We're so used to Tokyo's cramped streets that the endless parallel perspectives offered by the spacious grid of roads in central Ginza can make the head spin. And recently, they've become more dizzying still. Hanging from every lamppost along Chuo-dori is an eye-catching image: A young woman, her scarf flying in a strong wind, picks her way carefully down an impossible staircase. The effect is vertiginous; the picture is called "Vertigo."
"Vertigo" was painted in 1908 by Belgian Leon Spilliaert (1881-1946), and is the best-known work of this underappreciated artist, currently receiving his first Japanese showing in an exhibition at the Bridgestone Museum of Art until June 6 (then touring to Himeji and Nagoya).
The reason for Spilliaert's relative neglect by the art-critical establishment may be due to his defiance of easy categorization.