The evening breeze of summer gently blows the curtains of the window sills
Twilight hazy, lying down for a while dozing off
So comfortable that I almost decided to live my life like this
What does summer look like to you?
Is it a cold drink, a wind chime, or a beach, a sunset?
This set of infinitely beautiful pictures comes from the famous Japanese illustrator Hiroshi Nagai, high-contrast colors with a slight retro feeling, and clear and transparent blue seems to make people live in the eternal summer.
Born in a small village in Tokushima Prefecture, nagai Hiroshi was a young man who longed for the outside world.
So he ran away from Japan and spent all his savings to travel to the United States. During the trip, the blue sky and blue sea of California deeply attracted his attention. After returning to Japan, Hiroshi Nagai decided to make painting his life's work, using paint to freeze the summer in his mind in the frame.
"When I'm busy, I'll paint sky blue first, and sometimes I'll paint it several times before I start to paint something else."
Blue is the accent color in Hiroshi Nagai's paintings. It is neither as deep as Klein blue nor as noble as Tiffany blue, but it is a blue that really belongs to summer.
With a sandy beach, swaying palm trees, and an adult-style cocktail, the magnificent fantasies of summer unfold on canvas.
Such a summer, how can people not be moved
Hiroshi Nagai's illustration style is heavily influenced by city pop culture. Most of the paintings were created in the 1970s, a golden age to which everyone aspired.
It's like the billboard in the Japanese drama "Long Holiday": "Don't worry, be happy", encouraging people to enjoy the moment.
In the 1970s, Japan was in a period of high economic development. The emergence of the bubble economy gave birth to a frenzy of material consumption, and subcultures mushroomed. Whether it is the music master Ryuichi Sakamoto, the writer Haruki Murakami, or the film director Takeshi Kitano, they have all been greatly affected by the bubble economy.
People are no longer satisfied with the local culture, greedily absorbing the trend from the other side, jazz and cafes are exploding. Among them, the forefront is the city pop culture.
To this day, the Showa era has been a dream for many people.
The rapid development of the economy has given rise to a dreamy, relaxed, and urban culture city pop, which young people who are keen on this culture are called city boys. Hiroshi Nagai is also one of them.
Culture from the West has swept Japan, prompting a group of young people to be at the forefront of fashion. They have a lot of assets, live a wealthy life, and enjoy the convenience of the city.
The charm of this culture can also be glimpsed in the magazine Popeye.
Popeye is taken from Popeye's name, and the cover of the first issue uses this image
Founded in 1976, Popeye is regarded as the "Bible" of city boys, and it is undoubtedly a trendsetter of that era.
In 2018, the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Takahiro Kinoshita, left Popeye and switched to Uniqlo as a brand director, allowing city boy to enter people's field of vision again.
Not only was it defined as a palatial men's manual, but the lifestyle it advocated was unheard of by the Japanese of that era. The magazine cover reads: "Magazine for City Boys"
How is city boy defined?
Compared with the dedicated social animals, they are more like living people, sensitive to trends, and have a rich spiritual world.
Traveling abroad in the Showa era was not as convenient as it is now, and one of the ways young people learned about the outside world was by reading magazines.
Drinking coffee, eating fast food, wearing ripped jeans from across the ocean, taking skateboards to surf... The yearning for this way of life has led to the birth of a number of city boys.
Hiroshi Nagai's paintings are a true portrayal of the lives of the city boys at that time.
The holiday boys put aside their troubles and shouted long live summer and rushed to the sea.
In addition to illustration, Nagai is also keen to create covers for albums.
At that time, the popular urban wind from the West Coast of the United States blew into the music industry, and the city pop genre was popular. The yollw magic orchestra (ymo), formed by Haruto Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Yukihiro Takahashi, combines jazz retro and new wave to bring electronic music to the extreme.
The ending song of last year's Japanese drama "Tokyo Hotel", "recipe レシピ", is a typical city pop song, and the singer Tatsuro Yamashita is also a representative singer of this faction.
Album covers created for Wing-Ichi Otaki have become classics
The album covers created by Hiroshi Nagai for many musicians also reveal hedonism.
Press the play button, each note is written with the name of summer, and you can still smell the faint smell of seawater in the air. The beach, convertibles, pools, palm trees, make up the classic visual elements.
His pen seems to be an infinite cycle of summer, the weather is always sunny, and the sea is still blue.
This summer, I hope you can spend it as picturesque as you can!
This article is the original content of [Tan Rilu], unauthorized reproduction is prohibited
I like to remember to point a note oh ~