The keynote of the ongoing exhibition at the Yasuda Kasai Museum in Shinjuku is the brilliance and vividness of color.
Featuring painters associated with Fauvism and German Expressionism, the show includes 87 works of astounding color from the extensive collection built up by Werner Merzbacher, a wealthy Zurich-based fur merchant and financier.
In view of the fact that both Merzbacher's parents died in a Nazi concentration camp, the importance of color as a symbol of life cannot be overstated. Steven Spielberg, when he came to shoot "Schindler's List," felt that color was an inappropriate medium for the Holocaust, and so filmed the movie in black and white. Seen in this light, Merzbacher's obsession with intensely colored pictures suddenly makes enormous sense.