MILLER, MARA. “‘A Matter of Life and Death’: Kawabata on the Value of Art after the Atomic Bombings.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 72, no. 3, 2014, pp. 261–275. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43282344. Accessed 15 Mar. 2021.
“‘A Matter of Life and Death’: Kawabata on the Value of Art after the Atomic Bombings.” is Miller Mara’s take on the significance of a statement by the first Japanese Nobel laureate in literature, Yasunari Kawabata. Yasunari Kawabata stated that “looking at old works of art is a matter of life and death.” This statement was in the context of a visit that Kawabata made to Hiroshima and then to the lively city of Kyoto, still in tact from the war compared to the barren atomic wasteland of Hiroshima. The arts Kawabata was referring to was Japanese art, religious and spiritual art, and environmental and landscape art – such as temples and gardens, not simply paintings. He believed that art could impart knowledge in a broad sense – that is, everything from historical facts and traumas to emotions and religious ideals. The author, Miller Mara, comes up with a few takeaways, if the audience is to believe Kawabata’s initial statement. Mara states that his statement speaks to the need to return stolen works of art to their cultures of origin, due to its immense cultural and emotional value on potentially traumatized peoples. Thus, according to Mara, the implications go beyond Japan and to all places where art and other pieces of cultural heritage were stolen (such as former African colonies). In addition, art should be physically and economically available to the masses for its use in helping people recover from trauma as well as be emotionally and spiritually accessible by being respectfully handled, displayed, and viewed.
I definitely agreed with the argument the author was making, and I tend to agree with Kawabata’s position on the significance of art. However, I wish that Mara displayed images of the art that Kawabata examined. In the piece, she describes what he saw, but images would have made the text more powerful and engaging.
