The Spirit of Japanese Art/The Last Master of the Ukiyoye Art
THE LAST MASTER OF THE UKIYOYE ART
Yoshitoshi Tsukioka, as Kuniyoshi's home student of high talent in his younger days, it is said, had a key to the storehouse entrusted to his care, where Kuniyoshi treasured foreign colour-prints of saints or devils strayed from a Dutch ship, Heaven's gift most rare in those days, which made him pause a little and think about a fresh turn for his work. When we know that vulgarity always attracts us first and most, provided it is new to us, we cannot blame Yoshitoshi much when he reproduced in his work, indeed, stealing a march on his master, an immediate response to the Western art, whose secret he thought he could solve through varnishing. Doubtless it was no small discovery for Yoshitoshi. And the general public were equally simple when "Kwaidai Hyaku Senso," his first attempt after the new departure, quite impressive as he thought, was well received by them; when he went too far in this foreign imitation through his little knowledge, as in his "Battle at Uyeno," he varnished the whole picture. We have another instance that time is, after all, the best judge, as we know that those pictures of Yoshitoshi's early days, when he had not yet found his own art, are most peacefully buried under the blessed oblivion and heavy dusts to-day. You cannot make an art only by wisdom and prayer, and it is better to commit youthful sin when one must, like Yoshitoshi, with his period of foreign imitation, since his later work would become intensified, chastened, and better balanced by his repentance.
To speak most strictly, Kuniyoshi should be called the last master of the Ukiyoye school, this interesting branch of Japanese art interpreting the love and romance of the populace, peculiarly developed through the general hatred of the aristocratic people; but I have reason to call Yoshitoshi Tsukioka the very last master of that school, in the same sense that we call Danjuro or Kikugoro the last actors, not less by the fact of the age, already heterogeneous, naturally weakened for holding up the old Japanese purity, against which he struggled hard to find an artistic compromise, than by his own gift. I have often thought that, if he had been born earlier, he might have proved himself another Hokusai, or, better still, if the time were still earlier, when love and sensuality were the same word in peace and prosperity, he would not have been much below Utamaro. If he failed, as indeed he failed, now, looking back from to-day, it was the failure of his age. Although it may sound paradoxical, I am pleased to say that his failure was his success, because I see his undaunted versatility glorified through his failure; he helps, more than any other artist, the historian of Japanese art to study the age psychologically—in fact, he serves him more than Hokusai or Utamaro. He is an interesting study, as I said before, as the last master, indeed, as much so as Moronobu Hishikawa as the recognised first master. I say Yoshitoshi failed, but I do not mean that he was a so-called failure in his lifetime; on the contrary, he was one of the most popular artists of modern Japan—at least, in the age of his maturity; what I should like to say is that the artistic success of one age does never mean the success of another age, and Yoshitoshi's success is, let me say, the success of failure when we now look back upon it. I can distinctly remember even to-day my great disappointment, now almost twenty-five years ago, as a most ardent admirer of Yoshitoshi, when, appearing before the publisher's house as early as seven o'clock the morning after I had read the announcement of his new picture of a dancer, I was told that the entire set of copies was exhausted; his popularity was something great in my boyhood's days. It was in 1875 that he first took the public by storm with his three sheets of pictures called "Ichi Harano," an historical thing which showed Yasumasa, a court noble, playing a bamboo flute under the moonlight, perfectly unconscious of a highwayman, Hakama Dare by name, following him, stepping softly upon the autumn grasses, ready to stab the noble with his sword. The popularity of this picture was heightened by the fact that Danjuro, the greatest tragedian of the modern Japanese stage, wanted to reproduce the pictorial effect in a play, and have Shinsuke Kawatake write up one special scene to do honour to Yoshitoshi, under the title "Ichi Harano, by Yoshitoshi, Powerful with his Brush." It was a great honour indeed, such as no artist to-day could expect to receive. We have many occasions, on the other hand, when Yoshitoshi served the actors and his bosom friends, Danjuro and Kikugoro, to popularise their art. Since the day of the First Toyokuni, it had been the custom for the artists of this popular school to work together with the stage artists.
Yoshitoshi brought out the series of three called "Snow, Moon, and Flower," two of them commemorating Danjuro in his well-known rôle of Kuyemon Kezuri, and one Kikugoro in Seigen, whose holy life of priesthood was disturbed by love beyond hope. Although I hesitate to say they are the best specimens—yes, they are in their own way—they have few companions in the long Ukiyoye annals as theatrical posters, for which exaggeration should not be much blamed. The striking point of emphasis in design, hitting well the artistic work, make them worthy. I have them right before me while writing this brief note on Yoshitoshi. I recall what I heard about the Kezuri picture; it is said that the artist spent fully three days to draw this "hundred-days' wig," to use the theatrical phrase. What an astonishing wig that role had to wear. And what painstaking execution of the artist ; and again what wonderful dexterity of the Japanese carver and printer. At the time when these pictures were produced it is not too much to say that the arts of carving and printing had reached the highest possible point—that is to say, they had already begun to fall. I am pleased to attach a special value to them as the past pieces which well combined those three arts. By the way, the name of the carver of those pictures is Wadayu. Now, returning to Yoshitoshi and his actors-friends. The former was always regarded by the latter as an artistic adviser whose words were observed as law; Yoshitoshi was the first person Danjuro used to look up when in trouble with the matter of theatrical design in dress. I have often heard how the artist helped Kikugoro. This eminent actor once had a great problem how to appear as Shini Gami, or the Spirit of Death, in the play called Kaga Zobi, and asked Yoshitoshi for a suggestion; and it is said that a rough sketch he drew at once enlightened Kikugoro's bewildered mind, and, as a result, he immortalised the role. It was the age when realism, of course, in more vague, doubtful meaning than the present usage, had completely conquered the stage, the old idealistic stage art having fallen off the pedestal. Certainly Danjuro, the first of all to be absorbed in that realism which prevailed here twenty or twenty-five years ago, did never serve the stage art for advancement, but, on the contrary, it was the realism, if anything, that cheapened, trivialised, and vulgarised the time-honoured Japanese art; but it seemed that there was nobody to see that point of wisdom. It is ridiculous to know how Danjuro insisted, as Tomonori, in the play of Sembon Sakura, that the blood upon his armour should be painted as real as possible, and troubled the great artistic brush of Yoshitoshi on each occasion during the whole run of the play; but how serious the actor was in his thought and determination! Again that realism was the main cause why Yoshitoshi's art failed to compete with the earlier Ukiyoye artists like Shunsho, Utamaro, and even Hokusai; it was an art borrowed from the West doubtless, when I observe how Yoshitoshi, unlike the earlier artists, was delighted to use the straight, forceful lines as the modern Western illustrators; the picture called "Daimatsuro" is a fit example in which he carried out that tendency or mannerism I with most versatility. I daresay that his pictures, whether of historical heroes or professional beauties, which were least affected by the so-called realism or Western perspectives and observed carefully the old Ukiyoye canons, limiting themselves in the most artistic shyness, would be only prized as adorning his name as the last master; for the ninety per cent. we have no grief for their hastening into blessed dusts. I have in my collection the three-sheet picture called "Imayo Genji," showing the view of Chigoga Fuchi at Yenoshima, with the romantic posture of four naked fisherwomen, which is dated very early in Yoshitoshi's artistic life, no doubt being the work of the time when he was still a home student at Kuniyoshi's studio or workshop; you can see the artist's allegiance to his teacher in those somewhat stooping woman figures; there is no mistake to say that Yoshitoshi, at least in this picture, had studied Hiroshige and Hokusai to advantage for the general effect of rocks and fantastic waves.
Although it is clear that it is not a specimen of his developed art, I have in mind to say that it will endure, perhaps as one of the best Ukiyoye pictures of all ages, through its youthful loyalty to the traditional old art and the painstaking composition for which the best work is always marked. How artistically troubled, even lost, are his later works, though once they were popular and even admired!
Although he was, as I said above, most popular in the prime of his life (by the way he died in his fifty-fourth year in June of 1892), he had many years of poverty and discouragement when he complained of the fact that he was born rather too late; his hardship, not only spiritual, but material, soon followed after the happy period of student life with Kuniyoshi, when his artistic ambition forced on him independence. It was the time most inartistic, if there was ever such a time in any country, when the new Meiji Government had hardly settled itself on the sad ruins of the Tokugawa feudalism, under which all prosperity and peace, even art and humanity, were buried, and the people in general even thought the safety of their lives was beyond reach, now with the so-called Civil War of Meiji Tenth, and then with that or this. How could the artists get the people's support under such a condition of the times; indeed, Yoshitoshi fought bitterly for his bare existence then. It was the time when he was extremely hard-up that his home-students, Toshikage and Toshiharu, bravely served him in the capacity of cook or for any other work; we cannot blame him that he tried, with such pictures as the series called "Accident of the Lord Ii," to amuse and impress the people's minds, which grew, in spite of themselves, to love battle and blood. And the best result he received from such work, happy to say for his art, was the realisation of failure. But he was quite proud, I understand, when he published it, and even expected a great sale. And when he could not sell it at all, it is said, he determined that he would run away alone from Tokyo for good, leaving his students behind. Although there is no record of its sale to-day, I am sure that it did not sell well, or, in another way of saying, it sold well enough to save him from the shame of running away. Doubtless the people demanded pictures of such a nature, perhaps to illustrate the time's happening, as it was the time before the existence of any graphic or illustrated paper, and to fill that demand Yoshitoshi brought out a hundred pictures of battles and historical heroes, more or less in bloody scenes, which are mostly forgotten. It was in 1885 that he fairly well found his own art (good or bad) with the historical picture, "Kiyomori's Illness"; the chief character, the Lord Kiyomori, suffered from fever and dream, as we have it in legend, as a destiny brought from his endless brutality and covetousness; the fact that Yoshitoshi's mind was much engaged in the study of the Shijoha school at that time will be seen, particularly in this picture, of which the background is filled with the faint echo of great Okyo in the drawing of the Emma, or Judge of Hades, the green demon, and other things of awful demonstration. "Inaka Genji," a picture to commemorate the occasion of Ransen's changing his name to Tanehiko, and "Ukaino Kansaku," a picture of the spirit of a dead fisherman being saved by the holy prayer of the priest Nichiren, are the work of about the same time. When Yoshitoshi began to publish his series of one hundred pieces under the name of "Tsuki Hyakushi," or "One Hundred Views of the Moon," his popularity almost reached high-water mark; I can recollect with the greatest pleasure how delighted I was to be given a few of these moon pictures as a souvenir from Tokyo when I was attending a country grammar school, and I can assure you that my artistic taste and love, which already began to grow, expressed a ready response to value. Among the pictures, I was strongly attracted by one thing, which was the picture of a crying lady alone in a boat, with a biwa instrument upon her knees; from admiration I pasted the picture on a screen, which remained as it was during these twenty years, unspoiled, spotless, and perfect, and I had the happy occasion to see it with renewed eyes lately when I returned to my country home. I felt exactly the same impression, as good as at the first sight of twenty years ago. Although the series carry the title of moon, nearly all of the pictures have no moon at all; it was the artistic merit of the artist to suggest that they were all views of the moonlight. We can point out many shortcomings in his work as a pure Ukiyoye artist; but, after all, I think that nobody will deny his rare and versatile talent. If only he had been born at the better and proper time! And if we must blame his degeneration, I think it is quite safe to say that the general public has to share equally in the criticism. He was an interesting personality, full of stories and anecdotes, which the English people would be glad to hear about when they are well acquainted with his work; but I will keep them for some other occasion, because I wish at present to introduce him simply through his work. Let it suffice to say that he was humane and lovable, having a great faith in his own class of people—that is, the plain street-dwellers; when I say he was, too, the artist or artizan of Tokyo or Yedo, like Utamaro, Hokusai, and Kuniyoshi, I mean that he was gallant and chivalrous, always a friend of the lowly, and a hater of sham.
He was born in 1839, to use the Japanese name of the era, the Tenth of Tempo, at Shiba of Yedo, present Tokyo. When a little boy, he was adopted by the family of Tsukioka; his own name was Yonejiro. Like other Japanese artists, he had quite many gago or noms de plume; to give a few of them, Ikkasai, Sokatei, Shiyei, and others. Although he did not change his dwelling-place as Hokusai did, he moved often from one house to another; it was at Miyanaga Cho of Hongo where he married Taiko. He bought a house at Suga Cho, Asakusa, in 1885; but his sensitive mind was disturbed when he was told by a fortune-teller that the direction of his house was unlucky, and was again obliged to move to Hama Cho of Nihonbashi, when he was taken ill with brain disease. As I said before, he died in June of 1892. The students he left behind include many artists already dead; to give the best known, Keishu Takeuchi; Keichu Yamada and Toshihide Migita are the names of artists still active to-day.