Allegory No. 1: Famile

"Allegory No. 1: Famille" inaugurates Onchi's Allegory series with a subject drawn from the most fundamental unit of human social life — the family. The family as an allegorical subject rather than a portrait subject allows Onchi to explore the abstract relationships between its members: dependence, protection, difference, love — rendered through formal means rather than realistic depiction. The French subtitle "Famille" suggests the international cultural orientation that characterized Onchi's generation, who encountered Western modernism and sought to synthesize it with Japanese visual tradition.