circumstances.
In the video of the movie"Superman",I saw the other day,the scene where he spun the world in the opposite direction from its normal course to push back time so that he could prevent the deaths of those he loved left an impression on me.But such a deed is impossible for earthlings.If there is anything we can accomplish,it is not to lose something. Once I saw a tree over 1000 years old during a trip abroad and gazed at this tree for an hour. But it was only for an hour. That tree has been looked upon by mankind for over a 1000 years.So I believe still stands there now, even before I thought of drawing it,The drama of events surrounding this tree came to my mind.
Even when I draw a flower,I am probably thinking about such things.But when I am about to begin,in my heart I tell the flower just this, "T'm going to draw you." There are still many more beautiful flowers existing on this earth. But the majority of them lately are those that have been stocked by florists.Such a situation is considered a normal one and may be evidence of the decreasing perimeters of nature.
I recently had a strange dream. It probably took place in the 21st century. In a place which looked like a reference room of a national museum. Art students were listening to the instructor's explanation and drawing a pallid sun flower that had been specially grown by artificial cultivation.
Come to think of it, I found the marbles and a spin top,together with a small brown-coloured glass in the drawer of the desk I had used during my elementary school days in a corner of the store room. There were some kind of seeds in the bottle which was probably a sunflower seed from those days, and I am thinking of planting these seeds in my garden sometime before summer this year. A few years ago there was news of flowers blooming from a lotus seed over a thousand years old. Remembering this, memories came back to mind and this bottle was the time capsule that an upper level student had smilingly handed to me as we passed each other in the wooden- floored hallway in the school building. Thank you, my friend.
I only hope this flower which I drew with this ink, is not used as a motif for any recollection in the future.