Ultrarealistic Metal Creatures: Mitsuta Haruo / Jizai Craftsman

"Direct Talk"

Our guest today is "jizai craftsman," Mitsuta Haruo.

He specializes in "jizai okimono,"

a type of metal craft developed in Japan about three centuries ago.

The animal figures are lifelike

and fully articulated.

Mitsuta is currently the only craftsperson in Japan

carrying on this traditional craft.

In 2019, he held a solo exhibition in London to much acclaim.

And in summer 2022,

he held his first exhibition since the start of the pandemic.

There he unveiled his latest work.

He spoke to us about the secrets of his craft,

and the extraordinary beauty of jizai okimono.

Ultrarealistic Metal Creatures

I would say

I'm very particular about realism in my work.

So most of my figures are one-to-one scale.

I try to make them the same size as the real thing.

And I also strive to make them fully articulated.

All the parts that should be able to move, can.

I make it as realistic as possible.

Nothing is an approximation.

Jizai okimono developed in the 18th century

after Japan emerged from a period of samurai warfare.

Artisans who'd been making samurai armor and horse tack found themselves out of work.

So they started applying their metalworking expertise

to make intricate, decorative objects.

Here's a hawk.

Its wings are made up of a series of metal plates that can be fanned out.

Everything, down to the feathers and eyes, is painstakingly detailed.

These decorative objects were basically like toys for wealthy people of the time.

Apparently, they were quite popular at events like the world's fair held in Paris.

But domestically, there just wasn't a market for it.

So the thinking is, they sold as many figures as they could overseas,

and then jizai okimono mostly faded away.

The tradition maintained a low profile as it was passed down from generation to generation.

Now in the 21st century, it's back in the limelight thanks to Mitsuta's efforts.

Here are some of his works.

They are so elaborately designed that they've been called "living creatures

that just happened to be born in metal form."

Here's one of his figures side-by-side with a real stag beetle.

Mitsuta's beetle has body parts and joints

that move around freely just like the real thing.

Its inner workings are complex.

This one took a long time.

Especially the shape of the horn,

I played around with that for a long time, more than a month just on that.

How does Mitsuta go about creating his figures?

First, he makes scale design sketches of the different parts of his subject.

He closely examines the anatomical structure

and how the parts move and work together.

Then he cuts the components out of metal plates, refines the shape,

and sculpts the details.

The key is in the joints.

By applying more or less force with his hammer,

he can adjust the movement of the pieces.

This looks good.

The leg stops right here.

At this point, this cicada is about 70% finished.

Each figure takes Mitsuta at least a month to complete.

The more elaborate ones take upwards of three months.

Over here,

I have a fridge full of subjects.

Inside of his refrigerator are over 100 specimens

that will serve as models for his future work.

Among his collection is this.

A coconut crab.

I anticipate about a year of work to make this one.

It would take me a lifetime to make everything in here.

Mitsuta grew up in rural Japan and loved playing around in nature.

He spent much of his time collecting insects,

reading bug encyclopedias, and drawing his specimens.

He also loved playing around with posable plastic models

from the anime series "Gundam."

In his teens, he set his sights on Japan's top art university

known for world-class alumni such as the artist Okamoto Taro

and the composer Sakamoto Ryuichi.

But its admission process is highly competitive.

It took Mitsuta four years to get in.

I just had no intention to attend a school other than Tokyo University of the Arts.

My parents must have been worried about me.

They must've been wondering if I really had what it takes,

or maybe they didn't get why I had my heart set on an art school.

I think I gave them a lot of grief back then.

Mitsuta finally got into his dream school on his fifth attempt.

He studied metal carving and had aspirations of becoming an artist.

But he had no concrete ideas for what he would do after graduation.

Then during his junior year in 2002,

he traveled to Kyoto to study ancient Japanese art as part of his coursework.

There he had a life-changing encounter with jizai okimono

when he visited the workshop of Tomiki Muneyuki,

a fifth-generation jizai craftsman.

The Tomiki family specializes in detailed work

including Japanese spiny lobsters.

I knew of jizai okimono

and had been aware that it existed up until about a century ago.

But in my mind, it was something you could only find in museums,

you know, in art museums behind glass.

I thought it had completely died out.

So finding out that it'd been passed down from generation to generation really moved me.

I ended up asking Tomiki to take me on as his apprentice the day I met him.

I was into living creatures, into articulated plastic models and the like,

and into that kind of ingenuity.

I was also into metal.

Jizai okimono had all the things I'd loved since I was a kid.

Mitsuta stayed at Tomiki's workshop for a month,

and impressed him by successfully making a bell cricket

simply through observation and imitation.

For three years after that,

he split his time between his university studies and his apprenticeship.

Tomiki taught him the craft and culture of jizai okimono.

The thing that stuck with me most,

and that I continue to think about all the time,

is when he said this to me.

"Make the kind of work that won't embarrass you

when it undergoes repairs a century or two from now."

I definitely don't want to make anything that another craftsperson like me

would look at and say, "Ah, he got a little lazy right there."

After graduating from university in 2008,

Mitsuta started working as a jizai craftsman,

dedicating himself to carrying on the legacy of his craft.

But at the time, jizai okimono had a low profile,

and few galleries were interested in showing such work.

With his unease growing, he knew he had to do something.

At the time, jizai okimono wasn't really seen as a traditional craft.

So I struggled to find a place where I could show my work.

I tried everything I could.

I approached other artists, as well as school alumni that I looked up to

and showed them the kind of work I was making.

Eventually, he caught a break.

A fellow alumnus who had seen his work referred him to a contemporary art gallery.

I considered myself a craftsman,

and in my mind, the genre of contemporary art

doesn't really emphasize technical skill, at least in my opinion.

So to be honest, I was quite apprehensive about the opportunity.

Nevertheless, Mitsuta knew he had to start somewhere.

So he kept showing his work at the gallery.

And he gave his art a playful modern twist like these two centipedes on a pillow.

As his solo contemporary art shows became more popular,

he started being approached for craft exhibitions.

In 2019,

he held a successful solo exhibition in London that was well-received.

Jizai okimono had somewhat of an established reputation among London art circles,

as some of the local museums held figures that had been made by his predecessors

and exported overseas.

Many of the figures that had been exported to the UK were on the larger side.

And they weren't all that intricate in their design.

They were mostly dragons and large creatures like that.

And there weren't figures of smaller, more delicate things like insects.

I noticed that.

So I think audiences hadn't really seen this type of jizai okimono,

like insects meticulously designed down to the finest details.

A lot of people were really curious about my work.

Mitsuta is currently working on a variety of artistic collaborations.

And he's embraced contemporary art in the hopes of expanding the horizons of his craft.

In summer 2022,

he unveiled his latest project in Hiroshima Prefecture.

A collaboration with the Hirayama Ikuo Museum of Art.

Hirayama is known for paintings of Buddhist architecture and Silk Road trade routes.

He was an internationally acclaimed artist

who was awarded the French National Order of the Legion of Honour.

He also served as president of Mitsuta's alma mater.

For Mitsuta, it was an opportunity to collaborate with a giant of Japanese art.

He hoped to blur the line between painting and jizai okimono.

Here's one of Hirayama's most famous works.

Mitsuta took inspiration from this caravan of camels,

and made a line of ants.

And to go with this painting of the moon over Angkor Wat,

he designed a dung beetle rolling a planet.

It really feels like they're alive.

It's amazing they're articulated.

It makes you want to play with it.

I remembered that I'd heard from someone about this researcher.

That researcher had found evidence of the dung beetle's evolution

along various points of the Silk Road.

I thought that was fascinating.

It made me think, and that's what gave me the idea

to have the beetle rolling this blue lapis lazuli ball.

So the process was considerably different from my usual straightforward approach to my work.

It was creatively stimulating.

I hope to periodically do work like that again sometime in the future.

(Do you have any words to live by?)

"Legacy."

I've inherited this legacy, this tradition from my teacher.

The skills, the culture, all of it.

For me, jizai okimono is a legacy that I've inherited.

That's what this means.

I don't want the story of jizai okimono to end with me.

So my goal as a jizai craftsman

is to keep the tradition alive for the next generation,

to pick up the torch, and one day to pass it on to the next generation.