A Light in The Darkness

The Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe will always be closely identified with his compatriot, the novelist Yukio Mishima. Collected in the 1963 book Ordeal by Roses, Hosoe's intimate portraits of Mishima — with their air of sadomasochism and homoeroticism — have become iconic, and sprang[an error occurred while processing this directive] from an artistic interest the two men shared in the grand themes of beauty and decay, love and hatred, life and death. But while Mishima became obsessed with the latter (famously committing seppuku in 1970), Hosoe was able to tame his darker promptings and channel his creativity toward life-affirming ends. He found satisfaction in teaching — becoming a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics in 1975 — while perfecting a photographic style characterized by consummate control of light and shadow. Themes as diverse as the architecture of Gaudi and the fragility of life in a nuclear age informed his work.

Born in the city of Yonezawa in 1933, and obsessed with cameras since buying his first as a teenager, Hosoe is recognized today as one of Japan's greatest and most remarkable photographers. A major exhibition of his work, covering pieces from as far back as the 1960s (including images never previously exhibited), runs at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography until Jan. 28. For more details, see tokyo-photo-museum.or.jp