Fenway Court: 1992 by Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Fenway Court

Cover: Tale of Genji (detail), Japanese, 17th-century, from one of two six-fold screens, ink and colors on paper covered with gold foil, signed Fujiwara Tsunenobu (P29Wl)

Contents

Competition and Collaboration: H ereditary Schools in Japanese

ulture

Foreword 7 Anne Hawley Japanese Painting Workshop and the Gardner Mu eum Collections j ohn M. Rosenfield The Workshop System of the Kano School of Painting Kono Motoaki The iemoto System (No and Kyogen) Donald Keene

Transmitting Tradition by the Rules: An Anthropological Interpretation of the iemoto System 37 Robert ]. Smith The Formation and Development of Japanese Painting Schools Sasaki]ohei and Sasaki Masako

Enduring Alliance: The Torii Line of Ukiyo-e Artists and Their Work for the Kabuki Theatre 60 Money L. Hickm an The Actor's Art: ie no gei in Kabuki James R. Brandon

Individualism in Perpetuity: Ike Taiga and the Tale of the Taigad6 Lineage Melinda Takeuchi

Foreword Anne Hawley Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The 1992 Fenway Court publishes the papers presented at the second annual Isabella Stewart Gardner Interdisciplinary Symposium in January of 1993. These symposia, amply described by Professor Rosenfield in his Introduction, were inaugurated as the chief scholarly forum of the Gardner Museum. Isabella Stewart Gardner's guest books are regularly marked with the names of scholars, connoisseurs, artists, writers, musicians, and countless other critical thinkers who routinely visited Fenway Court. These symposia are intended to reflect the richness of the intellectual circle of Isabella Stewart Gardner. While she participated in many other social circles, not only here in Boston, but worldwide, the world of deep learning was of life-long, vital meaning to her.

Since the inception of Fenway Court in 1971, this publica tion has served as both the Museum's annu al volume of scholarly studies and as its Annual Report. The 1992 volume begins a new tradition of publishing the two entities separately. Fenway Court will remain the Gardner's museum-studies periodica l; the audited fin ancial statement and the collected data of the past year's acti vities will be recorded in the Annual Report. We feel that these separate publications wi ll better serve the needs of the institution as well as our communities of constituents. It is then in that spirit that we present these papers in Japanese culture to our colleagues both here and abroad as we look forwa rd to next year's symposium on classical myth.

Japanese Painting Workshops and the Gardner Museum Collections John M. Rosenfield

Harvard University, Emeritus

Introduction Like other Bostonians of her day Isabella Stewart Gardner was curious about Asia and sympathetic as well. In the decades leading up to 1914, the outbreak of World War I, Mrs. Gardner and her husband acquired important works of Chinese Japanese, and Islamic art along with a l~rge number of decorative items! For Bostonians of the nineteenth century, Asia had strong attractions. Fortunes had been made from clipper ships plying the Pacific. Local merchants ventured far, and one of the most influential was Charles Eliot Norton, a trader in hides and jute.2 In 1849 he went as supercargo to India and, deeply attracted to Indo-Muslim architecture, stayed until the following year. Back in Boston Norton turned to the study of Italo-Gothic art, developed a close friendship with John Ruskin, and became H arvard University's first lecturer on art history. Among his Harvard students were Ernest Fenollosa (the pioneer American historian of East Asian art), Bernard Berenson (Mrs. Gardner's chief artistic adviser), and Grenville Winthrop (outstanding collector of Asian and European art and benefactor of the Harvard University Art M useums). Mrs. Gardner attended Norton's classes and was much affected by the breadth of his vision. For the Boston intelligentsia, the East was a source of exalted ideals. The philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau fo und support for their Transcendentalism in Eastern thought.3 And during the era of peace and great prosperity called the belle epoque - from the 1870s to World War I-wealthy Bostonians, excited by the prospect of travel, adventure, and the chance to acquire novel works of art, boarded luxury liners for exotic seaports from Yokohama and Jakarta to Alexandria and Tangier.4

1 Photograph of Okakura Kakuzo, ca. 1910, Isa bella Stewart Gardner Museum archives.

Mrs. Gardner and her husband bought Japanese screens on a world trip of 188384 that took them to Japan and China. This began three decades of Asian acquisitions, but Mrs. Gardner's interests in Asia continued to grow. In 1904 she became close friends with Okakura Kakuzo (1862-1913; fig. 1), the brilliant Japanese critic and historian who came to Boston as a consultant at the Museum of Fine Arts? A colleague of Fenollosa, Okakura had become a leader of the movement to counter Japan's fascination with European and American cultural values. Mrs. Gardner, stirred by his eloquent affirmation of traditional East Asian aesthetic principles, helped in a number of his enterprises and drew him deeply into her social life. The connection with Okakura Kakuzo, which continued until his death, is explained in an informative booklet recently prepared by Professor Victoria Weston of Wheaton College.6 The Symposium In January of 1992 the Gardner Museum, hoping to restore to Fenway Court the 8

2 Kawanabe Gyosai (18311889), Atelier of Kano Dohaku at Surugadai, woodblock print book illustration of Gyosai gadan, vol. 1, 1877, 21.5 x 28.6 cm., Harvard Universiry Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, gift of Mrs. Henry Taylor.

lively cultural activity it enjoyed during Mrs. Gardner's lifetime, inaugurated a new series of interdisciplinary symposia. The first was devoted to the theme of "Imaging the Self in Renaissance Italy," and its organizer, Professor Kathleen WeilGarris Brandt of New York University, described how deeply Mrs. Gardner had been inspired by Renaissance concepts of individualism and human freedom.7 Professor Brandt explained the way in which those ideals were embodied in Mrs. Gardner's spirited life, in her wonderfully idiosyncratic home, and in its diverse collections. Gardner Museum director Anne Hawley and chief curator Hilliard Goldfarb invited me to organize the second symposium and asked that it reflect Mrs. Gardner's strong interests in Japan. We selected the same theme, how personal identity is shaped and defined, and focused on the manner by which Japanese artists and writers, craftsmen, and actors professional specialists of all kinds - have thought of themselves as members of collective groups. Such groups have been fierce rivals of one another, only to collaborate when circumstances required. Speakers for the one-day symposium on January 23, 1993, were art historians, students of the theater, and an anthropologist. A round table discussion on the following morning gave an opportunity

for specialists in the audience to comment on the talks and to offer suggestions. Taking advantage of those comments and further reflection, the speakers have revised their talks for publication in this issue of Fenway Court.

Workshop Organizations The Japanese name for the strict management of professional families is iemoto seidO, the family head system~ The family, or ie (literally, "house" or "household"), is often defined as a vocational and economic unit that transmits skills and property from one generation to the next. The ie can be a painting workshop (as papers by professor Kono Motoaki and Sasaki Johei explain), troupes of actors (on which Professors Donald Keene and James Brandon write), designers of theatrical prints and paintings (as Dr. Money Hickman shows). Indeed, Professor Robert Smith, an anthropologist, explains how pervasive is the concept of ie (the extended family) throughout all Japanese society. Organized around that concept are lacquer workshops, potters' kilns, publishing houses, even brothels. One of the best known and most powerful manifestations of the iemoto system are the three major family lineages of tea masters who assert that they are descended from Sen no Rikyli (1522-1591). The iemoto system can be so strong that even those artists 9

who rebel against it are drawn into its orbit, as Professor Melinda Takeuchi shows.

An instructive picture of a traditional painting workshop dates from the 1880s (fig. 2). It is a woodblock print designed fo r his own autobiography by Kawanabe Gyosai (1831-1889), an eccentric artist who had apprenticed in that atelier forty years earlier? The label identifies the workshop as that of Kano Dohaku (17221821 ), head of a branch of one of the most enduring and important of the painting lineages, that of the Kano family. Gyosai depicted a very large establishment with about twenty persons - all most likely members of the ie. A supervisi ng artist (probably the iemoto) sits at the upper left holding a fea ther pointer and criticizing an unfinished painting done by the man to his left. Behind him is a large storage box marked "Screen Picture Books" (byobu ehon ) - model books of standard compositions. Such models (fu m pon), as Professor Kono M otoaki discusses, were of fundamental importance in training young apprentices and maintaining artistic continuity over the generations. An old assistant seated next to him is painting on a screen panel on the floor. To the far right another senior figure interviews a customer, a samurai judging by his sword and jacket. O lder artists are sitting around a hibachi and tea pot; young apprentices are busy at work or else chasing a large carp (for reasons explained below). Prominent in the picture are several sheaves of paper - account

books fro m paint and paper merchants. T he designer of this picture, Gyosa i, had rebelled against the Kano school and drew this illustration in a satirical spirit to show why. In his auto biography, Gyosa i explains that once, when he was an eleven-year-old apprentice in the atelier, he played hookey, went fishing, and ca ught a magnificent carp. O verco:.ne by its bea uty, he brought the fish to the studio in order to sketch it, but his foolish fellow apprentices wanted only to slice it up for lunch. In Gyosa i's eyes, this was an example of what was wrong with the Kano school: it fa iled to respect nature and thought only of its stomach. Twenty such Kano family workshops flourished in the city of Edo around the year 1700 - fo ur major ones and sixteen lesser ones. The first Kano family workshop had been set up in Kyoto in the 1450s and had provided the official painters of the Ashikaga military government. In the early 1600s the family moved its headquarters to Edo (the modern Tokyo), served the new Tokugawa government and powerful daimyo, set up branches all over Japan, and continued actively until recent times. The Kano school is the clearest example of the iemoto system among painters. The same system operated in other professions and social classes - but with many variations in detail. The essays below explore such issues as: the importance of blood relationship to members of the ie; how 10

3 Ka no school, seventeenth century, Rice Cultivation in the Four Seasons, pair of six-panel fo lding screens, ink and pa le color on papei:; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

outsiders gained mem bership; how succeeding heads were designated; how members were given their names; how apprentices were trained; how trade secrets were transmitted; and, most important of all, what influence this system had on matters of artistic content and creativity. T he essays below reveal the psychological benefits the iemoto system afforded to its members: a sense of personal identity, a well-defined artistic or professional discipline, a clearly marked role in society, and a feeling of continuity with the past.

A conclusion reached during the symposium and roundtable is that the most prestigious fa mily organizations (Kano painters, or Kanze actors in the No theater) strictly followed the precepts of the iemoto system. (Their high social status, of course, had been derived fro m that of their ruling class patrons.) The less prestigious groups (designers of popular woodblock prints, or actors in the ka buki theater), seem to have had greater latitude. Nonetheless the system pervaded Japanese professiona l life at all status levels.

4 Detail of figure 3, right screen.

6 Kano Tsunenobu (16361713 ), Scenes from The Tale of Genji, dated to 1677, pair of six-panel folding screens, color and gold leaf on paper, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

5 Amibuted to Kano Yukin obu (ca. 1513-1575), Rice Culture in the Four Seasons, detail, sliding screen (fusuma) panel formerly in the Daisen-in, Daitoku-ji, Kyoto.

Japan proudly claims that it has been ruled by a single family in an unbroken line since the dawn of history. Indeed, the imperial line seems to have served as a model for other families as well, and the Japanese people seem to possess a deep psychological need to belong to ancient lineages. In fact, ambitious artists are known to have falsely claimed membership in ancient families in order to strengthen their historical credentials.10 Some ie survived for centuries; others died out within a generation or so. In the visual and dramatic arts, each ie had a distinctive style, an aesthetic signature or trademark so to speak. Among painters this was often codified in manuals and model books handed down from generation to generation. But professional families also competed vigorously for patronage and public acclaim, and they constantly watched their rivals and borrowed successful tricks of the trade. Screen Paintings in the Gardner Museum

Two fine pairs of Gardner Museum screens may be analyzed in order to make the issue of artistic pedigrees and their interaction more specific (figs. 3-4, 6-7). At first glance the two pairs seem to have been painted in radically different styles. The first (figs. 3, 4 ), a pair of idyllic landscapes of rice cultivation through the four seasons, bears impressions from the seals of the second head of the Kano lineage, Motonobu (1476-1559), but the seals are likely spurious. The screens were nonethe-

less probably painted by in a Kano studio in the early seventeenth century, and were loosely based on a famous composition attributed to Motonobu's younger brother, Yukinobu (1513-1575) (fig. 5).11 The Gardner screens are almost laboratory examples of the trade-mark style of the Kano school.12 They were painted in very subdued colors, mostly black ink and sepia, in a technique ca lled "(water-) ink painting" (suiboku-ga) based on a style of Chinese landscape painting that flourished in the court of the Southern Song emperors of the thirteenth century. Indeed, in the aesthetic values of the Kano workshops, Southern Song ink painting was the classic ideal to which artists should strive, much as the nineteenthcentury French academy placed Raphael at the pinnacle of artistic attainment. The painter of the Gardner screens employed a highly controlled brush technique, but the individual strokes are clearly visible; many of the lines are fluid and calligraphic in character. Not only is the style of this painting of Chinese inspiration, but the theme itself, rice farmers living in peaceful harmony with nature through the year, reflects Chinese Confucian ideals of the tranquil society, ideals much promoted by the Japanese military government of the day. The second pair of Gardner Museum screens dates a generation or so later and was done in the brightly colored style of yamato-e (native Japanese style) of paint13

7 Detail of figure 6, right screen, Genji Attends Concert by Court Women; illustrati on of chapter 35, New H erbs, Tale of Genji.

ing (figs. 6, 7) . The screens depict scenes from the Japanese romantic novel Tale of Genji, written soon after the year 1000. O ne of the great classic works of Japanese literature, it is widely fam iliar to Englishspeaking audiences in translations by Arthur Waley and Edward Seidensticker. At first glance the screens appear to be from the atelier of a rival of the Kano school, that of the Tosa fa mily, which had long provided the head of the Painting Office (edo koro azukari) in the imperial government administration.13 Another example of the iemoto system in action, the heads of the Tosa family had held this position in an hereditary fas hion from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century (except for a period of some sixty years during the civil wars of the late sixteenth century).

plane. The human figures and trees, however, are represented as though seen at eye level. Room interiors are shown without their ceilings, an arbitrary pictorial device unique to Japan that sacrifices realistic architecture to narrative. Bands of clouds enter the compositions from all sides, obscuring incidental detail and directing the viewer's attention to the events taking place. The cloud bands, painted in gold or sprinkled with fl akes of gold and silver leaf, minimize suggestions of pictorial depth. Like the gold grounds of Italian

8 Aruibuted to Tosa Mitsunori (1583-1638), Prince Genji Spies Up on Ladies Utsusemi and Nokiba Playing G6, illustration of chapter 3 of Th e Ta le of Genji, album leaf, color and gold leaf on paper, 24 x 20.8 cm, H arvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sadder Museum, 24.1 x 21 cm, gift of Charles Parker.

If the Kano school looked to Southern Song Chinese painting for its highest ideals, the Tosa painters looked back to Japanese court painting of the twelfth century. A Tosa album leaf of ca. 1640 (fig. 8), illustrating the Tale of Genji, may be compared with a section of a handscroll fro m the oldest surviving illustrated version of the Tale of Genj i, dating fro m ca. 1120 (fig. 9). In both, buildings and gardens are shown from a bird's-eye perspective that radically tilts up the ground 14

9 Unknown court p.i1nrer. 01111g f..11rodci pie

po11

the Dcmglittâ&#x20AC;˘rs of L.1d\' Ta111.ik.i:::11r.i Pl.iw11g (,<J. 11lmrr.inon of h.iprer 44 of Tlie T.1/e of Ge1111. cJ. 11 20, fragmenr of h.rnd\croll, color and ink on paper, ago)J, Tokugawa Re1keme1-kJ1.

medie the de ran e, rwo-<l1mens1onal qu Imes f the de 1gn. Ice gcrhn rhc cram. of rh1s nff and imper onal figural [)le arc 1 el arruned ro rhc consrramc<l arm phere of ourr c.lcc rum.

Bru h handlmg 1 ailed I 11k11n-e (ltrcralh ' m nufa rured pamnng"), a method r fined and men ulou rhar 1r ob cure 1r

pp rtunt[)' r

Ir ts hallcngmg mc.lccc.l to find so pure an e'amph: of yam 110-e hearing a Kan -> !.tgnnrure. L.ltaloguer "orkmg 1n rhe earl) 19 O!. hac.l grear c.loubt abour rhe e !. recns, Lh1dl} becnu e rhe) c.l1c.l nor hr pre orn.epnons about\\ har "anci anc.l osa pa111nng houlc.l look like. he.. ~carec.l rh r che seal 1gnarures, anc.l d res \\ere punou nnc.l rhar rhe p 1nnng c.l.m:c.l one hunc.lrcc.l )ear~ afrer ~un1:nohu ' nme. mcc rhe crccn hJ\C been mac.le a\ad ablc or close rud) onl) rn:enrl), I he 1rare ro pronounce rhe la'r \\ or<l on rhc1r aurhcnt1CH) bur I bd1eH: rhe pos 1hd1t) 1 C'\rrcmcl} rrong rhar rhc\ were m<lecc.l b) an - suncnobu or his work hop. A curp11 L'ÂŁ'rur11111 of uncnobu' work has nor been c rnblt heel and rh1 1 nor rhe pl cc for a narrow c.l1 cus ion of arrnbunon, but detail of bru h re hni uc m rhe re.Iner crcen fir do cl} \\ 1rh Jerad 111 core work 111 the oCU\ re f uncnobu. Moreo er, 1mdar yamatu-e pamnng \ ere done b ' other member of the Kan hool, c~pec1 II) b) unenobu' uncle nd re her, the famous an'> u (160216 4).1

When we exam ine the ardner Mu eum Genji creen clo ely, however, we learn to our huge surpri e rhar rhey were igned Fujiwara Tsunenobu and given a dare equivalent to 1677. The arti r wa mo t likel y Kano 1: unenobu (1636-1713), head of one of large t and mo t imp rtant Kano atelier in Edo, the Kobikicho edokoro, and an exceedingly prolific master of ink painting (fig. 10).

Th ugh the o a at lier was the pnmJr) upplier of yamato-e- [)'I creen and album for the imp rial pala e and her d1tar ari t era y, the Kan - family f rhe e ent nth century dominat d the w rid of j apan painnng that they controlled the mo r pre tigiou omm1 1 n . Though the mai n Kan - patron \ ere amurai ruler f b th the c ntra l go ernment and regional domain , Kano painter al o worked for the impenal ourt, and when they did o, they w re om time obliged to u e yamato-e uited to ourt 15

tastes. Tsunenobu himself came three times to Kyoto to work on screens for the imperial palace. He was there in 1677, the date of the Gardner screens, and this would explain why he would sign himself Fujiwara Tsunenobu, for artists working for the court were often awarded honorary membership in the aristocratic Fujiwara family.

orate harmoniously - this in a nation in which Confucian and Buddhist ethics promoted ideals of social harmony.

Borrowing among schools of artists is a deeply rooted feature of Japanese art history. Artists in most media seem to have been free to work in other compatible styles provided they established clear identity as masters of one mode. The last proviso was essential; artists would locate themselves unmistakably in a well-defined stylistic tradition, but once that was done, they were able to experiment - within limits. Those who failed to do so lapsed into the academic rigidity of the later Kano school, which Professor Sasaki Johei describes below.

1 For Gardner Museum Asian holdings, see Horioka Yasuko, Marilyn Rhie, and Walter B. Denny, Oriental and Islamic Art: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Collection catalogue (Boston, Mass.: Trustees of the Museum, 1975). For the role of Bernard Berenson in advising Mrs. Gardner on Asian subjects, see Laurance Roberts, The Bernard Berenson Collection of Oriental Art at Villa I Tatti (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1991).

Westerners accustomed to greater consistency in style and ideology are disturbed by such pluralism and believe it to be unprincipled and expedient.16 On the contrary, Japanese pluralism in itself has been a basic cultural principle, one that enabled artists to adapt and survive in changing cultural environments; it has also taken the edge off professional rivalries. Workshops competed with one another, at times heatedly; but the history of Japanese patronage also abounds in cases where commissions were spread among workshops whose members managed to collab-

"Note: the names of all Japanese persons are cited in traditional fashion, family name first.

2 Kermit Vanderbilt, Charles Eliot Norton, Apostle of Culture in a D emocracy (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1959). 3 Van Wyck Brooks, Fenollosa and His Circle; with Other Essays in Biography (New York: Dutton, 1962); Lawrence Chisholm, Fenollosa: The Far East and American Culture (New Haven, Conn .: Yale University Press, 1963). 4 Warren Cohen, East Asian Art and American Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), pp. 23-29, 38-55. 5 Horioka Yasuko, The Life of Kakuz6 (Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1963). 6 Victoria Weston, East Meets West: Isabella Stewart Gardner and Okakura Kakuz6 (Boston, Mass.: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1993).

10 Kano Tsunenobu (16361713 ), View of the West Lake (Xihu) of Hangzhou, one of a pair of six-panel folding screens, ink on paper, Tokyo, Akimoto collection.

KJ th lcen \\b l- 1Jm' BrJndr, " \I r\. ,.udncr\ RtnJl\\,rn<.:c:, .. h 1111'.J\ rn1rt ( 19 0 I 1). \l u,·um.111nu.1ln:port.ind ' mp<i-ium p.1p ·r,. .:ibnc hie:, j rJ{lrJllt' t' \ooct)' (lkrkclq: nl\ •r,1r) of aliforn1.1 Pn:''· 19-0); 1 ram:1' l l\u, /t•1110/11: tin• I lct1rt of }<1/Jo.111 C .1mbndg1.', ~IJ ' .: hrnkm.m, I - ); hn,flnl ) .1110. "The lc moro 1,r,m; on1ergenu: o ch 1c1cmenr and \ npnon," Tr.rn,.1d1on' o rhe lnrc:rnanonJI onkrenu• of ( nenr.1l1'r' 111 Jap.:in,, \Ill (1ok10 Toho (,.1kk:11, 1992 ) Irdcrc:ncc courtc.:\I of Robert ">m1ch j. The: hid 'oun:c of j apanc.: e-1.:in u.1ge .... holar,h1p on rh1, \Ubtc r 1' 1\h11 Jm1 \ lar,uno,ukc:. / ('ll llJ/O llCJ kc11ky11 (1ok1 Cl: ) Chh1k.l\\ ,1 Kobunbn, 1 l); idem, C,c1do tu Ju1to (Toho: ) o'h1b " .1 k. obunkan, 19 4 ); 11.km. K111s~1 ge1do ro11 (lok)o: h1 anam1. 1972 ). K:rn anabc 1c'l)\.l1( l 31- 1 9 ), 1\ trlwro/ k cwo Ddhuk11 <1 / 1m1g.iJ,11. woodblcxk print book 1ll u~ rrnnon of C,yc1s.i1 ud 111, 4 'of,. (Tok)O: f11 3mom h1geru, 1 77), rnl. 1. I 0 he mo' r blarJnt c ample I\ rhc.: k. 1oto profc: ' 1onal p3111 rc:r og::i hohaku I 1-10l 1), w ho d3 1mc:d mcmbcr,h1p in rhc rhcn 1·3 a nr lineage of rhc: oga hool of am'r'. Wh en o\a l l1ro m 1th1 ( 1 59 16 ..,0) " 3, ::i,kc:d ro er up 3 ne11 K)·oro 11 ork,hop pc ·1ali11ng in o urr- t) le pa innng, he rook a' h1, 'urnamc: rh ar o f rhe nea r-leg nd3 r) cou rr p3111 rcr um1)·0 h1 e1o n, a id ro ha1c: li1 ed in rhc I re rwelfrh -earl y rh1rteenrh enrury.

11 Rrcc 11 /t 11re 111 the f our caso11s. I 1ghr ,JiJing re ·n ((11 11111a ) pand' formcrh in rhc I .w.<:n ·111, Da1wku JI, k. 1ow. "><: Da1tok11-11. 1 l1ho, 1 ol. 1 1 l Tok 1 o: k. cXl.m,h.1, 196 , nm. I 3 1 1 L!, 111lmk11 b1111t 11 ta1h·1. 1 ol. Tok)o k.cXl.111,h , 19-9. no 37- 3 .

12 l 1kcd.1 hunco, K..1110/ 1tok11. lapanc · ,\rh I 1br.1n 101. 3 ( l ok10: KcicJ.rn,h.1 lntc.:rn.H10nJI, 19 . . - ). pp. 43." I 3 John Rmenfidd, -jap.1ne rud10 Pra~ t rht lo .1 I m11h .ind rht lmpcn.11 PJinnng < th c 111 rhc 1cnlt nrh ( cntun. Stu lit• m t'1t I /1>tory u/ \rt, 1 (\\'.1,h111gton, 0. monJI C... lien ol \rt, I 91 , pp . ...,9- 100. n

14 I lonok.1 ) l\Uko, cl 11 . <)r1c11tJI Jlld i>/J1111 1\rt 111 th,· ls.Jhd/J \1, u .1rt C,.mlm·r \1 11 c11111. ( ollt nun ;ic.110 •ut (Bo,ton, l.1".: 1 ru,tcc' of the . lu..cum. I - ), pp. 'i 1- )'i.

1S f:thd. I 'unco, /\,1110 T.111 \1~ 1hor b11ur'u k.Hg.1 1cn,hu, 1ol. 1 1ok H>: huc1 ha, 19- , nm. 14 4 , '1Jm11 II'\ 1>1111-t· >h1 . t 1, 1ol. 1ok1 o: k. o,fan,hJ, 19-9 , no . 4 -'i, 22 . k. .ircl \ .111 \\ ollcrcn, T/.tt 1:111

J.ip,111c

tJteli: s

,won

PP· .9. 2r 22

111.10/

Pmn r Pt'ofJI<' .i11J l'olmc·~ m J ·11 ) ork k. nopl, 19

Artist unknown, student copy of Poet Zhou Moushu Admiring Lotuses, original attributed to Kano Masanobu (1434-1530), unmounted, ink and color on paper, 107.6 x 45.5 cm, Tokyo National Museum.

The Organization of the Kano School of Painting Kono Motoaki, Tokyo University Translated and adapted by Bruce Darling

Hashimoto Seien (dates unknown ), copy of Fuxi (legendary Chinese emperor, 2852-2738 B.C., inventor of divination, writing, and cooking), original attributed to Kano Masanobu, hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, 98.5 x 61.0 cm, Tokyo National Museum .

Established in the fifteenth century, the Kano school occupied a core position in Japanese painting circles until the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Critics debate whether or not the school retained its aesthetic creativity after Kano Tan'yii (1602-1674), but there is no question that it continued to occupy a preeminent place in the sociology of Japanese art. Nor should we forget that thorough training in the Kano school was given to two artists who played a decisive role in the birth of Nihonga, one of the major forms of modern Japanese painting: Kano Hogai (1828-1888) and Hashimoto Gaho (1835-1908). The Kano school flourished for external as well as internal reasons. Externa lly, its primary patrons were persons of the highest political authority. Of course, the keen political sensibilities of the heads of the Kano family enabled them to retain that patronage as authority shifted from the Ashikaga family to Oda Nobunaga, from Nobunaga to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and from Hideyoshi to the Tokugawa family. The internal reason for the school's longevity was the manner by which it was organized. The Kano school followed the Japanese iemoto system by which succeeding family heads were able to maintain the school's continuity, techniques, and trade secrets. In keeping with the theme of this symposium, I shall concentrate on the internal factor, the hereditary family organization that transmitted traditional art forms. To begin with, I would like to make a distinction between the Kano house (the family blood lineages) and the Kano school, which included the lineages of disciples. From the time of its founding until the Meiji period, it was the Kano house, the blood lineages, which lay at the heart of the Kano school system. A lengthy account in a pre-modern art his-

tory book, the Koga biko by Asaoka Okisada (1800-1856), describes eldest sons being appointed heads of Kano families generation after generation.' This was clearly a patriarchal system based on primogeniture; if an eldest son were not available, then a younger brother, cousin, or member of a branch family with strong blood ties would be chosen. Among the members of the Kano school were many artists blessed with talent, but regardless of how much talent they had, they would not succeed to the position of family head (iemoto) if they were not blood relations. The Kano family lineage and painting lineage were closely linked. An interesting document demonstrates this ~ The sixth-generation family head, Kano Sadanobu (1597-1 623), had no son, so his cousin Yasunobu (1614-1685)

b th g ernmenr and gi en a la rg re iden e; the · al had t ppea r at rhe ffiial painting atelier (0 11 'e heya) in Fd a tie n a fixed da ' ea h m nrh.

'<..

•' ,,.:

In a ordan e "1ch y ur "ill " e shall upun bu and build up che main hou\e (soke ). \ e "ill mamcam uncorrup red che ce hmque of che hou~e char ha' e been pa ed fr m ne generan n co rhe ne"\t.. .. en chere 1 an ffi 1al "all pamrmg prOJCct, che pamnng m che:.. lam R m ' ould mo c likely be a 1gned r rhe head of che main h u e, bur 1f an rher painter were g"·en che comm1 ion, he would t e a ke<l ro re 1gn and ha Ye chc pro1e c gl\ en ro) a~unol u. If\ e break che ab e pledge, we will prepare our eh e r uffer rem bu non fr mall the ka1111 f Japan. rt) a

rn r unknown, rudenr P> of Horse and Groom, original vome plaque at h1nro hnne attribu ted to K:in6 .Moc nobu unmounted, ink and olor on paper, d1men 1 n nor recorded, Tok ·o anonal lu eum.

_ ~-zan Masazurru 0 ) copy of Kano (dates unknown ' orig-

White-Robed Kannan~

"b d to Kano inal attn ute 476-1559), Motonobu (111 . k and color h ing scro , m ang 151.5 x 73.5 cm, on paper, . al Museum. Tokyo Nanon

Kano Seisen'in Osanobu (1796-1846), copy of L egendary Chinese Scene original attributed to Ka; o Eitoku (1543-1590), unmoumed, ink on paper, dtmens1ons not recorded Tokyo National Museu~.

The hereditary character of the Kano school becomes clearer when we compare it with the so-called Rimpa school, whose name is taken from that of its third-generation master Ogata Karin (1658-1716). Founded in the early seventeenth century by Hon'ami Koetsu (1558-1637) and Tawaraya Sotatsu (d. ca. 1643), this important school has continued into modern times. The Koga bik o called it the Koetsu ryu, using the term ryu ("stream," or "current") to denote a stylistic lineage rather than a family one. Few of the leading painters of Rimpa had the same family names, and, indeed, the generations were not linked by blood. The Koga biko refers to the Kano as a fu (" pedigree," or "genealogy"), thus recognizing the difference between family and non-family lines of succession.

If the Kano school guaranteed its orthodoxy through family lineage, it reinforced it with theory. The Kyoto Kano painter Ein6 (1631-1697) formulated its basic aesthetic principles by claiming that Kano painters combined Chinese and native Japanese modes: The Tosa school focuses exclusively on yamato-e. Sesshii(1420-1506 ), a painter in the Chinese manner (kanga), used a ro ugh brush and concentrated on two styles, the cursive (so) and semi-cursive (gyo ). The Kano school combines yamato-e with kanga .... ; (thus) the Kano master is the superior painter. Within this single school are many artists with superior talent who adopt the techniques of both the Tosa painters and Sesshu:

The Kano house monopolized nearly all official pictorial projects financed by the military regime. These included the painting decoration for Edo and Nagoya Castles; Nij6 Castle and the Imperial Palace in Kyoto; the mortuary shrines of the Tokugawa family at Nikko and in Edo; paintings commissioned by members of the Tokugawa house and high ranking regional lords; screens to be sent as gifts

to Korea; works to be presented by the shogun to various lords. Apart from the Kano house, only one other group of professional painters served the military government: the Sumiyoshi family, an offshoot of the Tosa who specialized in yamato-e. If other workshops were to be employed on official projects, such as those in the Imperial Palace, they worked under the direction of the Kano house. Accordingly, the Kano house was strictly prohibited from mingling with the socalled literati painters (bunjin), who had no official status; they were not allowed to paint ukiyo-e (subj ects related to popular entertainment); and they were not permitted to participate in the newly-popular public exhibitions of paintings. At the heart of the Kano painting tradition was the fumpon (a model or sample picture for copying). Figures one to eight show a sample of Kano-school fumpon, mostly of the nineteenth century. All are in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum. For an idea of its importance, we can turn to Hashimoto Gaho, who described the training he received in the Kobikicho Kano atelier in the 1840's:5 Gaho said that students were asked to copy model drawings in the following order: first came three handscrolls containing thirty-six sheets of birds and flowers, landscape, and figures by Kano Korenobu (also called Yosen'in; 17531808); next were sixty compositions of landscapes and figures by Kano Tsunenobu (1636-1713) mounted in five handscrolls. Then came twelve compositions of flowers and birds by Tsunenobu. The students next copied single sheets of compositions copied from such artists as Sesshu, Motonobu (1476-1559 ), Eitoku (15331590), and Tsunenobu, and Chinese masters such as Li Longmian (1 049-1106), Yan Hui (act. 14th c.), Xia Guei (act. ca. 1190-1225), and Ma Yuan (act. ca. 1190-1225 ). Last of all came paintings of 23

Chinese sages for the sliding doors in the Throne Hall (Shishin-den) of the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Disciples would begin by making careful copies (mosha, or rinsha), and requesting the teacher's evaluations. If passed, they would go on to the next models until they reached the Chinese sages. Students were free to paint from life or devise new compositions, but these were not part of the regular training and the teachers did not provide critiques. The training of Kano school painters, according to Gaho, began with making copies and ended with makmg cop1es. The final copies made by pupils would be mounted in the same way as the original models, and when the students returned home, they would use their own copies as models for their students. Kano school painters, no matter where they were born or studied, were thus trained to produce the same kind of paintings. There is even evidence of Kano school painters changing professions when their fumpon were destroyed by fire. Gaho stated that training based on copies was of utmost effectiveness in imparting mastery of brush, ink, and technique. As you can imagine, the fumpon were strictly supervised by older atelier members called ehon kata (supervisors of model pictures). According to Gaho, they permitted only one work at a time to be viewed or borrowed; these were never kept overnight or left unattended. Borrowed works always had to be returned to their boxes, and the boxes were kept in a separate fireproof storehouse. A student needed the special permission of a teacher to copy a model, and copying could be done only in private quarters. Twice each month, the painting models were inventoried in a special ceremony called ehon aratame.

After an average seven or eight years of apprenticeship (ten years for the slower ones), students completed their training and were granted their licenses. This was done in a special ceremony (natori, or "name taking") in which the graduates were awarded a single character from the teacher's artistic name, or go; two years later a disciple would also be granted a character from the teacher's given name, or na. Once these names had been conferred, the disciples were finally qualified to open their own ateliers. The Kano house monopolized the right to issue certificates of authenticity of old paintings. Called kiwame fuda (authenticity slips) or kanteijo (connoisseurship records), such certificates are still to be found in storage boxes of old paintings. Even when the appraisals were made by top students, they were issued in the name of the studio head. The income from this went to the Kano house, and, as Gaho pointed out, the head of a house enjoyed considerable prosperity while the disciples were barely able to scratch out a living through painting fees. He also wrote that Kobikicho Kano house was organized so that its pupils would attract still more pupils, their numbers multiplying rapidly. Gaho 's account of the Kobikicho atelier is relevant in general terms to the other oku eshi and sixteen omote eshi ateliers in Edo, to the numerous workshops in the domains, and to the Kano town ateliers an enormous number of artists all connected in one way or another to the Kano house. The Kano school promoted a theory about shitsuga (innately talented painting) and gakuga (disciplined, or learned, painting). This is explained by Kano Yasunobu, head of the main Nakabashi Kano lineage in his Secrets of the Way of Painting (Cada yoketsu) ; one of the 24

Kano Seisen'in Osanobu (1796-1846), copy of Pine

Tree, Hawks, and Flowering Plants, original folding screen composition attributed to Kano Eiroku (1543-1590), unmounted, ink and color on paper, dimensions not recorded, Tokyo National Museum.

most important statements of Kano house values. According to Yasunobu, shitsuga is created by artists with superior, birthgiven talent; gagukuga is the result of constant practice and devoted pursuit of the Way of Painting. In the Kano house gakuga was more highly esteemed than shitsuga because the techniques of innately talented artists, no matter how superb, could not be handed down to later generations. Gakuga was acquired through diligence and could be passed down in an accessible manner. The Kano approach to painting thus placed academic techniques ahead of the mysteries of innate creativity, and this proved to be effective in attracting students. The emphasis on gakuga also helped the Kano school maintain itself in a hereditary fashion over the centuries. Succession to the position of iemoto was determined by a combination of heredity and diligent study and without regard to how much talent a candidate might have. If the Kano house had emphasized shitsuga, a person with innate talent but no blood connection could have been awarded the rank of iemoto, and this would have broken the blood lineage. In spite of its large size, the Kano school was a closed organization with many trade secrets. Its chief products, however, were publicly visible: large-scale decorative programs in the interiors of villas, palaces, and temples. Moreover the school occasionally shared projects, such as those for the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, with other schools, which brought their production techniques under the scrutiny

of their rivals. Nonetheless, the school jealously attempted to guard its secrets. Yasunobu's Secrets of the Way of Painting (Cada yoketsu) was one of the most important. Head of the entire Kano clan (as explained above), Yasunobu fell ill in the last year of his life, lost the use of his hands, and for the sake of posterity dictated Gado yoketsu to his disciple Kano Shoun (163 7-1702). Thereafter copies of this work were given only to the most accomplished of those granted a Kano house license. A similar secret treatise was prepared for the Tosa school, one of the Kano school's chief rivals. Great Tradition of National Painting (Honcho gaho daiden) was compiled by Tosa Mitsuoki (1617-1681) in 1690? This treatise, which was illustrated, gave detailed accounts of painting techniques, and the contrast between the two house documents is striking. Yasunobu, incorporating material from Chinese painting treatises, added spiritual precepts such as encouraging the painter's heart and eyes to reach all the way to the tip of the brush. The Tosa book is more concrete in its contents. Yasunobu's Gado yoketsu, transmitted as a house secret, was an historical talisman that united Kano painters and helped them maintain the closed nature of their tradition. Like the zealous guarding of fumpon described above, the Kano penchant for secrecy extended to technical manuals and to a special mode of student practice called "listening, watching, and imitating" a teacher. The attitude of the Kano house concern25

ing its secrets is further revealed by the following anecdote about a certain Tachibana Morikuni (1679-1748). Morikuni was a student of Tsuruzawa Tanzan (1655-1729), a pupil of the famous Tan'yu. Morikuni copied Kano model pictures and published them in woodblock printed books ~ Angry that its secrets had become public, the Kano house blamed Tanzan and forced him to disown Morikuni. Kano secrets, however, were published by others such as Ooka Shumboku (1680-1763), a Kano town painter, and Hayashi Moriatsu, a former student of Tan'yu's disciple Ogata Morifusa (d. 1682)? Despite these transgressions, the Kano school ceaselessly tried to keep its techniques and models secret. In discussing the differences between the Kano school and Kano house, we should examine closely the concept of the iemoto. Recognizing that the institution of the iemoto in Japanese society was never entirely standardized, I would like to refer to a leading authority on the subject, Nishiyama Matsunosuke, who defines an iemoto house by the following three characteristics: 10 1 It is a house that hands down its traditional art in a hereditary manner and monopolizes the rights associated with it. 2 It esta blishes a cu ltura l domain of teachers and students in such a way that the number of students increases. Even so it maintains a permanent aura of exclusivity. 3 In the performing arts, which depend upon subtleties of practical experience, the iemoto house is ab le to maintain secret skills which are called mukei bunka (intangible culture).

I believe that Prof. Nishiyama's definition of iemoto fits the Kano house. Numbers 1 and 2 apply directly; number 3, though it

refers to the performing arts, applies indirectly. To be sure, painters produce tangible, concrete objects in contrast to actors or musicians, whose skills are called mukei (or intangible). Nonetheless, both employ subtle techniques that have been secretly handed down from ancestors, and the training of painters is akin to that of performing artists. In Gado yoketsu, Kano Yasunobu emphasized the process of refining skills through practice and transmitting them in a secret manner. A distinctive feature of painting is its commercial value. Most of the paintings produced by the Kano painters were commissioned, and the price commanded by a picture from the brush of Kano Tan'yii, for example, differed greatly from one of the same subject by a follower. Prof. Nishiyama points out that Japanese commercial manufacturers - makers of namebrand candy (Shoise or Toraya) or relish (Shuetsu) - similarly maintain secret traditions and command high prices. The commercial implications of the iemoto system are similar in both instances even though the products are different in character. The first appearance of the term iemoto appears to have been in the Kinsei edocho monshii.of 1757, a collection of essays written by Baba Bunko (1714-1758).1' In his comments on Hanabusa ltcho (16521724 ), an eccentric artist trained by the Kano school, he wrote: In orthodox-style painting, no matter how famous an artist becomes, he cannot go beyond the iemoto('s achievement). After giving this matter considerable thought, (Itch6) developed his own special painting style and created what is now called the ltch6 ryu (current, or school).

Kano Isen'in Naganobu (1775-1828), copy of Eight Views of Xiaoxiang District, detail, original anributed to Kano Mitsunobu (15611608 ), handscroll, ink on paper, 30.9 x 309 cm, Tokyo National Museum.

Tsuruzawa Moriyasu (18341893 ), copy of Xianzi Eating Shrimp, origina l attributed to Kano Takanobu (1571 -1618 ), Tokyo National Museum.

~~ t'>J

-G ~

1l-

'i;r.

' 1

It is important to emphasize that the very first appearance of the term iemoto refers to the Kano house and that in the Edo period the Kano house was generally recognized as having iemoto. The next question to consider is the actual functioning of the iemoto system in the Kano house. Professor N ishiyama offered the following three points as a definition of the iemoto system: 1 The iemoto (family head) monopolizes all inherited social authority and reigns with absolute power. 2 The disciples of the iemoto are called " direct," "grandchild," and "great grandchild " disciples in a framework of hierarchical social relationships. This is the so-ca lled natori system by which disciples receive a part of their professional fami ly and persona l names from the iemoto. 3 Natori disciples are bound to the house in a variable fas hion: either as an employee or as a legally fictive member of the blood family.

The Kano houses differed from other iemoto houses in one respect. In other houses, the iemoto themselves did not serve as teachers but assigned that role to proxies. In H ashimoto Ga ho's account of the Kano Kobikicho atelier, the iemoto himself conducted the teaching and did not entrust it to anyone else. The senior disciples supervised the behavior of pupils and looked after business affairs, but they did not teach in place of the master. While the hereditary workshop organization of the Kano house differed in small details from those of houses which practiced the tea ceremony or fl ower arrangement, the Kano was an iemoto house and followed the iemoto system. This method of organization enabled the school to maintain its position at the center of Japanese painting circles fo r more than four centuries. By understanding the system, we have in our hands the key to unlock the secret of the school's great longevity.

Postscript After completing this manuscript, I received a letter from Professor Melinda Takeuchi of Stanford University concerning the matter of shitsuga (innately talented painting) and gakuga (disciplined, or learned, painting) discussed above. Professor Takeuchi reports that in her seminar on Japanese seventeenth-century painting, a graduate student Tsao H singyua n (Mrs. James Cahill ) told of the painting treatise Complete Compendium on Landscape (Shansui shuiji) by the orthern Song painter H an Z huo (act. ca. 1095-1125), a minor official in the court of Emperor Hui Zong.12 In it may be seen concepts almost identica l to Yasunobu's notions of shitsuga and gagukuga.1 3 The similarity in the concepts is of great interest both for the Kano school and for relationships and influences in Chinese and Japanese painting theory. It is fair to note that the terms shitsuga and gakuga do not appear in Shansui shuiji; Yasunobu may have invented them himself. In any event, I am profoundly grateful to Professor Takeuchi and Ms. Tsao H singyuan for this important reference.

1 Koga biko (Notes on O ld Paintings), compiled by Asaoka Okisada (1800-56), see Ora Kin, ed . Koga biko, 4 vo ls. (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1904).

2 Reproduced in Tajima Seiichi and Omura Seigai, Toyo bijutsu taikan vol. 5 (Tokyo: Shimbi Shoin, 1909), p. 332. 3 For Kano branch schools in Kyushu, see: Goya eshi: Kano Tan'yu to kinsei no akademisumu. Exhibition catalogue. Fukuoka: Fukuoka Kenrirsu Bijutsukan, 1987; Ogata-ke kaiga shiryo mokuroku, 2 vols. Fukuoka: Fukuoka-ken Bunka Kaikan, 1987.

4 Honcho gashi (History of National Painting), compiled by Kano Eino (16341700), published 1678 . See Kasai Maasaki, ed. Honcho gas hi (Kyoto: Dobosha, 1985), p. 15.

5 Hashimoto Gaho , " Kobikicho edokoro," Kokka 3 (Dec. 1889), pp. 15-20. 6 Kano Yasunobu, Gad yoketsu in Bijutsu kenkyit no. 37 Oan . 1935), p. 35; Sakazaki Tan, Nihon no seishin (Tokyo: Tokyoko, 1942), p. 7. 7 Great Tradition of National Painting (Honcho gaho daiden) by Tosa Mitsuoki. Partial English translation in Ueda Makoto, Literary and Art Theories in Japan (Cleveland, 0.: Western Reserve University, 1967), pp. 142-167. 8 Fuso gafu (Lineage ofJapanese painting) of 1717, and Honcho gaen (Garden of National Painting), which did not appear until 1782. Both texts included material from the Tosa school as well. See also Osaka City Museum, ed. Kinsei Osaka gadan (Kyoto: Dobosha, 1983), nos. 201 -206.

9 Ooka Shumboku, Gako senran (Clandestine View of the Craft of Painting) in Nihon garon taikan, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Arusu, 1927), pp. 43-66); see also Osaka City Art Museum, ed. Kinsei Osaka gadan (Kyoto: Dobosha, 1983), no. 209. Hayashi Moriatsu, Gasen (Fishtrap for Painting) in Nihon garon taikan, vol. 1, pp. 5-41. 10 N ishiyama Matsunosuke. Iemoto no kenkyit(Tokyo: Azekura shobo, 1959), p. 19. 11 Kinsei edo chomonjit of 1757 in Enseki jusshit vol. 5, eds. Mori Senzo, Noma Mitsuharu, and Asakura H aruhiko (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1980), p. 53. 12 Known also as Chunquan's (or Harmonious and Comp lete) Compilation on Landscape (Shanshui chunquan ji) in Z hongguo hualun leibian. Ed. Yu Jianhua. 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhongguo gudian yoshu, 1957), pp. 670-671. 13 See English translation in Susan Bush and H sio-yen Shih. Early Chinese Texts on Painting (Cambridge, Mass.: Harva rd Yenching Institute, 1985), pp. 160-162.

The Iemoto System (No and Kyogen} Donald Keene Columbia Universiry

Perhaps the least discussed aspect of N o and Kyogen is the role played by the iemoto system. Everyone is of course aware that these arts possess "schools" (ryU); indeed, the first question normally asked of someone who is studying No or Kyogen is: nani ryu desu ka (which school?). This is a perfectly safe question. It does not betray the interlocutor's probable ignorance of the art of No; and no matter what the answer to the question may be, it is also safe to express specia l admiration for that particular school. The same question can, of course, be asked about any traditional Japanese art and some untraditional ones too. Sometimes the differences between "schools" are apparent even to someone who is unfamiliar with the art: for example, a typical flower arrangement of the Sogetsu school - a single carnation peeping out of a grea t stone sarcophagus - is unlikely to be confu sed even by an amateur with a chaste flower arrangement of the Ikenobo school. But in the case of No and Kyogen, unless one possesses considera ble fa miliarity with the texts and the manner of delivery, performances, rega rdless of the school, are apt to look and sound much alike. A performance of a great play like Maksukaze or Sotoba Komachi or, fo r that matter, of an uninteresting rea listic play like Torioi-bune is likely to produce the same effect on the audi ence, regardless of the school perfor ming the work. A very few plays differ substantially, but there are many slight variations, and these variations are not only the obj ect of minute attention by connoisseurs but constitute one of the chief reasons for the existence of the schools and, ultimately, for the iemoto system. The existence of different companies of No actors can be traced back at least to Zeami 's time. Four za, or companies, were active, the ancestors of the present Kanze, H osho, Komparu, and Kongo schools.

(A fift h chool, Kita, was recognized by the second shogun, letada, early in the Tokugawa period.) Each of these za had its head, and the za itself seems to have been organized hierarchica lly, in the manner of an extended family, with some members close and others remote fro m the central "father. " The tendency of organizati ons within modern Japanese society incl ud ing business corporations and military units - to liken themselves to a fa mily was well de cri bed in Kawashima Takeyoshi 's Ideorogii toshite no kazoku seido (1957). o do ubt this has long been a congenial way for Japa nese to consider a group and explains the term iemoto, fo undati on of the hou e or fa mily. However, the word iemoto is not fo und in djctionaries or educationa l texts (keimosho) of the Tokugawa period, and appears only in isolated zuihitsu.1 The earliest known use of the term iemoto occurs in a docun1ent dated 1689, but the word - and the system - pro bably go back to the M uromachi period.2 Accordjng to Shoryu Iemoto Kagami; an anonymous work of the 1830s or 1840s, tillrty-eight professions had iemoto, including not only the arts but religious organizations such as Shinto and Buddhism. There were iemoto for waka, renga, and haikai; for flower arra ngement, tea ceremony, and kemari; and , among musical instruments, for the sho, hichiriki, fu e, biwa, so, and wagon. No and kowaka onkyoku - but not Kyogen, Joruri, or Ka buki - also had iemoto. Unfortunately, no work of tl1is period or even much later contains an explanation of the duties and privileges of the iemoto, but they have been SUil1ffied up by N ishiyama M atsunosuke, the chief authority on the iemoto system, under three headings: 1) the iem oto transmits the traditional art of his family, as evolved over the generations since the founder; his blood line gives him sole possession of many rights; 2) he stands at the apex of a 30

society that is formed of his disciples - the more, the better for him - and their disciples; 3) his authority is fo unded not on cultural properties that can be seen and logically explained but on artistry that is based on skills polished by experience. These skills can be kept secret and in this way constitute an intangible asset~ The rights of the iem oto include the possession of documents that are kept secret or shown only in part (and on receipt of a suitable fee) to disciples who need the information in these documents. H e has the sole right to transmit secret works or to issue licenses to study and perform particular plays. He has complete control over the costumes, masks, and other belongings of the school, and can permit (or refuse) actors to use them in performance. He controls the performances regularly staged by his school, both the choice of the works and the performers down to the last musician. H e has the sole right to issue the texts used by students of utai (the singing of the texts}, perhaps the most important source of his income. In principle, the iemoto should be the

most capable actor of his school, and sometimes (though rarely) he is so in reality; but even if he is absolutely without talent he does not forfeit his privileges. Because he alone possesses the secret texts and controls their transmission, his personal weakness as a performer does not alter his authority. He decides which actors are ready to perform particular plays. The plays are ranked according to degree of difficulty of interpretation, with three plays about old women at the very summit. Only an actor at the end of a distinguished career would be given authorization to perform these roles. Some roles, though commonly performed by actors even if they lack this special aura, have secret traditions that are passed on only to very few, or

in some cases, only one disciple. The practice of transmitting the secrets of certain works to one, chosen disciple probably originated during the Tokugawa period, but its antecedents go back much further, probably to the Shingon practice described by Kiikai in Sharai Mokuroku (A Memorial Presenting a List of Newly Imported Sutras and Other Items, 804):5 W hen the young Japanese monk Kiikai arrived at the Ch'ing-lung Temple, the abbot, Hui-kuo, "smiled with pleasure and joyfully said, 'I knew that you would come! I have waited for such a long time. What pleasure it gives me to look upon you today at last! My life is drawing to an end, and until you came there was no one to whom I could transmit the teachings:" 6 Although Hui-kuo had many Chinese disciples, not one of them possessed the capacity to understand perfectly the secret teachings, and rather than pass them on to a disciple who might in some way corrupt them, he had waited patiently until Kiikai arrived. The same, in theory, has been true of the transmission of the secrets of N o and Kyogen. Rather than publish the most profound secrets of the art, risking the possibility that they might be misunderstood, resulting in performances that distorted the original traditions, the master - the iemoto - keeps them guarded to himself. The Komparu school secret tradition of performing the ritual work O kina was set down in a small book that was wrapped in fo ur sealed layers of cloth, with an inscription on the outside stating that the book could be shown only to the eldest son of the iemoto. Some secrets have perished forever when an iemoto died before he could transmit them to his heir. 7 Zeami, the central figure in the art of the No, insisted on the importance of secret teachings. He wrote towards the conclusion of Fushikaden: "Thus, in our house, 31

by refusing to tell others of our secret teachings, we will be the lifelong possessors of the Flower. When there are secrets, the Flower exists; without secrets, the Flower does not exist. " 8

would never reveal these secrets.10 The possession of secrets of a given metier has been characterized as perhaps the most conspicuous feature of Tokugawa-period society. 11

The most important secrets can be imparted to only one of the iemoto's sons. Zeami wrote:

During that period the highest-ranking actor in each school of No was distinguished by being given the title of tayu, which set him apart from the other members of his school. Every iemoto boasted a genealogy that proved the legitimacy of his claim to the exalted position. If he in fact lacked such proof, there were specialists in forgery who could provide them.12 The line of descent was emphasized by the practice of shumei, taking the name of one's father. Only one son (generally the eldest) could succeed to his father's name, but other names were passed down within a school. For example, the name Manzo, though not that of the iemoto of the Izumi School of Kyogen, has been passed down over the generations, the most recent (as of this year) being known as the seventh Manzo. Shumei was by no means confined to actors. Potters, swordsmiths, tea masters, and others were known by their generation number, and even ordinary merchants followed the practice.13

This separate secret teaching concerning the art of the no is crucial to our family and should be passed down to only one person in each generation. For example, even where the rightful heir is concerned, should he be without the proper abilities, this teaching must not be given to him. " 9

This practice, known as isshi soden has not died out. The late Kyogen actor Nomura Manzo transmitted the secrets of performing Tanuki no haratsuzumi only to his second son, Mansaku, even though his elder son, Mannojo, is also a distinguished Kyogen actor. No doubt Manzo instinctively judged Mansaku worthier to learn this secret role. The value placed on secret teachings quite apart from the universal appeal of secrets - comes from the belief that they contain guidance for the performer's spiritual attitudes, as opposed to the correct execution of the words and movements of a given play, which he might learn by close observation of the performance of a senior actor. Some of these secrets have been disclosed. Those found in Zearni's treatises are of the utmost value to actors, but most of the secrets are of minimal significance and sometimes (as in the case of the Kokin Denju) they are ludicrously unhelpful. All the same, possession of the secrets is the privilege of the iemoto and a source of his authority. In some arts including that of the nokan, the flute used in No - disciples to whom secrets had been imparted were customarily required to swear oaths signed in blood that they

Nishiyama distinguished three or four levels within the iemoto system, depending on the art. In No or Kyogen the highest level was, of course, the iemoto. Below him were his direct disciples (known in Nihon buyo and various other arts as natori), and below them were the rankand-file disciples. This structure was necessitated by the great increase during the Tokugawa period of amateurs who studied the arts. The lower ranks of disciples could not aspire to perform alongside professionals, but (with improved economic conditions in the mid-Tokygawa period) they had the means to devote themselves to No and other arts that were associated with the upper classes. The 32

government seems to have looked favorably on this activity, which served as a kind of compensation for the absence of civil liberties. On occasion the Tokugawa regime, which had adopted No as its ritual "music" (following the emphasis given in Confucian texts to the importance of rites and music to a well-ordered society), even issued injunctions to the performers as in 1647: The Komparu school for generations has enj oyed renown. However, the present iemoto, though adult in years, is still immature as an artist. H e should henceforth devote himself energetically to his art. O lder actors of the school should help and guide him . Any further negligence on his part will be considered a misdemeanor.''

The government presumably fo und it was convenient to issue orders to an iemoto, rather than attempt to keep control over individual actors. The consolidation of the iemoto system is attributed to the fifteenth-generation iem oto of the Kanze school, Kanze M otoaki (1722-1774 ), who demonstrated his authority by staging in 1750 the first kanjin no subscription performances in 100 years. The performances were immensely profitable, and from then on he lived in comfort. His income was further swelled by the publication in 1765 of a new edition of the utaibon! 5 The most serious crisis in the history of No occurred in the years immediately after the Meiji Restoration. No had been associated with the shoguns ever since Ashikaga Yoshimitsu bestowed his patronage on Zeami, and the samurai class had considered the art their own. Every major fief had its No performers,' 6 and many samurai studied the singing and dancing of the texts. With the overthrowal of the shogunate, No fell into disfavor, and most of the actors sought other employment, even as policemen or

farmers. The Kongo school in Kyoto was spared the drastic effects of the Restoration because it had not ca tered primarily to the samurai class; and a few actors in Tokyo, notably Umewaka Minoru and H osho Kuro returned to the stage, though at first with some fea rs about the likely reaction. No was saved by the need members of the government felt to offer visiting foreign dignitaries entertainment that was comparable to the operas that the Japanese had been obliged to sit through during their visits to Europe. The first performance of No after the Restoration occurred in 1869 in honor of the Duke of Edinburgh. Praise for No from the fo rmer president, U.S. Grant, who visited Japan in 1879 and from various other foreign dignitaries of the same period helped to restore the prestige of the art, as did imperial patronage, especially from the Dowager Empress Eisho. With the gradual return to their profession of actors of the different schools of No during the decade after the Meiji Restoration the iemoto system was strengthened, until it eventually acquired its present importance. Ever since the end of the war in 1945, however, the iemoto system has come under attack from scholars and even from the rank-and-file of the actors as a feudalistic heritage from the past. A particularly flagrant example of abuse of iemoto authority occurred in the postwar case of the Umewaka School. Umewaka Minoru (18 28-1909), more than any other actor, was responsible for the revival of No after the Restoration. Kanze Kiyotaka, the iemoto of the Kanze School, had followed Tokugawa Keiki to Shizuoka, leaving M inoru as the leading actor of the school in Tokyo. His successes induced him to assert his independence from the authority of the Kanze iemoto, and he issued " licenses" (menkyosho) as the iemoto of the new Umewaka School, 33

the first new school founded since the Kita, early in the seventeenth century. The Kanze iemoto was powerless to combat this development, and at first recognized the formation of a new school; but after Minoru's death in 1909, pressure against the Umewaka School increased, and during the next thirty and more years there was a confusing series of reconciliations and excommunications. In January 1945 the Home Ministry decreed that the school should be known as the Umewaka Branch of the Kanze School, but once the war ended the Umewaka Branch, no longer benefiting from governmental protection, found itself unable to stage performances. On the surface at least the iemoto of the Kanze School was willing to recognize the Umewaka actors as belonging to a separate branch of the school, but there was strong opposition from the san'yaku - the waki actors, musicians, and Kyogen actors - and without their cooperation it was obviously impossible to put on performances. When the American Occupation authorities got wind of this development, which they considered to be undemocratic, an order was issued in 1948 commanding the san'yaku to perform with the Umewaka actors. They had no choice but to obey, but once the Occupation ended in 1952, the "strike" resumed.17 In 1954 the Umewaka actors finally gave up their resistance and were taken back into the Kanze fold. They were no longer recognized even as a branch of the Kanze School. Their surrender was unconditional; they gave up all claim to issue "licenses" and use their own utaibon, the two main sources of income for No actors.18 The quarrel between the Kanze and Umewaka performers was not artistic but economic, over who would derive profits from the sale of utaibon and from the fees charged to students for learning new plays.

It is noteworthy that it was the san'yaku, rather than the shite, who brought about the surrender of the Umewaka School. No fewer than twenty-four iemoto were involved in the dispute: five shite-kata, three waki-kata, two kyogen-kata, three fue-kata, four kotsuzumi-kata, five Otsuzumi-kata, and two taiko-kata.19 It is difficult today to find No (or Kyogen) actors who strongly support the iemoto system. I asked an Umewaka actor wpat benefits were derived from the iemoto system. After considerable thought he answered that the preservation of No during the difficult times after the Meiji Restoration was probably the greatest benefit of the system. A Hosho School actor said much the same, recognizing the element of continuity in the art represented by the iemoto. But for both men (in their fifties) the "minus" aspects of the iemoto system far outweighed the "plus." These negative aspects resulted largely from a feeling that the present iemoto of the Kanze and Hosho Schools are not gifted performers to whom they themselves or younger actors would turn for guidance, and yet they gave themselves the airs of belonging to a class that was entitled to special privileges. But beyond the objections to particular iemoto, there seems to be a general feeling that the system has outlived the usefulness it had during times of crisis. The Hosho School actor thought that it was desirable to have a " leader" of the school, even if he were no more than a figurehead, but the Kanze School is so large - over half the total of all persons who perform or merely study No follow this school - that few direct benefits can be derived from a " leader." Instead, there are groups within the Kanze School to which all professionals belong, each group centered around a particular, esteemed actor, and the allegiance to the iemoto is minimal. 34

I asked about the function of the iemoto in preserving the smaller schools of No. Scholars of No generally accord special importance to these schools beca use of the textual and other variants they preserve, but actors belonging to the main schools seem uninterested in these traditions. O n the other hand, if a member of one of these schools is particularly skillful as an actor, a Kanze School actor will not hesitate to study with him . My Umewa ka informant told me that he had studied with Sakurama Michio, probably the outstanding Komparu School actor of the postwar period, not because he wished to learn anything specifically of the Komparu traditions but because he admired Sakurama's interpretations of the roles. Kanze Hisao, the most respected of all postwar actors, studied with Kondo Kenzo, a H osho School actor. The rigid differences separating schools seem to be breaking down, and this is likely to weaken further the authority of iemoto, especially of the smaller schools, who have clung to their traditions as a reason for existing, even if the special fea tures of their school are not apparent to the general public. The main problem of the iemoto system in the eyes of most actors, is that of seshii, the automatic succession of the son of the previous iemoto. This inevitably results in actors without much talent succeeding to a position which, in principle, carries great authority. An actor may be ordered to perform in a certain play, even if he dislikes it, or even if he finds uncongenial the san'yaku who have been assigned to his performance. The iem oto will attend a rehearsal of the play, to ensure it meets his standards; but if he is incompetent, his guidance will be ignored. All the same, it is he who will decide which masks and costumes will be lent to the actor for the performance. In the past it was forbidden for the actors to own masks and kimonos

of high quality, and this is still generally true of the Kanze School, but actors have increasingly been purchasing these necessary elements of the performance and using them when they perform independently of the regular, school performances. When an actor stages performances on his own or under the auspices of his "study group" (usually only once or twice a year), he arranges fo r the san'yaku and he chooses the play he performs. Such performances seem likely to become more important than the routine, monthly occasions because audiences attend with the specific aim of seeing a particular actor, and he is more on his mettle than when his performance is one of a series given by the school on a certain day. The authority of the iemoto does not appear as important in Kyogen as in No. The iemoto of the Okura School lives in Tokyo, but there are important branches of the school in Osaka (Zenchiku fami ly) and Kyoto (Shigeyama family) which are in effect independent. The Izumi School (the other school of Kyogen) is strongest in the Tokyo area, but it too is divided into families. The best-known actors of the Izumi School are members of the Nomura fa mily. The iemoto, Izumi Motohide, created a sensation when he named his two daughters as professional actors of the school. (One of them has been given the name of her grandfather, Miyake Tokuro.) This development has been viewed with dismay by most of the Kyogen actors, who believe that it will destroy Kyogen traditions. Sooner or later the authority of Izumi Motohide as the iemoto will be tested, perhaps if he attempts to have his daughters perform in the same plays as well-known actors of the same school. To conclude: the iemoto system is still a major element in No and Kyogen today. Although the desirability of the system is 35

questioned, not only by intellectuals but by the actors themselves, it continues to function. The iemoto (certainly of one of the larger schools) enj oys a higher income than other actors, even those clearly superior. Even if he is still a young man, as is true of the present head of the Kanze School, and incapable of providing guidance in the art of No, his opinion will be consulted and, if he wishes, he can directly affect performances by deciding the quality of the masks to be lent to particular actors. He may never rise above ordinary competence, but his performances will have a special cachet because of his position. A really outstanding iemoto, on the other hand, can revitalize his school, as Kita Roppeita did for the Kita School earlier this century, and this is the most that anyone now hopes for from a system that has increasingly become a target not only of criticism but of scorn.

1 For example, Nochi wa mukashi mono-

6 Hakeda, Kukai, p. 14 7. 7 N ishiyama, lemoto no KenkyU, pp. 47-48. 8 J. Thomas Rimer and Yamazaki Masakazu, On the Art of the No Drama: The Major Treatises of Zeami (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 60.

9 Rimer and Yamazaki, On the Art, p. 63.

10 See Nishiya ma, Iemoto no Kenkyu, pp. 40-42. H e gives a photograph of an oath, written by a member of the Isso-ryu of nokan in 1722 and signed in blood, swearing to many gods that he would not reveal the secrets he had learned. 11 N ishiyama, lemoto no Kenkyu, p. 60. Nishiya ma gives examples of secret traditions even of such humble arts as cooking daikon. 12 Ibid., p. 93. 13 Ibid. , p. 95. 14 Quoted from my No: The Classical Theatre ofJapan (Tokyo, Kodansha International, 1966), p. 47. 15 For an account of Kanze Motoaki, see Nishiya ma, lemoto no KenkyU, pp. 311-315.

gatari (1803) by Tegara no Okamochi, one of the facetious names employed by H oseido Kisanji (1735-1813), also known as H irasawa Tsunetomi. See N ishiya ma Matsunosuke, Iemoto no Kenkyu vol. 1 in Nishiyama Matsunosuke Chosaku Shu (Tokyo, Yoshikawa Kobunkan), p. 1, for other works in which iemoto is mentioned.

18 See N ishiya ma, lemoto Sei no Tenkai, pp. 384-385, fo r the text of the agreement signed by various iemoto and other important shite actors.

2 Nishiyama, lemoto no KenkyU, pp. 14-15.

19 Ibid., p. 366.

16 Ibid., p. 293 . 17 See Domoto Masaki, No, K yogen no Gei (TokyoShoseki, 1983), pp. 104-105.

3 Cited by Matsuyama, ibid., p. 14. On p. 19 Matsuyama gives in full all of the iemoto. The iemoto of No were Kanze Tayu, Hosho Yagoro, Komparu Tamesaburo, Kongo Sakon, and Kita Roppeita. 4 Ibid. , pp. 15-16. 5 Translation in Yoshito S. Hakeda, Kukai: Major Works (New York, Columbia University Press, 1972), pp. 140-150; an excerpt is found also in Ryusaku Tsunoda, William Theodore de Bary and Donald Keene, Sources ofJapanese Tradition (New York, Columbia University Press, 1958), pp. 144-146.

TransmittingTradition by the Rules: An Anthropological Interpretation of the iemoto System1 Robert J. Smith Cornell University

"Above all, he was the mold-breaker within tradition.Yet he knew that ballet's tradition lay not in the art form as a whole, which could be changed radically through concepts; the tradition was in the dancers' training."'

The view that the household (ie) and the linked-household organization called dozoku provide the model or template for the creation of other institutions of Japanese society is encountered at every turn. Almost every social scientist, Japanese and foreign alike, has argued that the structural principles of the household are to be found everywhere in Japanese social institutions. Schools, companies, factories, criminal groups, and virtua lly any other institution one can name are said to be familylike or familistic. 3 Commentators of conservative persuasion argue that the whole of Japanese society is one big household, with the imperial family at its head. Whatever one's view of that claim, the connections between the imperial institution, the cult of ancestor veneration, and the strong emphasis on genealogical or historical depth among the iemoto must be acknowledged. The reasons are not far to seek, as the following picture of the ie-ideal shows. In it I try to describe what a household was supposed to be; inevitably many of the chief characteristics attributed to the iemoto as institution and person will be brought to mind. First, the ie as an institution had social, economic, and sacred dimensions. It is the last of these that too often is overlooked. The sanctity of the Western family was predicated on the sacred bond of matrimony (linking husband and wife), but that of the Japanese household was expressed in veneration of the ancestors (linking the head of the house and his successor). The congregation of worshipers in the ancestral cult were the members of the household. It is for good reason that David Plath has said that in Japan the Family of God is the family.4

Let me offer a brief outline of the design of the ie? The household was a corporate unit, conceived to have originated far in the past and destined to persist into the future as its members die and are replaced by their successors in each generation. In theory, no household should ever die out, and in the interest of guaranteeing continuity, the head of the household exercised undivided authority. It was he who inherited the estate intact and it was he who bore the responsibi lity to pass it on to the next generation. The authority of the head, which was transmitted to him by the ancestors, could be acquired only through succession. The household head exercised authority in the name of the ancestors, therefore, and chief among his responsi bilities were the proper veneration of the ascendants of the house and the selection of his successor. H e had the power to appoint as successor any person he deemed capable of filling the position. So important was continuity of the line that virtually any individual might be selected. Most often, to be sure, it was the firstborn son; alternatives included other sons, adopted husbands of daughters, younger siblings of the head, and even persons in no way related to any current member of the house. It was so like a corporation that a household actually could lapse for a time, to be revived upon the designation of an individual to become its head. The head was in effect the custodian of the assets of the household (real property, other assets, business, trade, craft, or art, be it noted) handed down by the ancestors. It was his responsibility to nurture the estate and pass it on intact or enlarged to his successor. Like all offices that permit the exercise of authority over others, this one implied heavy responsibilities as well. Among them was the carrying out of ritual responsibilities toward the ancestral spirits, often in the context of a Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine, for the founding 37

ancestor frequently was a deified human or a humanized deity. The ie of iemoto means household, of course, leaving no doubt as to the origins of the core characteristics of what is called the iemoto seido. Its key fea tures are commonly said to be: emphasis on the masterdisciple relationship, hierarchical ordering of linked sub-groups, unquestioned authority of the iemoto (whose authority is like that of a household hea d), emphasis on exclusivity, and an organizational style modeled after the household (ie) ~ For their part, those who study iemoto seido, closing the circle, treat it as providing the model for the social and psychological relationships within the institutions of Japanese society. They, too, argue that schools, companies, factories, and so on, exhibit common features that reveal clearly the extent to which they are patterned after the iemoto system? Are these insights in any way surprising? Knowing what we do about Japanese society over the past two or three centuries, is it likely that its institutions would be organized on any other set of principles ? Would we expect to find loosely structured groups, reaching decisions by majority vote, unconcerned with perpetuation of their descent lines, contemptuous of tradition, stressing individuality, disrespectful of seniority and experience? Of course not, and since it is undoubtedly the case that people who wish to construct new institutions look about for materials at hand rather than taking off in unprecedented directions, it is hardly surprising that the household proved to be the model on whose basis other undertakings were structured. The term "fictive family" or "fictive kinship" occurs frequently in the literature on the iemoto seido. Before turning to the character of this particular fiction, let me

reiterate that the family/household in Japan has never depended on genealogica l, consa nguineal descent for its continuity or the perpetuati on of its enterprise. Fictive fa mily relationships flourish throughout Japanese society, fro m the imperial household right down through the criminal gangs. The Meiji Civil Code of 1898, often said to require primogeniture, did nothing of the kind. Although it expressed a preference for succession by the eldest son, it left open the possibility that literally any individual might be designated successor to the head of the house and heir of all its assets. This nota ble flexibility in the rule of succession made it possible for households to avoid extinction, while the rule of impartible inheritance insured that assets were not dispersed at the death of the household head. Rules of succession and inheritance that did not demand genealogical relationship were ideally suited to the requirements of the iemoto, as it happens, for it could prove disastrous to pass the headship on to a child of indifferent talent or unsuitable personality. As the sociologist Nakano Takashi has demonstrated, for any household its occupation takes precedence over the rule of descent; in fact, the descent rule is determined by the need fo r occupational continuity~ It is on the basis of a fictive family relationship that the authority of the iem oto rests. Here the social relationship is expressed in familial terms, and to some extent even behavior is modeled after family roles. The function of this kind of fictive fa mily relationship is to confirm and re-confirm, over and over again, the legitimacy and authority of the iemoto. Assuming the existence of an ideology that specifies the character of the relationship between leader and follower {ruler and ruled), it becomes necessary to create a system for imparting that ideology that will facilitate the routinization of the 38

desired behavior. Because virtually everyone becomes familiar with family roles and statuses in the process of growing up, fictive family relations are easily taught and readily established. The use of kin terms in iemoto groupings creates the proper semantic and psychological environment; employment of rituals such as grave-visits and wearing kimono bearing identical crests or other insignia serves to emphasize the familylike nature of the group. Once established, the leader needs no further logic to justify his paramount position, for his authority is both absolute and self-evidently legitimate. The relationship in such a system is patrimonial; the position of iemoto is inherited and the relationship between the leader of the group and his followers is based entirely on their willing consent. To operate effectively, and to survive, the iemoto system requires that its participants accept the fiction that familistic relationships are the prime basis for all human relationships. That day is passing in Japan; but in an earlier time the relationship between master and pupil (shuju kankei) was by no means limited to the teaching and learning of an art or skill, for the master was expected to function as a surrogate parent. In the world of Tea, however, authenticity and commercialization have become especially closely associated: The iemoto system is based on the idea that a single lineage may claim to be the only true authority on the artistic technique and related philosophy of a focal ancestor or famous teacher. The integrity of the message is preserved by strict training. Unauthorized communication of information is usually controlled by a convention limiting instruction at certain levels to oral transmission alone. The unspoken implication that school leadership has access to secret documents pertinent to the tradition reinforces its exclusiveness. To aid prospective students in identifying its authentic representatives and to ensure

consistency in the education of adherents, the lineages began to certify teachers and students at va rio us levels of experience. Since instructors were financially recompensed according to the level of their expertise, fees related to these documents developed into a source of income for the famili es that originally issued them as well as for those below them in the hiera rchy.' 0

Having presented the normative picture of the iemoto, let me now turn to the issue of variability. Like many institutions that seem quite uniform in character when viewed from a distance, what is called iemoto or iemoto seido actually is a highly variable set of institutions and practices, some of which, tellingly enough, usually are referred to as iemoto-like. They have different historical origins; their current status in contemporary Japanese society is far from uniform; their claims to legitimacy, genealogical continuity, historical depth, and purity of transmission are sometimes fanciful. In this symposium we will be discussing the role of the iemoto in the Japanese arts, but it is worth pointing out that "schools" (many of which safely can be assigned to the iemoto type) abound in an astonishing array of techniques, disciplines, and fields of endeavor. Broadly speaking, these schools are to be found in what today are called traditional performing, graphic, literary, and applied arts:

The performing arts include those of the stage no, ky6gen, buyo (Japanese dance), perhaps kabuki, ningyo joruri, rakugo, manzai, nagauta, and kiyomoto; the instrumental music of biwa, koto, shamisen, and shakuhachi; and (stretching more than a bit) even the court music and dance of gagaku and bugaku. The graphic arts are the familiar ones of calligraphy and painting, as well as wood block printmaking. The literary arts appear to be limited primarily to poetry. The applied 39

arts are especially numerous, and include swordsmithing, horsemanship, swimming, the martial arts (archery, swordsmanship, dagger-throwing, use of the naginata, kendo, judo, aikido), sumo refereeing, native mathematics, culinary technique of preparing living fish, fireworks manufacture, bell-casting, ceramics, lacquer work, certain kinds of fortunetelling, and last but until recently the most widespread of all, the schools of etiquette like Ogasawara-ryu. To these lists must be added, of course, the great threesome that is difficult to classify in the terms just used - flowers, tea, and incense. One thing they have in common is the claim to genealogical continuity, often extending back to the mythological age of the gods. Such claims are by no means limited to the iemoto, however, for scores if not hundreds of Japanese families (including many among the ex-nobility, for example) trace their ancestry back to one or another of the deities of the Age of the Gods whose exploits are recounted in the eighth-century Kojiki and Nihon shoki. In her study of the remnants of the kuge class in contemporary Japan, Lebra has a great deal to say about their participation in the world with which we are concerned in this symposium. Her findings cast considerable light on a variant iemoto-like form that deserves . our full attention. About 40 percent of the kuge houses listed by the Kasumi Kaikan (The Ex-Peers' Club ) were associated with certain arts, crafts, and areas of scholarship - poetry, calligraphy, the Chinese classics, Confucian studies, court music and dance, lute, flute, flower arrangement, incense, kemari kick-ball, sumo, court-costume dressing, sewing, culinary art, and many others. According to Lebra 11 the art or skill of these houses was called ieryu (house style). Today they are often compared

iemoto, but the great difference is that they did not necessarily practice the art in question. During the Tokugawa period, it seems, the shogunate recognized in these artistic and courtly traditions a potential source of revenue for the impoverished nobility, and assigned them exclusive rights to receive fees for certifying the non-noble iemoto who actually practiced and taught the art. to

Lebra quotes a remark made by one of the members of the nobility she interviewed: "My house is the iemoto of the Ikuta school of koto music. No, nobody [in my family] teaches or plays it. All my father does is affix-the family sea l to certificates." Another person, a woman, explained this kind of arrangement as something like arubaito, a side-job, that provides extra income. Her house has long held the seal with which the highest rank of a certain kiyomoto school is authenticated: "Every kiyomoto practitioner who wants a jo rank must receive my family's seal." '2 Not surprisingly, many of the ieryu died out with the abolition of kuge status after the Meiji Restoration. Nonetheless, some noble houses, then or more commonly fo llowing the a bolition of the modern peerage after World War II, revived their ierjun order to earn a living from practicing and teaching them. They now do what their ancestors never did: hold classes, exhibit their work, and issue certificates to students they teach themselves. "In the seven-hundred-year history of this house," said one man, "I, the twentyeighth-generation master, am the first to make a living from this art." '3 As a consequence of their changed circumstances, many kuge houses have adopted the term iemoto, but boast that they do not build up iemoto-like networks for commercial gain. The three best known probably are the 40

Sanjonishi in incense, the Sono in fl ower arra nging, a nd the Reizei in poetry. Les well known, but in m any ways m y personal favorite, is the Shij o (known as hocho no ie, the house of the !icing knife), w hose art, ca lled Shij O.ryli, is the culina ry a rt of preparing li ving fi sh to be served a sashim i.14 The pre ent iemoto is a thirty-eight-year-old ex-rock-ba nd drummer, who perfo rmed under the na me of Joji Shijo with a group ca lled Izumi Yoji and Spanky. Although he did not a nticipate a career as iem oto, he left the m usic world about ten years ago to ass ume the p o ition, and o nly last year bega n selling licenses to chef . The lowest grade costs 짜50,000, the highest 짜1,000,000 (a bo ut $400 to $8,000). T here are many reasons for the surviva l or revival of a school. Among them is prestige and enhanced identity, as is the case with those associated with the nobility a nd some others as well , in which the iem oto is regarded by his disciples as the em bodiment of the art created by the

fo undi ng a ncestor a nd perpetua ted by the line of m ore recent ones. By becoming a ttached to the iemoto, a disciple becomes associated w ith the long line of distinguished descent of the iemoto hou e a nd thereby enha nces hjs or her own sta nding.15 T he Shij O.ryii just mentioned i a good example, fo r the p resent head of the house i , after all , the forty-first generation head of a house esta blished in A.D. 886. Another is economic, fo r the iemoto of some of the traditional arts a nd crafts m a ke a very ha nd o me living indeed, but money is by no mea ns the onl y m otivating fo rce. It cann ot be, fo r only a mall percentage of all iemoto or head of schools a re full-time p ractitioners of their a rt and onl y the very well -known among them deri ve much income from its pursuit. Nevertheless, money looms large in the critici m of the iemoto, among whose many alleged sins are those of a uthenticating inierior a rtifacts (tea bowls, paintings, a nd the like), mu ltip lying levels of certificati on, and charging outrageo us fee for advancement from one grade to the next.

Ta ble 1 18

Occupation

1. Kabuki actor 2. Broadcast " ta lent " 3. N o actor 4. Popular m usician 5. Solo m usician 6. O rchestra mem ber 7. Rakugo teller 8. Manzai duo 9. Buyo dancer 10. Jazz musician 11. Nagauta singer 12. New drama actor 13. Ballet dancer 14. M odern dancer 15. Kato player

Average Income (짜10,000)

844 814 675 674 590 512 502 416 381 363 362 336 31 7 281 279

Percent Stage Performance

90.1 -

26.7 22.2 -

71.1 49.3 32.8 -

42.9 33.9 37.8 -

Percent Teaching -

4.9 37.1 16.2 55.3 18.0 -

46.l

38.9 -

31.4

Even a casual examination of the economics of the situation, however, does provide valuable clues as to how we may profitably distinguish among the performing arts of the world of traditional music and drama. The Japan Performing Artists' Organization annually provides figures on the average reported annual income of all performing artists (Table 1). Seven of the top fifteen categories are traditional artists, but the differences among them as to the source of their income are instructive. What the figures show is that the earnings of those practicing the classic iemoto arts depend heavily on fees received for teaching rather than public performance. Kabuki actors top the list of fifteen; no actors are third.16 But kabuki actors report receiving 90 percent of their income from stage performances and less than 5 percent from teaching.17 For their part, no actors report receiving only about 25 per cent of their income from the stage, and almost 40 percent from teaching. Buyo performers (Japanese dance) get half of their income from teaching, and koto players one-third; neither reports deriving any substantial proportion of annual income from performances. The same is true for rakugo and manzai, who receive one-half and one-third, respectively, from performances, and less than 5 percent from teaching. Nagauta singers, by contrast, receive one-third from performances and 40 percent from teaching. The details are less important than the tendency they highlight: there is a clear distinction between those performing arts that are transmitted directly and almost exclusively in the ie line to one's successor and a very few insiders on the one hand, and those that are taught to the public as well. So far I have said little about the internal organization of the iemoto grouping, which has been very well described by Yoshikami.19 It is in these matters that the

full implications of the household model are to be seen. Yoshikami identifies three core characteristics of the iemoto grouping, which I will paraphrase as authority, continuity, and exclusivity.20 In taking the view that the iemoto is a charismatic individ ual, she follows a Weberian line of analysis earlier adopted by Kawashima Takeyoshi, the eminent sociologist of law, in his analysis of the phenomenon in the early postwar period ~ 1 The iemoto, recognized to possess superior talent and leadership ability, sets the standards of artistic style and functions as the head of the household, the fictive ie. As for continuity, the iemoto's standards are imparted to the disciple through individual instruction in a prescribed course of study. In the process, it is thought important to foster group loyalty, solidarity feelings, and consensual sensitivity among the disciples. The exclusivity of the group is marked by rites of passage in which awards are presented; these may be titles, certificates, ranks, name changes, articles of clothing, and insignia of various kinds. The use of garments and insignia to signify level of achievement within the school's art differs not at all from similar practices in Buddhist temples and monasteries, schools, department stores, corporations, and many other organizations in contemporary Japan, where uniforms, pins, ties, and colors all may be used to denote grouping and rank~2 While surely it is the case that ritual recognition of achievement promotes solidarity, I would add that it is also a powerful stimulus to what we may call constrained competition among group members. The issue of external competition with practitioners of the same art is an important one, as the following remarks suggest: Group consciousness is created to overcome internal heterogeneity through socia lizing, working and playing together and discussing group activities and goals. The style of the art 42

assumes the distinctive characteristics of the iemoto's and a sense of exclusiveness or " us" and "them" is fe lt. Often other groups, even those of the same discipline, are viewed as enemie and are dea lt with tacitly as competitor . Wi thin the group, the hierarchy is determined by seniority, by the individual's length of time and rapport with the leader and not by age or abi lity. A senior-junior relationship is established . A newcomer, no matter how old, is the lowest in the hierarchy. Group ties also involve individual relationships that extend into the private lives of people, even to the family. It is intrusive in one sense, but in another it provides a sense of caring and security. 23

As elsewhere throughout Japanese society, the penalties for violating the rules of exclusivity and secrecy are severe. Just as the rural community once had the power to ostracize a member household that had violated the basic norms of reciprocity and harmony, so too the iemoto grouping: If a student transgresses the implicit loya lty required of the group, he is reprimanded. 1n the worst cases, he is ostracized, expelled from the gro up, or not spoken to. To be psycho logically orphaned is a fearfu l state in an emotionally bonded society.24

In conclusion, let me review some of the criticism of iem oto seido in the postwar period. Much of it has been made by persons of substance. Kawashima Takeyoshi argued that Japanese society could never become democratic as long as familistic principles continued to dominate its institutions. H ayashiya Tetsusaburo denounced it as a feudal survival, like the imperial institution, and urged the destruction of both. H e was not attacking the arts per se, but rather taking the not uncommon purist's view that the essence of true Japaneseness lay in those arts, in this case the Way of Tea (sado) as it had been before it was distorted and transformed by the iem oto system into what it is today. Yanagi Soetsu, whose passion for folk art made him a predictable enemy of iemoto seido, also denounced the baleful

feudal influence on the Way of Tea of institutions like the great Buddhist establishment of the Honganji. In short, these critics hold that the iemoto seido, far from preserving the traditiona l arts, has instead di torted or destroyed them through its rigid formalism and stilling of spontaneity and creativity.25 Some of the criticism originates in other quarters. Perhaps the most famous case is that of the dancer Hanayagi GenshU, who in February 1980 attacked Hanayagi Jusuke, iemoto of the Hanayagi school of Japanese dance, backstage at the National Theater in Tokyo, slashing her in the neck with a knife. Asked why she had done it, the perpetrator said, "I did it to smash iemoto seido." As usua l, the story turned out to be somewhat more complicated. Genshu was born in Osaka to a couple of itinerant actors and throughout her childhood traveled about the country with them. Lacking formal schooling, she received dancing lessons instead and become a natori of Hanayagi-ryu under Daizo, a pupil of J usuke. She had been expelled (hamon) some ten years before as a result of her insistence on giving what the press called "ava nt garde" performances, including dancing nude, while using her professiona l name. Needless to say, Hanayagi-ryii was not about to countenance the flaunting of its authority and the cheapening of its considerable reputation. After her expulsion, Genshu constantly criticized iemoto seido, denouncing it as "an institution of exploitation, related to the imperial institution.'' 26 As I suggested earlier, the connections between the imperial household, the cult of ancestor veneration, and the strong emphasis on genealogical or historica l depth among the iemoto are obvious, perhaps especia lly to the disaffected. But set against all its critics is the widespread assumption that without iemoto 43

seido many if not most of the Japanese arts of an earlier day would have died out altogether. There is no answer to its severest critics, whose position is that the dea th of the traditional arts would have been no loss to Japan or the world.

1 I thank my research assistant, Kuwakado Cho, fo r his invaluable help in locating published materials on iemoto seido. For an institution of such importance, there are surprisingly few general studies, although there are hundreds of accounts of one or another of the "schools" of tea, flowers, and the major traditional performing arts. Names of Japanese authors are given in the Japanese order, surname first.

2 This passage is taken from an article about Rudolf N ureyev that appeared in the New York Times, January 17, 1993 . 3 See, for example, H ayashi Tadahiko, Nihon no iemoto [The Iemoto of Japan] (Tokyo, 1983); Francis L. K. Hsu, lemoto: The Heart ofJapan (New York, 1975); Benito Ortolani, "Iemoto" Japan Quarterly 16, 3 (1969), pp. 297-306; and three articles appearing in a specia l issue of the journal Rekishi Karon Tokushii: iemoto seido to nihon no shakai [Special Issue: The Iemoto System and Japanese Society] 4 (1978), by Moriya Takeshi "Iemoto seido no seiritsu" [Formation of the Iemoto System], pp. 33-40; Tachikawa Hiroshi and Hirose Chisako, "Iemoto seido kenkyii shi: oboegaki" [Notes on the History of the Study of the lemoto System], pp. 175183; and Yoneyama Toshinao "Iemoto no jinruigaku" [The Anthropology oflemoto], pp. 130-140.

the work of Nishi yama Matsunosuke whose books include: Gendai no iemoto [Iemoto Today] Tokyo, 1962), l emoto monogatari [Stories oflemoto] Tokyo, 1971), Gei no sekai: sono hiden denju [Secret Instruction in the World of the Arts] (Tokyo, 1980), Iemoto no kenkyii [Studies oflemoto] (Tokyo, 1982), Iemoto sei no tenkai (The Development of the Iemoto System] (Tokyo, 1982). 7 See, for example, Lois Taniuchi, "Cultural Continuity in an Educational Institution: A Case Study of the Suzuki Method of Music Instruction," The Cultural Transition: Human Experience and Social Transformation in the Third World and Japan, Merry I. White and Susan Pollak, eds. (London, 1986), pp. 113-140. 8 Cited in Takie Sugiyama Lebra, Above the

Clouds: Status Culture of the Modern Japanese Nobility (H onolulu, 1993), p. 109. 9 Among the many criticisms againsr the

iemoto seido lodged by Japanese and Western critics alike are their authoritarianism and the tradition of hereditary leadership, although there is another position that they too often fail in orthodoxy. See Jennifer L. Anderson, An Introduction to Japanese Tea Ritual (Albany, 1991), p. 89. 10 Anderson, p. 60. 11 Lebra, p. 87. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid ., pp. 33 1-332. 14 The following information is taken from a television interview broadcast in 1992. The program, one of a long, popular series, was Iemoto seido: Soko ga shiritai.

15 Lebra, p. 5.

4 David W. Plath, "Where the Family of God is the Famil y," American Anthropologist 66, 2 (1964), pp. 300-317.

16 In second place, between actors of kabuki and no, are what are called " broadcast performers," primarily television personalities (tarento i.e. " talent") and actors. '

5 I have freely adapted the description given by Shoji Yonemura, "Dozoku and Ancestor Worship in Japan," Ancestors, William H. Newell, ed. (The Hague, 1976), pp. 177-203.

17 Of course, some kabuki actors who teach dance closely resemble iemoto, but they teach acting techniques almost exclusively to members of their house.

6 Anyone interested in pursuing research on the subject of iemoto must begin by consulting

18 Adapted from Japan Almanac 1993 (Tokyo, 1992), Jin-ichiro Ueda, ed., p. 238. 44

19 Miyuki Yoshikarni, "The Iemoto System of the Arts: The Unacknowledged Philosophical and Institutional Basis of Japanese Education," masters thesis, Uni versiry of Maryland, 1990. 20 Yoshikarni, p. 17. 21 Takeyoshi Kawas hima, Ideorogii to shite

no kazoku seido [The Family System as Ideology] (Tokyo, 1957) is the classic sociologica l study of the household and iemoto seido. 22 Yoshikarni, p. 66. 23 Ibid., p. 24. 24 Ibid ., p. 26.

25 For a particularly strident negative opinion, see Eiko Ishimori, Sengo nihon no dento o dame ni shita cha-kado no iemoto [The Iemoto of Tea and Flowers Who H ave Ruined Tradition in Postwar Japan] (Tokyo, 1977). 26 This sensational story was reported in the February 22, 1980, editions of the Asahi Shinbun (Tokyo).

The Formation and Development ofJapanese Painting Schools Sasaki Johei, Professor, Kyoto University Sasaki Masako, Nihonga Painter, Nihon Bijutsu-in

With the assistance in translation of Emanuel Pastreich, Harvard University and Gregory P. Levine, Princeton University Preface

For the last ten years, our joint research in the field of Japanese art history has incorporated two distinctly different but essential approaches, namely the historical study of paintings and the investigation of the materials and methods employed in their actual production. The results of our research from these two methodological perspectives, developed through extensive examination of paintings and other materials throughout Japan, have led to our greater understanding of a number of significant art historical problems. In this paper, we will introduce a small portion of our research which specifically addresses the topic of painting schools within the history of Japanese art. In particular, our discussion will focus on a comparison of two of the more important schools, the Kano and Maruyama-Shijo. 1 In this discussion we hope to articulate three major points. First, within the formation and development of the Kano school, primary emphasis was placed on the transmission and inheritance of specific brush techniques and pictorial compositions between teacher and pupil. Lineage, based on the teacher-pupil relationship, was therefore of fundamental importance to the school. The MaruyamaShijo school, in contrast, was united not by lineage but by a shared artistic philosophy and technique based on principles of realism (shasei). For this reason, the school could develop and expand even without direct teacher-pupil connections. Second, through our research we have identified specific differences in the function, usages, and objects of three types of drawings known in Japanese as funpon, shukuzu, and shitazu. The different ways these types of drawings were used within the Kano and Maruyama-Shijo schools in turn reveal fundamental distinctions

between their respective pedagogical systems. Within the Kano school, funpon were produced by senior artists and employed as models (tehon) by students who copied them in order to memorize particular brush modes and compositions. Within the Maruyama-Shijo school, all artists were responsible for producing a type of pattern drawing known as shitazu. On occasion, however, a student might borrow his teacher's shitazu in order to expand his understanding of the principles of realistic description. Third, the Meiji Restoration ushered in a period of tremendous social and cultural change in Japan that had differing impacts on the Kano and Maruyama-Shijo schools. While the Kano school was unable to survive this tumultuous period of ~hange, the Maruyama-Shijo school was able to adjust and, thereafter, expand. Its philosophy of painting, based on principles of realism, in turn became the basis of the present-day Nihonga school. We will argue below that the reasons for the decline of the Kano school and the contrasting expansion of the MaruyamaShijo school lie precisely in the differing natures of their training systems and methods of painting production. This can be seen most prominently in the career and paintings of the artist Kano Hogai (1835-1908).

I. The Formation of Painting Schools

Comprehending the Japanese conception of schools is a key to understanding the history of Japanese painting itself. Since early times master painters are known to have conveyed styles and techniques to students who, in turn, transmitted them to their pupils; the process could continue for generations. Something similar may be seen in the ateliers and master-disciple systems of Europe, but Japan's was a far 46

more rigid method of transmission through school and family lineages. Hereditary lineages of professional families are a distinctive feature of Japanese society and can be found in fields as diverse as tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and martial arts as well as in painting, theater, and handicrafts. When referring to hereditary families, the terms iemoto or toryo are used to designate family head. Commercial enterprises and shops which were passed down through many generations were referred to as shi'nise. One such example of a shi'nise is a sake brewery operated by a single family which had produced wine of exactly the same quality for two hundred years. Japanese clients would consider its product finer than that of newer establishments even if the quality of wine produced by each was identical.

In family lineages of this kind, the first generations developed certain skills through experimentation and failure, trial and error. These skills were transmitted to succeeding generations as techniques were perfected. Clients of high rank, searching for establishments appropriate to their status, considered the older and more prestigious lineages superior to the younger ones. The family head had the primary responsibility of maintaining the standards and quality of the product. A similar type of hereditary system also developed around the production of paintings and led to the formation of separate schools or lines. The largest and most impressive of these was the Kano school, which continued for more than three hundred and fifty years and became a principal foundation for Japanese painting. The pervasiveness and influence of the Kano school was such that even Maruyama Okyo (1 733-1795 ), who later developed a school of realistic painting

quite distinct from that of the Kano, began his study of painting by first mastering KanO-school brush techniques. So also did the ukiyo-e painter Nishikawa Sukenobu (1671-1752), as did Ito Jakucho (1716-1800) and Soga Shohaku (1730-1781 ), who both later specialized in fantastic and bizarre compositions. Even the father and son who founded the Kano school in Kyoto, Kano Masanobu (1434-1530) and Motonobu (14761559 ), drew their techniques from the long and venerated history of Chinese painting, indicating that the great Kano enterprise itself was therefore based on a previous tradition. We should consider, however, why painting schools developed around an art form which by its very nature is an individual creative act. Moreover, we should inquire as to why particular pictorial styles, once formed, were preserved and transmitted. In response to these problems, we would like to suggest the following points. First, the development of schools had particular merit from the standpoint of the transmission of painting techniques. Painting schools, for example, created their own technical manuals and handed down procedures of brush work and coloring through oral and practical instruction. Of particular concern was the preparation of pigments made from natural materials such as plant dyes, powdered rock and sea shell, cochineal beetles, and metals such as copper, silver, and gold. Expensive and difficult to work, such materials required special skills. If, for example, cinnabar containing sulphur was placed on silver, the chemical reaction would produce black silver sulfide. In addition, if the glue (nikawa) used to bind pigments was too thick or too thin, it would adversely affect the way the pigments adhered to the painting surface. Unlike oil paint, which allows an artist to

change the surface by applying additional levels of pigment, Japanese pigments (ganryo) cannot be altered or retouched once they have been applied. The school system allowed students to master techniques that had been acquired over centuries, and by copying the designs of previous masters, students progressed more rapidly than they could by working alone. This factor was particularly advantageous for painting schools such as the Kano, in which exceptional artists such as Masanobu, Motonobu, and Eitoku (1543-1590 ), who appeared early in the school's development, created styles based on particular brush rules and techniques and brought them to maturity. An analogy to the master composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1 760) may clarify the significance of formal rules. Even someone who lacks Bach's genius can reproduce or approximate one of his compositions with great effect by playing it precisely according to its written score, or rules. For similar reasons, the Kano school strove to perpetuate specific methods of brush use and techniques through its successive generations of artists in order to preserve the achievements of its masters. A second advantage of the school system can be seen in the Kano school's production of large-scale programs of paintings within temples, palaces, and castles. By organizing groups of painters trained in the same techniques, and apportioning different stages and tasks of painting, multipanel and multi-room decorative projects that would take a single artist years to execute could be rapidly completed. For decorative paintings commissioned for the vast construction projects of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, a studio head would first execute in detail the overall composition and

line work. His pupils would then divide up the remaining tasks such as applying color and gold leaf. Final adjustments and details were the responsibility of the studio head. Through this process, standardized training assured uniform quality in the application of pigments and compositional integrity for each piece at a given site - as though they had been created by a single artist. H ad independent painters been commissioned individually to decorate the various rooms within a single project, the results would have differed in style, composition, and painting technique from room to room. The Kano school's tendency to suppress individuality and to standardize workshop techniques and production in this manner has few counterparts in the history of world art. Without it Japanese wall and screen painting would not have evolved as it did.

II. Formation of the Kano School Hierarchy Among the many schools that appear in the history of Japanese painting, the Kano is distinguished by its continuity, by the large number of sub-schools which branched out from it, and by its unmatched reputation. The Kano ateliers earned such prestige that it was commonly said, "If they are not members of the Kano family, they are not painters." Beginning with the Ashikaga military regime during the fifteenth century, the main clients of the Kano school were warrior leaders and high-ranking officials who wished to decorate the interiors of their residences and state buildings with programs of paintings appropriate to their status and cultural tastes. The Ashikaga shoguns and their successors appointed the heads of the Kano ateliers to the position of goyo es hi (official painter), in turn incorporating them 48

within the warrior cla s hierarchy. The bakufu hierarchy placed the shogun at its apex and ordered a descending pyramid of ranks through the offices of sen ior ministers (tair6) and le ser positions. Despite the fact that such a hierarchy wou ld seem inappropriate to the essential creativity of painting, the bakufu presented specific ranks to artists within the Kano school. The titles of these ranks, which were Buddhi tin origin, begin with the character ho ignifying "truth "; the lowest, H okky6 ("approaching the truth "), fo ll owed by Hogen ("seeing the truth "), and the highest, H ain ("embod ying the unchanging, unmoving truth ") .

In the early seventeenth century, the Tokugawa family established a new shogunal regime and relocated the seat of its power to Edo; it also invited the Kano family to move to Edo and continue in service to the de facto heads of state. For both Tokugawa and Kano families the continuation of their lineages was a major preoccupation. Both families were organized along the principle of primogeniture: whenever possible, the first son of a family head was designated as his successor. The artist Kano Tan'yl! (1603-1674) was sixteen years of age when a Kano atelier was set up in Edo. At the early age of twenty-one, Tan'yu was confronted with the challenge of how to sustain and strengthen the Kano school. His paternal grandfather, the brilliant Eitoku, had died prematurely, leaving behind two natural sons, Mitsunobu (ca. 1561-ca. 1608) and Takanobu (1571-1618; Tan'yu's father), and an adopted son, Sanraku (15591635). The two natural sons also died prematurely, as did Mitsunobu's only son, Sadanobu (1597-1623), which left to the young Tan'yu the task of preserving the family's blood line and authority. Moreover, at the time of his ascension to the status of family head, Tan'yu had two

younger brothers dependent upon him, the sixteen-year-old Naonobu (16071650) and the nine-year-old Yasunobu (1613-1685) Tan'yu was faced with the daunting cha llenge of how to fulfill the respon ibilities accompanying the position of goy6 eshi and how to prevent the coll ap e of his school. Thi experience forced Tan'yl! fir t and foremo t to strengthen the organization of the chool and to create a system that would insure it continuation. Tan'yu responded by increa ing the number of arti ts in the school and expanding it tructure. In order to preserve the traditions of the school, he organized old compositional formulas and e tabli hed a well-ordered training method based on the use of funpon. To artists who mastered this curricu lum he awarded licenses as a means to further strengthen the lineage connections between teacher and disciple. Although still young, Tan'yl! was an adept master of orga ni zation and politica l maneuvering. A the preferred painting school of the bakufu, the Kano continued to receive the titles Hokkyo, Hogen, and Hoin described above. Not satisfied with this alone, Tan'yu copied and implemented the warrior class structure of the bakufu within his school and further tightened its organization in an effort to strengthen its privileges and status. Tan'yl!'s actions were well received by the bakufu with its own concern for the ordering of class and status and the establishment of rules. This in turn allowed the Kano to perpetuate themselves and expand. For its own part, the shogunate created a new position known as oku eshi (" inner,'' or more precisely, " upper-level painting master" ) to which it assigned heads of the four major Kano ateliers in Edo: the Nakabashi, Kajibashi, 49

1 Kano Koi (d. 1636), Landscapes, hanging scroll, ink on paper, dimensions and collection unknown.

Kobikicho, and Hamacho. In addition, ateliers of as many as sixteen omote eshi ("outer," or more precisely, "second-level painter) were established. A vivid account of the Kano school was written by Hashimoto GahO, who had trained in the Kobikicho atelier as a youth. 2 According to Gaho, the four oku-eshi had the privilege of meeting directly with the shogun himself. This placed them on the level of samurai ranked as hatamoto, direct retainers of the shogun, and they were entitled to be addressed as tonosama, or "lord." The oku-eshi were each awarded a large mansion in Edo and an annual stipend in rice measured at two hundred koku (l koku = 4.96 bushels, the basic form of payment in Tokugawa Japan). They were also allowed to wear a sword when they entered Edo Castle to attend the shogun and work on artistic projects at the official atelier. The power and privileges they

held at this time were truly astonishing. ID. Problems Faced by the Kano School The artistic decline of the later Kano school has been attributed to many factors. While the Kyoto atelier of the Kano school was blessed with numerous temple decoration projects, the Edo Kano had few opportunities to produce large-scale programs of wall and sliding door paintings. As their work came to center more and more on the production of small hanging scroll paintings, the grandeur of the Edo Kano began to fade. A more significant factor can be traced to the style of the artist Kano Koi (?-1636), who remained the most senior Kano disciple following the deaths of Eitoku and his two sons. The study of Kai's oeuvre reveals his brush-methods to be unlike those of the Kano artists who preceded him (fig. 1). This may have been due to 50

2a-d Ogara branch of Kano school, Fukuoka, White-Robed Kannan, model drawings (funpon). (a) dated 1767, 85 x 41 cm, (b) dated 1677, 85 x 42 cm, (c) no date, 85 x 43 cm, (d) dated 1827, 100 x 41 cm, Fukuoka Prefectural Museum, reproduced from Ogata-ke kaiga shio mokuroku, nos. 56-59.

the death of Kai's teacher, which left him without adequate guidance. Kai appears not to have mastered correctly the traditional canon of Kano brush methods and in later years to have developed his own idiosyncratic brush habits instead. Consequently, Kai's motifs tend to be smaller than those of his predecessors and to lack the strong brush handling and distinctive brush techniques of earlier Kano masters. In the absence of blood relatives who might have more faithfully transmitted preexisting Kano techniques, Kai's unorthodox style was passed on to the young brothers who later controlled the main Kano workshops in Edo: Tan'yu, Naonobu, and Yasunobu. This situation may have impressed upon Tan'yli the need to correctly preserve and transmit the traditional Kano repertoire of brush methods to younger generations of artists. Consequently, this may have been a motivating factor behind his establishment of the funpon training system as a means to strengthen the transmission of traditional techniques within the school.

The training systems established by Tan'yu at this time centered on the use of funpon (model copies) through which students faithfully reproduced old Kano compositions and sought to master characteristic brush methods (fig. 2). In practi-

cal terms, funpon were employed in the following manner: a student would place a funp on to the left of his own piece of paper and repeatedly copy it by eye until its brush techniques and composition had been memorized and could be reproduced without the aid of the original model. Inherently, this method rewarded fidelity to the past and discouraged innovation. In short, Tan'yu advocated gakuga, a type of painting acquired through study of models which could be transmitted to succeeding generations. He strongly prohibited shinzu, paintings based upon innovative ideas, designs, or techniques, because they destroyed all-important traditions. He also prohibited shitsuga, paintings which expressed the individual ability and talent of the artist, because they could not be transmitted to other artists. Despite Tan'yli's efforts to strengthen the school, additional factors hastened its decline. With the rapid expansion of the Edo Kano, a large number of additional artists were incorporated into the structure of the school. Not all were artists of particular ability. Moreover, lethargy developed as the school's prestigious status was taken for granted. Finally, the funpon training system, which had originally been a highly advantageous method of transmitting techniques, became distorted and led to the production of formu51

' .-

laic compositions. All of these small factors, in conjunction, began to have great impact on the character of the school. Critics of Kano painting surfaced at an early date. A dissenting voice was that of Nakayama Koyo (1717-1780), painting master to the Tosa domain in Shikoku. Living in the Tosa mansion in Edo, Koyo became a member of the scholar-amateur (bunjin) movement and adopted Chinese ideals of artistic freedom and individualism. In his 1775 treatise humorously named Worthless Words on Painting (Gadan keiroku), Koyo said that Kano restrictions on innovation forced students to slavishly follow authorized models. 3 Convinced that they could learn only by copying great works from the family's past, Kano apprentices were unable to develop their own capabilities. Koyo held that this type of instruction guaranteed the degeneration of the school. With the fall of the shogunate in 1868, the Kano school lost its primary clients. Two artists, Kano Hogai (1828-1888) and the aforementioned Hashimoto Gaho, survived by adopting new methods of painting. Both artists had been thoroughly trained in the Kobikicho atelier of Kano Shosen Masanobu (1823-1880). It

is ironic that the very breakup of the Kano school organization resulting from the collapse of the bakufu allowed these artists to cast off the school's prohibitions against creativity and consequently to survive as artists. Kano Hogai's success can be attributed to his combination of the rationalism of Western painting with the traditional East Asian representation of unlimited or unstructured space. His most striking works, such as Eagles in a Ravine (Keikan yuhi zu) in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, integrate volumetric and clearly organized motifs, such as rocks, birds, and other concrete objects, within the undefined space typical of Japanese painting (fig. 3). The effect is simultaneously one of realism and mysterious, otherworldly space. What must be emphasized with regard to Hogai's style is the unusual talent that is reflected in his efforts to merge two contrasting modes of representation. Hogai maintained the use of the calligraphic linear description that was vital to the Kano school, but he did so in conjunction with the volumetric representation of Western painting, which is most effective in areas where a strong outline is absent. 52

3 Kano Hogai (18281888 ), Eagles in a Ravine, panel, ink on paper, 91.0 x 167.0 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, FenollosaWeld Collection.

The flatness, individualist expression, and decorativeness inherent in calligraphic linear description stand in opposition to the techniques of Western realism. Hogai was nonetheless able to balance volumetric representation and planar, linear expression without allowing one to overwhelm or be subsumed by the other. Therewith lies Hogai's remarkable talent. IV. Distinctive Features of The Maruyama-Shijo School.4 As discussed above, artists of the Kano school retained the hereditary tile of goy6 eshi. Artists who lacked this prestigious official rank were known as m achi eshi. The goyo eshi were employed by specific, high-level clients, whereas the machi eshi were dependent on a variety of changing clients for their livelihood in a manner resembling what we would call "free-lance businessmen. " For these artists, large numbers of customers were maintained by finding a style or styles that corresponded to the particular tastes of the moment. Their income and social status were thus in constant flux; those of the Kano goy6 eshi were fixed and stable. Among the large group of machi eshi in Kyoto was the artist Maruyama Okyo. Prestigious machi eshi like Okyo would work on Imperial Palace proj ects, but the low ranking ones earned a meager living painting souvenir pictures, curios, and games. Okyo himself started at the bottom, in a toy shop painting the whitened faces of dolls. He also designed playing cards and created so-called megane-e. During the Edo period, the term megane referred not to "eyeglasses" but to a " lens. " A fashionable novelty, megane-e were realistic landscapes that were inserted into viewing boxes and seen through a lens which enhanced the sense of pictorial depth .

As noted earlier, Okyo started his career in a traditional manner by studying the painting methods of the Kano school. Industrious and inquisitive, he enthusiastically studied the styles of various other schools and artists as well. In particular, he studied Chinese paintings, and paintings by the Japanese artists Sesshu (1420-1506 ) as well as artists of the Tosa and Rinpa schools. He even mastered the style of the literati painter Ike Taiga (1723-1776) . As a result of his extensive research, Okyo became the most popular painter in Kyoto. This fact is reflected in a section of the contemporary biographical index, Heian jinbutsushi, where Okyo was ranked first amongst Kyoto's many painters.5 After Okyo began to make screen and scroll paintings, he rapidly gained popularity among clients of all classes. In 1781 he was commissioned to prepare paintings celebrating the enthronement of Emperor Kokaku (1771-1840); in 1790 he and his followers were contracted to paint screens for the rebuilding of the Imperial Palace. With these landmark commissions, Maruyama Okyo completed his rise to the very top of Kyoto's machi eshi. Despite Okyo's tremendous talent and popularity, he refused appointment as an official artist. Fully aware of the disadvantages endured by the goyo eshi, he preferred to maintain his independent status. In trying to understand his refusal, one should recognize that employment under a specific client would have restricted Okyo's creative freedom. His strong belief in the necessity of artistic freedom is suggested, among other things, by the fact that he did not enforce his particular artistic style upon his own students. Thus, while the position of goy6 eshi would have offered stability, it would not have allowed unrestricted artistic freedom . 53

This disadvantage was dramatically symbolized in the following generation by the suicide of Kano Yiisen (1778-1815), the head of the Hamacho atelier in Edo. 6 Following the completion of a set of sliding door paintings for the shogunate, Yiisen was accused of parsimony by bakufu elders who lacked an understanding of aesthetics. Yiisen was wrongly criticized for the fact that the amount of gold flecks (kin sunago) used in the paintings was not commensurate with the amount of money provided by the shogunate. In fact, the amount of gold that Yiisen had applied to the painting surfaces was determined not by monetary value but by compositional and aesthetic considerations. Yiisen's reaction to this criticism was one of anger. Before he committed suicide, he told his students that it is better to be a free machi eshi than to serve a patron who has no understanding of art. His suicide thus served as a powerful protest against the limitations placed on his artistic freedom by the shogunate. With regard to the painting process, Okyo placed principal emphasis on sketches or drawings from nature (shasei). Prior to determining larger questions of design a~d composition, Okyo would first sketch objects from life. For Okyo, departing from the natural shapes of these objects and the rules that determined them was anathema. For this reason, he came to be called the founder of the Shasei School (Shasei-ha). Instead of teaching his personal style to his students, he impressed upon them only the importance of careful examination of natural objects as the first step in the production of a painting. Once the natural shapes of the selected objects were fully understood, each individual artist could be free to determine the compositions of the objects within the painting and what brush methods were to be used to paint

them. In short, realism (shasei) was to be strictly followed, but the particular style of a finished painting was at the discretion of each artist. Okyo's students did not, therefore, merely imitate and transmit his style. Each in fact developed his own distinctive style. This can be seen, for example, in the daring compositions of Nagasawa Rosetsu (1745-1799), the emotionally expressive works of Goshun (1752-1811), the elegant portrayals of women by both Yamaguchi Soken (1759-1818) and Genki (1747-1797), and the realism of Mori Tetsuzan (1775-1841). Machi eshi were accustomed to responding to the needs of many kinds of customers, and their antennae were fine-tuned to minute changes in taste and fashion. Because of rapid changes in taste, an artist would find that an established style would be passe by the time it could be transmitted to students. Okyo's approach to painting and the training of students, however, taught that the only thing that needed to be transmitted was the funda mental theory of shasei. This artistic philosophy was particularly appropriate to the lifestyles of the machi eshi and enabled them to maintain commissions during a time when cultural changes led to changes in pictorial style.

Okyo's fame as well as the appeal of his painting ideas attracted a large following of artists which more closely resembled a salon of like-minded persons than the vertical lineages seen in the Kano atelier. These artists admired Okyo and settled in the neighborhood of Okyo's workshop 19cated on Shijo street in Kyoto. Later, Okyo's disciples were called the Shijo school after the name of this street. The Maruyama-Shijo emphasis on individualism, unusual in the history of 54

4 Preliminary drawing (oshitazu), student copy of an oshitazu by Maruyama Okyo (1733-1795 ), hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, 109.2 x 38.2 cm, private collection, Japan.

Japanese professional ateliers, arose from the founders' particular ideas about painting and instruction. Although later Shijo artists tended more toward personal expression than to realism, this can be attributed to their adjustments of their styles in response to a popular reaction against the empirical, descriptive painting that became fashionable in Okyo's time. This stylistic adaptation itself reflects the core of Okyo's artistic philosophy. IV. Pedagogy in the Kano and Maruyama-Shijo Schools As described above, the goyo eshi of the Kano school and the machi eshi of the Maruyama-Shijo school had different positions and perspectives as artists. Accompanying their difference perspectives were distinctive systems of instruction. In order to understand this phenomenon more fully, a number of complex problems related to the production of paintings must first be explained. Within the Japanese painting tradition, there exist various types of drawings on paper that are distinct from finished or completed paintings (kansei-ga). These drawings may be referred to as funpon using the broad meaning of the word. Today, the term has unfortunately been used as a vague catch-all for what are really very different types of drawings. Through our research, however, we have been able to differentiate these various types and establish their respective features and purposes. This consequently enables us to better understand the different systems of instruction alluded to above. First, let us consider shitazu, a type of drawing that is made prior to and used in the production of a finished work. There are two types of shitazu. The first, called koshitazu, are small in size and are made by an artist as a type of plan or prepara-

/-'I

Âˇ:::t _::_

â&#x20AC;˘ tory sketch in order to determine the overall content and composition of a painting. The second, called oshitazu, are made by an artist after the composition of the painting has been decided in the koshitazu. Differing from the koshitazu in function, the oshitazu are made the same size as the intended finished painting and are used as a pattern, or "template" (fig. 4). In the production of the final painting, the lines and composition drawn on the oshitazu are transferred onto the paper to be used for the finished work. Shasei, or sketches which accurately reproduce the natural forms of objects, 55

are essential for incorporating realism into a painting. Such sketches were the basis for both koshitazu and oshitazu and would often come to form portions of an oshitazu and, in turn, a finished painting. It was common fo r artists to compile albums containing a wide range of these sketches which would serve as visual records of sources for the production of finished paintings. This was especia lly useful when an artist wished to depict flowers or other natural objects th at were not in season at that particular time. Next, let us consider a differe nt type of drawing termed utsushi. An utsushi is a copy-record of a finished painting that i executed the same size as the painting itself or in a reduced format. Smaller, reduced-size copies are ca lled shukuzu. In many cases copies of both types include notations regarding the title of the finished painting, the artist's name, as well as the names of colors employed in the painting. A third type of drawing is what is known as e-dehon. E-dehon are sketch-models or samples that display the idea l form and means of representation of particular objects or subj ects which are to be learned by a student. All three types of non-finished paintings described above are generally lumped under the term funpon. Because of the large number of survi ving Kano school e-dehon, the term funpon has come to indicate the former. Furthermore, all three types were employed within both the Kano and Maruyama-Shijo schools. The quantity and precision of each, however, varied significantly depending on the school. Within the Kano school, e-dehon were predominant and are generally referred to today as funp on. Shitazu, in contrast, were not as common. The situation

within the Maruyama-Shijo school was the reverse. While large numbers of individual shitazu were produced within the school, the ole examples of e-dehon were the samples of tsuketate brush methods (rapid brush methods used for the rea listic descriptions of objects} compiled by Matsumura Keibun (1799-1843) (fig. 5). This distinction between the Kano and Maruyama-Shijo schools is the key to understanding their different systems of instruction. One can exa mine in greater detail the uses of e-dehonlfunpon and shitazu within the Kano and Maruyama-Shijo schools. Within the Kano school, a student would employ a funpon in the folJowing manner: first, the student would place a model (funpon) executed by a senior artist next to a sheet of paper; the student would then precisely transcribe by eye the model onto the paper. Through countless repetitions the student would reach the point where he could reproduce the model without looking at it. This process enabled the student to paint that particu lar subject even without the use of an accurate preparatory sketch, shitazu. The use of models as a means for students to develop painting ski lls and memorize specific compositions necessitated the production of a large number of funpon for each student. The Kano school also produced and carefully stored large numbers of utsushi and shukuzu in order to perpetuate traditional methods and compositions (fig. 2). 7 Within the Kano school, all artists therefore studied the same compositions and brush methods in order to preserve the school's tradition. The Kano school funpon training system may be compared to a child today copying ca lligraphy characters written by an adult. Through countless repetitions, the child will come to 56

5 M atsumura Keibun (1779-1843 ), M aruyamaShij6 school, instructional handscroll of rapid brush methods for rea listic descriptions of o bjects (tsuketate by6h6 e-dehon), handscroll, ink on paper, Kyoto, Rakut6 lh6kan.

master the techniques necessary to write each character. Eventually, of course, the child will develop his or her own handwriting. In the same way Kano artists developed their own brush styles which maintain the specific brush methods. Finished paintings by different Kano artists that were based on the same funpon therefore show subtle differences in execution. The use of shitazu within the MaruyamaShijo school also deserves further examination. Within the hierarchically organized Kano school, the production of paintings such as fusuma-e was a group enterprise that involved a division of labor in which the senior artist was responsible for the overall composition and important details. From the perspective of the client, the bakufu, the fact that a particular commission was executed by the Kano school was of particular importance. In turn, while a completed painting or program of paintings might be treated as the work of a particular senior Kano artist, personal seals and signatures were not placed on these paintings because they were considered collective works. Within the Maruyama-Shijo school, in contrast, primary emphasis was placed on the individual and individually created paintings. Even within large, multi-room temple projects contracted to the school, single artists would take full responsibility for the painting of individual compositions within separate rooms and would inscribe their personal signatures to their work. The following practical process of production was adhered to by each Maruyama-Shijo artist. The artist would first create his own shasei sketches and then employ them in the production of koshitazu followed by oshitazu. The work would be executed from the artist's oshitazu and would be completed entirely

through his own efforts. The actual production and use of shitazu involved a number of very specific steps. As indicated a bove, the first step in making a painting within the MaruyamaShijo school was the sketch from nature, shasei. Many such sketches would be assembled and redrawn on a piece of paper approximately one-sixth the size of the fina l work. This redrawn sketch comprised the artist's koshitazu. If the artist was working on a commission, this koshitazu would be shown to the client. If the client approved, the artist would enlarge the koshitazu to the actual size of the final work and finalize the compositional and brushwork details. The enlarged sketch became the artist's oshitazu, and would serve as a pattern to be transferred onto the paper (honshi) destined to become the completed painting. In the process of transferring the oshitazu onto the honshi, a thin piece of nenshi (paper coated on one side with charcoal, similar in function to carbon paper) would be laid over the honshi with the charcoal-covered side facing down. The artist would then place the shitazu on top of the nenshi and trace the lines onto the honshi using a bamboo or metal stylus with rounded tip. Finally the artist would go over the charcoal-dust lines transferred onto the honshi with ink. This transferred image would constitute the outlines for the finished painting which the artist would then proceed to complete. Maruyama-Shijo school artists were therefore responsible for all aspects of the production of their paintings. In some limited cases, however, oshitazu, especially Okyo's, would be handed down and used by students as examples of the master's original painting methods. This use of a senior artist's shitazu was, however, entirely different from the repetitive copy57

ing method of learning practiced in the Kano school. Instead, this borrowing of shitazu ena bled a student to deepen and confirm his grasp of the principles of realistic representation. When a student borrowed a teacher's shitazu, he would trace it directly onto the honshi using the method described above. In turn, his finished painting would be identical to that of his teacher. A number of paintings by disciples who employed Okyo's shitazu in their production can be identified today (fig. 4). Therefore, while funpon produced by senior artists were regularly employed within the Kano school to inculcate brush methods and compositions, the borrowing of shitazu within the Maru yama-Shij o school occurred only occasionally and was intended to instill in students the theory of shasei and the idea of realistic description.

V. Conclusion Founded on the fundamental principle of fidelity to nature and its application within individual artistic expression, the Maruyama-Shij o school expa nded and spread and continues to the present day as the foundation of contemporary Nihonga painting. The Kano school, in contrast, was unable to survive the tremendous changes which occurred during the Meiji period. In the third section of this paper, we noted a number of reasons for the decline and collapse of the Kano school. The different fates of the Kano and Maruyama-Shijo schools can be further explained by the fact that the Kano headquarters were in the shogun's capital of Edo while the Maruyama-Shijo's were based in Kyoto. Kyoto at that time was filled with highly cultivated people with elite tastes, and Maruyama-Shijo artists painted a variety

of compositions for aristocrats and rich merchants and for temples and shrines. They also produced many new designs and compositions. The later Kano, who remained bound to fixed models like inflexible "brush-wielding samurai," declined into mannerism. The Maruyama-Shijo school, which em braced the flexible thinking of the machi-eshi, attracted many Kyoto artists who adopted the concept of shasei but remained unrelated to either Okyo or his pupils. In the end, therefore, the Kano school djsappeared because it magnificent tradition as goyO.eshi, its atta inment of ranks and privileges, its licensing system, and its strong hierarchical teacherstu dent bonds grew to be too encumbering. The Maruyama-Shij o school, in contrast, stands out for its persistent adherence to ideals of arostic freedom and its emphasis on shared artistic ideas as opposed to strict teacher-student lineages. Viewed within the long sweep of Japanese art history these conspicuously different painting schools compel us to consider the djffering ways in which schools and lineages may be formed and transmitted. 1 For additiona l reading, see Sasaki Johei and Sasaki Masako, "Goya eshi to machi eshi (jo), (ge)," Sansai 540, 541 (1992), pp. 33-39, 62-69; "Goyo eshi to machi eshi," in Bunmei kaika no aida ni (forthcoming. Tokyo: Perikansha). 2 Hashimoto Ga ho, "Kobikicho edokoro," Kokka 3 (Dec. 1889), pp. 15-20.

3 Gadan keiroku, in Nihon garon taikei vol. 2 (Tokyo: 1980), pp. 254-288. 4 Okyo and the Maruyama-Shijo School of Japanese Painting. Exhi bition catalogue (St. Louis, Mo.: St. Louis {lit Museum, 1980); Yamakawa Takeshi. Okyo, Goshun, Nihon bijutsu kaiga zenshu, vol. 22 (Tokyo: Shueisha, 1977); Jack Hillier. The Uninhibited Brush: Japanese Art in the Shijo Style (London; Hugh Moss, 1974).

5 Heian jinbutsushi, reprinted in Bijutsu kenkyu 53 (May 1936), edition of 1768; 54 Oune 1936), edition of 1775; 132 (Nov. 1943), edition of 1782. 6 Kano Tando, "Bakumatsu Kano.ha no shoke ni tsuite," Shoga kotto zasshi (December, 1932). 7 For the funpon of the Kano branch school in Oita, Kyushu, see Ogata-ke kaiga shiryo mokuroku, 2 vols. Fukuoka: Fukuoka-ken Bunka Kaikan, 1987.

Enduring Alliance: The Torii Line of Ukiyo-e Artists and Their Work for the Kabuki Theatre Money L. Hickman Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Japanese pictorial art of the Edo period (ca. 1615-1868 ) is a rich, complex mixture of many schools, varied aesthetics, and great stylistic diver ity. One of the distinctive schools that flourished during this period is known as Ukiyo-e.' This evocative term, with its mu ltiple connotations, is difficult to render concisely in English, but the most appropriate of the commonly accepted translations is "Images of the Floating World." The contextual and creative genesis of Ukiyo-e is a new, popular cultura l phenomenon that evolves in the great metropolitan centers of Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo during the econd half of the seventeenth century, one that reflects the tastes and interests of the pleasure-loving plebian populaces of those cities. This new, infectious "Floating World " mentality, which is already apparent in the popular novelettes and writings of the 1660s, was unabashedly hedonistic, and celebrated the idea l of enjoying oneself to the fullest, of li ving for the pleasure of the moment, unencumbered, at least for the present, by the tedious concerns of social obligation, domestic responsibility, and daily toil ~ Those afflicted with this new spirit were drawn irresistibly to two locales, the glamorous worlds of the stage and the demimonde, the colorful , absorbing dramas of the Kabuki theatres, and the heady, sybaritic enclaves known as the "Green H ouses," a metaphor for the great pleasure quarters, such as the Yoshiwara in Edo. These dual lodestones provide the basic, perennia l subject matter for the Ukiyo-e school: fashionable portraya ls of the noted actors of the day, delineated in striking poses of the sort they assumed while performing on stage; and elegant images of courtesans, paragons of contemporary high style, arrayed in their most impressive finery. With the passing decades other varieties of subject matter were introduced into Ukiyo-e, but Kabuki actors and stately courtesans remain ubiquitous

and are the most frequently represented themes until the general decl ine of the chool in the early twen tieth cen tury. During the two and a half centuries that the Ukiyo-e schoo l flouri hed, a large number of artists produced a monumental body of works. These ranged from various sorts of polychrome brush painting to designs intended for reproduction through the use of woodblocks. Introduced from China a millennium earlier, woodblock printing already had a distinguished history in Japan before the advent of Ukiyo-e, but it is significant that it became the primary expressive vehicle for Ukiyo-e artists who, working cooperatively with skilled carvers and printers, raised it to it mo t advanced technical and creative level.3 In examining the protracted history of Ukiyo-e, it is apparant that gifted men appeared with ome freq uency, and that many made important contributions to the evolution of the school through innovative styles and, on occasion, fresh new artistic conception . The activities of such men were often influential, and admiration for their artistic accomplishments routinely attracted aspirants who wished to stud y under them and, not coincidentally, profit from their commercial success. In the majority of cases, a number of students or aspiring em ulators came to work under the master's supervision, and several of the more promising were eventually acknowledged as legitimate, qualified practitioners.â&#x20AC;˘ H owever, it should be observed that altho ugh some masters had substantial numbers of followers, the large majority of these artistic lines were short-li ved, and did not continue to flourish beyond two or three lineal generations or more than two or three decades. One durable exception was the Utagawa line, established by Utagawa Toyoharu in the last decades of the eighteenth century,

which continued with several subdivisions and branches until its demise about twenty years ago. But the most notable historical exception to the general pattern of a bbreviated lineal continuity in Ukiyo-e is the venerable Torii tradition, whose wellsprings can be traced back as far as the second decade before the end of the seventeenth century, and whose current leader continues to produce paintings to the present day. The Torii line thus boasts of a remarkable history of three centuries of uninterrupted, enduring artistic activity. 5

of the influential figural style of Hishikawa Moronobu, who died in 1694. Like Moronobu, Kiyonobu is said to have studied the academic styles of both the Kano and Tosa schools.8

From the start, the Kabuki theatres provided the chief sources of commercial support for Kiyonobu and his father, and it is significant that this affiliation remains a fundamenta l one for the Torii line to the present day. 9 The functional, pragmatic requirements of Kabuki billboards, large works that were displayed outdoors, either hung on a horizontal beam that extended out over the entrance, or above, along the upper faca de of the building, The Torii line begins with two shadowy were influential in the development of the figures, known only from literary referTorii style, for a direct, dramatic treatences. Tradition has it that the first, ment, energized by bold assertive colors, Kiyotaka, may have been an artist. The together with a strong expressive line, second, and more important figure, is were essential in drawing the attention of Kiyomoto (1645-1702), who, significantpotential theatre-goers and stimulating ly enough for the future of the Torii line, their interest. Moreover, this dynamic, was not only an actor on the Osaka exuberant method of painting also reflectKabuki stage, but also a painter who is ed the novel spirit of dramatic expression thought to have created Kabuki representhat had evolved on the Edo stages during tations, such as billboards and advertisethis period, one in which melodramatic ments, during interludes between his techniques of acting and dancing involving acting assignments ~ In 1687 Kiyomoto exaggerated action and theatrical posturing moved from Osaka to Edo (now Tokyo), became the seminal identifying characterbringing his son Shobei with him. Kiyomoto seems to have built a residence close istics of men such as Ichikawa Danjiiro, the first of a long line of actors to perform to the Kabuki district, and tradition has under this name, and one still in use today. it that in the second year of the Genroku This vigorous, innovative new mode of period (1689) he painted the colorful billperforming (aragoto, or "rough manner") boards that were displayed on the facade is apparent in the illustrations in the of the prestigious Ichimura-za theatre, Furyu Yomo Byobu ("Fashionable Foldadvertising new dramatic offerings.7 ing Screens of the Four Directions"), a Shobei, who later took the name Kiyobook of woodblock illustrations portraynobu, was the second son of Kiyomoto, ing the popular paragons of the Kabuki and twenty-four years old when the famstage that was conceived by Kiyonobu ily came to Edo. It is likely that he was 1700. The first illustration (fig. 1), in already working as an artist by this time. which shows the first Danjiiro in a swashDuring the following decade, he developed his own distinctive pictorial manner, buckling pose, grasping an over-sized sword, and dressed in a stylish garment one which is thought to have combined decorated with a giant centipede, epitideas from his father's works and, more importantly, to have incorporated elements omizes the aragoto manner. Above, to 61

1 Torii Kiyonobu I (ca. 1664-1729), Ichikawa Daniiir6 l (1660-1717), woodblock illustration from the Fiiryii Yomo Byobu (" Fashionable Folding Screens of the Four Directions" ), published in 1700, Asiatic Department, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 73264.

2 Torii Kiyonobu I (ca. 1664-1729), Saruwaka Sanzaemon, woodblock illustration from the Fiiryii Yomo Byobu ("Fashionable Folding Screens of the Four Directions"), published in 1700, Asiatic Department, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 73264.

the right, is the traditional ceremonial actors' crest of the Ichikawa family, the mimasu, or "three measuring boxes." Another illustration from the same book (fig. 2) shows Saruwaka Sanzaemon in a bombastic role, his kimono thrown back revealing his muscular torso. Here, the giant sake cup held inverted above the head and the huge sword serve to emphasize the heroic, larger-than-Life nature of the role. Moreover, the contours of the lower legs and the inflected linear manner in which the anatomy is delineated show two stylistic traits that had already become hallmarks of the Torii line, namely "[inverted] double-gourd legs and [wriggling] worm lines," or, in Japanese, "hyotan-ashi, mimizu-gaki." These features are consistently present in the works of Kiyonobu and his Torii followers, ranging from large painted compositions, such as hanging scrolls and votive offerings (ema) to woodblock printed illustrations, both in single-sheet and book formats, and other Kabuki-related materials, such as scenarios, fliers, and playbills. The illustrations in the Furyu Yomo Byobu demonstrate that Kiyonobu was an accomplished artist by 1700. In the following years he worked diligently to improve his paintings and designs, and by 1709 Kiyonobu's depictions of Kabuki actors appear to have been so highly esteemed that they were displayed not only on theatre facades, but also in the sanctified precincts of Shinto shrines, where they were dedicated as votive offerings, a circumstance attested to by a con-

temporary writer, who notes: "Shobei (Kiyonobu)'s style is well suited to Kabuki, and his paintings of actors appear in all the shrines." Of Kiyonobu's depiction of the actor Nakamura Gentar6, the author observes: "He captured the subject's emotions perfectly; everyone who visited the shrine was impressed by this picture, and crowds frequently gathered around to admire it." 10 One of the finest Torii designs of the period is a large oban print that shows a popular stage personality, the specialist in female roles (onnagata) Tsutsui Kichijli.r6 (?-1727), who had arrived in Edo from Kyoto in 1704, performing a spirited dance using two ceremonial spears beneath a theatrical curtain with circular crest (fig. 3). Although unsigned, there is general agreement that this piece is probably from the hand of Kiyonobu, for it incorporates all the distinctive features that characterize his style. Enlarged several times, this striking composition, executed in sinuous, rhythmic line, with its graphic disposition of space, figure, and symbolic decor, could have served admirably as a dramatic exterior billboard above the entrance to a Kabuki theatre.11 A perplexing aspect of the early history of the Torii line is that there seem to have 62

3 Attributed to Torii Kiyonobu I (ca. 1664-1729),

Tsutsui Kichijfrro Performing a .. pear Dance,路路 ca. 1704, woodb lock print, 0-oban, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Spaulding Collection, 21.5 644.

4 Torii Kiyomasu I (active ca. 1697-1720), Tsutsui

jomyo and Ichirai Boshi at the Battle of the Uji Bridge, ca. 1716, woodblock print, 0-oban, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Spaulding Collection, 21.5423.

_/'

been several artists who used the name Kiyonobu , as well as two who worked under the name Kiyomasu . The first Kiyonobu's brushwork, although strong in visual impact and therefore appropriate for Kabuki billboards, fa lls short of the more versatile and spontaneous manner of his chief contemporary, the enigmatic Kiyomasu I. Scholars have worked diligently to identify Kiyomasu for years, but he remains a mystery. It has been theorized that he might have been the son or brother of Kiyonobu I, or even that the two names might have been used by a single artist. However, aside from Kiyomasu's use of the Torii studio name, no convincing genealogica l connection has ever been established between Kiyonobu and this shadowy, but obviously talented artist. One can only say, on the basis of his extant works, that he seems to have been a somewhat younger contemporary of Kiyonobu, and perhaps not even an immediate follower. What is clear, however, is that the first Kiyomasu was a gifted artist, a circumstance apparent in his depiction of the dramatic confrontation between the youth Ichirai Boshi and the warrior Tsutsui Jomyo at the battle between the Taira and Minamoto forces at the Uji bridge, a large print notable for

its sense of theatrical vitality and innovative composition (fig . 4 ). After Kiyonobu 's death in 1729, the second man to use the name Kiyomasu became the titular head of the Torii line, directing its activities until the early years of the 1760s. The artistic production of this man, who may well have been the son-in-law of Kiyonobu I, is uneven, and his prints range from the routine and uninspired to more competent examples essentially conservative in conception and obviously indebted to the stylistic traditions of his predecessors, but only occasionally on a par with them in originality. There were a number of men active in the Torii workshop in the middle of the eighteenth century, but the man who eventually became the third titular head of the line was Kiyomitsu (1735-1785), the son of Kiyomasu II. Like his predecessors, he continued to produce actor prints, billboards,12 and playbills for the Edo theatres. Although his prints reveal his fidelity to established Torii conceptua l ideas and subject matter, they also demonstrate an accommodation with the broader evolutionary progress of Ukiyo-e art, for important technical advances took place 63

in woodblock printing during Kiyomitsu's career, such as the advent of the use of color blocks in the early 1740s, and then the ultimate development in 1765 of the " brocade" print, in which highly accurate methods of register were perfected, and the number of color blocks increased significantly. The two-level depiction of Minamoto Yoritomo's celebrated hunting excursion at the foo t of M t. Fuji in figure 5 was designed by Kiyomitsu, probably during the early 1760s.13 This famous event is a central one in the cycle of Kabuki plays that focus on the vendetta of the Soga Brothers, who sought revenge on the villain responsible for their fa ther's tragic death. Popular interest in dramas dea ling with the exploits of the Soga Brothers, a theatrical tradition established on the Kabuki stage in the middle of the seventeenth century, made the theme a perennial favorite, and it was regularly revived and rewritten. Kiyomitsu was a prolific artist who trained many pupils, and the Torii workshop seems to have flourished under his direction. Although his works are generally well-executed and often graceful , his approach was essentially retrospective, and he brought little in the way of new

vision to the Torii artistic tradition. Kiyomitsu's most gifted follower was Kiyonaga (1752-1 815), who was to become one of the leading figures in the evolution of Ukiyo-e.14 The son of an Edo bookseller, Kiyonaga chose an artist's career at an early age. It is not clear just when he became a pupil of Kiyomitsu, or why, for there were other contemporary designers of theatrica l subjects, such as Shunsho (1726-92 ), head of the rival Katsukawa line, who were more influentia l and admired. Kiyonaga had produced several small prints with depictions of actors, as well as some theatrical booklets, by the time he was twenty. By the time he reached thirty, he had far surpassed his teacher, and already developed an innovative new pictorial vision that was to be widely emulated by most of the print designers of the period. N ot only did Kiyonaga conceive a fresh new figural manner, one in which the idealized and naturalistic were propitiously combined, but he also perfected a compositional scheme, organized according to precise perspectival principles, that made the locations of his figures in space visually convincing (fig. 6). Furthermore, there 64

5 Torii Kiyomitsu I (17351785 ), Th e Shogun Yoritomo's Hunting Excursion at the Foot of Mt. Fuji, ca. 1760, woodblock print, oban, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Bigelow Collection,

11.1 9694.

6 Torn l\.11 onag.:i

(I 52-1 IS),AGro11pof Fasl11011ul>le \\'omen 011 u Ptlgrmruge to T-11oslmnu, ca. 1~ 89, \\OoJhlod. pnnr, iiban rnprych, !'.lu~eum of Fine Art , Bo ron, paulJing ollecrion, 2 1. ~ 44-5 -6.

1 a pre uparion \ 1th realism anJ ana rom1 al accura } m Ki ) naga' figures that 1 al o new, anJ which "a~ to 1g111ficantl} 111flucnce the Jc\ clopment of figural J cp1cnon 111 k1yo-c for Jc aJe . !> a m mbcr of the oru rc.:l1er Ki ) onaga d1J h1 h re of Kabuk1-r larcd p rtra} al , and 111 cerra1n of h1 pnnr that sho" a tor, either 111 th eir pm are ll\es or performing on rage one an ob enc the ea rlic t enou attempt at portraiture 1n k1yo-e. 1 H we\· r, K1yonaga\ Kabuki repre enranon arc fewer 1n number than hi portraya l of beautiful \\ Omen anJ thi ategory of ubi e t matter\ a clear!) the a rri t' favorite, e pe iall ) 111 the d ade of th I O' . o urte an from the plea ur qua rter had, of cour e, be n a enrral pi ton al theme in k1yo-e in it in eption, and a rli r ori1 ma ter , uch a Ki yonobu and Ki yoma u, had pr duced memora ble image in the early d cade of the enrury. Ki naga cho e to depict a grea ter rang of female ubject and cir um tan e , and he not only portra yed women from th variou brothel di trier , but al o other , member of the larger egmenr and cla e of ociety, who are accurately depicted in dome tic and ea onal activitie , uch a the convivial group in figure 6, which ha come on a ummer outing to Eno hima, the mall i land in the background, one of the mo t frequently vi ired pilgrimage ire for the Edo populace.

Ounng the late I 0\ and 17 0\, K1yonaga ' • rn m. and commcr 1al u LC c ca ii ~urpa seJ those of h1 mentor KI } omit u, and K1yonaga c\ cnruall) l CLamc the fourth nrular he d of the oru line. he urcum ranees urroundmg rh1 aJ\anccmcnr arc one example of he)\\ the oru un:e ion rook plat:e. on!>angum1() \\as unJoubreJI} a pnmaf} con crn m determining\\ h would dire r the forrune of th l111e, a 1r 1 genera II) m the rraJ1t1onal 1e111oto y rem. Bur K1yomn u' onl) on, K1)oh1Je (L. 1...., - earh I O' ), \\ho had howeJ earh arn ·nc pro1rn e, uffered an unnmel} death \\hen he wa nil 1n h1 teen . Two men, Ki) Ot une (acme lare l...., "O' _....,O, ), and K1y naga, ne1th r of whom w re bl od-relanon of K1 yom1r u', were th I g1 al candidate ro lead the Torn atelier. Ki) or une wa th older of the rw men, and the cl e t to K1 y m1t u m ()I , bur he lacked th enterpri and origmali()' of Ki ·onaga, who had gradua ll r b gun t oncentrate I n thea trica l ubie t and to work more independentl y, f cu ing on hi uniqu new depi rion of bea utiful ' om n. Ki yot une di appea r fr m the cene in ab ut 1779, leaving Ki y naga a the ch i e ro ucceed Ki yomir u, whi h he did, bur n r until 1 87, rwo yea r after hi predece or' dea th. Kiyonaga eem to have acce pted the po irion our of a en e of du()' to hi decea ed mentor, rather than be au e he a pired to higher tatu or p pular

esteem. It has also been suggested that he probably felt reluctant to assume the responsibility because he was much preoccupied with his innovative conceptions of women at this time, and he realized that he would be obliged to devote his future energies chiefly to creating works for the Kabuki theaters, such as the large outdoor billboards, and the numerous programs, fliers, and playbills required for each new stage presentation. It appears that Kiyonaga agreed initially to take on this demanding work for the theaters because of his sense of indebtedness to Kiyomitsu, and not with the expectation of succeeding him as the fourth titular head. His new responsibilities seem, predictably enough, to have deprived him of time to design many woodblock prints of beautiful women, for his production in this area diminished noticeably after 1787. Moreover, Kiyomitsu's grandson, Kiyomine (1788-1868), was born in the following year, and Kiyonaga, recognizing that the boy was the logical person to carry on the Torii line, began to tutor him in the traditional Torii style from the time he was eight years old, and seems to have

continued to supervise his progress in the following years. Kiyonaga had already begun to design a few of the special single sheet programs for the kaomise performances,16 which were held in the Eleventh Month at all the Kabuki theatres, by the mid-1780s, but the fact that he increased his output of these programs after he became head of the Torii atelier in 1787, generally producing designs for all three of the great Edo theatres annually until the last years of his life, serves as a convincing demonstration of the artist's ongoing efforts to keep up with the unrelenting demands of the Kabuki schedules. A typical example of one of these kaomise programs, which includes not only Kiyonaga 's depictions of the cast of actors, but also lists all the performers and individual segments or plays that made up the program, typically written in the dense, mannered calligraphic style associated with the popular theatres, appears in figure 7, an example produced for the celebrated Nakamura-za in 1797. 17 An instructive example of Kiyonaga's handling of a revered Kabuki theme in 66

7 Torii Kiyonaga (17521815), Kabuki kaomise program for the Nakamuraza 1797, Eleventh Month, woodblock print, oban, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Bigelow Collection, 11.27503.

\lu um

h1 1.i ... r ~ e.ir ,. . rhl· l.ug1:, 1,;ommcmor.HIH' \ml\ l' p.lt11rtng. or "c111.1." 1n tigur · ', .1 ptLLt: gl\ l n ro rh · ]01u11l, .1 BuJJh1,r fl'lll · pk Ill I Jo, ,rnJ lll,f.llkJ 011 l h1b1flon rhat: m I I 0.1 P.ttru1:J on .1 '"mJ p.ind, rh1' .lLLOlllplt,hld \\ orl.. ho\\' kh1k,1\\ .1 D.1n1uro \ II Ill rhl· role ot cl1 1 ,ori1 h.u('Lfllll • 1 hugl', Jouhk r1ppcJ .urn\\ h1:.1J on .1 l.lrgl' "hl hfOlll', .1 he L<>nton · pl.He.: n' cngl' on rhL '1ll.11n rl· por1'1bll for h1' f.Hhcr\ Jl'.Hh. I tr'r f)l'rfcmmJ h) rht· cLtmJ D.in1l1m m I ~2'1, rh" rok" iJm1rcd form Jr.1m.H11,; 1nrcn in ••rnd ,., ,nll .1LCeJ h\ member of rhe kh;k,J\\,l lamil). 1 l..1;lta 'lorn .m1'r' h.1J J1:p1LfeJ rhe rheme lrcqul'nrl}. .rnJ Jll"r .1 .. thl' r.1gl role lxc.lml pre'tl.nl ·J .rnJ nru.ili1cJ O\n rhl' Jn.•1Jn p1tron.1l r prl· cnr.rnorh o rhe '>UhJn.r h.1J .11,o r.1kcn on .1 1..0ll\l'l1· non.1l11lJ, tlOlltl h.u.1LCer b\ ~I\ on.1g.1 \ rime. )er rhe ubrk bur inc orablc cffel..f~ of p.l'>'>tng rune .ind 'r' li'>rtL l' olunon arc L\ 1dcnr c\l'll 1n LOil ll\.ltl\l:, rr.idtnon.il ubfeLC'> ltkc rh1 . . one, .rnJ K1yonaga · mrerpruarion rt' l'JI., h" m' n 1d10'> nnarn. rrearmenr, "hKh ,., more facile 111 It'> bru.,lm·orl.., burl Kk' ... mm·rhmg of rhe '1raltq and 't'>u.11 1111pa1..r of earlier worb. K1yonaga died m 181 S ar rhe .1ge of 1 C)'·three and 1yomme bc.:Lame rhe fifth nrular head. 1yom1ne had begun ro produce de 1gn for woodblock pnnr a decac.I earlier, c.lep1cnng borh bcaunful women and acror , a well as dlu.,rranon

for IJ<x1k,, .rnJ hl onwwcd 1n rh1, nun rwr tor om 'l'. r . In rhl· l cnrh lonrh ol I, 4 I rhe I.Jo rhc.Hrl J1,rn r ".h k\ dl J I \ .1 J1 .t rrou' ti rt, nJ 1he .wrhon · rte JL. 1JcJ ro moH rhe tl1l·.HrL our ul rh1: mncr 1..1r 10 1 Ill'\\ HL.l, 1n A .tku .1. Im pre '" c Ile\\ I udJ1ng "al' 0011 on'rru rcJ .11 dll, lex. 111011, .rnJ Kl\ 111111111:. Ill ommc.:mor,lt1on of rh1 propmou nc" Jn dopmc nr 111 rhc ~ l huk 1.mJ h1 m\ n l1..Lompl1,hm( nr' 1' rhl hL .1J ol rhl· Jorn l111l', Lh.m •cJ ht'> n.unc 10 "-l\1111llr u 11. \lrcr rh1 r1llll' he pre Ju .. cJ k\\ \\ cxxlbl1x.k pnnr or tlllMr.H(J Ix ok,, 1nJ dl'' Ofl·J ht' l'lll'rgtl· pnnunh ro "-.1l uk1 btlll o.uJ , pl t \ hdh., .mJ pro •rum L1kc ht i.tr.rnJt.nhcr, ~I\ om1r u I, ~I\ um1r u 11 \\,l\ .11..omrx·rc.:nr bur um ll\ HtH .1rn-,r, .1 J.rnhtul l'X:.trcr of rhl· Torn ror h. bur nor .1 n 1nnm ,Hor. I I" rcnJmon ul rhe ·· .on) harpcnmg I It \rr1m hl.1J" rhc llll (hg. 9, proJuu:J 'er.11 JcLJJ(, .liTl'r "" onag.1 \ 'cr'1on, prm 1Jt:, .111 uhrrucrt\l 1..omp.u1"m. Ir nplt ·.nc rhl· g(nc.:r.11 po rurc and e ~cnn.11 <ll'r.1il of rhe e.ul1er rnmpo trton "1rh u1..h fiJd1[) rh.u one cJn onh pre-.ume rh.u "'' om1r u " ,,, fam1lt.ir "1rh, and inrl'n<leJ ro Lmul.m: ~ I) onJga \ l'lllu. he Ille\ 1rJble m.mncr"m 111herenr m rhl' lJrcr produLC~ of Jn\ LOn,en ,m, l' Jrr1 n lme Jcd11...ue<l ro 'repl1LJnng e~rablt,heJ p1Lton.1l proro1'} pc!> 1~ dcmon.,rrabl apparent here. K1} om1r u II "a~ u ·lel'JeJ m rum, b h1~ cldc'>r '>On, "-1yoyo~h1, "ho rook rhe 67

name Kiyomitsu ill when he became the sixth titular head fo llowing his father's death in 1868. The seventh man to direct the Torii line wa Kiyotada IV, who was born in 1875, At age eighteen he was attracted to the pictoria l ideas of To a painting, and began to tudy w1der Kawabe Mitate (1837-1905), one of the last proponents of that venerable school. Four years later, however, he returned to the family tradition, and dedicated himself to mastering the Torii sty le under the guidance of his father, Kiyosada, who, interestingly, not only produced pictorial works of all sorts for the Kabuki, but also managed one of the theatres, the Hisamatsu-za, for some year . Kiyotada IV's association with the Kabuki theatre and actors was also particularly close, and he was himself an enthusiastic amateur performer. After a career as a painter and print designer, producing theatrical materia ls for Tokyo theatres, such as the Kabuki-za, Meiji-za, and Shintomi-za, he died in 1941 at age sixty-seven. The man who was eventually to become the eighth titular head was Kotondo (Genjin), who was born in 1900 and adopted into the Torii fami ly at age fifteen by Kiyotada IV. Although much of Kotondo's basic income was to come from his work for the theatres, he, like his

illustrious predecessor Kiyonaga, is probably best known for hi lyrica l paintings and prints of elegant women (fig. 10).23 Something of the multiplicity of artistic current abroad in Japan during the early decades of the rwentieth century are reflected in Kotondo's career. In addition to hi training in the Torii style, Kotondo studied the Yamato-e pictorial tradition as a youth under Kobori Tomone (18641931), and wa ubsequently strongly influenced by the ideas of Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878-1972), a distingui hed specia li tin the representation of beautiful women, who had integrated many of the traditional pictorial concepts of Ukiyo-e into hi own works. Kotondo, along with hi talented contemporary Ito Shinsui (1898-1972), was a member of the Shin-hanga, or " ew Woodblock Print" movement, a conservative group of arti t who combined traditional Ukiyo-e subjects and pictoria l entiments with We tern representational idea , and sometime submitted their pai ntings in the annua l Inten and Niten salon exhi bitions. It is interesting to note, however, that even in Kotondo's woodb lock portrayals of delicate, graceful women, omething of the traditional Torii style is sti ll apparent in the flat, colorfu l pigments, strong graphic design, and the calculated, mannered poses of his subjects. With the death of Kiyotada IV in 1941, Kotondo became the fifth Kiyotada and the eighth man to head the Torii line. As had been the case with Kiyonaga before him, this new position of responsibility obliged Kotondo to put aside his personal interest in depicting female subj ects, and to devote his efforts primarily to the production of theatrica l themes. But the fact that there were severa l older members of the Torii family still active who were experienced in the painting of large outdoor billboards made it possible for Kotondo to rely on these men for works of this sort, and he was subsequently able not

10 Torii Kotondo (19001976 ), Woman Leaving a Bath House, ca. 1930, woodblock print, Mu eum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Mrs. Charles Gaston Smith's Group, 35.1897

only to return to depicting bea utiful wo men, but a l o to share hi ideas by teaching a rt at ih o n Univer ity from 1966 t 1972. But the la t arti t capable f producing proper Torii billboard fo r the thea tre fin a ll y pa ed on, and Kotondo wa once aga in obliged to take up thi d manding activity. The middle yea r of Kotondo' ca reer panned the di ma! year of the econd World War, w hen the Kabuki thea tre were clo ed, and the period of in tability th at foll wed , when urvi va l took precedence over arti tic con em . !tho ugh Kotond was highl y rega rded for hi arti tic accompli hment , he fai led to attract a ny erio u tudents, and he eem to have been convinced that th e Torii line would end with hi dea th , de pi re the protesta ti n of hi fnend and supp rter , who in i red that as long a the Kabuki theatre Aouri hed the Torii line mu t al o endure, and that he sho uld do hi be t to train a ucce or. evera l a pirant did approach Kotondo, but no ne of them had the fundamental knowledge of Kabuki and it tradition that were indispen able f r producing bi ll board in the authentic Torii manner. Moreover, already adva nced in age and in frail hea lth, Kotondo felt th at he had neither th e time nor energy neces a ry to prepare a qualified fo ll ower. His feeling of despair was only exacerbated by the fact that the last masters of the Utagawa line, Shinsui a nd H as ui, had recently both passed on, a nd their great artistic lineage had finall y come to an end. Kotondo had two children, a boy a nd a girl. His son, born in 1935, graduated from Waseda University a nd went to work for the Toei Motion Picture Company in Kyoto as a screenwriter. His da ughter, Setsuko, was born three years later. During her youth Setsuko sometimes helped her father in the painting of large works, where Kotondo did the compositional components in line, and she

a i red in fillin g in the intermediate area of col r. In the proce he wa able to ab orb at fir t ha nd the ba ic of the traditiona l To rii tyle a nd bru h technique . Koton do pa ed away in 1976, but before hi death et uko, who had gradua ted from the Tokyo Univer ity f Art and Mu ic and al o made good progre in ma tering the Torii manner, fin all y agreed to dev te her crea ti ve abi liti e to continuing the traditional re pon ibilitie of the line. he ha e tabli hed a reputation for producing fine Kabuki billboard a nd other design for th e~ kyo theatre a we ll a woodb lock print . H av ing ucceeded her fa ther, he became the ninth titular head of the Torii line in 1982, a nd work under the a rti t' name Ki yomit u ~路 The genea logy f the Torii line reAect the fa mili a r y tern of hered itary linea l ucce ion followed by accompli hed Ja pa ne e o cupation al group , the iemoto seid , tha t i rhe central theme of the paper in thi publication. haracteri tica ll y eno ugh, mo t of the men who erved as hea d of the line eem to have been con a nguinously related, but everal, including Ki yonaga and Kotondo, were adopted into the fami ly. The fragm entary a nd ometime inconsi tent nature of the documentary material tha t deal with the hi tory of the Torii artists make it difficu lt to estimate how many individuals have belonged to the Torii line, but a rough number might amou nt to something short of a hundred.25 Little, if anything, is known about the li ves of many of these men, except for their names a nd the p eriods when they were active. It would appear that most of them, in accordance with the established practice in traditional workshops, were accepted as youthful trainees, received the usual prescriptive instruction for several yea rs, and, after making satisfactory progress, were awarded appropriate artists' na mes. Predictably only a minority of those who

reached this stage continued on and became skilled artists. In reviewing the history of the Torii line, it is clear that its evolution and continuity have been inextrica bly linked to the Edo and Tokyo theatres fro m the time of its inception in the late seventeenth century. Established initially by Torii Kiyomoto and his son Kiyonobu, this intimate working alliance remained the perennial source of support and stability for Torii artists even at times when other, more enterprising and dynamic groups or lines of Ukiyo-e artists were more admired and productive. During the earlier decades of the eighteenth century Torii artists virtually monopolized the world of Kabuki pictorial art. During the time of the first Kiyomitsu, however, the woodblock publishing business grew rapidly, and competition fro m other, more talented Ukiyo-e artists began to undermine the long-standing affiliation with the theatres. The theatre operators began to commission outsiders, who were already producing most of the popular single-sheet actor prints, to also design some of the advertisements, playbills, posters, and billboards that were essential components in the ongoing commercial success of the theatres. In the later years of the eighteenth century, the influential artist Kiyonaga helped to restore the prestige of the Torii line, but his successors in the nineteenth century, although competent and hard working, were, more often than not, content to rest on their laurels and repeat the Torii pictorial cliches of the past. The Utagawa line became the dominant one in the nineteenth century, relegating the Torii line to a distant secondary status. Utagawa artists far outnumbered those of the Torii line during the period, and they produced the large majority of actor prints and illu stra tions ~6 But the Torii artists were always able to preserve their special affiliation with the Kabuki theatres, and continued to design most of the pictorial materials necessary

for each new stage presentation, namely playbills, illustrated scenarios, and the colorful billboards that adorned the facades of the theatres. T he present head of the line, Kiyomitsu, continues this venerable practice, and her billboards and posters have been regularly displayed at the Ka buki-za and National Theatre in Tokyo. Through her dedication, the evocative, time-honored Torii manner of depicting dramatic highlights from the popular stage remains alive, at least for the present. Whether or not a worthy follower will appear to carry on the Torii tradition in the future remains to be seen.27

,_The author expresses his gratitude to Professor H a rada Heisa ku and Mister Oyori Susumu for their enl ightening advice and genero us cooperation in the prepara tion of this article.

1 For an instructive introduction to Ukiyo-e, see: M uneshige Narazaki, The Japanese Print: Its Evo lution and Essence (Tokyo and Palo Alto, CA, Kodans ha lnternational,1966) and R. Lane, Images from the Floating World: the Japanese Print (New York, Putnam's, 1978) . 2 " .. .living only for the moment, savoring the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms, and the bright maple leaves; singing songs, drinking sake, and di verting oneself just in floating, unconcerned by the prospect of imminent poverty, buoyant and carefree, like a go urd carried along by the river current . .. this is what we call the Floating World ." From the Ukiyo-monogatari ("Ta les of the Floating World "), written a bout 1661 by Asai Ryoi (1610-91). See R. Lane, "The Beginning of the Modern Japanese Novel: Ka na-zoshi, 16001682," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 20 (1957); M. Hickman, "Views of the Floating Wo rld," Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts 76 (1978); H. Hib bett, T he Floating World in Japanese Fiction (New York, Grove Press, 1960) . 70

3 For the history of Chinese woodblock printing, see T. F. Carter and L. Carri ngton Goodnch, The Invention of Printing in China (New York, Ronald Press, 1955); for the earlier history of woodblock printing in Japan, see D. Ch1bbett, The H istory of Japanese Printing and Book Illustration (Tokyo, New York, and San Francisco, Kodansha International 1977); and M. Ishida, Japanese Buddhist ' Prints (New York, H arry N. Abrams and Tokyo, Kodansha International, 1964). 4 In recognition of this status, students usually received the master's lineal fami ly name as well as an artist's studio appellation that included one character or phonetic component taken from the master's. Thus, for instance, one of the chief fo llowers of Katsukawa Shunsho, the founder of the Katsukawa line of artists, was Katsukawa Shunko.

5 For the early history of the Torii line of artists a.nd relevant documentary sources, see: H. A. Lmk, The Theatrical Prints of the Torii Masters: A Selection of Seventeenth and Eighteenth-century Ukiyo-e (H onolulu Academy of Arts and Riccar Art Museum, 13-77). There are only two documentary sources that provide infor mation on the early history and maste_rs ohhe Tori i line. The first, the Ukiyo-e Rutko, a biographica l compilation preserved in several different manuscript editions, is thought to have been produced about 1790 by Ota Nampo, writing under his literary pseudonym, Shoku Sanjin, but it was emended and supplemented over the next fo ur decades by several other authors, and a "final" versio n was not completed until 1833. H owever, other men produced augmented and revised versions in 1844 and 1868, and the latter was finally published under the title Shin Zoho Ukiyo-e Ruiko in 1889. The second documentary s_ource is the Torii ga Keifu (ko), an unpublished manuscript in the possession of the Torii family in Tokyo, which is thought to have been completed about 1875. Link, 1977, notes: "The work is therefore, a late compilation of traditions of uncertain reliability." The fact that both these sources were compiled many decades after the Torii line was established and its early masters active, makes it difficult to determine how much of the material should be taken at face value, and raises the question of

whether or not some of it may be apocryphal. 6 No works of art that can be reliably attnbuted to either Kiyotaka or Ki yomoto h av~ been_discovered, a lthough some early unsigned illustrations have been tentatively assigned to Kiyomoto: see Link, 1977, figure 3.

7 No theatrical bi llboards Uapanese: e-kamban~. kamban-e, or shibai kamban-e) by early Torn artists have been preserved. This is not surprising in light of the fact that they were probably all painted on paper with watersolu ble paints, and displayed outdoors exposed to inclement weather and dire~t sunlight. It is more than likely that the theatre operators viewed them as expendable commercial advertisements for the current theatrical offerings, and promptly disposed of them when a new program was staged.

8_ The.Kano and Tosa schools were prestigious Imes of artists that cou ld trace their origins back to the fifteenth century. Their traditional sources of patronage were the affluent members of the military class and aristocratic segments of society. During the Edo period, particularly from the eighteenth century on, it was common for aspiring artists to seek o ut one of these masters, or try to ga in access to one of their ateliers, not only for the structured, academic training they cou ld provide, but also because the imprimatur of such instruction generall y served to increase the artist's prestige among potential patrons. The fact that the origins of the Ukiyo-e school were still very recent in the late seventeenth and earl y eighteenth centuries may well have moti vated men like Moronobu and Kiyonobu to try to establish a symbolic or implied linea l associa tion with the venerable Kano and Tosa schools. Then again, the distinguished artistic reputations of these long-estab lished schools and the historical precedent of their profitable affili ation with aristocratic patronage is likely to have held a strong attraction for ambi tious Ukiyo-e artists, who were mai nly from the lower classes of Japanese society and worked primarily for plebian or nouvea~ riche customers. 9 For information on the Kabuki theatre see: E. Ernst, The Kabuki Theatre (New York Oxford University Press, 1956); A. C. Sc~tt, The Kabuki Theatre of Japan (London, Allan

and Unwi n, 1955); J. R. Brandon, Kabuki: Five Classic Plays (Cambridge, H arvard University Press, 1975); F. Bowers, Japanese Theatre (New York, H eritage H ouse, 1952); C. J. D unn and Bun zo Torigoe, The Actor's Analects (Tokyo, University of Tokyo Press, 1969); J. R. Bra ndo n, W. P. Malm, D. F. Shively, Studies in Kabuki (H onolulu, University Press of H awaii, 1978). 10 This statement occurs in vol. 2 of Furyu Kagami ga Ike, written by Baigin, with illustrations by O kumura Masanobu, published in 1709. See Link, 1977, p. 41 , foo tnote 15 for the Japanese text. 11 For brief histories of Japanese theatrical billboards see: Engeki Hyakka Daijiten, Waseda University, Tokyo, 1960, vol. 2, pp. 173-175; and Yoshida Teruji, Ukiyo-e Jiten (Tokyo, 1965-71), vol. 1, p. 267. Opinions among experts va ry as to when illustrated billboards on the faca des of theatres ca me into use, but most seem to agree on the Kyoho period (1716-1735). This throws into question the traditional statement in Torii-related documentary materials quoted earlier in this article that credit Kiyomoto with painting illustra ted billboards for the Ichimura-za in Edo in Genroku 2 (1689), and raises the possibility that the statement might be apocryphal. No illustrated billboards by early Torii artists have been preserved, and what appears to be the earliest complete example extant is from the hand of Ki yo naga (1752-1815): see th,e exh. cat. Torii-ha Hachi-dai Ukiyo-e ten ("Exhibiton of Eight Generations of the Tori i Line") (Tokyo, 1974), no. 152. On the other hand, Yoshida, in the article cited above, asserts that illustrated bill boards were in use as early as the Enpo period (1673-168 1), when Hishikawa Moronobu produced them, supporting the thesis that Kiyomoto could well have executed such works for the lchimura-za in Edo in 1689. 12 Yos hida, 1965-71, notes that portions of kamban-e by Kiyomitsu have been preserved, but provides no further information. 13 It is notable that Kiyonobu I produced a very simi lar print, dea ling with the same subject, and also composed in two levels: see H. A. Link, Primitive Ukiyo-e from the James A. Michener Collection in the Honolulu

Academy of Arts (H ono lulu, University Press of H awaii, 1980), p. 24, "Kiyono bu I, no. 6." The num ber of parallels in the two works seems more than coincidental, and Ki yomitsu, who was essentia ll y a conservati ve, traditional artist, must have been familar with the earlier work, which is thought to have been produced about 1720. 14 See C. Hirano, Kiyonaga, A Study of H is Life and Works, (Boston, 1939). 15 Ea rlier depictions of the faces of Ka buki actors were conceived in a generalized manner that focused primaril y on the actor's role, and not on the details of his physiognomy. Kiyonaga's depictions of certain actors on stage, as well as his more intimate portraya ls of the sa me men in leisurely acti vities away from the theatres, reveal a careful and consistent preoccupation with the characteristic facial and anatomical fea tures that distinguish a number of these men. M oreover, severa l of the musicians and chanters who appear in the backgro unds of the stage performances are depicted with even greater fidelity to their actual appeara nces, a circumstance that suggests that Kiyonaga, despite his new interest in representational portraiture, still felt obliged to treat the fam ous stage actors of the period according to the idea lized precedents of the past. 16 Kaomise, literally "face-showing," refers to the annual perfo rmances held at Kabuki theatres during the Eleventh M onth of the lu na r calenda r during the Edo period. Important actors genera ll y contracted to work for a theatre fo r a year, commencing in the Eleventh Month, and during the period of the Kaomise performances, these men appeared on the stage dai ly, dressed in formal attire, and were individually introduced to the audience by the troupe leader before the actual performances began. The kaomise performances marked the beginning of the new dra matic season, and were typicall y more ela borate in their stagi ng tha n most of the plays presented during the rest of the year. T he chief actor or tro upe leader thanked the thea tre-goers for their past and continued support, and announced the deta ils of coming programs. New dances and cameo performances, fea tu ring individua l members of the new troupe, were added between the acts of the mai n play as extra attractions. 72

17 Each of the Edo theatres usua lly produced six theatrical programs during the year: the New Year's program in the First Month; the spring program in the Third Month; the Fifth Month program; the Bon program (which coincided with the Buddhist "all souls observances) in the Seventh Month; the autumn program, in the N inth Month; and the Kaomise program in the Eleventh Month. Although various Ukiyo-e artists were involved in creating the pictorial materials necessary for this busy schedule, Kiyonaga was clearly busy producing his share. 18 Hirano, 1939, p. 140. This ema, now preserved in the Tokyo National Museum, still belongs to the Jojuin, a temple situated in the Meguro district of Tokyo popularly known as the "Tako-ya kushi. " The piece was dedicated to the temple by a man named lzumiya H an jiro, who lived in the Shimba neighborhood, where Kiyonaga resided for some years, and Hirano has postulated that "Hanjiro may have been a wealthy wholesale merchant in the fish market. " 19 Known as "Yanone" or "Yanone Goro" (" Goro Sharpening His Arrowhead"), this role is one of the j uhachi-ban, the "Eighteen Favorites," a set of classic plays and performances compiled by Danjliro VII that includes traditional dramatic specialities of the Ichikawa family of actors. 20 Kiyonaga's interpretation of the subject ma y be compared with an earlier ema, done by Kiyo nobu II in 17 54 (see Narazaki Muneshige, Nikuhitsu Ukiyo-e I N ihon no Bijutsu series, no. 249 [Tokyo, 1987], fig. 71), which depicts a celebrated performance in that year. 21 This assumption is corroborated by the fact that an ema from Kiyomitsu II's hand, that appears to duplicate figure 9 line-for-line, has also recently come to light (see the illustration above the table of contents in Ukiyo-e Geijutsu, no. 99, The Japan Ukiyo-e Society, Tokyo, 1990). Both works are consistent in that the large sword and arrows and rack in the backgro und, components traditionally included in the composition, are absent. The sizes of the figures in the two ema are approximately the same, the overall height of

Kiyonaga's piece being 97 cm, and Kiyomitsu II's, 87.8 cm. 22 Something of Kiyomitsu II's pride in his artistic line and awareness of the significance of his ro le in this tradition is revealed in the fact that his signature on the print is prefaced by the identifying phrase "fifth titular head." 23 Kotondo's total production of these woodblock prints of Bijin-ga (" depictions of beautiful women") totals 21 designs, most of them conceived between 1927 and 1933. In add ition he also exhibited bijin-ga occasionally at the annual Inten painti ng salons, beginning in 1925, and also produced designs for illustrations in the magazine Engei Caho ("Entertainment Illustrated"). Most of the biogra phical information on Kotondo included here is based on the text of the catalogue of the exhibition held at the Odakyu Department Store in Tokyo Torii-ha Hachi-dai Ukiyo-e ten ("Exhibition of Ukiyo-e of Eight Generations of the Torii Line"), Tokyo, 1974. Among the paintings by Kotondo reproduced in the catalogue are examples of his bijin-ga (fig. 186), and two of his e-kamban (figs. 187-188) . 24 She is therefore the first woman to head the Torii line. As she seems to have been the only candidate qua lified for the position, her designation as the ninth titular head of the line should not be viewed as an example of the gradual evolution of sexual equality in Japanese society. It is interesting to note that while the first character of her artist's name, "kiyo," is the same traditionally used by Torii artists, the second, " mitsu" (hikaru), is different from that used by Kiyomitsu I and his namesakes. 25 For a genealogica l chart of the Torii artists and lineage seep. 136 in Ukiyo-e Shi ("Ukiyo-e Artists"), vol. 2 in the series Genshoku Ukiyo-e Daihyakka Jiten, (Tokyo, Taishukan, 1982). 26 For a genea logical chart of the Utagawa line of Ukiyo-e artists see ibid ., p. 138. 27 According to verbal communications from friends in Japan who are Kabuki enthusiasts, no one is currently training to carry on the Torii tradition.

The Actor's Art: le no gei in Kabuki James R. Brandon University of Hawai'i

Introduction

On a warm April afternoon in 1985 one part of the program at the Kabuki Theatre in Tokyo, consisted of a nam.etaking ceremony (shumei hir6) at wh1Ch Ichikawa Ebizo "graduated" to the highest "art name" (geimei) in his family line, Ichikawa Danjiiro XIF The main part of the ceremony consisted of congratulatory speeches to the audience (k6j6) by Danjiiro's elders. They related anecdotes about how well he performed as a chi ld under his first stage name, Natsuo, then as a teenager when he was called Shinnosuke, and after the age of twenrythree as Ebizo X. Veterans recalled that he had learned many roles from his father, Danjiiro XI, and that he had diligently studied dance and music from master teachers when he was young. They noted that the new Danjiirowas assuming a heavy responsibiliry preserving the . Ichikawa fa mily art, its ie no gei, considered by all one of the glories of kabuki. Then it was Danjiiro's turn to address the audience. Raising his gaze, he respectfull y thanked the audience for having supported him during the performances of his callow youth. He promised to do better in order to merit their continued patronage. He then struck a powerful mie pose, glared with one eye crossed over the other (nirami), and repeated the form ula expression, established by Danjiiro V in 1770, that the Ichikawa family art was known "in every corner of the land " (sumi kara sumi made). In conclusion he promised to exert himself to preserve his family's art. As evidence of this promise, that day he took leading roles in three of the "Famous Eighteen" (juhachiban) plays created by ea rlier Danjiiros: Sukeroku, Flower of Eda (Sukeroku yukari no Eda zakura), The Whisker Tweezers (Kenuki), and The Subscription List (Kanjincho). The ritual name-taking

ceremony for Danjiiro XII was repeated daily during the twenry-five days of the April program, fo llowing the usual practice. In addition, he enacted the ceremony daily throughout the May and June programs at the Kabuki Theatre, at a special program at the Metropolitan Opera m New York at month-long programs m Nagoya, i~ Kyoto, and in Osaka.2 In all Danjiiro's name-taking ceremony was staged 160 times, suggesting the eve.nt held a crucial symbolic significance m present-day kabuki. The point, of c.~u:se, was that eleven generations of Daniuros had established, perfected, and passed on in brilliantly theatrical plays a unique performance tradition featurin_? ~ravura aragoto acting. The new Daniuro was expected, in spite of his youth and mexperience - by Japanese reckoning he was only forry - to demonstrate his competence and therefore his right, to carry on ' . the "family art " of these past generations of actors. Of course, a six-month-long name-taking ceremony is exceptional. H owever, it sym bolizes in concrete form that, however much Japan may be changing in the 1990s, the art of kabuki belongs to its great acting families as it always has. An aura surrounds the great acting families that is based on continuiry and tradition. The names Nakamura Kanzaburo and Ichimura Uzaemon go back through seventeen generations, and Morita Kanya, fo urteen: for two hundred years holders of these names owned Edo's three great licensed kabuki theatres - the Nakamuraza, the Ichimuraza, and the Moritaza. Not all important acting families are quite this old: Onoe Kikugoro is in the seventh generation, Nakamura Utaemon revered as an Important Intangible Cultural Properry - is of the sixth generation, while major actors Jitsukawa Enjaku III and Nakamura Ganjiro III represent relatively new names in the genealogical

scheme. Eac? of these actors occupies the prestigious name in the family line and is the master performer of his family. Each is responsible for nurturing younger actors in their family in that ie no gei. Unquestionably kabuki survives today only because the actors practiced a system of transmitting their art within t~e family structure, thus assuring contmuanon of both family and art. In the face of continual criticism of this "feudal" practice, family inheritance still forms the bedrock of the kabuki system.

mos~

It is commonly said that only an actor born into kabuki can be a great performer. These are the words of an actor who entered kabuki from the outside three decades ago, explaining why he cannot compete with sons of leading actors (onadai, literally "large name") from hereditary acting families: That children of 6nadai may possess abilities ordinary people do not have is not surprising, because since birth they have breathed the air of the kabuki world as though it were the most natural thing in the world. (.. .] these heirs to the kabuki world have the strength of being born actors.'

After thirty years on the kabuki stage, this actor must be content with an endless succession of walk-on roles. Whatever his personal frustration, he acknowledges that: a family line that has been nourished by history creates actors with all kinds of tangible and intangible qualities that cannot be acquired through education. These qualities are worth a great deal. Perhaps they are the real value of kabuki. 4

Benito Ortolani calls the heads of the major kabuki acting families, "iemotolike" personalities and notes that the "relationship between master and disciples is very similar to that in such iemotoruled societies as that of the no. " 5 It is easy to see iemoto-like features in the traditional acting families.

Iemoto-like Features of Kabuki Ii: earlier presentations at this sympoSlllm, the general characteristics of the iemoto sei40, or family-head system, have been descnbed. Let me turn immediately to .a c.onsideration of how important pnnc1ples of the iemoto system, as descnbed by Nishiyama, Kawashima, Hsu, Ortolani, and others, may apply to the specific case of kabuki. 6 Among the scores of arts that were developed within an iemoto system during the Edo period, one might presume that kabuki, the preeminent Edo-period theater form, would fall neatly within the iemoto system. In fact, this is not the case. Without exception kabuki actors belong to h1erarch1cally organized families, with the head actor of each family holding authority over the nature of the family art, or ie no gei. The leading actor in a production has ultimate say over how a play will be acted, an authority forma lized in his position as zagashira (literally, "troupe head"). The actor has always held the power to shape his own performance . There is the famous case of Sakata Tojiiro I, a leading actor of the seventeenth century, improvising one particular scene day after day, searching for the right words. Not only were the playwrights Chikamatsu Monzaemon and Kaneko Kichizaemon not offended Kichizaemon praised Tojiiro's skill in improving their written text.7 Numerous examples can be given from contemporary practice. I recall the late Onoe Shoroku II overruling an eminent scholardirector during a rehearsal at the National Theatre of Japan in the mid1960s: Shoroku knew what action was appropriate and the director did not. Because the actor's body is the sole repository of the vocal and movement techniques that comprise kabuki performance, the actor is understood to consti-

tute the final authority in performance. The actor also has the final say regarding properties, costumes, makeup, and scenery - natural extensions of his acting. During rehearsal on January second of this year, Onoe Kikugoro VII, holder of one of kabuki's most distinguished names, complained with some asperity that part of the set in which he was acting was ugly and ill-proportioned. The veteran scene designer of the National Theatre was summoned to Kikugoro's seat, apologized for the error, and set about redesigning the offending set to the actor's specifications. The play opened the following day. Younger and lower ranking actors of each family occupy the position of pupil (deshi) to a master actor (shisho). When a star is hired for a role, his pupils and supporting actors are usually hired as well. Onstage, pupils play walk-on or chorus parts, forming a deferent background for the star actor center-stage. Passing kabuki art to succeeding generations begins when the actor is a child. He is taught the basics of kabuki dance and music by professional musicians, singers, and dance teachers. At this level, instruction is generic, not tied to family lines. Watching performance from backstage, the youngster is himself responsible to "watch and learn " (minarai). At the next stage, the young actor is given his first small roles. Sons who are heirs to important names (onzoshi) are given choice roles that include movement and voca l challenges and the responsibility for teaching them usually lies with a veteran actor in the fami ly. As the young actor enters his teens and begins to play leading roles, it is common to see a father sitting in on rehearsal, often heaping scorn on a son's awkwardness, calling him "fool" (baka yaro) and perhaps boxing his ears.8 Kabuki lore is rich in stories of heads of acting families who wouldn't lift a finger

to train the heir to their name: the late Kikugoro VI ignored his two sons, Kuroemon and Baiko; Ganjiro I and II were notorious for literally casting off their children and letting them find their way. Children of minor actors are rather like hereditary serfs, consigned for lifetime to playing walk-on and chorus parts, which are indeed, very often servant roles. Learning continues through an actor's lifetime. Let me cite two examples. In January 1993, I sat next to Sawamura Tanosuke in the auditorium of the National Theatre, where he was intently watching the stage rehearsal of the dance play Spring Mist (Haru gasumi shizuhata obi) . Tapping the drum rhythm on his thigh and singing snatches of the song lyric, he mimicked each hand gesture and head movement made by Onoe Baiko on stage. At the age of sixty-one, Tanosuke was still learning from Baiko, his acting mentor. A second occasion occurred at the Kabuki Theatre in Tokyo a few days before Sukeroku opened the January 1992 program. Bando Tamasaburo, the immensely popular younger star, was being taught how to play the main female role, Agemaki, by veteran Nakamura Utaemon. Utaemon "shadow acted" the role kneeling on the floor, with Tamasa buro attempting to mimic every nuance of Utaemon's vocal inflections and gestures as they performed simultaneously. Tamasaburo was forty and he had already played Agemaki in two previous productions, so he was very familiar with the role, yet he was a perfect study of deference to a revered master. The role was one of Utaemon's great triumphs and, at seventy-three, it was unlikely Utaemon would ever play Agemaki again. It was time to pass on his art to a star successor. Not a sound was heard from among the scores of actors and musicians who had gathered to watch this historic occasion. In kabuki, as in most traditional Japanese 76

.1n , lc.1rn1n • .ind tollm' 111g tlw "",I\·• (p.Hh, nud. ,/o: .I 111 111 ( h1111. d 1 .1 ltk long oll\llllCllll nt th.It dd1111. d1l 11.Hurc ol rill ,1 rr 111d 11.11 u rl ol proll "' m.1 lt m. 1lo\\ntr,1 r.1!1C1<lll1' 11ot h nl .111d h,111g111 '. I 1d1 'llllf,111<>11 o! .1 tor .1JJ~ om1.th111 •Ill\\ 10 .1 l.111111' \.in .•111J through r1.,HI\ 1t\ .1 tr.1J111on "ill gr.1Ju ,1lh 1.h.lllgl·. II \\l' C.lkl· clll h.h1k I\\,\ l .1n1l"1ro t,11111h .1, .1111. .1111pll. D.1n1uro I 1.rl,llnl rlw I r.I\ ur.1 ar.1 •11111 1 c111 • 'I\ ll. "h1k· D.1111l'1ru II .11 o k.1111nl ult K\11to 11'.l~oto .11.C111g 't' ll, I l 1111l"1n1 \II hd1 d rl'.Hl' ,1 !ll''' d,1111.l 'n le lor pl.\\ .td.1ptl'd from 1111 .111d .t 111.\\ "re.iii c1 " C\ k lor 1.) n11..1l •.lll ''ll r roil. - "111 h "l' 1111 •he 1.lllllp.Hl' Co l.tllll' .l~lll'\ ' Hf,11.1. rok - .rnJ I .rn1l'irt1 I. llt\1.ttrld t C\lc ol "ll\ 111g h1'tor~ pl.I\" /.:,11 "'' l.:1 '• J.·1 ) ~ rturnun l' ch.11 'tn eJ cruchtuln1. 111 .H.t11t" \II of chc 'n 11. ul .1 (lllg H1. no\\ ·''[X'Lf' ol clw I) in1ur11 1l' 1111 •1•1, llll

ll 1.re.lrn 1n " n10r1. J1tfi ulc coJ.n ch.111 Ill rhc p.1,t, 1c" '' ,flll l·' 1J1.m. l.1111.1 .~huro 1 1mnk n'd) popul.tr '' 1d1 11t1n •. 1.<>ntl 111 por.1~ .wJ11.:111.:1.'' "ho .trl' .ucr.1 c1.·J ro 111, "moJl'rn" good look, - t.111, \\Ill<>\\), hi1. - .1nJ lw. uml 'l.f '>1.·n uou 'n k· ol JLflllg. le ,.., ....11J ch.i°r hl· "l·,c.1bl"h1ng .t Ill'\\ .l ung ... n k ch.tr Jol·' nor U\\ c mu1.h co rr.1Jinon. kh1k.rn .1 l"nnmukl' 111 h.1 gamcJ l.lrgL n1.\\ .H1J1enu tor" up1.r l\.Jbuk1 " c rr.n.1g.1111.1' rh.H .ir1., 111 dkl.f, m0Jl'rn11ed k.1huk1.

Ir 1~ J1J rhJt thc 1c111olo ' ' 'Cllll po..,1t a "n<..rnc" f.1m1h. In 111\ opinion, k ibuk1 1 a real an .. ro<..r.11:\ 111 whid1 .1 father hope'> co rran.,m1r rhc fo1111h .Ht anJ h1., nnmc ro a on. Bur blood ... uu.:c,,1on " nor al'' a\ po-.-.1blc anJ aJopnon 1 "1JeI} pracuccd. '>lllg rhc kh1ka\\ a L .1111ur<> famil) :l'> an C>.otmplc, our of clcH!n '>U<..ce~<,1on ro rhar name, fi,·c mhcnror'> wl'rl' blood ~ons (II , , Ill ,, II were fir,r ~om, I a fifrh !>On), one \\a~ ,1 gr.rnJ.,on (V il ),

.llld In 1. "1. n· .11.tor' .1dor11. J l rom out · tdl dw I loo I l11w (Ill. IV,\ I, .· . . ' I). r, ti "l' look II tlw l tght .. u 1.1. '1011\ {<1 rl1c ,I 1111' Jt,lllll of H.llldo \I 11 ll •<1n 1, fi, \I l'r1. ,tdopt1\ l 1111' ( '" . / 1) \\hilt onh thrl·c \I c re I l1x1 I J1.·~u1J.1nr ( <llh or •r.111J oll, ). II rl11. old ,\dill• f 111111' hll1. 11 \ lont,1 .rnJ .1k.1111ur 1 h.td' l1<1C .1do1 ttd on tit r1.1..1.lll \ e.1r . rl1c~ l .llltl · lr1. \\ ould h,l\ 1. J1c I our. B.1l.1111.1n • cht ·qu 1t1<1ll .trl .1 tor I.uh r \\ho h ,l\C lllJll\ on : rhn \\Ill .1 ti\ ch "'ck nuc l,tn11lic 10 .1d11pr chur 1. 1. .1 llll • pro•· lll\ . I hl· l lfl' , l.1r..umo 11 l(,,..h1ro \II '" ,1 n nr .1 : Ill h.1J thr1.1.· on . tlw "' onJ "·"Ill tdl' hl'1r 111 rhc Ko.. h1ro ll.lllll', .1nJ r 'o \\ 1. r1.· 1do1 11. d l ' od1a 1ntporc.111f I 1mtl11..· : cl11. ddc t 1rt I 1...11111. ld11 k.1'' ·'I l 1n1uro ·1 tnd cltl \our1 •c c rlw l'llllllcnt t 11111: horoku II. I hu, ,tJop· c11111 n t hoth upph • nd Jc 111.111d lull • r11111 : .1 l.111111' ,1<.t11t • 'n le tnd n.1111c ,\re

I lo\\ c' a. rhnl' 1 .1 I rohk·m: onh one .1 ror111.1l.:.1huk1.1 cm 1111111 utc,1.r 1nhcnc chl' ror 11,lllll (J lc..fllr er. (() hn11g lu,r1.:r to rhl' h1 •hl c n.1mc rlk) po,. l' '· \\hen rhc c 11.1mc .Hl' uc.. c lulh r.i l·J 1111 {O 'l11.1..l·1.J111' g1.nl.f,Hllllh .. br.tnd1 .. t.1111tl1n L<lllll' into l ·111 •, rd.1 m d) 111J1. pcnJcnr of rhl· .. 111.1111" .1 tlllj!. 111w. !·ore .unplc, L .1111urt> I .111d ll h.1J rhtrt) · l\\111111porr.1nr rurtl' ( 1110111 1) bcf\\ ccn chem, 111 .1JJmon ro 'or" "ho 1nhernl'J rhl· L .lfl)tlft> nJmc. \lt>'>l ol rhe nJllll' ot rhe-.c pupil' \I Cr· nor p.1 cJ on, bur ti\ l ot the n.1mc' .trl' wdl kn1l\\ n roJ.n - 1Lh1k.rn .1 \.1J.11111, 1Lh1k.1" l \l onnmukl', h.h1k.1\IJ '1 .1010, h.h1k.1\\',1 [ .1111(>, .rnd kh1k.rn .1 [ .111,h1ro. The l' lam:r n.1111e' .ul' not 'flpping 'rom·., ro hccommg ,1 nc" l .rn1uro nor .ul' rhq lower r.rnb \nrhm a .. mgle h1cr Jrdl\. The} arc rht h1ghe~r .Knng n.1mc' of rd.1md) mdcptndl'nr 1Lh1k.1\l ,1 "br.rnch" famtl} lmc'>.

.,., I I

Why Is There No Iemoto System in Kabuki? In spite of a fami ly-based actor system and dutiful transmission of the art to succeeding generation , it is notable that there is no iemoto system in kabuki. You can spend your lifetime in kabuki and never hear the word iemoto. 14 I suggest that a number of factors in the kabuki environment are antithetica l to an iemoto order. Two term help to clarify the issue: knowledge and authority. In an iemoto system, the family head is the ab olute source of both knowledge and authority (or power). Thi i accomplished in practice by delimiting the iemoto y tern as a self-referential univer e. A Ortolani remarks: "The iemoto ystem is e sentia lly a system of isolated traditions, theoretica lly without any communication and without any possibility of communication 15 [ â&#x20AC;˘â&#x20AC;˘â&#x20AC;˘ ]" For example, in re ponse to a tu dent's query as to the correct voca lization within the traditional Shinna i chool of narrative singing, the iemoto i aid to have replied, " I am the iemoto [... ] whatever I recite is correct. " 16 Ideally the iemoto is the sole source of arti tic knowledge and the iemoto has sole auth ority to grant career advancement and privileges w ithin the fami ly. That is, the family i a self-contained ocia l unit whose function is the advancement and preservation of that fami ly's unique art, w ithout reference to anything outside the system. I believe thi s is not the circumstance in kabuki. The kabuki actor has important relationships with people and instituti ons outside of his fa mily over which he has little or no control which diminish the power of the family hea d. Let me suggest five such conditions or circumstances.

First, kabuki production has always been a large-sca le enterprise, too large to be controlled by a single family. Although actors are the most visible members of an

acting compan y or tro upe, numerically they are in a minority. To ci te one example, in 1769 the aka mura Theatre in Edo (Tokyo) employed a compa ny of 346 people, of whom only sixty-one were actor . i - On stage, actor from various fami lies could not avoi d performing together in the multi-act, a ll-day plays that were typica lly staged. The e plays req uired score of actor - Sukeroku uses seventy/eighty actor in one act. It was normal to ee actor from ix or eight familie , including two, three, or four head of acting familie , each performing hi own fami ly' ie no gei in the ame play. econd, throughout the Tokugawa perid, there was a tremendou fl ow of people through the kabuki world making for great in tability. It i not easy to capture the particular of thi fl ow, but let me cite ome figures and make ome tentative interpretation . In order to arrive at some e tin1ate of the number of actor , we need to look at evera l different circumstance . If we look at document during the sixty years, 1680-1740, we can find the names of over 5,000 nadai actors, that is actors w ho had ufficient statu to hold family name and were playing major or secondary role at the ten licen ed theatres in Edo, 0 aka, and Kyoto. 18 Roughly, then, we can estimate some 800 leading and secondary actor at the main theatres at any one time. In addition, at the licensed theatre , walk-on and chorus performers - who hadn 't earned nadai status and hence aren't listed in the document were perhaps equal in number. Then there were actors in the unlicensed kabuki troupes playing at the small " temporary" shrine and temple theatres. These theatres were forbidden to use a revolving stage, a hanamichi rampway, or the striped draw curtain and were technically limited to one hundred days - hence the nickname " hundred-day shows" (hyaku nichi shibai) - alth ough in practice, they might

ray for yea r in a I ation. A municipa l d cument f 1714 cryptically note that, " in the third m nth, twenty- even unlic n ed [kabuki] thea tre in nine location in the city of do were ordered lo d. " 1â&#x20AC;˘ on ervatively, let use ti mate a hundred u h troupe in the thr e main citie and the la rge ca tie town . Finally, till other kabuki tr upe were on continuou tour through the province . very medium- ized town had a perman nt kabuki theatre building. All together, it doe n t ee m unrea nable to imagine 3,000 r 4 000 act r jo ding a nd tri v~ng for .ucce on variou kabuki rage m any given yea r. A map of the Edo theatre di trier, da ted 1681, h w fourt n commercial thea tre operating ide-by- ide: in addition to Edo' three Jicen ed kabuki theatre the map how ix narrative-puppet thea tre (four joruri and two sekkyo), and five variety how .20 Each theatre wa competing for the a me cu tamer, and the kabuki actors nece arily rubbed ho ulder with hundred of fell w performer not on ly from o ut ide hi fami ly, but from out ide kabuki a well. Records of th e time how kabuki tr upe rosters turning over every few yea r . We find this i true even of the troupe gathered around the most charismatic actor of the period , Sakata Tojiiro, the crea tor of the soft, comic wagoto acting style of Kyoto a nd O saka . There are good records of actor who were in hi company during the four year period, 16971700, when he was troupe leader (zamo to)21 of the Miyako Mandayii T heatre in Kyoto. Of thirty-six actors named in the rosters, only five stayed with him through four years. His regular company consisted of three actors: Kaneko Kichizaemon, comic actor and playwright, Kirinami Senju, who played female roles opposite Tojiiro, and Mikasa Joemon, Tojiiro's

pupil a nd player of vi ll ain role . Thero ter h w mo t other actor moved on after a year or two. Eighteen actor , or half the total number, rayed with thi uperlative ma ter actor for a ingle eaon.22 For the rank a nd file perf rmer, kabuki appear not to have been a lifetime profe ion but an ccupation for ne' youth. Acting Ii t how that three ut of four m mber f Tojiiro' companie during thi period were no longer a ting a decade later. Thi i one example, but I believe it fairly ugge t that the kabuki job market wa highl y mobile in the entu ry f ll owing kabuki' birth. Looking a t kabuki from the per pective of the pre ent, it powerful acting familie eem natural even inevitable. But in fact, nl y a n exception al a nd fo rtunate few ucceeded in e tabli hing la ting family line . For example, the thirty- ix a tor in T6jur6' compa nie , previou ly mentioned, repre ented thirty-three different acting familie ; each wa competing with a ll the ther toe tabli h an acting d yna ty. The attrition a mong acting familie over the generation ha been quite a rounding: when we look at acting critique for 1680-1740, they Ii t 595 family name of actor .23 And of the e name ju t fifteen urvive in kab uki today. one are the kabuki fami ly names Akita and Fujita; Fukui and Ikuta; Kojima, Kokan, and Kokin; Katayama, Kat uyama, Katsumura, Murayama; Matsu hima, Miyajima, aga hima, and Takeshima. Sendai and Sakai, Sakurai and Suzuki, and Shimamuro have perished without a trace. The art of Yoshizawa Ayame, the greatest actor of female role in Genroku times, ended in 1710 when the fifth successor to that name died. Even Sakata Tojiiro's tremendous fame did not preserve his family line past the third generation. It is sobering to rea lize that out of all the Genroku acting family names, only one in forty have survived to the present.24

Third, the kabuki actor wields virtuall y no economic power. Unlike the iemoto w ho holds tight financial control over his or her artistic and socia l network, major kabuki actors had at best limited economic power. Okuni, the founding actre of kabuki, and her immediate fo llower (1600-ca.1650), owned their own portable outdoor stages and were their own producer . But when large permanent theatres became the norm in the Genroku period (1688-1704), economic control of performance began to slip away from actor . Two aspects of economic power are important: owner hip of theatre and producing rights. A few acting families, such as akam ura and Ichimura in Edo, owned theatre for many generations. But TojU.ro and the many DanjU.ros never owned the theatre they played in. Actor were often producers in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but it wa terribly ri ky staging new plays every two month . Two or three failures in a row wou ld leave an actor-producer bankrupt, forcing him to borrow from wealthy merchant (kinshil), outside backers; angel we ca ll them today. By the twentieth century, ownership and producing had pa ed completely from actors' hands. Today the 300-or-so kabuki actors are all contractemployees of the Sh6chiku Theatrical Corporation, or in a few cases the Toho Theatrical Corporation, Japan's two largest theatre monopolies. Actor live on monthly salaries. The managements of the Sh6chiku and Toho compa nies, together with the National Theatre of Japan, chose, produce, and finance all kabuki productions. Inevitably, this outside financial control affects acting fa milies and acting traditions. The Shochiku Company has a vested interest in promoting the popularity of its contract stars through such devices as the elaborate six-month name-taking ceremony staged for DanjU.ro XIl. Shochiku copy writers

ca lled this the "biggu ibento" (big event}. W hen Utaemon taught Tamasa buro, in the ca e mentioned above, Tamasaburo was not Utaemon's heir to the fa mil y art. This was tran mission ou t ide the family line. It was in the interests of Sh6chiku to have Tama aburo shine in Utaemon's reflection and that interest took precedence over fami ly traditions. I do not know if Utaemon objected, but even an actor of Utaemon's stature cou ld not refu e - economic power did not lie in the actor' hand . Fourth, uccess for a kabuki actor is ultimately decided by people out ide family control. Starting in 1660, publishers in the three ci tie brought out annual actor critiques (hyobank i) that were avidl y read by fa ns. Actor were rated j6, good, j6j6, excellent, or j6j6-kichi, excellent-superior. Over the years additional rankings were added, until as many a five superlati ves identified the highe t ranking actors (daigoku-j6j6-kichi), ra ther like the grandiose terminology used to rate olive size . These rating were given by writers and publisher , that is, outsider , and they affected each fami ly' chance of urvival. These public ratings were but a symptom the kabuki actors' consta nt competition for the favor of the merchants, workers, maids, an d higher born aficionados who made up their audience. It was the theatre aud ience that made an actor's career, or destroyed it. Kabuki actors were officially so low on the social scale they could not own property and could not have a legal name. But an amorphous and fick le audience bought tickets that paid actors huge alaries and through its adulation raised favorite actors to immense fame. DanjU.ro II earned such popularity the manager of an Osaka theatre considered it a privilege to pay him 2,000 gold ry6 for a season. Female members of the audience were so enamored of DanjU.ro VI they bought

vials of his bath water as souvenirs. The audience could also deny its favor, and even the great TojU.ro lost popularity as he grew older, was replaced as troupe leader, and his roles were given to other actors. A high name puts the young actor in a good starting position in his profession; only an audience gra nts success. Fifth, kabuki actors are professional performers who spend their full lives, every day, on stage. Kabuki actors do not teach amateurs, perhaps simply because they do not have time. Without the hundreds, even thousands of amateur disciples paying large sums to learn from a master teacher, kabuki lacks the economic and structural basis for an iemoto system.

How D oes "Transmission" Take Place? How does transmission of the art occur in kabuki as compared to transmission within an iemoto system? Transmission within a samurai clan or the Buddhist clergy, the earliest cases of iemoto, were social and political actions whereby authority over a group was transferred to the next generation, thus assuring continuity of that group. The qualities of the heir were coincidental. In the arts, however, knowledge of the art, as well as position, was transmitted over the generations and an iemoto was expected to be expert in the art expounded by that family. Transmission in the performing arts adds a third dimension: the artistic knowledge exists solely in the physical body of the performer. Knowledge arises from the "doing" of the art as a specific, concrete process. Paradoxically, and in spite of family hierarchies, Japanese performing arts hold to the profoundly democratic principle that knowledge and skill are natural consequences of dedicated, lifelong "doing." In the extreme, this means that "anyone can act," provided only

that they sincerely devote themselves to mastering the "way" (do). When the kabuki actor Nakamura Matagoro was training American students to perform Chiishingura at the University of Hawai'i in 1978-79, he was uninterested in auditioning students to determine their suitabi lity for the various roles. He was not concerned with "talent": all were being trained equally, all of their bodies were going through the same process of absorbing the art in the same way, and hence all should be capable. The idea that training is more important than talent is common to many Japanese arts. For example, in the popular novel, Miyamoto Musashi, the swordsman-hero says, "The mediocre man who trained with toil and effort, won over a man of talent satisfied with his own endowment. " 25 Further, "doing" is itself the source of knowledge. Thus, the eminent Confucian scholar of the Tokugawa period, Ogyu Sorai, could remark that, " In 'things' all 'principles' are brought together, hence all who have long devoted themselves to work come to have a genuine intuitive understanding of them. " 26 When training takes precedence over talent, transmission is the key to entering a profession. And here we encounter a fascinating paradox: an art that exists within the artist's body must be different in each body that that art inhabits. The extreme position is expressed by some performers of Japanese bunraku puppet theater who say that art cannot be transmitted from one person to another; each performer creates his own art from the lessons of his elders. Yoshida Minosuke, the ranking puppeteer of bunraku today, has said that "even if we could repeat what our master did, it would be uninteresting, so we create our own style of performing. " 27 Remarkably in bunraku, any young man can enter training and have an excellent chance to become a major performer.

Performer ay with pride that advancement in their art come from "the trength of one' own effort " (jitsuryoku shusse). 2' In kabuki, the rhetoric may prai e the value of dedicated training, but tardom i re erved for on \ ho were born to the elite acting famili .

a urrogate family rotally dominated b.y that iemoto-like central figure - uzuk1 Tada hi, the lat Terayama huji, and a numb r f the but6 group comet mmd.

Conclusion

In conclu ion, kabuki exist thr ugh tran mi ion f 1t arti tic form fr m on generation ro the next rhr .ugh the phy ical bodie , mind , and pint of family member and yet ea h individual arti t i different in bod 路, mind, and pirit, making replicati n fa p rf rming art er generati n diffi ult t a mpli h, nd, . in the ie\ f ome, impo ible. Kabuki 1 a public theatre \ h ea t r I k to an out ide, popular audien e for upp rt and ultimate fam , and yet\ ith ur a family name t b gin \ ith an act r annot po ibly re ei e the attention f the audienc . The kabuki acror p rare in a tat of never-ending ten ion: he i pu h d by family and tradition on the ne hand, and pulled by fame and uniqu ne , on the other. Like yin and yang, or in-y the e contradi rory conditi n c -e i t. The actor' ta k i to find a Ii able balance between them ov r hi care r. It ma be that be au e many power and prerogative u ually a o iated with the head of an arti tic fami ly are denied kabuki actor , transmi ion of tradition and family genealogie a urne great importan e, as i hown by the great imp rtance given to rage ceremonie when a new name i assumed. ln pite of the prominence of the iemoto y tern in Japane e art , it i clear we cannot genera lize. Within traditional performing art , no, kabuki, and bunraku have quite different hierarchica l and transmission arrangement . Interestingly, radical avant garde theatre groups are often organized around charismatic leaders, with the troupe functioning a

1 Pr gram, The Grand Kabuki ( ew York: letr politan pera ociation, 1985), p. 10.

2 ee monthly is ue of E11gekikai, April 1985 through April 1986 . 3 Matazo akamura, Kabuki Backstage, Onstage: An Actor's Life, tr . Mark 0 hima (Ti kyo: Kocian ha, L990), p. 44. 4 Ibid ., p. 45.

5 Benito Orrolani, " l emoto, " japan Quarterly 16, no. 3 Uuly-September 1969), pp. 302-303.

6 While differing in details and emphasis, there is wide agreement about the major features of the iemoto system in standard works: Kawashima Takeyoshi 's Ideorogi to shite no kazoku seido (Tokyo: Iwa nami Shoten, 1957), N ishiya ma M atsunosuke's Iemoto no kenkyu(Tok yo: Azekura Shob6, 1959), Iem oto monogatari (Osa ka: Sangy6 Keizai Shinbunsha, 1956) and Gendai no iemoto (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1962), and Francis L. K. H su's Iem oto: The Heart of Japan (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman, 1975) . These principles a re specifica ll y applied to the performing a rts by Koichi Kitano, "The Hierarchical Structure of the Iemoto System: Its Effect on Social Sta bility, " MA thesis, University of H awai'i, 1970, Christine R. Yano, "The Iemoto System: Convergence of Achievement and Ascription," unpublished paper, University of H awai'i, 1990, and Ortolani, "Iemoto." 7 Charles ]. Dunn and Bunz6 Torigoe, eds., The Actors' Analects (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), pp. 82-83. 8 This denial needs to be seen within the context of Japanese culture. It is good manners for a fath er to discount the abilities of his son in public; it is an expression of modesty to do so. 9 See Ichikawa family genealogies in Samuel L. Leiter, Kabuki Encyclopedia: An EnglishLanguage A daptation of "Kabuki Jiten" (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1979), pp. 499-515 , Yamamoto Jir6, ed., Kabuki jiten (Tokyo: Jitsugy6 no N ihonsha, 1972), pp. 534-543, and Kawatake Shigetoshi, ed., Engeki hyakka daijiten, vol. 6 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1962), pp. 115-152. Danjiir6 IV is thought to have been an illegitimate son of Danjiir6 II. Whether he was or not, he lived the first forty-four years of his life outside the Ichikawa family (he was M atsumoto Koshir6 II) and came to the Danjiir6 acting style late in life. 10 For example, see chronologies in Yamamoto, Kabuki, p. 542; or Nojima Jusabur6, ed. Kabuki jinmei jiten (Tokyo : N ichiga i Associates, 1988 ), pp. 554-556. 11 Tamasabur6 was adopted by M orita Kanya XIV; the forty-one-year-old third son of Nakamura Karoku ill was adopted into the

Naka mura Kanza bur6 fa mil y to continue the oldest of all kabuki acting fa mily lines. 12 His first son became Danjiir6 VIII, the fi fth son Danjiir6 IX, the th ird and seventh Ebiz6 VIl and VIl respectively, while the fourth, sixth, and seventh sons, and his disciples took na mes that did not last beyond one or two generations. See Kanazawa Yas utaka, Ichikawa Danjuro (Tokyo: Seiabo, 1962) , pp. 212-213. 13 See, for example, the genealogical charts in Kawa take, Engeki, vol. 6, p. 120, or No jima, Kabuki, Appendix ill, pp. 41-45. 14 Japanese scholars do not include ka buki among the scores of iemoto-based arts. It is unusual that Naka mura does (Kabuki Backstage, pp. 37-47). Nishi ya ma discusses the iemoto system in kabuki music (narim ono or hayashi, and the various singing styles) in Iemoto monogatari (pp. 74-108) and kabuki dance (nihon buyo) in Gendai no iemoto (pp. 51-89). H su, Iemoto, includes kabuki in his initial long list of iemoto arts (p. 62), but this seems to be an inadvertent error for he doesn't mention ka buki elsewhere in his book. 15 O rtolani, "Iem oto," p. 300. 16 Quoted in Patricia Pringle, " Gidayustyle Narra tion," in An Interpretive Guide to Bunraku (H onolulu: College of Continuing Education and Community Service, University of H awai'i at Manoa, 1992), p. 24. 17 H attori Yukio, Kabuki no k oz6 (Tokyo: Chiiko Shinsha, 1970), p. 31. 18 Kabuki H yobanki Kenkyiikai, Kabuki hyobanki shiisei, Appendix volume (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1977), pp. 4-137. 19 Quoted in Ko ike Sh6tar6, Kosho Eda kabuki (Tokyo: Miki Shobo, 1981), p. 26. 20 Kabuki H yobanki Kenkyiikai, Kabuki,, vol. 1, pp. 184-1 85 . 21 In Kyoto-Osaka, the zamoto was the leading actor of troupe, a meaning wholly different from the term zamoto (written with different characters) in Edo (Tokyo), where the wo rd referred to the owner of a theatre building. See, Atsumi Seitar6, ed. N ihon engeki jiten (Tokyo: Tenbosha, 1991, reprint of 1944), p. 262.

22 The most important name (nadai) actors who played with Tojliro when he was actormanager of the M andayu Theatre in Kyoto between 1697 and 1700 can be glea ned fro m the production chronology in Ihara Toshiro, ed., Kabuki nempy6, vol. 1 (Tokyo: lwa nami Shoten, 1961), pp. 204-269. Thirty-six actors are mentioned. 23 Kabuki H yoba nki KenkyUkai, Appendix volume, pp. 158-278. 24 Large fa milies having collateral bra nches are Bando, Ichikawa, Ichimura, lwai, Nakamura, and Onoe. Smaller fa mi lies are Arashi, Jitsukawa, Kataoka, Kawaraza ki, M atsumoto, M orita, Otani, Sawamura, and Segawa. 25 Group for the Stud y of Popu lar Culture, "A Content Analysis of Miyamoto Musashi, A Popular Novel," in Japanese Popular Culture, ed. and trs., Hidetoshi Kato (Rutland, VT.: Charles E. Tuttle, 1959), p. 190. 26 Quoted in H aj ime Na kamura, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples (H onolulu: EastWest Center Press, 1964), p. 537. 27 Yoshida Minosuke, television interview, Honolulu, July 8, 1992 . 28 Personal conversations with puppeteer Yoshida Minosuke in H onolulu, March 28, 1992, chanter Toyotake Rodayu, M arch 17, 1992, and shamisen player Nozawa Kin ya, M arch 27, 1992. 29 Kitano, "Hierarchical Structure," p. 32.

Individualism in Perpetuity: Ike Taiga and the Tale of the Taigado Lineage Melinda Takeuchi Stanford University

During the changing world of eighteenthcentury Japan, the role of the painter, together with the function of paintings, underwent re-examination in the light of contrasting values introduced from China, which privileged, in theory at least, the personality and creative individuality of scholar-amateur artists. Workshops like the Kano, where the question of individual talent was raised - and dispatched as being subordinate to the more desirable quality of what might be called product standardization, found themselves the target of criticism from artists with new agendas. The Japanese lineage system, nonetheless, proved unexpectedly adaptable, persisting even under what might at first seem to be highly uncongenial circumstances. The career and subsequent creation of an official lineage for the eccentric literatus-painter Ike Taiga (1723-76) represent a case in point: The tale of Taiga and what became the Taigadoline of painters brings together many narratives, multiple strands of discourse. It involves the participation of diverse groups: the activities of a coterie called the Taiga Society, who in the absence of a legitimate heir set about creating what became a long-lived dynasty of painters with no blood relationship to Taiga; minor painters in the provinces who kept Taiga's style alive after it had gone out of "fashion"; a host of talented forgers who made sure that supply kept up with an everincreasing demand; and later literati and collectors who achieved social distinction by owning, authenticating, and copying his paintings. The saga of Taiga and the Taigado lineage also directs our attention to broader issues: Where are the boundaries between authorship and ownership of artistic style? What are the means and methods by which the individualist becomes repro-

ducible? What do collectors and connoisseurs expect of artists and paintings? Ultimately I think my paper is about the question of to whom the artist really belongs in Japanese society.

The "Original" Taigado Taiga (or Taigado) appeared, seemingly sui generis, along with a host of other unique and original painters beginning to make their mark around the middle of the eighteenth century: Ito Jakuchii, Soga Shohaku, Yosa Buson, Maruyama Okyo, and Nagasawa Rosetsu. Most of these men (with the exception of Okyo) did not become founders of formal artistic lineages, although some, like Shohaku furnished themselves with pedigrees retroactively (i.e., they turned to the past for legitimacy). Taiga began his career outside the lineage system as a self-taught artisan who at the age of fourteen offered his talents from a not-very-elegant fan shop, and later, even more humbly, from a mat placed on the dirt outside the gate of the temple Sorinji in Higashiyama. As Taiga's reputation grew, his audience became interested not only in his painting and calligraphy, which represented forms the Japanese associated with the Chinese scholar-painter: collectors of his work consumed with equal relish the details of his unconventional life, his rags-to-riches story, his mountain climbing and travels, his marriage to an equally unconventional woman of the social demi-monde, his numerous personal idiosyncracies, his messy house in Higashiyama, and the like. In essence his life-story and personal ethos became fundamental components of the reception of his work, just as these elements were to varying degrees part of the content of literatus-painting in China (which came to be known as Nanga or Bunjinga in Japan). 85

All this is to suggest, then, that Taiga, whose stock in trade as defined by contemporaries and successor_s as _a uniqueness that resided not only m his work but even more ineffably in the person himself, was an unlikely candidate to become the progenitor of a formal "lineage.-" Indeed, the very conception of the fam1hal art1st1c lineage would seem to be inimica.l t? the Japanese understanding of the 1TI1ss10n of the literatus-painter, whose style 1s supposed to be self-constructed_ and selfrevelatory. This holds especially true for painters of the Chinese "untramelled" category into which Taiga was placed! To pass down one's personal style to one's offspring did not often happen among literati painters in Japan;1 Nevertheless, a forma l artistic lineage was created for Taiga by a group called the Taiga Soc~ety (or Taiga Sha). Its goal was to transffilt his style from generation to generation and to keep his name before the public. The success of the endeavor may be gauged by its very longevity: the last Taigado died in 1953. It is hard to say how Taiga's reputation would have fared without this aggressive public relations apparatus and the interest in Taiga that it spawned. His career might have gone the way of Buson, his talented peer, whose name lapsed into relative obscurity during the nineteenth century.â&#x20AC;˘ In Taiga's case, even though his work was rarely imitated after his generation by the important painters in the literati mainstream, considerable interest in his paintings themselves, as well as extravagant praise for Taiga the man - and his assigned if fictitious role as the progenitor of Chinese literati painting in Japan abounds in the literature of Japanese critics throughout the nineteenth century. By the mid-nineteenth century, even a shogun (the last one, Tokugawa Keiki) owned a pair of screens by Taiga ~

The Taiga Society and the Establishment of the Taigado Although Taiga had numerous p~pils_ and in a sense functioned somethmg like an iemoto in dispensing instruction on painting and calligraphy, when he died .in 1776 he had neither children nor an heir. Because he was ill for severa l months before he died, his death took no one by surprise; there was plenty of time W arrange for succession had he desired to do so. Taiga's refusal to act on this matter, then, suggests that he had no interest in artistic immortality by means of !meal descendants. Perhaps he imagined that this attitude reflected Chinese literati practice. Gyokuran, his wife, died eight years later near the end of the ninth lunar mo~th of 1784. There is nothing in the record to suggest that she, either, was concerned with the question of an official successor for her late husband. Barely had Gyokuran's ashes cooled in their urn when in the tenth month of 1784 - that is, only a few days or at mos_t weeks after she died- members of the Taiga Society assumed control of his estate and convened a meeting. It is unclear when the Taiga Society formed, but it certainly h~d extensive powers of attorney and forffildable entreprenurial prowess. The activities of the Taiga Society immediately after Gyokuran's death are recorded in two documents. One is a handscroll with the title "Joint Names Record," which bears the names of thirty-seven members. The other is a now-lost historical record belonging to Sorinji, the "Sorinji Record of the Past. " 6

It is extremely difficult- and frustrating to reconstruct the complete membership of the Taiga Society, for the names people used on official documents during the Edo period often have no correspondence to the artistic names they adopted when

1 Sta rue of Kannon once owned by Taiga, gi lt bronze, Arashiyama, Ike Taiga Museum.

signing their paintings or ca lligraphy.7 Also, the constituency seems to have changed from year to year. Most of people involved, to judge from their marvelous Edo mercha nt-sounding names like Karahon'ya ("Chinese Book Establishment") Zozaemon, seem to have been relatively affl uent Kyoto tradespeople wi th sinophile tastes, who probably studied painting and ca lligraphy with Taiga on an avocational basis - just as they might also have taken lessons in Chinese-style tea ceremony, poetry, or Confucianism. The role of merchants like these in trying to mitigate their low status in Edo society by acquiring cultural skills, becoming literati, or collecting objects of art is crucial to the story of the Taigado's subsequent success. In the eleventh month of 1784, the members of the Taiga Society resolved to erect a Taiga Memorial Hall, called the Taigado, on land belonging to Sorinji, for the purpose of housing and exhibiting Taiga's effects. Taiga had left numerous paintings as a kind of insurance policy to his wife Gyokuran (for her to sell off after his death). Her legacy included many of these paintings, which Gyokuran had kept, rather than sold, and also memorabilia from their private life ~ This master stroke of establishing a physical center as part of the apparatus of keeping Taiga's name before the public was the key to the success of the enterprise. Perhaps the members of the Taiga Society were inspired by the newly erected Basho an, or Basho H ermitage, finis hed that same year at S6rinji, a temple which seems to have had connections with a number of artists and literati. Mikuma Katen, Matsumura Goshun, Maruyama Okyo, Ueda Akinari, and Reizei Tamemura are mentioned in its record book. Like the Bashoan, the Taigadowas furnished with a Hallkeeper (rusui). Construe-

tion proceeded with the subsidy of various materials, some from antique buildings donated by various benefactors. Soon after its completion, the new Taigado, by a stroke of good fortune, was thrust into the public eye in 1787, with the publication of the multi-volume Kyoto guidebook Shui miyako meisho zue, which included a description and picture of the building. Although the original Taigadowhere Taiga had lived and worked was notorious for being a small, rundown, and messy single-storied affair, the new Taigado was by comparison a grand edifice: it had two stories with sixmat rooms, a veranda running around the building, a handsome tile roof with the logo Taigadostamped in archaic seal script, and a separate room for the display of Taiga's personal statue of the deity Kannon (fig. 1). It was a kind of Taiga Visitor's Center. The text of the guidebook imparts an astonishing slant to Taiga's life and work? Nothing whatsoever is mentioned about his involvement with Chinese painting, the achievement for which he is remembered today. Rather, the text refers to the establishment by the name Kasendo ("Hall of the Immortal[s] of Waka Poetry"), with a note that it is "also 87

[called] the Taigado." Taiga is presented primarily as a poet of classical verse (waka), who studied (never mind how briefly, nor the mediocre results) with the court noble Reizei Tamemura. Court poetry, evidently, possessed greater cachet in Kyoto than did Chinese-style painting and calligraphy. The text describes the building, relates that Taiga was a mountain climber, gives Taiga's previous residences, transcribes the Chinese text of Taiga's gravestone, and tells about Taiga's wife Gyokuran, a dedicated waka poet along with her mother, Yuri, and grandmother Kaji.10 Samples of the three women's (but not Taiga's) poems are given. The Shui Miyako meisho zue describes Taiga as an "elegant" (furyifi person, rather ironic given accounts by friends of him as having "tattered clothes and unkempt hair," a description borne out by Mikuma Karen's famous image of him playing music with Gyokuran in the Kinsei kijin den. Of course the guidebook was speaking of his character and accomplishments, not his appearance, and the word furyu seems to have been used in the eighteenth century for just about everything with a pleasing contemporary chic; but it is difficult to stretch the imagination to square this description of Taiga with die account by Kimura Kenkado, his student, that Taiga was so slovenly in appearance that he was turned away from KenkadO's mansion because the servants mistook him for a beggar.'' The new and more grandiose Taigado, then, is the physical parallel of the gradual embellishment of Taiga's life history. The rhetoric of biography elided over time to the even grander stuff of myth, such as the suggestion that Taiga was the foundling son of highly-placed parents, abandoned at birth and discovered in miraculous fashion by a childless couple who had prayed to Kanoon for a baby - hence imparting a special poignance to Taiga's statue of

2 Tomioka Tessai in front of the Taigad6, photograph, collection unknown.

that deity on display at the Taigado.12 The new Taigado soon became an integral stop on the Kyoto tourism circuit. Hiraga Hakusan, a scholar from Hiroshima, describes in his memoirs his trip to the ancient capital, seven years after the appearance of the guidebook, as follows: After going to the Thirty-three Bay Hall, Kiyomizu, and the Yasaka Pagoda, he stops for a bit of refreshment (mainly sake and the grilled, miso-topped tofu known as dengaku). Fortified and mellow, he heads north to S6rinji and visits the Taigado. He notes that among other things on display is Taiga's "Horsemarket in a Mountain Village." '3 In sum, then, the new Taigado has helped to boost S6rinji's tourist business, which was probably a factor in the decision to permit the Taiga Society to use this Ji sect temple's land. Competition for visitors was brisk in Kyoto during the eighteenth century; it provided welcome income for temples and shrines. Famous visitors to the Taigadoover the nineteenth century period included literati like Tanomura Chikuden and Rai San'yo, the painter and lacquerer Shibata Zeshin, who sketched the contents of the Taigadoincluding Taiga's famous six-legged writing table, and the painter Tomioka Tessai, who had his photograph taken in front of the Taigado(fig. 2). It is difficult to know if the Taigadoactu88

3 Taiga' handprinr, wood block prim, Ara hi ya ma, Ike Taiga Mu eum .

fear 1ght, Eclipsed View, from Fuji in the Tweh路e Months, hanging

4 Ike Taiga,

scroll, ink on ilk, Tokyo Instirute of the Arts.

all y old souvenier , but the circum ta nee surrounding the woodblock hand print (fig. 3) sugge t that the practice i not o ut of the que tion. At Taiga' fiftieth birthday party (by Japane e count) in 1772, Taiga impres ed hi hand print on a piece of paper and added a haiku.14 Hi pupi l enchanted by the image, had it carved into a woodblock and wanted to di tribute it. But Taiga wou ld all ow only twelve copie to be printed, and then threw the block into the fire. Hi pupil Ozaki hinroku however, w ho was on ly twenty-four at the time but nonethele s already po e ed of the go-a head ski lls that fue lled the Taiga Society' activitie , natched the block from the fire and squirrelled it away. ln 1804, thirty-two years after Taiga had been laid to rest and cou ld no longer object, this enterprising individual had the block restored and the print re-issued.'5 The stewards of the Taigado had an array of duties. T hese included caring for the collection of Ta iga's paintings and personal effects, burning incense for the repose of his soul in spring and autumn, and holding annua l memorial services on the anniversary of his death. Taigado Hallkeepers were also charged with copying his works (to learn and to disseminate his style), authenticating paintings brought to them for connoisseurship (probably another good source of income), and ministering to visitors. The duty of connoisseurship suggests particularly that the Taiga Society was concerned with estab-

lishing control over the boundaries of Taiga's oeuvre, where were eroding away at an alarming rate with every passing year. The Taigado Lineage

The Taigadohad five H allkeepers after Taiga.' 6 The first two were unrelated by blood; thereafter the position remained in

:>~

@f ;tEJ · ~

~· · :~-- ~~:· ~_:~

.... "

5 Aoki Shukuya, Clear Nigh t, Eclipsed View, from Fuji in the Twelve Months, hangi ng scroll, ink on silk, ex-collection Marni Kenza bur6, Osaka. 6 Aoki Shukuya, Evening Rain Over Hsiao and H siang, from Eight Views of Hsiao and Hsiang, album

leaf, ink on paper, Tokyo, private collection.

example, he wrote a certificate of authentication for and made copies of Taiga's set of "Fuji in the Twelve Months" (fig. 4 and 5). It has been suggested that Shukuya also produced fakes of Taiga's paintings, although there is no evidence to support (or disprove) this provocative assertion. 18 It is possible that Shukuya's close copies, if unsigned, later became confused with originals. Shukuya re-interpreted certain of Taiga's well-known compositions, such as the set of fans depicting "Eight Views of Hsiao and Hsiang" (fig. 6). And he also managed to separate himself from Taiga's style (or, more correctly, styles, since Taiga had so many of them), and work in the more conservative Chinese trend soon to sweep through nineteenth-century Japanese literati painting (fig. 7) . This dual function of maintaining the past while managing to establish an independent artistic identity was something subsequent TaigadoHallkeepers negotiated with varying degrees of success, although none ever came close to joining the ranks of the major painters like Gyokudo, Mokubei, Chikuden, or Kazan.

control of the descendants of Taigadothe Third, the Sorinji priest Gepp6. Taiga's pupil Aoki Shukuya (?-1802) was the first appointee to the position of Hallkeeper. Shukuya dispatched some of his assigned duties diligently.17 In 1784, for

Towards the end of his stewardship of the Taigado Shukuya became reclusive and a bit strange, as we know from Chikuden's writings.19 The eccentricity which had been so prized in the first generation was not a desirable component of the second. The requirements for being the progenitor of lineage based on the talent and personality of its founder versus the managerial and 90

7 Aoki hukuya, West Lake, hanging croll, ink on paper, collection unknown.

II ~. " . . ., (,. ...

. ~ ('·") ·' '/ ·~....... :"\~

t""" , ~

)

.,, -~~

'1'1y~ ,. , II ... -.

'=:..

- t/'

.>. \

'j'(i

,tl

l.- ..

• ,'

~ ft '

...

•

entrepreneurial skills needed for maintain ing such a line clearly differed. The last indication I have been able to find of Shukuya's activities at the Taigado consists of his signature, along with Shinroku's and Geppo's, on a document describing the exhibition and services surrounding the twenty-fourth anniversary of Taiga's death in 1800.20 Shukuya finally abandoned his post at the Taigado altogether, possibly because of illness, and returned to his home province of Ise to die, leaving the position of Hallkeeper vacant. It went unfilled for two years until Shinroku the fan merchant convened the Taiga Society and appointed the Sorinji priest Geppo Shinryo (1764-1839) to the job in 1804.21 Geppotook up the position on the second anniversary of Shukuya's death. Geppo studied painting with Taiga before he reached the age of ten; he was only twelve in 1776 when his teacher died. Upon his appointment as Hallkeeper, the energetic Geppo threw himself wholeheartedly into assuming Taiga's mantle as if to make up for Shukuya's dereliction. The year he took charge he issued the Taigadogafu, a woodblock book of Taiga's designs based on a scroll Taiga painted for use as a modelbook (fig. 8) ; 2 The project obviously had been begun

even before Geppo was installed, for it bears a Preface by Murase Kotei dated 1803, and Epilogues by Geppo, Ito Tosho, and Minagawa Kien. Kien states that Geppo's objective in publishing the volume was to have the master's style "transmitted again and again." (Geppo was to have this wish come back to haunt him in the form of discomfiture over problems of authenticity in his role as official connoisseur.) The book was organized according to subject matter (trees, rocks, figures, boats, wheeled vehicles, and the like), in imitation of the seminal Chinese Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting. Geppo painted in an even broader range of styles than Shukuya had done. He could imitate Taiga's painting quite deftly. In addition, he experimented with a manner influenced by Shijopainting, the antithesis of the rough, playful style of Taiga.23 Geppo's versatility extended to figures in the Ukiyoe style, as exemplified by a remarkable painting he executed of a dancing geisha from the Gion, done at the behest of the literatus Rai San'yo for the Honganji priest-painter Unge. This interest in geisha may be one of the reasons Geppo seems to have had various financial troubles;•

8 Page depicting trees, rocks, and figures from Taigad6 gafu, published 1804, woodblock book, Tenri, Tenri Library.

9 Taigado Teiryo, Portrait of Seiryo, album leaf, ink on paper, Arashiyama, Ike Taiga Museum. 10 Seiryo, Bamboo, 1861, hanging scroll, ink on paper, private collection, United States.

In 1825 Geppo handed over the position of Hallkeeper to his second son, the eighteenyear old Seiryo (1807-69). This timing is suggestive because it calls into play a timehonored Japanese strategy for maintaining lineages, namely, early abdication in order to choose one's successor and secure one's own line. Geppo lived fourteen years beyond the time that Seiryo, also a S6rinji priest, became Taigado the Fourth. Information on Seiryocomes primarily from a short biography entiled "Image of Seiryo's Swallow Dwelling" (tsubame kyo), written by his son Teiryo.25 Like Geppo, Seiryo had a scholarly bent with sinophile tastes. He inherited his father's associations with famous literati of the day like Rai San'yo, and, evidently, also his father's expensive tastes. Possessed by a mania for the Chinese-style steeped-tea ceremony, he collected tea objects in massive quantities and is said to have devoted himself so wholeheartedly to tea that he would forget to eat. A portrait (fig. 9) shows him, appropriately enough, in monkish garb, posed with his tea paraphernalia; his scholarly leanings are indicated by the books displayed on Taiga's famous six-legged desk behind him. Seiryo remained Hallkeeper until his death at the age of sixty-two. Seiryo's surviving paintings are relatively scarce. "Bamboo" (fig. 10) belongs more

10a Figure 10, detail of signature.

to the Shij o style than it does to Nanga. The inscription, dated 1861 (eight years before Seiryodied), records that it was painted in the South Wing of the Taigado. In 1787, we recall, the Taigadowas described in the Kyoto guidebook as having two six-mat rooms, one upstairs and one downstairs; now it appears that it was either enlarged to encompass a north and south wing or perhaps rebuilt or even relocated. The signature also reveals that the farther in time the Taigado Hallkeepers get from the founding artist, the more aggressively they start invoking the connection with Taigado, both the man and the building. The stewardship of the Taigado passed from Seiryo to his son Teiryo (1839-1910), also a priest of Sorinji. It is ironic that the closer the generations of Taigado Hallkeepers come to our own time, the harder it is to find information about them. To judge from the few paintings that have surfaced at Kyoto dealers, even though Teiryopainted in a manner quite different from the artist we should now perhaps designate as the origina l Taigado, his paintings remain within the literati mode and exhibit a consistent style. Teiryoknew Taiga's oeuvre and dedicated himself to re-interpreting it while maintaining his own independent manner, based on a delicate, miniaturistic sensibility close to

certain contemporary painters in China. He painted an album using the theme of the "Ten Pleasures and Ten Conveniences of Living in the Country," for example (fig. 11 ), taking as his basis the album Taiga and Buson had illustrated in 1771 (fig. 12). He usually signed his paintings Taigado Teiryo in a calligraphic style eeri ly similar to Taiga's. It was under Teiryo's watch that vicissitudes hit the Taigadoone after another, despite Teiryo's earnestness in carrying out his duties. He faithfully held the annual memorial services and courted the participation of well-placed people. A bread-and-butter letter (in the form of a poem) from Tessai to Teiryoon the occasion of the 118th memorial service for Taiga held in 1894 refers to tea and cakes served to the "Friends of the Society." 26 Tessai also refers to the dilapidation of the Taigadoand the process of raising funds for its repair. One can see the sorry condition of the gate behind Tessai in the photograph (fig. 2); money was in short supply. Sasaki posits that by this time over half of the objects in the Taigado had been sold off.27 But the coup de grace came at the hands of the Kyoto City bureaucracy. In 1905, in the Meiji spirit of civilization and enlightenment, the city began confiscating temple lands for public parks, including the plot on which the Taigado sat. The Taigado was torn down. Teiryo moved to Nara, and handed over the title of Taigado the Sixth to his second son Kason (1885-1953). Even though he had no historical building from which to operate, Kason pursued his mission as keeper of the Taiga flame. 94

11 Taigado Teiryo, Convenience of Running Water, from Ten Conveniences of Living in the Country, album leaf, ink and color on paper, private collection, United States.

12 Ike Taiga, Convenience of Running Water, from Ten Conveniences of Living in the Country, album leaf, ink and color on paper, National Treasure, Kanagawa, Kawabata Collection.

Indeed, the farther in time the generations descended from the original Taiga, the stronger the assertion of the mantle. Whereas Seiryo conspicuously mentioned the physical location of the Taigado in his inscription (fig. 10), and Teiryo signed paintings Taigado Teiryo, imitated Taiga's calligraphy closely, but painted in styles different from Taiga's (fig. 11 ), in Kason's "Plum" (fig. 13), dated 1925, Kason has not only signed himself "Taigado Kason " but also painted in a manner so similar to Taiga's that Kason's picture could have been copied from a painting by Taiga. Kason's calligraphy, too, replicates Taiga's closely. Kason's determination to keep the Taiga line going was no match for the circumstances that ultimately defeated him. Poverty combined with the already eroded legacy of the Taigadoleft him at the end of his life with only two objects remaining from the palmy days of the Taigado's Kyoto guidebook fame: Taiga's statue of Kannon and a portrait of Taiga by Taiga do the Third (Geppo). Kason was persuaded

by Sasaki Yoneyuki in 1952 to part with these, in anticipation of Sasaki's founding a memorial museum to Taiga :Z 8 Kason died childless the following year and with his death the Taigadolineage, after nearly 170 years, finally came to an end. Other Boosters: Imitators, Forgers, Collectors and Connoisseurs

After Taiga's death, literati painting moved quickly in new directions, based on increasing familiarity with orthodox Chinese styles. Taiga's painting took on a dated look; by 1800 few artists - even among his pupils - worked extensively in Taiga's playful, eclectic manner.29 Taiga's style lasted somewhat longer in the provinces, particularly in the Hokuriku area of Japan. The Shin sect priest Ikeno30 Kanryo (1753-1830), for example, studied with Taiga when he was sent from H okuriku to Kyoto's Honganji for Buddhist training in his late teens; when Taiga died, Kanryo conducted services for the 95

13 Taigado Kason, Plum, 1925, fan, ink on paper, private collection, United States.

repose of his soul. A grateful Gyokuran sent Kanryo ten of Taiga's paintings in appreciation, along with an inkstone and inkstick he had owned, and she allowed him to become the only pupil with the privilege of adopting the Ikeno surname. Kanryo seems to have remained totally faithful to Taiga's way of painting, which he popularized in the Hokuriku region (fig. 14). Numerous. other unidentified provincial painters also affiliated themselves with Taiga's style. A person known only as Sessho(Snowy Woodcutter), for example, not only copied Taiga's painting closely, he adapted his art-name (go) from Taiga's go Kasha (Misty Woodcutter), and also copied the script style and split-oval format of Taiga's distinctive Kasho seal (fig. 15) :3 1 In a sense, Kanryo, Sessh6, and these other provincial followers who ,added no innovations constitute a purer lineage for Taiga than the more urbane group at the center of things at the Taigado in Kyoto. Yet another group of painters kept Taiga's style before the public. These were the professional producers of fakes, who stepped in to keep up with an increasing demand by collectors for a dwindling supply of objects. One such individual, Matsumura Koryo (1773-after 1845), a Kyoto man, hung out a shingle advertising paintings in the manner of the late Taiga :3 2 He waggishly styled himself "Nise Taigado," Nise being a pun on "Second Generation" (the name given to Geppo)

and the nise of nisemono, fake. His "Road to Shu" (fig. 16), signed as being "after Kasho [Taiga]," is a satisfying performance in the rhythm, mood, and nuance of Taiga's brush, both in its painting and its calligraphy. Koryu did not always bother to include the designation "after" in his signatures. The machinery of Taigado Enterprises was further driven by a set of factors that have more to do with the relationship between taste and status than with the intrinsic merits of Taiga's art. Throughout the nineteenth century, possession of objects associated with Taiga's name translated into a special kind of prestige among merchants and townspeople, who despite (or perhaps because of) their often low social position wanted to be seen by society as people of refined sensibility. As demand began to heat up, an extensive industry was born: it consisted of a threeway symbiotic relationship among fakers, collectors and connoisseurs. A visiting literatus-connoisseur's viewing a collector's painting and then writing a rhaposdy about it became a frequently enacted ritual. It was also a prudent safeguard, for starting even in Taiga's own lifetime, forgeries of his works began to appear. By the time of Geppo (Taigado the Third), fakes of Taiga's painting and calligraphy had proliferated to the point that even Geppo complained to the paintertheorist Tanomura Chikuden that he 96

14 lkeno Kanry6, Two Acolytes, hanging scroll, ink on paper, Kanagawa, Shikamachi Museum.

could not always differentiate the genuine from the spurious, although Chikuden had a high opinion of Geppo's abilities. Not everyone was so disposed. A cynical account written nearly fifty years after Taiga's death spells out the problem vividly: "When the price of painting and calligraphy by Taiga rose, forgeries became mixed in with genuine works and most people have not been able to distinguish between them. In Higashiyama there is a painter who studied under Ike himself, and because of this it is said that he is good at telling authentic works. So quite a few foolish people have raced one another to his place to receive his connoisseurship. They have even gone so far as to request that the seal of connoisseurship be placed on those works without signature or seal as proof that they are genuine. It has been nearly 50 years since Taiga died and this person is in his fifties; when you think about it, if he had received instruction it would have been some time between the age of two and three, or five and six years old! " 33 The indictment would seem to be directed at Geppo. The following example involving Chikuden and Kimura Kenkado, a wealthy pupil of Taiga's and an enthusiastic collector of all manner of objects, represents a typical exchange between a collector and a painter-connoisseur. When Chikuden visited Kenkado, the host brought out three albums by Taiga. One was an album depicting "Eight Views of Hsiao and Hsiang. " 34 Chikuden carefully notes the date (sixth month, eleventh day of 1829) and writes that "Each scene was executed by the methods used of old. [Priest] Goshin inscribed the poems and on the frontispiece Ko Fuyo had executed in seal script the characters Hsiao Hsiang [Sho Sho]. It was most likely executed by Taiga in his youth. The writings by Goshin and Fuyo are in themselves superb. And the tonality of the ink throughout the work

1._ >

is chaste and refreshingly beautiful. Even today the dampness of the ink tones can still be seen. The work is indescribably beautiful. " 35 Each party profits from a transaction like this. Chikuden gets to enjoy Kenkado's famous hospitality and is treated to a view of his host's famous .:ollection. Perhaps he even recei es a commission for a painting during his visit. Kenkado, a lowly merchant (an ex-sake brewer to boot), is in turn recorded for posterity by a famous artist and critic as a savvy, sophisticated collector and he gets an authentication of his painting, in Chikuden's original hand, which, of course, increases its value. To judge from the frequency of recorded exchanges like this one, to own a painting by Taiga, show it to a famous connoisseur, and receive an encomium was a recognized source of prestige, particularly for people of the merchant class who were by definition at the bottom of the social order. People about whom history would otherwise have been totally silent (to be sure, Kenkado was not one of these) make their mark in literature as discerning col97

the five peaks, in color, in the possession of Okuda Jodo is one which brings pleasure to the mind by the tranquility of the brush strokes. It moves the heart by its elegance and refinement. The composed manner of its appearance surely affects the heart and soul of those who see it. Jodo greatly loves Taiga's works; every time he comes across an unusual one he always buys it without thinking about the price. Now he has some 30 scrolls by Taiga in his collection ... T hese paintings are the treasures of the realm {tenka] . . . They will surely protect and preserve the very household itself!" 36 As Pierre Bourdieu says, "Cultura l consecration does indeed confer on the objects, persons and situations it touches, a sort of ontological promotion akin to a transubstantiation." 37 Painter-connoisseurs frequently made exact copies of the paintings they authenticated; Watanabe Kazan made a copy of "H orsemarket in a Mountain Village" (the painting on display when H akusan visited the Taigado) that has almost more of the dash and spirit associated with Taiga than does the original. Rai San'yo, who also lamented the difficulty of distinguishing among surviving paintings attributed to Taiga, seems also to have made many copies of paintings he was asked to praise/authenticate!8 It is ironic that many of these copies have likely entered the expanded corpus of works attributed to Taiga himself, thus compounding the problem of connoisseurship for later generations even further.

lectors and cultured individuals. Some such encomia are masterpieces of hyperbole, like the following box inscription by the painter Tsusaka Toyo: "Ike M umei [Taiga] ranks first among the painters of Japan . . . Should he not belong among the immortals? ... The painting of

It is still another irony that the more distinctive an artist's hand, the easier it is to produce paintings that immediately call that artist's work to mind (it does not require much skill, as I have discovered by my own dabblings, to dash off paintings that one can recognize immediately as being "after Taiga"). Further, the more distinctive an artist's style, the easier it is to recognize, even for those who are not 98

15 Sesshii, Sage Viewing Moon, hangi ng scro ll, ink on paper, private collection, Japan.

'I ~ ....

' "..." ,fl J I

16 Matsumura Koryii, Road to Shu, hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, private coUection, United States.

cultivated connoisseurs.

James Cahill has made the observation that "Those of us who have moved extensively in the mysterious world of Chinese and Japanese dealers and collectors know very well the fo rmulations by which a painting is spoken of as '80% genuine' or '50% genuine'; these designations initially seem strange to us, for whom authenticity is an all-or-nothing matter. They refer not so much to the odds that the work is from the master's hand as to its degree of semblance to an authentic work, or to the percentage of people who, when shown it, will accept is as from the hand of the master. " 39 This insight helps to explain the popularity of paintings by forgers, which, even if deemed only "50 % genuine," bring the owner into the orbit, however obliquely, of a great artist. Of course paintings by the Taigado H allkeepers operated according to the same principle, but they were safer (one could watch them actually being painted), and probably often cheaper as well.

Conclusion To understand the phenomenon of Taigado Enterprises in the larger context of cultural production and consumption, we might turn again to the ideas of Bourdieu and relate them to the situation in Japan: "To appropriate a work of art is to assert oneself as the exclusive possessor of the obj ect and of the authentic taste for that obj ect, which is thereby converted into the reified negation of all those who are unworthy of possessing it . ... " 40 The concept of negation operates on another level as well: by possessing paintings that were icons of savoir faire, people situated at the bottom of the Confucian scheme tradespeople and merchants - could neutralize their social identity as the parasitical class and substitute it with a more respected cultural identity, that of connoisseur/savant.

)

he appararu<; f rad ancing thew rk f aiga after h1 death t k the f rm of a mulnfaceted, h1ghl) u e ful llecme effort. he )earning f r Im pa1nnng and calligraph)," 1th all the aura the~e obie t a quired and conferred "a great that japane e painter, olle ·ror, and conno1 eur refu ed quire lircralh m permit him, a the a r 1an cuphenmm goe , ro la} d wn h1 bru h for the la r nm . nc 1 reminded f Paul h1 di' nngmg phra c concernmg rh ··rorcm1~nc power r ·onfer d1.,r111cnon." h ell \\a talk mg ab ut rhe comf rt name-brand produ t bnn ro rhe ·1alh m ecure, but he might JU r a well h,1, e been r.1lkmg a hour the acher that a ·1anon \\1th a1 J br ughr r amsr , c nno1 eur , and 1lector . n of the rea on for rhe ucce of the :i1ga<lc lmeage '' :i rlut b\ 1m ok mg che n:ime of thl'. a1gad -, the I Iallkcepr~ arran ed for admirer., of a1ga· \\Ork t ha\e the be r of horh world . he prc~ n ·e o rhe harader a1gad6 m rhe1r 1gnarure ( ereJ the strong, 1f rocall) pun u , -;ugge non char their p:11nnn had che 1mpnmareur f the ma rer h1mst:lf.

I ur pe pie de en e spe 1al rnenn n. uzanne I C\\ 1 l"tened ro rn\ arrernpr t on eprualize rhe 1\~ue . . a., I sa\\ them; 'he sugge red char 1 " ,,,deal mg'' 1th the problem of do.,ed srem-open .,, rem, and ,he led me ro literature on \ 'e rern med1e' al ,rud1e~ rreanng comparable 1 '>UC . Jame ah11l made a' adable h1 four unpubli . . hed le cure., on the hine e pa1nrcr\ prnfes.,mn, '' h1 h helped lanf) Japane'e parallel and nmulare lines of inqu1r~. rephen dd"' 1nrrodu ed me ro rhe \\Ork of rhe a1gad6 amsr., some fifteen )Car ago and inmaceJ me 1nro the si:Lrer of where ro find them. Joseph euberr worked n the pnmaf) de ·umenr., rran\cnbed in ~Ion nz - . 1 am grateful ro all. I 1or b:hlL 1nformanon on a1ga and h1 \\ork 'cc \l.ir ... u,h1ra l l1Jcmaro, Ike Ta1giJ ( ok10, I 6- l;and \ldinda akcuch1, Taiga's Tnw \ 1cu • : The I.,111g11uge of l «11d cape P.i111t111g 111 I 1ghternr/J- .t•11t1111· }u/1.Jll ()r.inlcirJ, I - l- I or a d1 cu,,1on of the hinese on cpnon of rhe unrramdleJ amsr as rhe Japane e applied 1r ro a1ga, . . cc .1kcuch1, TiJ1ga's True \ 1rn•s, p. I 1 . dmlar of hinc e pa1nring are Ix-ginning ro J1 o'er rhar non n f 11111.:age are more rcle' anr tel h1ne e Ii reran painnng rhan ''a., common I~ rh ught - a ase of d1\111formanon ongin.rnng "1rh rhe lireran rheon't' and rm s rhem eh e:: • ompar , for e"\ampl rhe po"erfull ind I\ 1dual "ork of ragam1 1yokud - with rhc mdde::r, mor~ LOl1\ ennonall) h1ne:: e ·1s1 n of h1 ' n ragam1 hunkin, for e"\ample, or rhe cc cnrnc e'u~ eran e of kada Be1 anpn ''1th rhe relJtl\el) careful recmude f h1 n l lank6. he consp1 uou Japanese e epnon 1~ the ase of 1 akabara h1 h1kur6 and h1 n h1kke1, com 1de.nrnlly (or perhap n r co111c1denrall ) ' rking 1n rhe manner f the !"\\ o l\ 11, 1\ 11 l u and h1~ son l\ 11 Yu-1en.

l 0

Takah1 a (T kaku) 1ga1 ( 179 - 184 )) and uga1 Ba1kan ( 1784- 1844 ) ro rhc effe r that "Taiga 1; one le cl upcnor ro Buson." Quorcd an Ion, /Josak11 s in~ ml. 3 (Tokyo, 197 1), p. l I. In ado ko11g6 s/](), aka ha ~ht h1kur - rank Taiga' land capes an rhe "Upper- !addle" carcgol), "'hale he plate Bu on an the" !tddlc- !tddle" - a ta~e of damning borh ''1th fa1nr pra1 c ( fa1ga' figure~ and orchid , howe er, rare onl) a ",\ l1ddleL wer"). h1kut - gl\eS a s1malar c,aluanon an h1 h1k1116 garo11. cc aka1ak1 an, them ka1garo11 ta1ke1, ol. I (Tok)'<>, 19 ), p. 181 and 204. Tanomura h1kudcn\ famou; remark "Taiga 1 orthodox, Buson 1 nor" from a11clui11111osets11 1 gl\ en 1b1d., p. 24 The e are rh anonal rca urc "l.andape w1rh Pa' al1ons," no" an rhc okyo an nal 1u eum. Reprodu ed an garefold f rmar an uzuk1 u umu and a aka j6he1, Ike Taiga, v I. I of 1'1011 b11uts11 kazga :::.1ms/111 (~ ky I 0),pl .12-1. 6 The "joinr 1gnarur Re ord" (Re111ne1 bo), dared ro rhe renrh monrh of 1 4, 1 repr du ed an a aka Yone uk1, Tazgad6 kz ( oro, 19 4 ), pl. 1 and d1 u ed an rhe e'-plananon for rhar plate (Ta zgad6 kz la k paganan n). e rion of rhe" - nn11 Re rd B ok" ( -r11111 kak6 bo) o enng the pen d from the elevenrh monrh of I 7 4 rhrough rhe t-. leap period appear ibid., and an H1rom1 h-ka, "Taiga monjin," pp. 1-2. 7 There are, fore ample, n o name on the "joinr ame Re rd " which have been pur forward a indicating Taiga' pupal k1 hukuya, who became rhe fir t inhenror of Taiga' manrle. Mat u hira Hidemaro, "Aoki hukuya - lke Taiga no hUhen 6," anga kenkyii no. 26 (vol. 3, no. 6) p. 7, laim rhar the first name on the Ii t, hoi ( ublieurenanr) air6 Uhei, i Aoki hukuya (d. 1802?), who wa ro become the fir t Hallkeeper of the new Taigad6 (Taigad6 the econd). However Shu kuya i surely the ixteenrh name on the list, Aoki oemon, becau e 6emon appear under Shukuya' alternate name . ai'ami (Sei'ami?) i the Sorinji prie t Geppo, al o Taiga' srudenr, who was slated ro become Shuk uya's succe sor, or Taigado the Third. Na kagawa Koroku is probably Taiga's clo e friend Kan Tenju, and Ko Tokoku, Taiga's

other innmare companion K - Fuyo (a lthough ne1rher name, K - roku nor okoku, appear among e1rhcr arr1;r\ 11 red alternare appellanon; ). rher idennfiable member~ include the fan merchant zak1 h1nroku (a pupal of a1ga\), the book eller l la)a;h1 Bunkando (who publt bed rhe" ho's ho of Kyoro"), and foba \,lamh1ch1ro (al o called Da1roku路 he cmpon;ored along w1rh Ko tuyo rhe publtcanon of H) aku en\ e11111111 gak111 ko). I offer rhe rc~r of rhe name an rhe hope rha r fururc re ear h wall pcrhap re,eal more about rhc e people\ idennry: eda h1ch1be1, gara cmon, Koyama Da1gaku, Karo hu u1, I h1gak1 h - mon~ukc, Fm' a Dat)l[O, tu\\ a .:npro, Kada ofu, Kanmuro Zen10, Igu h1 obe1, .\la;u (or h - ?)pn h6comon da Kar;udo, \l an')a \,larahe1, Bun~cnd -, I Iara lbe1, Yamado I ltko aburo, an'ra obe1, 'l amaro) a en;hich1, amamoro I h10路6emon In Jan en, Karo an'ek1, Izur u)a Hach1bc1, be) a Kuaemon, ru h1m1ra oemon, arahon '>a Zozaemon, Rm end - , Zen ekt) a Iha ha, Ke1 ( r 1) Bunkan, and Karahon')a han'emon. Ir mu r be nored \\tth omc d1 rre that, with rhe e\. cpnon of Ko tuyo, rh1 It r ha no O\erlap with con nrucncy of rhe Taiga ocaery a de nbeJ ar rhe end of Kimura Kenkad -' Ike Taiga kaf11 ( ee ~Ion, hosak11 s/111, p. 69. n 1mporranr name rhar appear repearedl) an rhe" -nnp Re ord f rhe Pa r" 1 char of the phacma olog1 t In ue Ta1zan (al ailed hii uke). Ta1zan omm1 1oned many ob1e r from Taiga an ludang the famou ignboard' 1th rhe conundrum " old medi inc that cure Id which aren't ured by dnnkang cold med1..:me." The "Jo1nr ame Re rd," de nbe the reanon of the Ta1gad6 a f 110\ : " t rh1 nme, all the member [ f rhe Taiga 1ery] agree to re on tirure the honorable Taiga' former re iden e which wa I cared an the compound f orinJi in Haga hiyama. Ir ha al o been re lved that ome of hi belonging will be on display." I would like ro thank Tao H ingyuan for helping me with the rran lation. The Taigado gafu, a woodblo k book pubIi hed in 1804, ha epilogue by Geppo and the cholar-painrer Minagawa Kien which al o derail circum ranees urrounding the creation of the Taigado. See Mori, hosaku shi~ pp. 41-43. Taiga's connection with 6rinj1 began

101

when he wa befnended b1 the abbot Ken 'a, the father f eppo, and a'llowed ro ell h1 ware , m111g on a mat m front of rhe temple, dunng h1, ree1i-.

9 Tran cnbed 111 Takemura To hmon, ed., 1'1011 fil:::ok11111e1sho ::.11e, ,. I. (Tok) o, 19 l ), p. 2-2. I 0 ·ee rephen ddt\\, "The Three \\'omen f ion," 111 ,\ lar,ha \ e1dner, ed., Flou er111g

1111/Je hudo1l's: \\ 0111e11111 the Ht tory of hmese u11d }upi111ese Pu111t111g (Honolulu 1990 ), pp. _41 --6 3. 11 Kenkado\ d1 cu ion 1' gl\ en m Takeuchi, Tuigu ' Tme \ 1eu• . p. 6S. The phrase "tattered doche~ and unkempt hair" ''a' u~ed to de nbe a1ga m rhe prologue, '' nnen 111 I 03 b1 ,\lura'e K - te1, to the ''oodblcxk look

Tc11gud6 gu{i1. 12 It 1., unclear" hen rh1., m1 rh starred, bur 1r 1 mennoned m \ l ;mu~h1r.~, Ike Tc11gu, p. I and ~Ion, hosuk11 sin~ p. 9_. Reproduced m uz.uk1 and a>ak1, Ike Ta1gu, pl. 6S. l l:iku an's ac<.:c>unt t> wed m a ak1, Tu1gcld6 k1, n.p.

14 Thi anecdote ..:ome from a\ak1, Tc11gad6

k1 e'l.plananon ro pl. 2 . IS hmroku 1s an 1nrere.,nng d1aracter. I le obtained the wcx>den commemorarn e \tatue of a1ga caned for the fiftieth b1rrhda) part), and al o omeofTa1ga's~eal ,afterTa1ga\dearh. In addmon ro bemg an amareur painter, he'' a> It redmthe"~ ho'~ hoofKyoro"m I 13 und r L1teran . l k held' anou . pamnng e h1b1n n m K) mo, and" a perhaps cbe mo r a me member of the a1ga )octet). et loch1wk1 obu,h1ge, " a1ga no 111pigo ka1k1," a11ga ke11ky11 7 ' I. I, no. 7 ( l 57 ), p.4);Koza a Zenz - ," h - Fure1 hmrokuk - ," a11ga ke11ky1i ll, rnl. .1, no. 2 (I 5 ), pp. -9. 16 The Ta1gad6 lineage 1> ~o ltnle do umenred char' anou confl1cnng \Cr ions e 1 r. l pcrperuaced ome of rhe c m1 cake 111 my book Taiga's Tr11e ieu•s, p. 78, mcludmg the mcorrecr a sernon chat 1ry6 wa Ta1gado the fourth. ror chi e~~ay l rel) on a ak1' Ta1gad6 ki a ounr of the ucces ion, although a ak1 give che wrong birth dace f r epp-.

hukuva eem to be one of rho e pe pie wh artra~ted anc non e 111 h1 wn rime - 1r 1 unou ho' lmle 1 kn ' n abour him, e en h1 birth dare. Later :.u gad - I la IIkeeper were a»oc1ated w1rh the temple - nnp and chu appear from nme co nme 111 -nnp d umenr . Bur huku) a rema111 a my rery. For informanon ee larrha 1\ le lint ck, " ok1 huku a: Talent and Trad1non 111 Taiga' hado' ," ma rer\ rhe 1 , mver It) f lt h1gan, I l-1 lar u h1ca, Ike Taiga, pp. 292-2 ; and ,\lat mh1ta, ·· k1 hukuya," pp. - 11. l-ll.H,u\h1ca, Ike Tu1ga, p. _ 19 TakeuLh1, Taiga· Tme 1ews, p. The rranslanon 1 l) Hugh \ ylie.

20 The dOLumem 1 tran cnbcd 111 .\loch1wk1, "Taiga no m1ugo ka1k1," p. 21 The lener confirm that hukuya died 111 I 02. )Ur<.:e\ of 111forrnanon on eppo mdudl' lat uslma, Taiga, pp. I - '20; I ltrorn1 h - ka, " h - roku h - nnJI kakobo," Tu1gudo o clul ln11111 ( I ), pp. 3- ; and H1torn1, "Taiga m npn," pp. 1-4 . In "Taiga monpn" l ltm1111 announce~ h1 d1 O\er) of 1epp -• proper birth dare f 1 4 (111 read f I~ 0 as 1 ·omm nl) rh ughr) ba ed on mf rrnanon he found 111 rhe d urnem " -nnj1 kak - bo."

24 Reproduced Hirorni, "Taiga m njin," p. 3 . The reference t epp-· debt appear ibid., p. 2: in the ele enrh month f LS 5 epp

102

borrowed seven gold rn111s (ry6), and rhe ne r monrh, t"\J o more. There 1., also a Lr) ptic remark a hour .cpp6\ '>Cll111g fans ar rhc a1gad6 - whow fans 1' unclear - perhap due also m pm er!) or 1ndebrednes'>. 2 The ong111al, mounted 1n an album, 1 reprodu cd and rrans<..nbed 111 Sa.,ak1, Ta1gad6 kt, pl. I 0. Ir 1s O\\ ncd b) rhc Ike a1ga 1u.,eum.

32 Information taken pnmanly from arsush1ra," ok1 hukuya," pp. 8-9. This amcle rcprodu e., rwo of Koryu\ works. cc abo 1arsu\lllta 's Taiga, p. 296. 33 The aurhor 1s mersup Shunsho, rhc text 1s kod<J yokyo sh11; rranscnbed on, Cho ak11 slm, p. 50. 34 Snll e rant and reproduu:d 111 Ike Taiga ak11/m1 sh11 (Tokyo, I 960), nos. I 5 3-1 to 15 3-8.

26 e sa1' ong111al and a rran,cnpnon arc reprodu ed Ill asak1, T1.11gad6 kt, pl. 17 and 1r explanation.

3 5 I rom h1kuden\ Tose1 sasarok11. Text rranscnhed .\Ion, ( lmsak11 sh14 p. 49.

27 Ibid., cxplananon ro pl. 18.

n a ount of rh1' rransacnon 1s g1\'en 111 a ak1 oneyuk1, " Ike Taiga no nen h1 bur'>u," anga ke11ky119, \OI. 2, no. I ( 1957), p. 3. asak1 peab of hO\\ he had long\\ or h1pcd Taiga, d1 cu es rhe repairs (<:onduc.tcd b) him elf?) ro Taiga' sad I) ddap1darcd gra\e 111 I 1, and ralk of h1 dream ro csrabli'>h a memorial ro Taiga. Ka on musr ha\C found rh1 devonon granfying. 29 Thi 1 nor ro suggesr rhar his m le left no legacy in Japane e pa1nnng. fas mating, une peered, re-amculanon of a1ga 's manner appear in rhe la re work of rhe \ e rern- ryle arri rYor zuTer ugor-(18 -192 ). ee Kage aro Tet ur6, "Y ro7U Tet ugor6 (4)h6ga1 to ge1iursu," 811uts11 ke11ky11, ol. 2 (1971 ), fig . 21 and 22, p. 205. The e painting look a roni hingly like rho e of Taiga.

~ 1atsu

him, Ike Taiga, p. I 6.

3 Pierre Bourd1eu, D1st111ct1011: A octal Cnt1q11e of the j11dge111e11t of Taste, Richard 1 ice, trans. ( ambndge, ,\ lass., 1984), p. 6. 7

8 Mon,

hosak11 shu, pp. I

-37.

39 James .ah1ll, "The Painter's I land," p. 9 (unpublished). 40 Bourd1eu, D1st111ct1011, p. 2 0. 4 l Paul J us ell, lass ( p. s.

30 Taiga dropped rhe second character, no (field), from h1 urname in order ro re emble the hine e ingle-chara rcr urnamc. Kanry6, on the other hand, retained 1t, o 1r 1 rrc r ro designate him !keno. Informan non Kanry6 wa taken from /k eno Kanry6 ten (Kanazawa: I hikawa Prefe rural Mu eum, 1976), which al o reproduce forry-nine of Kanry6' painting . 3] When l howed thi work to the la re Sa aki Yoneyuki of the Ike Taiga Mu eum he became enraged becau e he assumed it was a clumsy forgery of Taiga' painting, and thought that the arti t had imply wrinen the characters wrong. He refu ed ro believe rhat it had been painted by omeone who had adopted these form out of veneration f r Taiga.

103

C\\

York, 198 ),