The Spirit of Japanese Art/Kenzan
KENZAN
I used to pass by Zenyoji, a little Buddhist temple by the eastern side of Uyeno Hill (whose trees, almost a thousand years old, in the shape of a dragon, perhaps created by a Kano artist, have been ruined by the smoke that never departs from the railroad terminus), where I knew, from the calligraphic sign carved on a stone by the temple gate, that Kenzan Ogata, the famous artist on paper or porcelain, and younger brother of the great Korin, was buried in the graveyard within; but if I did not step in, as in fact I did not step in, although I passed by countless times, as I lived then in the neighbourhood of the temple in classical Negishi—classical in association with the nightingale and that wonderful pine-tree called Ogyo no Matsu (here also lived Hoitsu, the famous decadent of the early nineteenth century)—that was because I had little interest in any grave, even in Kenzan's. And the temple looked so dusty, smoky, and altogether dirty. How sorry I felt in thinking that Kenzan's artistic soul must be suffering from the snoring, growling, and hissing of the engines day and night. Alas, he could not foresee the future of a few hundred years when he died. But I welcomed the news when the sudden removal of the grave was reported as a result, a fortunate result indeed, of the expansion of the railway track; this time, to be sure, I thought, his grey-loving, solitary soul would be pleased to find a far better sleeping-place, as he was to be moved to the large old garden of the Kokka Club (a well-known artist club), with a deep pond where many gold fish peep underneath the umbrella-like lotus leaves in early summer, and in later autumn the hagi or two-coloured lespedozas (Kenzan's beloved subject) would lean upon the water to admire their own images; and it is a matter thrice satisfactory to think that this new place is also in Negishi (which somehow recalls Hampstead, though there is no natural resemblance between them).
I was invited to attend the memorial exhibition of Kenzan's work to commemorate the removal of his grave the other day. With the greatest anticipation I went there with two friends of mine, a fellow poet and an artist, both of them great admirers of Kenzan Ogata. When we entered the ground, we found at once that the Buddhist ceremony, that is the Sutra-reading called Kuya Nembutsu, around the newly dug grave by the lotus pond under the trees, was well started already; some ten or eleven priests, in fact the devoted members of the club, but in long black robes, were seen through the foliage from the distance, hopping around like the vagarious spirits of a moment (this fantastic ceremony, Kuya Nembutsu) while reciting the holy book; the voice of the recitation most musically broke the silence. We did not approach the grave, but went straight into the exhibition rooms, because we knew that the best prayer we could offer to Kenzan was to see and rightly appreciate his works of art. We all of us were unable to speak a word at the beginning, as our tongues (our heads too) lost their powers against his peculiarly distinguished art, which is the oldest and again the newest. When our minds became better composed, we sat in a corner of the room where the hangings of his flowers or trees, and the tea-bowls or incense-cases with his favourite designs, had been well arranged; we felt inclined to talk, even discuss his art.
"What a pleasing egotism," I ventured to say, "in that picture of lilies or this picture of fishes; the lilies and fishes are not an accessory as in many other Japanese pictures, but the lilies and fishes themselves in their full meaning. Again what a delightful egotism!"
"You might call flowers feminine," my artist-friend interrupted me. "But I should like to know where is a thing more truly egotistic than the flowers."
"That egotism in the picture," I proceeded, "might be a real result from the great reverence and. intense love of Kenzan for his subjects; we can see that his mind, when he painted them, was never troubled with any other thing or thought. You know that such only occurs to a truly gifted artist. After all, the greatness of Kenzan is his sincerity. And it goes without saying that the pictures on tea-bowls we see here are not things which were made to some one's order. We become at once sincere and silent in their presence; to say that his art was spiritual is another way to express it—by that I mean that we are given all opportunities to imagine what the pictures themselves may not contain. Our imagination grows deeper and clearer through the virtue or magic of his work; and again his work appears thrice simplified and therefore more vital. The art really simple and vital is never to be troubled with any rhetoric or accessories of unessentials; before you make such a picture, you must have, to begin with, your own soul simplified and vital in the true sense. Kenzan had that indeed."
"To call Kenzan's work merely beautiful," my friend-poet said, evidently in the same mind with myself, "whether it be the picture on paper or China-bowls, does no justice; what he truly aimed at was the artistic expression,—and he was most successful when he was most true. To him, as with the other great artists of Hast or West, the beauties only occurred—and Kenzan's beauties occurred when his simple art was most decorative; in his decorativeness he found his own artistic emotion. It was his greatness that he made a perfect union of emotion and intellect in his work; to say shortly, he was the expression of personality."
"What a personality was Kenzan's! Again what a personality!" I exclaimed. I proceeded, as I wished to take up the talk where my friend poet had left off, "It is his personality by whose virtue even a little weed or insignificant spray of a willow-tree turns to a real art; he had that personality, because he had such a love and sympathy. Indeed the main question of the artist is in his love and sympathy ; the external technique is altogether secondary. When you commune with the inner meaning, that is the beginning and also the ending. We see here the picture of a cherry-tree covered by the red blossoms, which might happen to be criticised as a bad drawing; but since it does appear as nothing but a cherry-tree, proud and lovely, I think that Kenzan's artistic desire was fully answered. He was an artist, not merely either an illustrator or a designer. He was a true artist, therefore his work is ever so new like the moon and flowers; and again old, like the flowers and moon.""If the so-called post-impressionists could see Kenzan's work!" my friend-artist suddenly ventured to exclaim, "I am sure that Vincent Van Gogh would be glad to have this six-leafed screen of poppy-flowers."
"Really the picture is the soul of the flowers," I said, "but not the external flowers. It is mystic as the flowers are mystic. And imagine Kenzan's attitude when he drew that screen! I believe that he had the same reverence as when he stood in the religion of mysticism to paint a goddess; indeed his work was prayer and soul's consolation. Though the subject was flowers, I have no hesitation to call the picture religious. I almost feel like lighting a candle. and burning incense before this screen of poppies."
As with other gifted artists, we see Kenzan's real life behind his work. Some critic ably said that true art was an episode of life; I can imagine that, when his artistic fancy moved and his work was done, he must have thrown it aside into the waves of time, offhand, most unceremoniously, and forgotten all about it. We can truly say of his works that they never owed one thing to money or payment for their existence—and that is the greatest praise we can give to any work of art. His material life might be said to have been quite fortunate in that he was invited to Yedo (present Tokyo) by the Prince of the Kanyeiji Temple of Uyeno, under whose patronage his art was pleased to take its own free independent course; but his greatness is that when the Prince passed away and he was left to poverty, he never trembled and shrank under its cold cruel baptism; indeed that baptism made his personality far nobler, like the white flame from which the whiteness is taken out, and consequently his art was a thing created, as we say here, by the mind out of the world and dust. The works which to-day remain and are admired by us are mostly the work he executed after he reached his seventieth year. We have many reasons to be thankful for the fact that he left Kyoto, the old city of court nobles and ladies, somewhat effeminate, and the side of his brother Korin, whose great influence would have certainly made him a little Korin at the best; we see no distinction whatever in the work which he gave the world under Korin's guidance. His art made a great stride after he appeared in the Yedo of the warriors and manliness and touched a different atmosphere from that of his former life; I will point, when you ask me for the proof, to the now-famous six-fold screen with the picture of plum-blossom, or the hanging also of the plum-blossom owned by the Imperial Museum. Oh, what a noble plum-blossom, which reminds us of a samurai's heart, simple and brave!