Lecture 2000-09-18

Westerners around Kawanabe Kyousai

Prof. Sei'ichi Yamaguchi

Summary of the September meeting:

The September meeting was the last to be held in APIC Plaza, which has been our home for the past six months. On this occasion our speaker was Prof. Sei'ichi Yamaguchi, who took as his subject "Westerners around Kawanabe Kyousai", illustrating his talk with pairs of slides. Prof. Yamaguchi also presented the Society with a copy of a book he has written on Fenollosa.

There are only two existing photographs of Kawanabe, as he did not like to be photographed; one of these was shown alongside an illustration of a blundering drunkard, for which Kawanabe was evidently the model. In Japan he is often mistakenly called Kawanabe Gyousai, as he wrote his name with the akatsuki character from 1871 onwards, changing it from the kuruu character; this is usually read gyou (as in gyousei 'morning star') but also has the kan'on reading kyou, which was that used by Kawanabe and all those who knew him. The fact that his name became mistaken in Japan, but not in the West, reflects the fact that he became forgotten in his home country, and it was this theme that Prof. Yamaguchi wished to explore.

Kyousai acquired a liking for drawing from childhood. In 1837, at the age of six, he was fascinated by the whirling of a stream in flood, and studied how to depict it. Soon he saw an object being carried down, which turned out to be a severed head. He took it home, to copy it later, but was severely scolded by his father and told to throw it back in the river. Before doing so, however, he sat on the bank and sketched it, attracting a number of people who stopped to watch him. Fifty years later he drew the scene from memory, and in 1897 an American artist, John La Farge, who visited Japan in 1886, painted his own impression of the severed head. In 1841 Kyousai entered the art school of Kano Touhaku, and stayed there for eight years. (Touhaku was an inferior artist, and his only claim to fame is to have had Kyousai as his pupil.) After that Kyousai became an independent artist, working in all styles; his most popular works were prints and book illustrations. One picture shown was of the shogun's procession to Kyoto, as it passed a cattle-breeding centre in Takanawa (dated 1863). The adults are on the street, prostrating themselves, but little boys are standing on the back of an ox, peeping over the wall, and two cats at the top of the picture are turning their backs on the procession. This picture nicely portrays Kyousai's irreverent attitude towards the establishment. In the same year he also created illustrations for a book of One Hundred Proverbs, which became so popular that it went into several editions in Meiji times. One picture shows a crow aping a cormorant and drowning, while bystanders are laughing; but the laughing people are also aping Westerners in their clothing. Another drawing from this period, which Prof. Yamaguchi showed in a kakejiku acquired from a dealer in London, was of connoisseurs exchanging their views on paintings; but none of them have any eyes!

In 1867 all prices, including that of rice, rose steeply; rice merchants held on to their stocks in anticipation of a further rise in the price. Kyousai illustrated this with a drawing of high objects, including a Mt. Fuji made of sheets of paper showing all the high prices. In the picture the rice merchants are gloating over their rice bags, but in fact this is a revised version. A friend of Prof, Yamaguchi discovered the original, which shows, instead of rice bags, the bones of those who had starved, and also includes government officials standing behind the rice merchants. Kyousai was evidently ordered to change the picture, and he must have been arrested, although there is no record of this.

During the period when there was a long discussion over whether to open the country up to the West or not, Kyousai published a print of a battle between eastern and western frogs, caricaturing the shogun's army in the east and the Imperial army in the west.

In 1870, two years after the Meiji Restoration, Kyousai was at a "draw and sell" party in a restaurant by the Shinobazu Pond in Ueno. While deep in his cups, he made many impromptu drawings when he was suddenly arrested on suspicion of slandering a government official; it appears that this occasion was merely used as an excuse for bringing him to book for all his previous satirical work. At any rate, he was imprisoned for about three months and released after being given fifty lashes. Recently a series of pictures has been discovered that may have been the prime cause of offence: they are graphic pictures of high-ranking courtiers indulging in sexual orgies (judging from the costumes, Prof. Yamaguchi felt that the shogun himself was involved). In view of this, fifty lashes and release may have been lenient!

It was after his imprisonment, in 1871, that Kyousai changed the way of writing his name. He did not change his satirical turn of mind, however, but redirected his attacks against the policy of Westernization entitled Bunmei-Kaika, 'Civilization and Enlightenment'. This policy led in many cases to a mindless imitation of Western ways in matters of clothing and food, and also in the system of education. The eating of beef was something new and surprising, and the media wrote it up as something that would make the Japanese wise like Westerners. Kyousai made an illustration for the novel Agura-Nabe in which the ox is richer than his fellow-labourer the horse, but is looking sad because he will soon be eaten; the horse consoles him, saying that he will soon be assimilated into the human body. An illustration for another novel shows a scene in hell, with an ox roasting a human baby. Kyousai's severest criticism is seen in a parody (1873) of the famous encyclopaedia of the Edo period, Wadan Sanzai-zue, in which he makes fun of the emperor and a government official; strangely, this seems to have escaped the notice of the authorities.

In 1872 compulsory education was introduced, and Kyousai parodied this in Bake-Bake-Gakkou, 'The School for Demons'. In one room King Enma is teaching demons the characters for things in hell, and in another a kappa teacher is teaching kappa boys the romanized forms of words for things they like to eat, such as shiriko-dama 'guts' and kyuuri 'cucumber'.In another series, Fudou Myouou, the most august manifestation of the Buddha, is represented as being unable to resist Bunmei-Kaika, and has parted with his sword and rope and is absorbed in reading a modern journal.

Around this time Kyousai had his first contact with Westerners. In 1876 he was visited by Emile Guimet and Felix Regamey, who had been intrigued by the One Hundred Proverbs. While Guimet was speaking with Kyousai, Regamey began to draw a portrait of him; seeing this, Kyousai responded with a sketch of Regamey. The details of this encounter are described in Guimet's Promenades Japonaises , together with the two portraits. Other Westerners, the English surgeon William Anderson and the Italian artist Edoardo Chiossone, began to collect Kyousai's pictures. About the same time, a professor of chemistry at Tokyo University (it is not clear whether it was the English Robert William Atkinson or the American Frank Fannings Jewett) asked Kyousai to make paintings of scenes from Japanese mythology and Chuushingura. Prof. Yamaguchi showed some pictures of the former from his collection: Izanagi and Izanami giving birth to Japan, the birth of Amaterasu, Susanoo being banished, Ninigi descending from heaven the Kyushu, Yamasachi punishing his brother Umisachi. Another collector was Erwin von Baelz. In his collection are such paintings as Shouki and the oni (who are his poor victims), Urashima, a cowherd boy, a crow (Kyousai's favourite subject), and a picture showing that men are still interested in women even when they are reduced to skeletons.

In March 1881 the government held the 2nd National Industrial Exposition in Ueno Park, at which the main event was an exhibition of new paintings. Kyousai's picture of a crow in winter, Koboku Kan'a, was given the highest prize, though the judge wrote on his certificate that he would be a leading artist if he gave up his usual naughtiness! It was around this time that Josiah Conder became his pupil, visiting his home in Akasaka every Saturday for lessons (part of the pleasure also lay in drinking together after the lesson). They followed the usual procedure of the pupil imitating the master, and as a result we have pairs of pictures of the same subject, such as an owl, or a hawk holding a sparrow, and it is impossible to distinguish which is the original and which the copy. Kyousai was very pleased with Conder's progress, and presented him with an elaborate painting in full colour, Yamato Bijin. Conder took notes during his lessons, and published them later in Paintings and Studies by Kawanabe Kyousai (1911). Their friendship was like that of father and son, and Kyousai died with his hands clasped in those of the weeping Cinder. Conder's collection of Kyousai's works was reproduced in his book, but it is now scattered around the world. Among the ones shown to us were Susonoo attacking a nine-headed demon, a ghost, a carp, an eagle, a kabuki actor, and Daruma. Also in overseas collections are many other pictures such as the Yokohama Customs House, a painting on a fan of a cat and a giant catfish, and the Wind God and Thunder God.

In conclusion, Prof. Yamaguchi said that while Kyousai was greatly appreciated in the West he came to be ignored in his own country. During his lifetime he enjoyed popularity among those people who were suspicious of Bunmei-Kaika and feared that the traditional Japanese culture which they loved would be lost. But those who grew up with Bunmei-Kaika felt that any criticism of it was anachronistic. Furthermore, those who regarded art as the supreme human activity came to despise Kyousai as being vulgar, and besides this, he had a prison record. By contrast, the Westerners who came to Japan to promote her modernization realized that Japan might lose its traditional artistic sensibility in the process; they loved the Japan that had been, rather than the Japan that was coming into being, and for this reason they loved Kyousai. And unlike the Japanese, they were also in sympathy with his critical mind, and so it was that Kyousai achieved popularity in the West.

Unfortunately no time was left for questions, and the meeting was swiftly brought to a conclusion with a vote of thanks proposed by Dr. Ciaran Murray. After the meeting, those attending were given an opportunity to contribute to the Office Relocation Fund, and tickets for "Women and Socks" were on sale at discount prices.

Adapted from "The Asiatic Society of Japan Bulletin No. 8", October 2000, compiled by Prof. Hugh E. Wilkinson and Mrs. Doreen Simmons.