Books |
Taro Gomi
By
Published: Jan 01, 2007
Category:
Children
“The most boring field of all is art,” says Taro Gomi, the Japanese artist who has illustrated about 300 books.
That is, art that has been classified, analyzed, defined.
He’ll have none of that — especially the label that says “for children.”
He’s not kidding. His oversized paperbacks — about 400 pages each, with most pages showing a simple cartoon and a one-line question or demand — are sometimes recommended for ages 4-8, 9-12 and 0-99.
The right answer: 0-99.
Which is why many Gomi fans buy these books for kids — and end up buying a second copy for themselves.
These grown-ups experience what Gomi has long known:
It doesn’t make any sense to make categories like “for children” or “for adults.” I don’t know when humans began to categorize things, but in the field of art, it was great that there were originally no categories.
Art itself doesn’t have any value. It only has value in contributing to the discovery of individuality. For me, the greatest aim in life is to discover the individual. And I think art can contribute to this discovery.
Behind all this, there’s a grand and glorious vision:
Our task as individuals in the twenty-first century is to keep what was good about the twentieth century and improve on the things we couldn’t get right in the last century. And we shouldn’t expect anything from our nations or governments. This is an age when people who can tackle issues individually should do so personally, paving the way for others. While the twentieth century was an age of nations, the twenty-first century is an age of regions and local people. We don’t have to think about the “nation.”
I couldn’t agree with him more. Indeed, rugged self-reliance — sometimes for its own sake, sometimes because our institutions are failing us — is one of the themes I’ve been exploring on this site.
But there’s a much stronger reason to get these books.
They’re huge fun.
Consider simple line drawings, with captions like these:
Fill these trees with fruit.
Draw a present you’d like to get, then one you’d like to give,
Draw lots and lots of smoke — so much that it annoys the people walking by.
Give them funny faces.
Design the flag of the country of rabbits. And the flag of the country of mice.
Draw the good ideas each person has.
Fire! Quick — draw some water.
Here are two shops. Draw signs and things to buy.
For this drawing, use only the color white.
Draw a pair of complaining slippers.
And they’re all jumbled up, the absurd followed immediately by the commonplace.
Ask anyone who has ever given these books to a kid going on a car ride or to a restaurant — the silence is deafening. And the delight is palpable.
To buy "Scribbles" from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy "Doodles" from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy "Squiggles" from Amazon.com, click here.
