From Ei-Q to Demokurа̄to: Active Humanism in the Transwar Era

This paper examines how resistance to the rise of fascism by 1930s Japanese artists fundamentally shaped the discourse and institutions of the transwar avant-garde, with a focus on Ei-Q and his leadership of the postwar artists’ group Demokurа̄to.

The artist Ei-Q debuted simultaneously with the emergence of kо̄dо̄shugi, or “active humanism.” Responding to the complete suppression of the Proletarian Arts Movement in 1933, the Japanese intellectual Komatsu Kiyoshi drew on authors of the anti-fascist Popular Front to create the philosophy of “active humanism,” characterized by striving for the full realization of the self and confrontation with repressive political and social reality. In 1936, “active humanism” broke into the art world as the critical visual satire of Fukuzawa Ichirо̄ and Yazaki Hironobu. Ei-Q, in his work and criticism from 1936-1938, adopted this humanist position by championing radical anti-academic expression, encouraging confrontation with reality, and referencing major international anti-fascist events and authors.

In the postwar era, Ei-Q made these same humanist values the basis of the artists’ group Demokurа̄to, emphasizing individual liberation and expression by rejecting judged exhibitions and encouraging open debate and egalitarian relations between group members. Focusing on Demokurа̄to artist Kawara On and his critical interlocutors, I demonstrate how postwar artists embraced and then rejected the visual forms of interwar humanism while preserving its conceptual basis of individualism and original artistic expression. A transwar lens is necessary to perceive how the intellectual response to fascism during the war years was thus foundational for the postwar generation of avant-garde artists.