A painter who never left his garden

A chat on the bus…

Seeing one ant doesn't mean 
 you have seen them all.
adapted from E.O. Wilson

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Jun: Just saw a film at Cocomaru. A 97 year old painter who hadn’t been out of his garden for 30 years.

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Noriko: What did he do every day?

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Jun: He had everything he needed in there. Observed nature: flowers blooming, ants scurrying. And based on a real person. Mori Kumagai. An artist who painted close-ups of nature.

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Noriko: So he didn’t need to see the world. People came and went.

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Jun: Well, there was a dark side. Developers put up a high rise next door blocking out the sun.

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Voice-over

Echoes of Xavier de Maistre who wrote Voyage autour de ma chambre (Voyage Around My Room) in 1794. Confined to his room by house arrest for engaging in a duel, he endured six weeks and wrote about it.

Are such stories curiosities, or are they inspirational?

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