Tomohiko Amada is an imaginary Japanese painter of traditional Japanese painting who appears on Haruki Murakami’s long novel Killing Commendatore . (§ 3, 4, 5, 25, 26, 28, 29, 36, 37, 40, 41, 48, 49, 51) So he doesn’t exist in reality. He is not a real person.
His model might be a Japanese art painter, Sanko Inoue (1899 – 1981).
Tomohiko Amada was born in Aso, Kumamoto. His family was a great landowner and quite affluent. He graduated from the Tokyo Fine Arts School (later Tokyo University of of the Arts), then he studied abroad Western painting in Vienna from the end of 1936 to the beginning of 1939. During the time, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany, and the Anschluss took place in March 1938. He must be witness of historical events at the era. (§ 3, 4) He was caught in a scandal of aborted assassination in Vienna, was concerned with his lover, a member of a resistance group. Then he was sent back to Japan by the Japanese embassy in Berlin. (§ 25)
He returned to Japan in February 1939. After he came back to Japan completely switched his style from Western to traditional Japanese. He maintained silence for over six years. After the second world war and the Pacific War had ended, he debuted again and he succeed in the Japanese style painting as an up-and-coming painter. (§ 3, 4)
His former style of painting was modernist abstract painting was heavily influenced by Cubism. His Western style paintings were excellent but something were missing. (§ 3, 4)
His Japanese paintings had something unique only he could express. Motifs of his paintings were realistic scenery and flower, the same as most Japanese style painters. Then he begun to paint scenes of ancient Japan as the Asuka period especially and the Heian and Kamakura periods. (§ 3, 4)
He was a fan of classical music and opera, and went to the opera house at Vienna frequently. He heard Richard Strauss conduct one of symphonies by Beethoven with the Vienna Philharmonic. So he had a record collection of opera and chamber music, and always painted Japanese art while listening classical music. (§ 3, 4, 48)
Killing Commendatore is a Japanese traditional style painting work by Tomohiko Amada. The narrator found the tableau from the attic of Amada’s house. The painting represents a scene of Asuka period and was the only painting by Amada represents violent scene. On the painting, a young man thrusts an old man by a sward, and his blood is pouring from his chest. An elegant lady, a young man and a mysterious man in a hole watch the fight while they are astonished. And the painting might be inspired by Mozart’s Don Giovanni and its adoption, besides it describes the incident of which Amada was caught in Vienna. (§ 5, 26)
The present time of the novel, he was ninety-two years old, and in a nursing home in Izu because of his dementia. (§ 3, 4, 49, 51)
When Amada was about to pass away, his spirit or ghost visited his studio where the narrator used, sat on a stool and gazed at his painting Killing Commendatore. (§ 40, 41)
His son, Masahiko Amada was a classmate of an art collage and the only intimate friend of the narrator. He had studied oil painting too, but he was not artist type, and he became graphic designer in Tokyo. Masahiko lent his father’s mountaintop house in Odawara to the narrator. (§ 8)
Details of the Book
Killing Commendatore
Haruki Murakami
Vintage Publishing, London, 03 October 2019
704 pages
ISBN: 9781784707330
Related Posts and Pages
Note | Killing Commendatore, Book 1
Note | Killing Commendatore, Book 2
Book Review | Killing Commendatore
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