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=== Return to Japan and war painting: 1933-1949 === [[File:Co-president of the Army Art Association.jpg|thumb|Foujita in the Army Art Association]] Foujita returned to Japan with Madeleine at the end of 1933. Madeleine found the transition to Japanese culture difficult.{{sfn|Birnbaum|2006|p= [https://archive.org/details/gloryinlinelifeo00birn/page/178 178–181]}} In February 1935, she went back to Paris, but returned a year later.{{sfn|Birnbaum|2006|p= [https://archive.org/details/gloryinlinelifeo00birn/page/184 184]}} In June 1936, she unexpectedly died.{{sfnm|Birnbaum|2006|1p= [https://archive.org/details/gloryinlinelifeo00birn/page/185 185]|Buruma|2014|2p=[https://archive.org/details/theaterofcruelty0000buru/page/301 301]|McDonald|2017|3p=[https://www.jstor.org/stable/45142459?seq=7 183]}} Soon afterwards, Foujita married his fifth wife, Kimiyo Horiuchi.{{sfnm|Birnbaum|2006|p= [https://archive.org/details/gloryinlinelifeo00birn/page/191191]|McDonald|2017|2p=[https://www.jstor.org/stable/45142459?seq=7 183]}} During this time, Foujita's paintings began to be dominated by classical Japanese subjects, such as [[geisha]], [[Sumo|sumo wrestlers]], and fishermen. His watercolors and oils received negative press when they were exhibited at the 21st Salon Nika in 1934. Critics felt as if his vision of Japan was old-fashioned and resembled that of a foreigner, with one critic noting that "the people and the scenes represented by this painter are not from the living and current Japan, but worn-out remnants from the past".<ref name=":5">Masaaki Ozaki, "Foujita et le Japon: à travers le prisme de la critique japonaise de l'époque", in ''Foujita 1886-1968. Oeuvres d'une vie,'' exh. cat., Paris, Maison de la culture du Japon, 2019, p. 51-60.</ref>{{Rp|page=51}} Foujita's taste for bygone Japan was further confirmed in 1937 when he constructed a traditional Japanese home.<ref name=":5" />{{Rp|page=56}} 1937 marked the beginning of the [[Second Sino-Japanese War|second Sino-Japanese war]]. Foujita sought to contribute to the war effort by the war on the front, and these civilian volunteers formed the Association of War Artists of Imperial Japan.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Kaneko |first=Maki |date=2013-05-01 |title=New Art Collectives in the Service of the War: The Formation of Art Organizations during the Asia-Pacific War |url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/positions/article/21/2/309/21654/New-Art-Collectives-in-the-Service-of-the-War-The |journal=Positions: Asia Critique |language=en |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=309–350 |doi=10.1215/10679847-2018274 |issn=1067-9847}}</ref>{{Rp|page=313}}{{sfn|Winther-Tamaki|1997|pp=148–153}} In 1938, Foujita began working with the [[Imperial Japanese Navy|Imperial Navy]] Information Office establishment as a [[war artist]]{{sfnm|McCloskey|2005|1p=[https://archive.org/details/artistsofworldwa0000mccl_r8u6/page/119 119]|Sandler|2001|2p=[{{Google book|id=5GuK7G-1F-MC|pg=PA193|plainurl=yes}} 193]}} and created his first war painting (''sensō ga''), ''Nanchang Airport Fire.''{{sfn|Lamia|2018|p=145}} In April 1939, the army reorganized the Association of War Artists of Imperial Japan as the Army Art Association, which commissioned monumental war paintings under the supervision of a new chairman, Matsui Iwane, who was an active military officer.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=313}}<ref name=":6">Aya Louise McDonald, "Fujita Tsuguharu: An Artist of the Holy War Revisited", in Asato Ikeda, Aya Louise McDonald and Ming Tiampo (ed.), ''Art and War in Japan and its Empire 1931-1960'', Brill, Leiden-Boston, 2013, p. 169-189.</ref>{{Rp|page=170}} Foujita and his fellow artist, Saburō Miyamoto were prominent members,{{sfn|Sandler|1996|p=[https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/777768?seq=10 82, fn13]}} and in 1943 Foujita became vice-chairman.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=319}}{{sfn|Ikeda|2009|p=[https://www.jstor.org/stable/42800262?seq=5 101]}} In spite of his strong connections with the Army Art Association, Foujita decided to return to Paris in April 1939. He and Kimiyo stayed there for slightly more than a year, leaving France and returning to Japan in May 1940 after the [[German invasion of Belgium (1940)|German invasion of Belgium]].{{sfn|Birnbaum|2006|pp=[https://archive.org/details/gloryinlinelifeo00birn/page/216 216–218]}} Upon return to Tokyo, Foujita dedicated himself as an artist supporting the war effort.<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|page=172}} He became the nation's leading war artists during [[World War II]],{{sfn|McDonald|2019|p=132}} creating a prolific number of war paintings{{sfnm|Breece|2016|1p=[http://earlham.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/propaganda-painted-by-masters.pdf 2]|Buruma|2014|2p=[https://archive.org/details/theaterofcruelty0000buru/page/294 294]|Ikeda|2009|3p=[https://www.jstor.org/stable/42800262?seq=1 97]}} and overseeing special exhibits for the military.{{sfn|Mayo|2001|p=[{{Google book|id=5GuK7G-1F-MC|pg=PA18|plainurl=yes}} 18]}} He received important commissions, like the ''Battle of Nomonhan,'' painted in 1941, a monumental painting measuring nearly 1.5 x 4.5 meters.<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|page=175}} Despite the painting's depiction of one of the largest military defeats the Japanese had experienced up to that time, it focuses on glorifying the bravery of the Japanese soldiers. Masaaki Ozaki divides Foujita's wartime production into two periods: the paintings of the first period, like ''Battle of Nomonhan,'' were supposed to document the war and boost the morale of troops.<ref name=":5" />{{Rp|page=58}} The second period, however, was a time in which the Japanese were experiencing more defeat than victory. The Japanese people began to lose confidence and the war effort became more desperate. The sources for Foujita's paintings were not the battlefields themselves, but his imagination, resulting in shocking dramatic compositions that Ozaki compares to representations of hell found in classical Japanese painting.<ref name=":5" />{{Rp|page=58}} Art historian Aya Louise McDonald also points out that his compositions were further enriched by Foujita's knowledge of 19th-century French painting in the Louvre.<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|page=180}} His most famous painting from this period is ''Last Stand at Attu,'' completed in August 1943, which depicts a battle against American troops on the [[Aleutian Islands]]. Rather than surrendering to the Americans, the Japanese soldiers remaining in battle killed themselves. The work received visceral responses from viewers, who wept or prayed in front of it, as if it were an altar.<ref name=":7">Kawata Akihisa, "War Art and Its Era", in Asato Ikeda, Aya Louise McDonald and Ming Tiampo (ed.), ''Art and War in Japan and its Empire 1931-1960'', Brill, Leiden-Boston, 2013, p. 28-37.</ref>{{Rp|page=34}} Foujita made paintings in a similar vein to ''Last Stand at Attu'' until the war's end in 1945. Following Japan's defeat, the Allied Powers in Japan made an effort to collect all war paintings to be sent to the United States, with Foujita's help.<ref name=":7" />{{Rp|page=36}} The paintings have never been officially "returned" to Japan, but they were placed on "indefinite loan" to the [[National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo]], which received the paintings from 1970 to 1977.<ref name=":7" />{{Rp|page=36}} Foujita received much public criticism after the war in Japan. He defended himself by asserting that artists were pacifists in nature, but the [[Japan Art Association]] (''Nihon Bijutsu-kai'') listed him as an artist responsible for the war in 1946.<ref name=":8">Asato Ikeda, "Fujita Tsuguharu Retrospective 2006: Resurrection of a Former Official War Painter", ''Review of Japanese Culture and Society,'' December 2009, vol. 21, p. 97-115.</ref>{{Rp|page=98}} Although Foujita's name did not appear on the list of war criminals published by the General Headquarters in 1947,{{sfn|Lamia|2018|p=148}} his reputation suffered,{{sfn|Robinson|Jacobowitz|2021b}} partly due to using his art to serve as [[propaganda]] for the [[Empire of Japan#World War II (1941–1945)|Imperial Japanese]] military and his refusal to confront accusations about his role as a war artist.{{sfnm|Ikeda|2009|1p=[https://www.jstor.org/stable/42800262?seq=1 97–98]}} The American poet [[Harry Roskolenko]] tried to support Foujita by putting on an exhibit of his paintings at the [[Kennedy Galleries|Kennedy and Company Galleries]] in New York, but none of the paintings were sold. Foujita and Roskolenko blamed [[Yasuo Kuniyoshi]], who described Foujita as a fascist, imperialist, and expansionist.{{sfn|Birnbaum|2006|p=[https://archive.org/details/gloryinlinelifeo00birn/page/274 274–276]}} Ultimately, Foujita decided to leave Japan definitively.<ref name=":8" />{{Rp|page=99}}
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