ID :
184797
Fri, 05/27/2011 - 07:16
Auther :
Shortlink :
http://m.oananews.org//node/184797
The shortlink copeid
Japanese Coal Miner's Paintings Listed as World Heritage
Tokyo, May 25 (Jiji Press)--A collection of paintings and diaries of Japanese painter Sakubei Yamamoto depicting coal miners in the first half of the 20th century has been chosen as world heritage along with 44 other items, UNESCO said Wednesday.
This will be the first time that a Japanese item has been inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, which lists documentary collections including paintings that should be preserved and handed down to posterity.
Yamamoto's collection "is a personal testimony to the developments during the late Meiji era and into the later 20th century, when industrial revolution was still being acted out in the coal mining industry of Chikuho," said UNESCO.
Japan's Meiji era lasted until 1912. Chikuho is a region in the current Fukuoka Prefecture in southwestern Japan.
"The collection combines naive art with text, informed by diaries written during the events being depicted, painted by a man who lived through the events and worked literally at the coal-face," the U.N. body said.
The Fukuoka Prefecture city of Tagawa and Fukuoka Prefectural University, which own and manage Yamamoto's works, jointly applied for UNESCO registration of the collection of 697 items in March last year.
Yamamoto, who was born in 1892 and died in 1984, worked as a coal miner in Chikuho from his boyhood until 63. He recorded details of miners' work and life in watercolor and ink paintings, as well as in diaries. The total number of his works exceeded 1,000.
Tagawa originally aimed for registration of equipment and other items related to a Mitsui group coal mine in the city on UNESCO's World Heritage List, city officials said.
The application failed to be approved in the 2009 selection. But the works of Yamamoto, which were submitted as a reference material, were highly appreciated by foreign experts, the officials said.
In a related move, Japan's education ministry has recently decided to nominate two national treasures for inscription on the Memory of the World Register.
The two items are a diary of Michinaga Fujiwara, who held supreme power in the 11th century, and materials brought home by a Japanese mission to Rome and other places in Europe in the 17th century.
At present, the Memory of the World Register lists 238 items including Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and the diaries of Anne Frank describing her life in hiding from Nazi Germany during World War II.
This will be the first time that a Japanese item has been inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, which lists documentary collections including paintings that should be preserved and handed down to posterity.
Yamamoto's collection "is a personal testimony to the developments during the late Meiji era and into the later 20th century, when industrial revolution was still being acted out in the coal mining industry of Chikuho," said UNESCO.
Japan's Meiji era lasted until 1912. Chikuho is a region in the current Fukuoka Prefecture in southwestern Japan.
"The collection combines naive art with text, informed by diaries written during the events being depicted, painted by a man who lived through the events and worked literally at the coal-face," the U.N. body said.
The Fukuoka Prefecture city of Tagawa and Fukuoka Prefectural University, which own and manage Yamamoto's works, jointly applied for UNESCO registration of the collection of 697 items in March last year.
Yamamoto, who was born in 1892 and died in 1984, worked as a coal miner in Chikuho from his boyhood until 63. He recorded details of miners' work and life in watercolor and ink paintings, as well as in diaries. The total number of his works exceeded 1,000.
Tagawa originally aimed for registration of equipment and other items related to a Mitsui group coal mine in the city on UNESCO's World Heritage List, city officials said.
The application failed to be approved in the 2009 selection. But the works of Yamamoto, which were submitted as a reference material, were highly appreciated by foreign experts, the officials said.
In a related move, Japan's education ministry has recently decided to nominate two national treasures for inscription on the Memory of the World Register.
The two items are a diary of Michinaga Fujiwara, who held supreme power in the 11th century, and materials brought home by a Japanese mission to Rome and other places in Europe in the 17th century.
At present, the Memory of the World Register lists 238 items including Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and the diaries of Anne Frank describing her life in hiding from Nazi Germany during World War II.
