Japanese Armor Society Forum

It was great meeting the artist, Tetsuya Noguchi today. Noguchi-san depicts his samurai subjects as ordinary and vulnerable, rather than heroic and powerful, which of course is the cliched image normally portrayed. Noguchi-san's knowledge of katchu and Japanese history is remarkably deep, showing an insight for terminology, parts and types of kabuto and armour and even kamon and geographic areas of katchu production.

I was very much surprised about his knowledge of momoyama armor! He must have a photographic memory. On the other hand, his approach is really artistic.
He brings those sengoku jidai warriors into the 21 century.

This is one of my favorites. It illustrates the importance of a mon (or a brand), even nowadays.

And this one shows how futuristic momoyama design is.

John,
Great images, great joke!
Thanks for the update, you have really made me re-evaluate my opinion of Noguchi-sans work, a real modern iki-ningyo master. I look forward to a full ‘in-depth’ report on his work. I’d love to know, are these pieces scale multi media or clever modelling in resin?
I’ll post some images of one of the antique iki-ningyo I have owned, not so contemporary but very samurai and a bit more ....gruesome.
Thanks for making me ‘look again’.

Richard

Here's another pic with the artist himself along with gallery assistant director, Satomi: