Fujiko Nakaya was born in Sapporo, Japan, in 1933. She was inspired by her father Ukichiro Nakaya, well-known physicist, researcher, and founder of Iwanami Productions (1950), maker of educational films and documentaries. He specialized in glacial studies, and he made the first artificial snowflake. Ukichiro also was a Sumi-e artist of Asian ink brush paintings.  He was dedicated to issues concerning the environment and art, interests he passed on to his daughter. Nakaya graduated from the High School of Japan Women’s University, Tokyo. She came to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to study painting. She received her BA in 1957, and then went to Paris and Madrid where she studied painting until 1959.

“Fog Sculpture #47773” (1970)

Nakaya soon would change from painting to fog sculpture: “I used to paint clouds. And at a certain point I wanted a more direct experience-oriented form of art that painting couldn’t provide. I felt unsatisfied with the painting as a medium and started thinking about working with temperature difference which is responsible for changes in a lot of forms of nature—in animals and in people and things. I made dry ice clouds on a plate with a heater underneath. So, I was experimenting with the change of form through temperature differences.”  

In 1966, Nakaya joined EAT (Experiments in Art and Technology), a non-profit established by engineers and artists, including the POP artist Robert Rauschenberg, to facilitate collaboration between the two. Nakaya’s “Fog Sculpture #47773” (1970) was chosen to represent EAT at EXPO ’70 in Osaka. The theme of the EXPO was “Progress and Harmony for Mankind.”  One of the exhibitors was the Pepsi Company that sponsored a Buckminster Fuller-type geodesic dome. As one of the EATS group of 75 artists and engineers from America and Japan, Nakaya was responsible for the outside of the PEPSI Pavilion.  

Collaborating with American physicist Thomas Mee, Nakaya helped develop a process for creating fog. Pressurized water was forced through a tiny nozzle and hit a pin that separated water into droplets about 20 microns wide. The droplets were so small they remained suspended in air for a long time, like fog. 

Nakaya succeeded in manufacturing artificial fog on a massive scale in order to cover the Pavilion.  Billions of droplets of water (fog) surrounded the Pavilion and spread out to visitors. “Fog Sculpture #47773” was considered the most spectacular exhibit at the EXPO. 

Since 1970, Nakaya has produced more than 80 fog gardens, falls, and geysers all over the world. Nakaya explained, “When you experience nature with your body, the quality of the experience really sticks…I want to create a situation where people can establish a physical relationship with nature…Through this relationship, we gain the instinctive wisdom to make decisions to preserve nature.”

Continuing her experiment to perfect the technique, Nakaya patented in 1989 a device for the purpose of making cloud/fog sculpture from water. The numbers included in the titles of her fog sculptures are the international code for the closest weather station.

“Foggy Wake in a Desert #94925” (1982)

“Foggy Wake in a Desert” (1982) (Canberra, Australia) was the result of Nakaya’s collaboration with scientist Dr. Yasushi Mitsuta of Kyoto University to investigate the impact that one square kilometer (3280.84 square feet) of fog would have on the desert. The project took place on a landscape Nakaya designed, near the National Gallery of Australia. Nine hundred nozzles pumped the foggy mist from 12:30 until 2:00 pm daily. The climate and ecological changes were recorded for ten years. Science and art came together, and “Foggy Wake in a Desert” was a success. In 1983, it became a permanent installation in the Sculpture Garden of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. 

“Opal Loop, Cloud Installation #72503” (1980)

Nakaya designed her first indoor fog project for the Trisha Brown Dance Company in New York City in 1980. At times the fog came down from above the dancers, and at other times it moved across the stage while dancers appeared and disappeared in the mist. The fog also rolled out into the audience, enveloping them in the environment of the performance. “Opal Loop, Cloud Installation” has been performed several times since. 

Nakaya has worked with artists all over the world to provide fog sculptures to accompany concerts. She participated in international sculpture conferences and exhibitions. One was in Washington, D.C. in 1980. She began making videos of her projects in 1979. She founded Video Gallery SCAN in Tokyo to promote video art in Japan. Nakaya participated in the First International Water Sculpture Competition (1983) organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art.

“Children’s Forest #47660” (1992)

According to Nakaya, “Fog reacts to local meteorological conditions…landscape can appear to be largely static until fog is introduced.” She introduced fog into public parks, across bridges, in parking lots, and where ever she is invited to share her unique art. All the fog sculptures invite interaction with visitors. “Children’s Forest #47880” (1992) (Showa Kinen Park, Tachikawa, Tokyo, Japan) provides an example of peoples’ playful response to fog sculptures.  

“Fog Bridge” (2013)

Nakaya created fog sculpture for number of museums including the Guggenheim Museum, Spain in 1993 and 1998/99, the Tate Modern in London, and the Pompidou Center in Paris 2017. Fog sculpture installations in the United States include the University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2010. “Fog Bridge #72494” (2013) (Exploratorium, San Francisco), celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge. “Fog Bridge” was 150 feet long bridge that enshrouded visitors with fog for ten minutes every half hour. It was pre-programmed to interact with real-time weather. If the wind was coming from the east, the 800 small nozzles would make fog only on the east side of the bridge. “Fog Bridge” is a permanent installation at the Exploratorium. Nakaya states, “Fog makes visible things become invisible and invisible things – like wind – become visible”.

“Veil” (2014)

 For American architect Philip Johnson’s Glass house in New Canaan, Connecticut, Nakaya created “Veil” (2014). Fog shrouded the house for 10-15 minutes each hour, creating a unique experience for visitors of the transparency of the glass, the changing time of the day, and the surrounding landscape.

“Fogscape” (2015)

Durham Cathedral, England is one of the historical locations for Nakaya’s fog sculptures “Fogscape” (2015). Fog sculpture is one of several off-shoots of installation art, happenings, and performance art that began in the late 1950’s and has been continued by such artists as Christo. They open up the experience to numerous visitors and encourage participation. They last for a short time but are photographed extensively and are either recorded on video or published in books.

“Fog x Flow” (2018)

“Fog x Flo” (2018) was a series of five fog sculptures to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Boston’s Emerald Necklace Conservancy. It was established in 1998 as a private non-profit stewardship organization to restore and maintain Boston’s public parks designed by Frederick Law Olmstead. Olmstead was the 19th Century landscape architect responsible for the design of over 100 public parks and recreation grounds in America. Boston’s Emerald Necklace Park had been neglected for over 50 years. Nakaya’s fog sculptures transformed the parks into another magical environment. As with all Nakaya’s fog sculptures, she insists the mechanics are visible and audible.

“Fog x Flo” (2018)

“Fog has a very democratic status. It’s constantly moving, and when two droplets collide, they each go off a little, making room for each other. It makes the world a little bigger—for everyone.”  (Nayaka, n.d.)

“Fog x Flo” (2018)

“If you have even one little experience with fog, you start to see things differently. Nature is so complex. We can’t understand its complexity. If you tap one spot it will open up so many things and enlarge imaginations.” (Nakaya, 2013)

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

Alfred Sisley (1839-1899) was a founding member of the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers in Paris. The group of artists were students at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and all painted in “plein air” (outdoors) near Paris at the Forest of Fontainebleau. The original group of artists included Sisley, Monet, Renoir, and Bazille, and they quickly were joined by several others. The group held their first exhibition in Paris in1874. A critic, making fun of the title of Monet’s painting “Impression Sunrise,” wrote sarcastically how impressed he was. From that time on, the group has been known as the Impressionists. 

“The Bell Tower at Noisy-le-Roi, Autumn” (1874)

Alfred Sisley is one of the lesser-known Impressionists who became popular after his death. “The Bell Tower at Noisy-le-Roi, Autumn” (1874) (17” x 24”) illustrates Sisley’s style and his talent. The inspiration for the Impressionists was the scientific discovery that sunlight, which illuminates everything, was composed of the colors of the rainbow: purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. All Impressionists began painting in plein air, but Sisley never stopped. He was not a painter of people or the bustling city life of Paris. He was the painter of landscapes and villages up and down the Seine near Paris. He and his family lived in several of these villages his entire life, and local landscapes never failed to inspire him. He painted the villages, fields, forests, and rivers that composed the beauty of the French countryside.

“The Bell Tower at Noisy-le-Roi, Autumn” presents the viewer with a field that has been harvested, a few town residents, and a black and white spotted cow in front of a wooden fence. The fence divides the fields from the town’s bright yellow-green lawn. The sunlight on the field is painted with bright yellow, green, and orange. The deeper furrows in the field are blue, green, and purple. In contrast, the shade under the autumn trees is painted in cool greens and blues. 

The orange tile roofs of village houses and the bell tower can be seen beyond the trees.  It is a beautiful fall day with a blue sky and scudding white clouds. The complementary colors of orange and blue, green and red, and yellow and purple are distributed throughout the peaceful village scene.  

Half the painting is of the sky, the white clouds shadowed underneath with light orange paint. Sisley once said to a critic, “…the sky cannot only be a background…I always begin by painting the sky.” He explained his approach in a letter to his friend Adolphe Tavernier: “The sky is not simply a background; its planes give depth (for the sky has planes, as well as solid ground), and the shapes of clouds give movement to a picture. What is more beautiful indeed than the summer sky, with its wispy clouds idly floating across the blue? What movement and grace! Don’t you agree? They are like waves on the sea; one is uplifted and carried away.”

https://ts.spycommunitymedia.org/files/2022/09/2-White-Hoar-Frost-St-Martin-Autumn-Indian-Summer-1874.jpg

“White Hoar Frost, St. Martin, Autumn, Indian Summer” (1874) (18’’x 21.5’’) depicts another scene of autumn, but it shows the unending variation Sisley found outside his own front door. Autumn is on full display, and the nearby tree has lost all its leaves. At the right, the plants in the field have gone gold and orange, and stacks of logs are ready for winter fires. The furrows are deep and depicted with dark blue and purple in contrast with the yellow and orange of the harvested crops. Sisley’s paintings include a small number of figures, letting the viewer know that the townsfolk are there and active. 

The nearer buildings are painted with wide brush strokes and more intense colors to emphasize the solid structures. As the buildings recede into the distance, they are painted with lighter, feathery brush strokes. Sisley employs the technique of aerial perspective: more distant objects are affected by the atmosphere and appear fainter and bluer.

“The Flood at Port Marly” (1872)

During his lifetime Sisley painted two series of major floods of the Seine at Port Marly. His first-hand record of the floods was unique among the subjects painted by the Impressionists.  “The Flood at Port Marly” (1872) (18.25’’ x 24’’) (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) is one of four paintings he made of the 1872 flood. He captures the swollen river as it rises to the door of the Restaurant a Saint Nicholas. Two women stand on a slip of land in front of the door while a boatman poles his boat in the water. Two others stand around the corner on a set of stairs that have not been submerged. Above them a wrought iron bracket displays the restaurant’s name. At the right a pilon and a few trees bring balance to the foreground of the composition. One figure stands among the trees on an outcropping that is surrounded by water. Another figure rows a boat in front of a shed.  More trees and houses recede into the distance. 

Sisley details the three-storied structure of the Restaurant: curtains at the windows, shutters both open closed, tall windows with stone cornices on the third floor, and sloped roofs of grey-blue slate and tiles, and multiple chimneys. The painting is composed mainly of the complementary colors blue and orange. Sisley artfully places several horizontal dark blue and purple dashes across the center of the composition, with small touches of the darker colors on the roof of the restaurant and on the foliage of the trees that recede into the background. Sisley was a master of composition, arranging everything to create harmony, balance, and calm even in a dire situation. 

“Flood at Port Marly” (1876)

Water was another of Sisley’s favorite subjects, and he frequently painted bridges over water and landscapes including rivers. His ability to observe sunlight, movement, and reflections on water was unique. Four years after the 1872 flood, Sisley painted seven pictures of the 1876 flood. At that time, he was able to chronicle the flood from the beginning to the end. As the flood increased, the village of Port Marly was submerged. “Flood at Port Marly” (1876) (19.5’’ x 24’’) depicts the waters of the Seine flowing across the street. Sisley set up his easel around the corner from the Restaurant a Saint Nicholas, the second building on the left. A coach drawn by white horses appears with luggage piled high. Rows of trees, rowers in a boat, and the dark roofed shed can be seen across the street.

Steven Mallarme, French poet and art critic, wrote an article on Impressionism for The Art Monthly review in London shortly after he saw Sisley’s 1876 paintings of the flood: “He captures the fleeing effects of light. He observes a passing cloud and seems to depict it in its flight. The crisp air goes through the canvas, the foliage stirs and shivers.”

Born in Paris to English parents, Sisley was therefore English. However, he lived and worked almost his entire life in France. He visited England only a few times. The last time, in 1897, he married his companion of 31 years, Marie-Louise Adelaide Eugenie Lescouezec. They had a son and a daughter. Sisley applied for French citizenship in1898, but he was refused. 

Sisley asked his longtime friend Monet to look after his children when he died. Marie-Louise died in 1899, Sisley three months later. That year, Monet asked George Petit, an art dealer and promoter of Impressionism, to hold an auction of Sisley’s paintings to help support the children. One of “The Flood at Port Marly” paintings sold for 43,000 francs to Count Isaac de Camondowho. Interest in Sisley’s art was thus established. 

The well-known art critic, painter, and art theorist Wynford Dewhurst (1864-1941) wrote in one of books on Impressionism: “Rare are the artists who distinguish themselves in every branch of art, lucky the man who excelled in one. An example of the latter is Sisley, ‘pausagiste’ [landscapist] pure and simple, who has left a legacy of some of the most fascinating landscapes ever painted.”

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.