Shingai Tanaka (born 1942 in Tottori, Japan – 6 October 2007 in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

) was a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

calligrapher Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an exp ...

who studied under Master Goshin Yasui, becoming one of the country's best

shodō , also called , is a form of calligraphy, or artistic writing, of the Japanese language. Japanese writing system, Written Japanese was originally based on Man'yōgana, Chinese characters only, but the advent of the hiragana and katakana Japane ...

artists. He is the author of the book ''Sho, Le calligraphes de kyoto'', ed. Cénton, 2008 (). In the 1980s Tanaka founded the

Calligraphers Association (Kyoto shodō Renmei) to promote Japanese calligraphy (書道,

). He was president of Sho International, president of the Kyoto Artists Calligraphy Association, and special professor at Kyoto Saga University of Arts. From 1987 he lived between

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, teaching shodō to students and artists in

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

(France),

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

(

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

) and Kyoto. From 1998 until his death, he gave lectures at the Japanese Center in Lyon (53, rue de Montesquieu 69007) and in Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. In 1998 he was invited by

Radio France Radio France () is the French national public radio broadcaster. Stations Radio France offers seven national networks: *France Inter — Radio France's "generalist media, generalist" station, featuring entertaining and informative talk mixed wi ...

to do a special concert in the music festival "98 Presence". In this experimental concert, Tanaka improvised 24 works live on stage, responding to the images and inspirations of the music played by pianist Thierry Ravassard and composed by twenty French composers such as

Gilbert Amy Gilbert Amy (born 29 August 1936) is a French composer and conductor. Career Born in Paris, Amy entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1954, where he was taught and influenced by Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud and studied piano with Yvonne ...

and Pascal Dusapant. Each composer chose one

haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 Mora (linguistics), morae (called ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' in Japanese) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a ''kire ...

from the 24 poems of the four seasons, and composed according to the image of the poem. This concert gained a good reputation, and three concerts were performed again at the National Supreme Academy of Music in Lyon. Muzzik European Channel decided to make a film of this music project for world-wide release, and beginning production from 2001 to 2002 through four seasons in Japan. In Paris Tanaka collaborated with the musician of crystal sound, Michel Deneuve. He also made some other experimental performances with music, called "music and the art of the moment" in the Netherlands. He also performed at St. Jean Cathedral in Lyon in December 2000. A concert also took place in October 2001 with two Japanese musicians of the traditional Yokobue (bamboo flute). Tanaka exhibited worldwide and in 2005 he received Kyoto's Art and Culture Award. About his life and work he wrote:

References

External links

Video performance
Spring 2005 on AOL

*
"Cultural Diversity and Globalization: The Arab-Japanese Experience"
proceedings of the International Symposium, 6–7 May,

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

, Paris
Exhibition
in Venice, Italy, 2005 {{DEFAULTSORT:Tanaka, Shingai 21st-century Japanese calligraphers 2007 deaths 1942 births