HINOHARU STATION (HOKUTO, YAMANASHI PREFECTURE)

Mountain backdrop inspires artists

Photos by Yomiuri Shimbun Photographer Yasunari Itayama

By Shin Usami

Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Mountain ranges encircle the small station house of Hinoharu Station on the JR Chuo Line in Hokuto, Yamanashi Prefecture.

Mt. Kaikomagatake, which stands amid a range of saw-toothed mountains in the Southern Japanese Alps, soars into the blue sky. Yatsugatake mountains spread their ridge lines gently on both sides, while Mt. Fuji stands aloof, far from the railway.

"It's about 2-1/2 hours from Shinjuku Station. It's a fair distance from Tokyo," said artist Katsuyuki Shinohara, 63, who is known as "Kuma-san."

He spends most of the year at his studio near the station house, traveling back and forth between Tokyo and Hokuto. He has been living in the city since he erected a 30-meter-high steel sculpture near a local river 12 years ago.

Twenty years ago, Shinohara became excited by a steel frame that twisted like a living creature after being heated with a burner at a building site.

He raced out and bought a welding machine with what little money he had at the time. He produced his first work after breaking up a rusty bicycle, manipulating its steel parts.

"I played with steel materials for several years and later came to meddle with glass, sand and stones. In this manner, it is my style of art to express the nature of the natural world," Shinohara said.

Shinohara's studio is about four kilometers from the station down meandering roads. Walking slowly, Shinohara said he always felt the wind, sunshine and the seasonal changes of nature.

He used to think Tokyo superior to the countryside, but now he has the opposite view.

When he turned 60, he came to regard the hustle and bustle of Tokyo as artificial.

"I like the atmosphere in Tokyo, but I actually feel more alive living quietly in a mountain town," Shinohara said.

Hinoharu Matsumoto, 60, a music composer and professor at Kyoto City University of Arts, once got off at his namesake station in the spring when he was a second-year high schooler.

"There was nothing other than mountains around the station and Mt. Kaikomagatake seemed to come right down to me. The well water was very good," Matsumoto said.

His father, who also was a music composer and liked mountain climbing, told Matsumoto he was named after the station to which he had often traveled.

Two years ago, when the station marked its centenary, Matsumoto held a memorial concert in Hokuto at the station's request.

Seeing the station for the first time in a long time, Matsumoto said it had totally changed, with a parking lot and houses in front of it.

"Humans are the same as mountains. I feel delighted by the warm country hospitality given by elderly people in Hokuto. I really appreciate my good name," he said.

The spiritual presence of mountains at the station has a good chemistry with artists.