The use of such motifs as birds, lizards, and wild rice suggests that he has abandoned the kind of art generally recognized by contemporary society and returned to the roots of art. The people of Alta Mira probably did not have a concept of art as such. They simply painted things essential for their own survival and by so doing created extremely effective works of art. Tanabe's art is a contemporary version of the Alta Mira cave paintings.
Tanabe uses a variety of methods in order to transform his subject matter into an effective message. He increases the scale of the work. He enlarges small, ephemeral things. He makes the work stronger and more durable than is physically necessary. He chooses sophisticated technology. And he incorporates the surrounding environment as a part of the work. All these methods are the fundamental features of a monument.
Perhaps the most important general characteristic of Tanabe's work is its formal perfection. The basic forms of contemporary sculpture were developed rather quickly after its beginning by Brancusi, Noguchi, Giacommeti and others. Later artists were faced with the difficult problem of going beyond the strong influence of these past masters. No matter how hard they try, most sculptors end up making sculpture influenced by Brancusi or Noguchi and they unable to get beyond them. The barrier created by these earlier artists might be described as fundamental. In the world of contemporary art, it has caused artists to give up the pursuit of formal concerns. As a result, most artists today emphasize concepts and belittle formal qualities. Tanabe agonized over the influence of Noguchi, one of these past masters, but did not stop exploring form. Most likely, Tanabe ended the long silence at the beginning of his career when he realized that he could use something outside of art as a source of energy. This an approach that had always been accepted in the world of religious art in the past. It can easily be supposed that strength of religious faith helped to improve the formal qualities of art. Tanabe makes use of his strong feelings about the global environment and the survival of humankind in his pursuit of artistic form. As a result, I believe he has reached a level that is on a par with the masters of the past. Because art criticism has lost its capacity for commenting effectively on form, this aspect of Tanabe's art has not received sufficient attention. His work provides a key to opening up the closed world of "art for art's sake."