NOBUNAGA BIRTHDAY PROJECT ⓷ Kyoto 前編

Still celebrating Nobunaga's Birthday and training with traditional artworks!

I apologize if this picture is not so different from the previous one, but I wanted to focus on Nobunaga's expression and mood, this time.
On November 1968, Nobunaga marched on Kyoto to instaurate the shogunate of Yoshiaki Ashigaka after the betrayal of the Miyoshi & Co. When people compare Nobunaga to Cao Cao, probably this event is what came to their mind first: the military authority settled "a puppet" and governed in their stead. I'm not sure this was the intention of Nobunaga, but I believe he was quite aware of what this act meant. Nobunaga was in 34 in this period. I was quite aware of my place in the world when I was 34 too, I realized that I had no way to make my wishes come true, unless I started to fight for them. "Fighting" meant "work hard, work harder" and on the opposite of Nobunaga, I could give it up and survive in some other way. Nobunaga didn't have this choice. He wished for a peaceful land to live a better life, to allow his subordinates to live a better life.

I'm already living the better life that Nobunaga and their contemporaries wished for. It came with surrending and compromises, in a peaceful era, on the lucky side of the world.
But I'm still very sore for that defeat I had to face, the duty to become a step for the sake of destiny. I think that this is the same feelings that went through Nobunaga that time. The need to follow his duty, subordinated to his dream-- This is what I wanted to portray. Somehow, it turned a bit into a self-portrait, even if I don't look like Nobunaga.

--I'm happy that for these past portraits I managed to use pure watercolours without the help of coloured pencils!