August Morning 1961

Kazuo Nakamura made this landscape with paint. It’s a way of seeing, isn't it? The surface is so alive! Look at the way the green shimmers, almost like you could reach out and touch the water. The paint isn't trying to hide itself; it's right there on the surface, thick and thin, dragging the eye across the surface. See how Nakamura used these pale greens to build up the trees and their reflections? Those vertical strokes of paint in the lower part of the painting seem to push up and blend into the trees. Are they weeds, water, sky, or simply light? It feels like the painting grew organically, one stroke at a time, embracing the push-and-pull of the medium. I'm reminded of Agnes Martin’s subtle, meditative surfaces, where the act of painting becomes a kind of meditation. It's like he’s showing us the world through a screen, inviting us to piece it together. Art like this reminds us that seeing is an active process, not just a passive reception of information.