Regarding That Myriad of Gazes Beyond the Window
Thank you for your time, and I hope you are having a pleasant day.
In our daily lives, there are moments when we suddenly find ourselves coming to a halt.
Everyone carries a small, secret room deep within their heart that they cannot reveal to anyone else.
If you were to gently open the window of that room and see a landscape like this, what would you do?
Gazing at this painting, a strange tranquility presses deeply into the chest.
It has been given a somewhat mysterious title: “Your Optimistic Loneliness.”
When we hear the word loneliness, we cannot help but imagine a cold and dark place.
Yet, what fills this screen is a storm of unbelievable colors.
Why, indeed, have such vibrant and somehow nostalgic colors gathered to this extent?
Within it, countless “eyes” are depicted.
There are eyes that stare directly at you, as if to fill the entire screen.
It is almost as if they are trying to witness every unspoken loneliness hidden deep within your heart.
Among all the parts of the physical body, the eye is the only organ that is directly connected to the brain and exposed to the outside world.
The eyes never lie.
When we recall someone’s face, we always find ourselves remembering their “eyes” first.
Round eyes, narrow eyes, sorrowful eyes, gentle eyes.
There are as many types of eyes as there are people in this world.
The countless eyes present here are not watching you to monitor you.
Rather, they are gazing at the beauty and sadness of this world on your behalf.
“It seems that human beings, from time to time, possess a strange, helpless sort of loneliness that they simply cannot shake off.”
—— From Osamu Dazai’s Monoomu Ashi (The Thinking Reed)
What the Black Grating Separates, and the Salvation Beyond
Please take a look at the very forefront of the screen.
There, a sturdy black grating runs vertically and horizontally.
Why is such a cold fence placed in front of these beautiful colors?
Perhaps it is a protective wall meant to shield you.
Or perhaps it is an invisible wall that you have built between yourself and the world.
Every human being, out of fear of being hurt, tends to set up a fence within their heart.
However, please look closely.
Beyond the grating, a dazzling world of the mind stretches out indefinitely.
Using modern digital tools, without holding a canvas or a brush, the artist spent hours simply facing the screen.
A monumental span of more than two hundred hours has crystallized into this single image.
It closely resembles a mind-boggling act of prayer.
A great psychologist of the past once left these words:
“He who turns in upon himself loses himself. Only he who turns toward the other finds himself.”
—— Carl Gustav Jung
This artwork is not merely a piece of digital data.
Using a special technique known as giclée printmaking, life is breathed into high-quality printmaking paper.
Its colors are said to possess a durability that will prevent them from fading for one hundred to two hundred years.
It will continue to exist in this world much longer than a human lifetime.
In other words, this painting stands there, completely prepared to gently accompany you throughout your entire life.
Whether you are happy, or on nights when your tears will not stop falling, it will look back at you with the exact same unchanging colors.
Art is, in a way, a form of psychological technique.
The artist created this while imagining the very moment that you, as a unique individual, would stand in front of this work.
The artist wished to satisfy your eyes, your brain, and your body, even if only a little.
With that single, earnest devotion, this dense and rich world was constructed.
The Symbols Hidden in the Background, and the Ladder for Walking Forward
The story does not end here.
Please guide your gaze even deeper into the background.
Amidst the clamor of colors, the shape of a “cross” quietly reveals itself.
Why is a cross hidden in a place like this?
Is it a symbol of suffering, or is it a sign of forgiveness?
As long as we are alive, we all must carry our own individual crosses to some extent as we walk through life.
The sorrows we cannot tell anyone, the mistakes of the past, the lingering loneliness.
The structure of the background is fashioned to embrace all of these elements.
Furthermore, in the foreground, a shadow resembling a ladder stretching upward is also drawn.
The path to escape from this place is always provided for you.
“Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”
—— From the New Testament, The Epistle to the Romans
An artwork that is of no use to others may hold no true value at all.
What is the reason that the works of Vincent van Gogh are still loved all over the world today?
It is because, while wearing away his own life, he sought to comfort and move the hearts of others.
This piece, “Your Optimistic Loneliness,” was also born to contribute to your life.
A place to gently comfort your heart and mind exists right here.
Human psychology does not change, remaining permanent across the ages.
People from a thousand years ago and you in the present day experience the same loneliness and seek love in the exact same way.
The countless eyes inside this painting are a mirror of your own mind.
As you stare intently at them, do you not feel your heart growing strangely calm?
That is precisely because your loneliness has been validated by this painting.
You are by no means alone.
Embracing this colorful loneliness, we are able, once again, to take another step forward into tomorrow.