Memory

Nobuyoshi Araki

Nobuyoshi Araki is a japanese photographer and contemporary artist who was born on May 25, 1940. Araki worked in an advertising agency called “Dentsu” and on the year 2005 he had published over 350 book. He is still creating numerous more books every year and is regarded as one of the most creative artists in Japan and many more countries around the world. The specific artwork that will be analyzed is a series of photographs, “The days we were happy” which was created on 1972. Each photographs are paper print that are the size of 10x14.5 cm each. Three of the photographs I selected from the series, “The days we were happy” display images of a television, a woman cooking, and an old man. The three specific photographs are captured in an old and ripped photograph. Nobuyoshi Araki most certainly comments on the idea of memory as the title, “The days we were happy” is obviously talking about the past. All the photographs are black and white, therefore stressing the fact that these images are old and from the past. The first image that will be discussed is the television that looks like from the 40s to 50s era. This televison could have been Araki’s family television and one of the technologies he prized the most as it could be wear he would watch his shows at a young age all together with his family. The second image is of a woman cooking, which could possibly be his mother. Araki may have missed what his mother had cooked for him in the past when he was a child. The third image is of an old man who could have been is father or grandfather. The man in the image is shown with a huge smile on his face, which probably showed how much Araki missed the laughter this man gave to him. These images are all of what he missed and what made him happiest the most. The most important part of these photographs are the fact that they are all torn and dirty. The symbolism in this action of ripping the photographs, communicate upon how a photograph captures a specific moment in time yet a photograph also can easily be destroyed as it is just a piece of paper. This photograph can not bring back the happy days in his life as they are just in the past and stuck in that specific print of paper. It truly shows how much Araki misses these special moment in his past that he probably can’t bring back to the present and experience again.