〈Painter’s words〉

To make up for the paucity of vitamins in our diet, we would forage for weeds and grass during breaks from our outdoor tasks. We soon learned which ones were poisonous. We would devour chives, mugwort, lilies, thistles, shepherd’s purse, even pine shoots, often without even cleaning the dirt from them. I remembered it and painted Shennong, the guardian deity of traditional Chinese medicine, feasting on eulalia and mugwort. I pretended that we were recreating the legend of how Shennong first tried a hundred types of wild plants and went on to develop the system of medicinal herbs: but in truth, we were nothing more than a bunch of starving wretches bereft of dignity and respectability.

Siberian Series (Shinchosha, 1971)

Kazuki Yasuo 1911 – 1974
Born in Misumi-mura (now Misumi, Nagato City) in Otsu-gun, Yamaguchi Prefecture. Studied oil painting at Tokyo School of Fine Arts, then taught fine art while producing works that were primarily exhibited at Kokugakai (National Painting Association). Kazuki was sent to fight in the Pacific War (WWII), then interned in Siberia after the war. This experience resulted in the Siberia Series, which won the inaugural Japan Art Grand Prize in 1967. This series is considered an important body of work that still resonates widely today.

《畫家的話》

為了補充缺乏的維生素，利用野外工作的間隙，到處尋找雜草。漸漸地能分辨出毒草了。韭菜、艾葉、百合、薊花、薺菜，甚至鬆樹的新芽，有時還沾著泥土，都狼吞虎咽地吃掉。我試著模仿啃著蒲葦和艾草的神農。雖然引用了中醫的守護神——神農在太古時代品嚐百草，區分藥草的故事，但實際上，自己隻是一個沒有羞恥和名聲的餓鬼的狀態。

《西伯利亞畫集》（新潮社 1971年）

香月泰男
生卒年　1911～1974（明治44年～昭和49年)
香月泰男出生於山口縣大津郡三隅村（現長門市三隅），在東京美術學校學習油畫，在擔任美術教員的同時，主要在國畫會發表作品。1967年， “西伯利亞係列 “獲得了第一屆日本藝術大獎，描繪了香月在太平洋戰爭中服役以及戰後被關押在西伯利亞的經曆。那些作品至今也受很多人歡迎。