学生時代
中学進学後、太平洋戦争が次第に激化を極めてい きました。 小柄で痩せていた博少年にとって辛いことばかり の日々でしたが、中でも特に苦痛を極めたのが教練 の時間でした。当時の男子の教練は兵隊訓練そのものであり、時には実際の鉄砲を手にしての訓練まで強いられたそうです。さらに終戦の数ヶ月前から学徒動員として工場へ働きに出ることになりました。大好きな絵を描くこともできず、ただ戦争が終わるまでじっと耐えるしかなかったのです。「今思えば、なんとも惨めな時代だった」と当時のことを振り返ります。そんな苛烈な戦争の日々は、中学３年生の夏に終わりを迎えました。

高等師範学校時代から教員へ
ようやく日本が終戦のショックから立ち直ろう とする頃、博少年は中学を卒業し、金沢市の高等 師範学校の数学科への進学を決めました。一時は 美術科への進学に心が傾いたものの、家族の経済 状況や将来の生活のことを鑑み、数学科を選択す ることにしました。しかしこの時、その胸の内に は「いつか絶対に絵を描こう」という強い決意が 秘められていたのです。 在学中には戦争によって奪われた時間を取り戻 すように、勉学、芸術、クラシック音楽、読書、 登山、囲碁など、彼は多岐にわたる趣味や活動に 取り組みました。 中でも友人たちと共に金沢の名所を描いて回っ たことは今なお彼にとって特別な思い出です。
特に兼六園には何度も足を運び描いていた場所でした。彼はそれを「本格的ではない」と謙遜しながらも、友人たちと一緒に絵を描きに様々な場所へ出かけ、クラシック音楽の流れる喫茶店で絵や音楽について語り合う時間は彼にとってかけがえのない時間となりました。卒業後は教員としての道を選び、高等学校で生徒たちに数学を教える立場となりました。しかし、仕事が忙しくなるにつれて絵を描く時間が減っていき、再び筆を取るようになったのは退職してからのことです。

作家として
70歳になり有角氏は本格的に絵画の世界に飛び込むことを決断します。その契機となったのは友人の「一緒に絵を描こう」という一言でした。この言葉によって一度は眠っていた絵を描くという情熱が再び目覚めたのです。2000年ごろには自らの家の隣にギャラリーを建設し、仲間と絵画を展示する共有の場を建設。以降2人から始まった活動が次第に広がり、今では12人の仲間たちがギャラリーに集い、絵画グループ「マドカ」として活動を続けています。「マドカ」は有角氏が代表を務めていますが、曰く「私はグループを率いているわけでもなく、教える立場にあるわけでもない。むしろ仲間たちと共に学び合い、楽しみながら絵を描くグループ」と強調しています。
絵を描く上で、有角氏はテーマを非常に重要視しています。描く対象に向き合い、なぜそのものに感動したのかを作品を通して伝えることが、彼にとっての制作の重要な要素となっています。

彼はこれまで感動を受けたその瞬間に筆を取り、作品を通じてその感動を表現してきました。そのため作品一つ一つに感動した理由があると言います。それを描いては仲間たちとその感動を共有してきました。
有角氏は自身の人生は絵と対峙してきたように思うと振り返っています。「子どもの頃に絵を描くのが大好きで、進路を選ぶ際に数学と美術で迷いました。その後長いこと絵から全く離れてしまいましたが今はこうして仲間たちと絵を描いている。私はこれからも絵を描くんだろうなと思っております。絵を描くことに言葉にできない喜びを感じます。」

 

Preface
Little Hiroshi loved to draw pictures, but he grew older without being able to fulfill his dream of becoming an artist. Let us take a peek into the life of a painter who was tossed about by the waves of the times but never forgot his passion for painting, accompanied by his pure words.

Observant eyes nurtured as a boy
Hiroshi Arikado was born on November 10, 1930, in Takaoka City, Toyama Prefecture as the eldest son. From an early age, he was a quiet boy who drew pictures inside the house rather than actively playing outside. In the early years of elementary school, one of his small pleasures was to lay his many drawings of warships side by side and admire them. The house where he lived at the time had a clear view of the station’s pocket track, and little Hiroshi was able to observe in detail the trains coming and going, and the maintenance work being done. This experience may have been the beginning of the development of his eye for observation that would later become important in his landscape paintings.

Student days
After entering junior high school, the Pacific War gradually intensified. Hiroshi, who was small and skinny, endured days filled with hardships, but the most torturous were the hours of military-style training. The boys’ training was akin to actual soldiering, and sometimes they were even forced to handle real firearms. Additionally, a few months before the war’s end, he was mobilized to work in a factory as part of the student labor force. “Looking back, it was a profoundly miserable era,” he reflects. Deprived of his cherished pastime of painting, he could only persevere until the conflict ceased. These severe wartime days concluded in the summer of his third year in junior high school.

From higher normal school days to teaching
When Japan began to recuperate from the war’s cessation, Hiroshi graduated from junior high and opted to attend a higher normal school in Kanazawa City, selecting its mathematics department. He contemplated studying art but chose mathematics due to financial constraints and future security concerns. However, he harbored a steadfast resolution to return to painting one day.
During his time at school, he eagerly embraced the opportunity to recapture the time lost to the war, engaging in an array of pursuits like academia, art, classical music, reading, mountain climbing, and Go. Of particular note were his excursions with friends to sketch the renowned sites of Kanazawa, creating enduring memories. Kenrokuen was a favored haunt he often depicted. Despite downplaying his efforts as “unprofessional,” these jaunts for communal artistry and the ensuing discussions in cafes, serenaded by classical music, forged indelible memories for him.
After graduating, he chose a career as a teacher, teaching mathematics in high schools. However, as his work became busier, he had less and less time to paint, and it was not until after he retired that he picked up the brush again.

As an artist
At the age of 70, Arikado decided to fully immerse himself into the world of painting. This was triggered by his friend, who said, “Let’s paint together.” These words reawakened his once dormant passion for painting. Around 2000, he built a gallery next to his own house and constructed a shared space to exhibit paintings with his friends. Since then, what started as a two-person group has gradually expanded, and now, 12 friends gather at the gallery to continue their activities as the painting group Madoka. Madoka is represented by Arikado, who says, “I do not lead the group, nor am I in a position to teach. Rather, it is a group of people who learn together with their peers and enjoy painting,” he emphasizes. In painting, Arikado places great importance on his themes. An important element of his work is to face the subject of his paintings and communicate, through his art, why he was moved by it. He has always taken up the brush at the moment he was moved by something and expressed that emotion through his work. Therefore, he says, each of his work represents the reason why he was moved in that particular instance. He painted those moments to share them with his friends.
Arikado recalls that his life seems to have been about confronting the act of painting. “I loved drawing as a child, and when it came to choosing a career path, I was torn between math and art. After making my choice, I completely withdrew from painting for a long time, but now I am painting like this with my friends. I am sure I will continue to paint. Painting brings me inexpressible joy.”