tikkyou Ono (1889–1979) was a Japanese-style painter born in Kasaoka City, Okayama Prefecture. He studied under Seiho Takeuchi and later helped found the National Painting Creation Association alongside artists such as Bakusen Tsuchida. Travelling throughout Japan, he observed nature and depicted mountains, the sea, the countryside and twilight scenes using simple forms and clear colours. As he grew older, his compositions became increasingly straightforward; rather than merely depicting the appearance of nature, he developed a unique style of landscape painting that translated the emotions he felt from it into colour and form. In 1976, he was awarded the Order of Culture.

Ono Chikakyo’s works possess a refreshing quality, as if the sincere emotions he felt when standing before a landscape have been preserved directly on the canvas. Although the green of the mountains, the blue of the sky and the red of the setting sun are boldly simplified, one can, strangely enough, still sense the actual season and the very atmosphere of the scene. To me, Takeaki Ono’s landscape paintings do not depict nature in minute detail, but rather appear to be works that quietly capture the light and colours that lingered in his heart at that particular place. Their great appeal lies in the fact that, whilst concise, they evoke a profound resonance the more one looks at them.