杭州の思い出が頭に残る。
これは西湖近隣にあるスタバ、ひゃー何だこれ！と思ったが、中味は普通のスターバックスコーヒー店であった。
�册１�下舗歌席
紅藕花中泊妓船
處處廻頭盡堪戀
就中難別是湖邊 白居易「西湖留別」（一行目第五字は原文では金へんだが、流石にMacBookにも入っていない）
緑の藤の木陰に歌舞の席を敷き広げ、赤い蓮のなかに妓女の船が止まる。あちこち見渡せば、なにもかも慕わしく、とりわけ別れ難いのは湖のあたり。（川合康三訳）
本当にそうだった、日暮れて私たちは西湖に別れを告げ杭州の繁華街に行ったのだが、暗さに包まれた湖畔を歩く人々、ロマンティシズムに満ちあふれた空気、匂い、空間、雰囲気、時間・・・、これほど浪漫主義的な場所が他所にあるだろうか、絶対また行くぞー！
中国美術学院からメールが届いた、バウハウス大学（ヴァイマール）に留学していた学生からの質問状で、私のスピーチの趣旨を確認したいと云ってきた。私に与えられたテーマ「Perception, Imagination and Design Education」のスピーチの概要はおおかた以下のようなものであった。
私に与えられたスピーチの限られた時間の中で、ひとつの例を挙げてみたい、それは昨年ドイツのバウハウス研修旅行に連れて行ったデザイン学校の学生の一人が作ったプロダクト･モデル（授業で作ったヘア・ドライアー）なのだが、シンプルで優れたデザインだったので、あるとき学生本人に聞いてみると、それはベルリンで見学したバウハウス研究所の屋根のカタチを参照したのだと学生が答えた。（ここで学生のプロダクト･モデルとバウハウス研究所の写真を見せた）
しかしながら、私のスピーチの目的は、学生のこの優れたデザインを強調することではない、私は過去40年間フリーランスとして多くの美術展、とりわけパウル･クレーの展覧会に関与してきたので、クレーについて少し述べてみたい。彼の『日記』からお気に入りの箇所を引用する。クレーは18才のころ日記を付け始めるのだが、冒頭に子供時代の思い出を記述している。引用するのは彼がまだ６才か７才だった頃、両親に連れられて訪れたマルレイという村での思い出である。（この引用が実に上手く読めた）
何と美しい記述だろう、なんと洗練された文章だろうか、まるで一編の詩のように私には読める。しかしながら私の疑問は次のようなものだ、いったいこの記述は本当に彼が6才か7才の頃の旅の印象なのだろうか？クレーの日記は画家の死後17年経って、息子のフェリックスが出版したものだが、クレーは生前『日記』を自分で何度か編集し直し、３冊のノートにまとめているのだが、元々の手稿は今日失われたままである。この事を知るのは実に興味深いことである。
6才か7才の頃、彼が小さな村で見た光景は事実に違いない。それは彼の記憶の種子なのだ（この「記憶の種子」とい言葉がが私のスピーチのキーワードだったのだが）。しかしその記述は日記を付け始めた18才の記述であり、さらに後年33才のときに推敲したものであって、今日われわれが読む『日記』は彼の創作なのである。創造とは「記憶の種子」から「詩」へと至る道程なのだ。
ここで最初の話題に戻ろう、バウハウス研修旅行に参加した学生の一人は先ほど観て戴いたような優れたプロダクト･デザインを考案したのだが、学生たちは見知らぬドイツを訪れて、呼吸し、感じ、触り、つまりそこに生きたのだ。学生たちは興奮を抱いて旅を楽しみながら、多くの写真を撮っただろう、それらが彼らの記憶の種子なのである。やがて彼らはその記憶からデザインのアイデアを紡ぎ出すかも知れないし、それは直接的にバウハウスであるか、間接的なイメージであるか、あるいはバウハウスとは無縁の何物かであるかも知れない、しかしそんなことはどうでもいい、彼らは早晩あるいは後年、創造の糧を旅の記憶に（記憶の種子に）見出すことだろう。これこそが我々がPerceptionと呼ぶものなのである。
以上が私のスピーチの要旨である。パワーポイントで画像を見せながらのスピーチであったから分かり難いかも知れない。文末にテキスト全文を掲載する。
さて、私への質問状というのは、バウハウス施設群を訪れた学生の一人がグロピウス建築の形状にインスピレーションを得てプロダクト･デザインを作ったのは、禅の悟りのようなものなのか？という内容であったが、それほど高尚な話ではないだろうと即座に思ったものの、いや待てよ、私たち日本人のメンタリティーにはそれと気付かず禅の悟りのような思考が自然と備わっているのかも知れないと思い直し、あなたの感想は正しいであろうと返信をした。安岡章太郎に『幕が下りてから』という小説があるが、まさに幕が下りてから芝居が始まったの感がある。
中国美術院（象山キャンパス）はプリツカー賞の建築家Wang Shuが作った建築群だが、初めてのバウハウス国際会議の開催とあって、たいへん失礼な云い方だが昨今銀座通りを闊歩する中国の観光客とは大いに違って「友遠方より来たる、また楽しからずや」を地で行くような心の籠もったビヘイビアであった。講師ひとりひとりに学生ボランティアのアシスタントを付けてくれた。英語、ドイツ語を理解する学生たちなのだが、私には日本語のアシスタントを付けてくれた。ワン･シャンさんという、デザイン学を専攻する実に可愛いらしい女性であった。
I am very honoured to have been invited as a guest speaker in this meaningful conference that must contribute to our activities regarding Bauhaus in East Asia in the near future.
Within the limited length of time I have been given, I would like to speak about an example of one of my students that I observed recently.
A couple of years ago, I had an idea to plan a so-called Bauhaus Tour for students at a design school in Tokyo. I am not a teacher myself but I make lectures from time to time at the school. The purpose of the trip is to show them original Bauhaus sites in Germany. We started this program last year, and did it again this year.. We hope to continue the tour for the coming years.
(Image 2, 3, 4)
This is a product model of a hair dryer, made by a young student, one of whom I had taken to Germany in March last year together with her fellow students of the same design school. Our study trip took place in over 6 days and we visited Berlin, Dessau and Weimar, namely it was nothing but a Bauhaus tour.
Almost half a year later, I had an opportunity to see this beautiful product model of a hair dryer in the school by chance. I also spoke to the student and asked her impression of the Bauhaus tour we had made together months ago. So she said: Oh Mr. Shindo, did you see a hair dryer model of mine? I replied; Yes, I saw it. It’s so beautiful with simple, beautiful solid lines. Then she opened her computer in her arm to show me this;
(Image 5, 6)
As you can perhaps recognize,, this is a Bauhaus Archive building in Berlin. Needless to say it is designed by Walter Gropius, which was not actually constructed during his lifetime, but anyway, the student showed me these photographs and told me that she quoted or borrowed the shape of roof of Gropius building when she was thinking to design the hair dryer, as a task for her class, in the autumn semester.
(Image 7)
I am, however, not willing to tell you how outstanding this product model is. It is not my purpose, but I want to say something else.
I have been working as a freelance curator or art exhibition coordinator / organiser for 40 years by making various art exhibitions of particularly Paul Klee but other artists as well for many Japanese museums. Klee was one of the most important artists of the 20
th century but also quite an important teacher at Bauhaus.. So I would like to speak about Klee a little.
(Image 8)
In a book “The Dairies of Paul Klee”, originally published in 1957 by his son Felix Klee, namely much after the artist’s death in 1940, I found many fascinating writings of Klee in his dairy. He began to write his dairy when he was 18 years old, and at very first part of the dairy he described his memory of childhood. The following is one of my favourite parts of his writings.. It is a memory of when he visited a small town with his parents at the age of six or seven;
“I clearly recall a stay in Marly, near Fribourg. …..
Marvelous drawbridges. A horse carriage which was said to contain fleas. The Catholicism of the region. A procession. The sisters Küenlin, who ran the boardinghouse. Their French dialect. The hefty lady-director. Gentle Eugenie in the kitchen. The flies there. The poultry yard. The killing of these animals. The squirrel in the wheel. Downstairs, the water with its ticking mechanism. Coffee out side in the afternoon. The cosmopolitan children. Some from Alexandria, who had already traveled on the sea in ships as large as a house (this I didn’t completely believe). A fat, brutal Russian boy. The walks in the surrounding countryside. The small, swaying footbridges. The grownups’ fright on these bridges. The man who, at the other end, said “Dieu soit béni.” The terrible thunderstorm, during which we found shelter in an aristocratic country house. The various bowling alleys. Swimming in the brook. The high reeds. Swimming with a couple of gentlemen near a threshold-like waterfall. The sad farewell to this paradise.”
What beautiful writings they are! What a refined expression this is!
It is like a poem. Is it, however, really a memory of a six or seven years old boy? This sophisticated cinematic method, making us imagine one clear scene one after another by simple words. My question is this: is this his actual memoire at that age?
The answer is Yes and No. Klee began to write his dairy when he was 18 years old when he was a high school boy, and the dairy continued for almost 20 years until the end of World War I, December 1918 when he became 39 years old. But it’s very interesting and remarkable to know that he edited his own dairy several times before and after he finished writing it. . For instance, the first part that I’ve read now was edited in 1913 including re-writing sentences. He was already 33 years old then. He edited other parts of the dairy in 1914, 15, and 1921. The original manuscripts in three or four notebooks are missing today. So, what we read in the dairy today is not the original one but one which he edited and created by himself.
Paul Klee was a great reader of German and French literature from his early years. He had a good sense of writing too and it was improved year by year, I suppose. The scenes and sceneries that he saw in a small town at the age of 6 or 7 are all reality, but these beautiful sentences are what he made in later years. What he actually saw at that time such as its scenes, sceneries, and images are only seeds of memory, and seeds must grow up to a small plant then to a tree with fruits. These most beautiful lines as a poem in his dairy were indeed his creation. These are not direct description of memory of what he saw at that time in a small town but it is what he pulled out from seeds of memory in the following years as he developed himself as an artist.
Creativity is not copy & paste. Creating art is a process between an original idea or scene or memory that results as an art piece. A seed of memory will travel through the span of a life-time, searching for some particular place where it can become poetry.
Now we return to the first topic.. As we saw, a student who visited Bauhaus sites in Germany in Berlin, Dessau and Weimar last year made a wonderful product design in her classroom. During the travel to Germany, she saw so many things and took pictures, probably more than 1000 shots. They are the seeds of her memory.
(Image 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
And one day she may get a specific image for a product design, a fragment of an image direct from Bauhaus, , or some indirect memory from her travels around Germany, or perhaps something nothing to do with Bauhaus at all.
One of the most important and effective methods to be a good artist is simple; to be careful enough. That’s all. Here is another product design from the same student.
(Image 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
Some features of the shape and image comes from Bauhaus, but not directly, because to follow Bauhaus style is not important for her. She had just experienced an exciting trip to Germany by breathing, smelling, touching, feeling, and so on., living there. She is still on the profound journey from seeds of memory to poetry. She will choose something, from time to time, from her cabinet of memories, but at the same time she might be chosen by something too. It is her journey as a young designer.
For better or worse, today people can immediately get thousands of images of Bauhaus or another product and visual design by switching on their computer. But it is not a real, authentic experience at all, it is only information. You cannot create by information only. To draw on paper by pencil is not designing. To design is a more physical activity in a three-dimensional world that we are actually living in. We need atmosphere.
Creativity is process. It is sometimes a long and sometimes a short path from the seeds of memory toward poetry, as we saw in Paul Klee’s dairy or in the product design models. So, it is vital to educate design students by showing them actual objects and taking them to actual places. They need to experience how it feels to touch these objects.. From this point of view, Bauhaus Museum of China Academy of Art is a meaningful and respectful project, I would say. And if possible please take students to Bauhaus sites to experience Bauhaus. They will get something there or perhaps they won’t get anything, but it doesn’t matter, because not to design is also to design. This is what we call perception.
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