Hiroshi YASUKAWA (born 1931) Monochrome composition, 1979. Acrylic on canvas Signed on the back and dated 96 x 190 cm Provenance: Audap-Mirabaud studio sale, Drouot, 08/04/2015 Provenance: private collection Luxembourg Steeped in Japanese and Chinese culture, and deeply imbued with 8th-century Chinese philosophy and poetry, Yasukawa creates untitled works that he wants to be meditation aids, in a never-ending quest for the most extreme simplicity. Yasukawa's works are supports for meditation, the product of lengthy work on composition and colour, and they demand to be looked at for a long time because every detail counts. Her geometric abstraction is the result of a long process of composition, in which the artist seeks to create a meditative support for the viewer. Her compositions are flat and strictly geometric, but the many layers of colour that the artist applies make it easy to immerse oneself in her work. He seeks only to express the essential and ruthlessly eliminate the superfluous. The works of Hiroshi YASUKAWA represent the manifestation in the artistic gesture of man's ability to reach the essence of nature, beyond its visible appearance, inspired by the lessons of Piet Mondrian or Theo Van Doesburg, restored by YASUKAWA with, perhaps, through the simplicity of the lines and the purity of the strokes, a greater achievement in the process of abstraction. They also undoubtedly have an initial symbolic function, which was not foreign to the artists of the De Stijl movement, since each geometric figure can take on a universal meaning, the sphere representing the perfect centre, the circle, the enclosed space, the square or right angle symbolising man's work on matter or the rule of behaviour. Beyond serenity, the viewer of Hiroshi YASUKAWA's work is always rewarded with a sense of aesthetic achievement, in keeping with the Taoist principles of art, according to which the artist's creative force "is the manifestation of the creative force of the universe", the artist's task being "to create forms of a more perfect and purer world, which must be the models of a higher humanity or existence" (1). His works have received numerous distinctions and can be found in many American, European and Asian museums and private collections.