Izima Kaoru : Landscapes with a Corpse - melancholic beauty and beguiling sadness

"The death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world," wrote Edgar Allan Poe. One thinks of Ophelia, Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina and is tempted to admit that he’s right. This concept is also deeply rooted in Eastern culture: Buddhism even recommends daily meditation on our own death.

Themes like fashion obsession, a love for nature or the almost romantic relationship that the Japanese have with the subject of death can be found in the work by Japanese photo artist Izima Kaoru (*1954 in Kyoto). For his photo series he asks Japanese models and actresses to present their own deaths, which he then translates into highly aesthetic images.

Lying on the ground among blossoming bushes is Itaya Yuka, a well-known Japanese actress. Her red dress stands out among the lilac-coloured hydrangeas, fallen petals decorate her throat. In Japan the hydrangea is traditionally considered a symbol of pride – has the beauty’s pride doomed her? In the wild Garden of Eden the hydrangea seems just as strange and exotic as the beautiful dead woman.

"Landscapes with a Corpse" features all photo epics created by Izima since 1993 and shows Japanese film divas and models, as well as European actresses such as Barbara Rudnik and Helena Noguerra – in eternal youth and in gowns from Prada, Gucci and Dior.

Izima Kaoru "Landscapes with a Corpse"
2008. 192 pages, 171 colour images
35.30 x 29.00 cm, half-linen
Hatje Cantz Verlag
ISBN 978-3-7757-2237-7