もう十年になるかもしれません、秋の深まりに紅葉の便りが聞かれる頃、井堂雅夫が作品にした場所に立ってみたいと思い立ち、奈良の山奥に建つ女人高野と呼ばれる室生寺を訪れました。
澄んだ空気の中、紅葉した木々の間から降り注ぐ木漏れ日を浴びながら鎧坂を登った先には１２００年の風雨に耐えて建つ金堂が、訪れる人を悠久の時空に迎え入れてくれます。
この作品では紅葉の赤、木々の緑、石段のグレーがはっきりと分割された色面として捉えることができ、その場の爽やかな山の空気まで感じられる効果を生んでいます。
井堂雅夫の使う色は、「IDO GREEN」を始め、どの色にも独特の複雑な味わいがあります。本来なら並び立つことが難しい補色関係にある赤と緑も、ここでは互いを引き立て画面全体に鮮やかな調和を生んでいます。
井堂雅夫がそれらを計算して描いていたとはとうてい思えません。火をつけた煙草一本がその形を残したまますべて灰になるほど、ただ集中し、生き生きとした目で画面に向かって制作する姿が思い起こされます。
Blog post
Oct. 2026
“Autumn at Muroji Temple”
It may have been nearly ten years ago. As autumn deepened and reports of the changing leaves began to arrive, I found myself wanting to stand in the very places that Masao Ido had captured in his works. This led me to Muro-ji Temple, deep in the mountains of Nara, known as “Koya for Women.”
In the clear mountain air, I climbed the Yoroizaka stone steps beneath the dappled sunlight filtering through the autumn foliage. At the top stood the Kondo, the Main Hall, which has endured some 1,200 years of wind and rain. Standing there, one feels welcomed into a timeless world that seems to transcend the boundaries of ordinary time and space.
In this work, the red of the autumn leaves, the green of the trees, and the gray of the stone steps are rendered as clearly defined areas of color. The way these colors are divided across the composition creates an effect that conveys not only the beauty of the scene but even the crisp, refreshing air of the mountain.
The colors used by Masao Ido, including his distinctive “IDO GREEN,” possess a subtle and complex character. Red and green, complementary colors that would ordinarily be difficult to place side by side, here enhance one another, creating a vivid harmony throughout the composition.
It is difficult to imagine that Ido calculated these effects deliberately. Instead, I can picture him sitting before his work with complete concentration and vitality, so absorbed in the act of creation that the cigarette he had lit would burn down entirely to ash, still holding its original form, before he even noticed it.
