THE WORKS AND WORLD OF HERBERT SAX
Jo Ishida, Kyoto 1979
One year has passed since the first exhibition of SHIN BOKU GA in June 1978. What in the cycle of this one year Herbert Sax has experienced the new paintings of his may show us. The SHIN BOKU GA (‚heart and ink paintings’), as we call his works, manifest in western motives expressed by a traditional oriental medium the crystallized images of his inner world. If, generally speaking of SUI BOKU GA (‚water and ink paintings’), we understand that rather than to depict landscapes or objects as they appear to our eyes, the painter by an inner culture comprising philosophical, litterary and religious awareness expresses what in his heart and mind yet at the time being one with the inner spirit that brings forth all forms of nature, then we indeed have good reason to call the works of Herbert Sax SUI BOKU GA as well. If we consider further that in old China the capacity not to be a slave to the ordinary rules of how to paint, the virtue to rise above a worldly view of things and the intuition to grasp exactly the inner mind in all forms of nature were the characteristics of first-class works and painters, then you may agree that I am not exaggerating. (…)
To write this text I went to stay at his house and had the opportunity to observe the process of his painting. At the time he, probably without ever having heard of it, experimented in broken ink and splashed ink techniques as they were initiated by WANG WEI (701-761) and WANG MO respectively. As I watched him doing so I was quite surprised, and seeing the uniqueness of what he painted felt that the distinction I had made between traditional SUI BOKU GA and his works was indeed superfluous.
The way he is handling his brush exploring in point, line and plane a hundred times trying and throwing it out again, finally keeping but one, and the time and care he spends on selecting the pattern of the ICHI-MONJI (part of the scroll mounting next above and below the painting) makes me wish to emphasize that the painted picture and the choosing of the scrollmounting and his way of living make up three in one the character of his art. (…)
Viewing his works in the perspective mentioned above, we can see that this western artist endowed with a rich personality and animated by the mind of oriental art is in his own artistic world gradually cultivating and shaping his inner individuality, is developing his pictorial expression as documented by the progress in the works of this one year and moreover is striving on his inner path in glimpses of Zen-like Satori-awakenings to approach to and to enter into the spiritual life which through the traces in the one fundamental colour of his brush is revealing itself in these ink monochromes. May you in this sense fully appreciate the purpose in the presentation of these works. Lastly I wish in his place to say „thank you very much“ to Hiromoto-Sensei for the continuous enthousiastic guidance and to many japanese and foreign friends who helped and contributed so much my warmest „thank you“ too.
Jo Ishida, Kyoto
(Pamphlet „Shin-Boku-Ga“ Zen Temple Roku-O-In 1979)