In Autobiographical Record, Ishikawa wrote: “One year after I made Katō, I felt I had gained a lot of momentum. Call it design or decoration, but new works just came to me as if by themselves. I came up with phrases to write, in whatever manner they crossed my mind.” The present work stems from that period. It is similar to another one that Ishikawa describes as follows:

“I heavily adorned the horizontal and vertical strokes of the character “十” (ten). The character “方” (direction) is symmetrically constructed, making it resemble a human figure. The two characters for “暗黒” (darkness) I made both fit into a similarly sized area. The character “千” (thousand), in this context, means “countless,” so I filled it with numerous diagonal lines. Furthermore, on the left, there are many dots like raindrops, and if there were even more dots, they would come to represent infinity, which is why I added the infinity symbol. In the case of “世界” (world, or realm), I combined the characters for “世” and “界” into one.” (Autobiographical Record)

The raindrop-like dots of “千” in In the Darkness… appear on both sides of the character (in the upper left of the image), but the rest of them is the same as in the work he describes in the above quote. For each character, Ishikawa added decorative elements that build on its meaning, reflecting his approach to exploring the significance of written forms.

Ishikawa Kyuyoh (calligrapher; b.1945)

Born in Fukui Prefecture, Japan in 1945. Graduated from the Faculty of Law at Kyoto University. After serving as a professor at Kyoto Seika University and the director of the Institute for Writing and Civilizations, he is now an emeritus professor at the same university. Ishikawa has elucidated the concept that “calligraphy is the art of hisshoku (taction),” and interprets the structure and history of calligraphy. As a critic, he is also active in discussions on the Japanese language and culture, which have had a significant impact across various fields. In both his artistic creations and written works, Ishikawa continues to produce cutting-edge expressions and insights. His body of work includes over 2,000 calligraphic pieces and more than 100 published books.