Shinsui Ito: A Passionate Embrace of Nihon

Shinsui Ito (1898-1972) was a central figure in Japan's artistic identity crisis during the 20th century. As wave after wave of artistic 'Isms' from overseas broke upon these shores, native artists felt compelled to either abandon their own rich artistic traditions or embrace them even more strongly. Ito, whose works are briefly on display at the Takashimaya Gallery in Nihonbashi, was one of those artists who chose the latter course, joining the Nihonga movement, which looked to Japan’s past for inspiration rather than the confusing plethora of ideas pouring in from abroad.

When he was 18, he joined Shinhanga Undo, a group which aimed to revive the methods and styles of ukiyo-e. This had a profound influence on the style and themes of his paintings which abound with the images of nature and feminine beauty found in traditional Japanese wood block prints. "Joshin (Unsullied Morning)" (1930), a beautiful picture depicting a group of naked women bathing in a natural hot spring combines both of these aesthetics. The color of the bathers is so softened by the steam and blended into the surrounding nature, that it is only the blackness of their hair that first alerts us to their presence.

Nihonga differs markedly from Western painting in the materials used. The emphasis, as with so much in Japanese culture, is on the use of entirely natural materials. Paper and silk, mounted on board, wall scrolls or on folding screens, are used instead of canvas. Perhaps the most important difference, however, is in the paints. Instead of thick oils, Nihonga uses ground mineral pigments suspended in animal glue thinned with water. This gives the paint a sandy, smoky texture. The effects of this can be seen in ‘Yubi (Fingers)’ 1922) which shows the almost ghostlike figure of a lady delicately examine her fingertips.

A Western viewer might be disappointed by the lack of expression in the faces of the women, most of whom seem to be hiding their feelings under a mask. But by paying close attention to other details, we are given enough clues to project our own feelings into these mysterious faces. ‘Ideyu (Out of the Bath)’ (1950) shows a beautiful girl who has just emerged from a hot bath. She wears a yukata and dabs the sweat on her neck with a towel. Instead of having a relaxed face, however, her mouth remains closed and her hair is tied up in an elaborate hairdo. The only clue that she is really relaxed is given by two little strands of hair that hang down on either side of her face emphasizing her slight drooping posture. This is so subtle you might miss it if you blink!

‘Sakurabana　(Cherry Blossoms)’ (1950) shows a young girl with the regulation poker face struck by the sudden beauty of the blossoms. The slight backwards tilt of her body combined with the hand raised to a pair of incredibly small, tight lips gives us a sense that a gasp of delight will escape from her the very next instant.

Ito tends to idealize women. The flip side of this, however, is that sometimes his paintings seem fetishistic, like ‘Asagao to Shohjo (Morning Glory with Young Girls)’ (1948), a work depicting two young girls sucking on some flowers. A much more accomplished blending of the feminine and the natural is ‘Reijitsu (Beautiful Day)’ (1934), a vast work stretching over 12 panels of a folding screen. Showing a woman looking at something lost in the tangled branches of an old plum tree, it is only by carefully following her gaze that we discover the small bird she is quietly watching.

Japanese art inspired by the imported artistic movements of the 20th century often looks derivative and dated, but the work of Shinsui Ito retains its sincere beauty and timeless appeal.


Paintings by Shinsui Ito ran until Feb. 6, 2001, at the Gallery of Takashimaya Dept. Store in Nihonbashi.

Japan Times
February 3, 2001

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Ikuo Hirayama: solace on the silk road

Ikuo Hirayama clearly represents how the Japanese like to see — and project — themselves. His paintings, located in the strong traditions of nihonga (Japanese-style painting), are unmistakably Japanese, but they look outwards to the rest of the world and express the spirit of peaceful cooperation and appreciation of our common world heritage that is a popular theme on Japanese TV travel programs. For this, he has been noticed and honored abroad, most notably when he was made a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 1988.

This must be one reason why "Ikuo Hirayama: A Retrospective — Pilgrimage for Peace," a major show of his paintings at the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, has been so well attended. Others include his skill as an artist, as well as how his career touches on themes that are central to postwar Japan's sense of itself — redemption, regeneration and respect for the past.

The story dramatically opens with Hirayama, born in 1930, witnessing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as a junior high-school student mobilized for the war effort. In his autobiography he described the bombing, which he was lucky to survive, as "the greatest mistake mankind ever made." It had an undeniably enormous impact on him, but it was his inability to face it directly that shaped much of his artistic career.

After graduating from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1952, Hirayama became a disciple of nihonga painter Seison Maeda. Like many painters who felt the threat of social chaos in the post-World War II period — and the criticism that nihonga was out of touch with reality — Hirayama originally created scenes that emphasized everyday life's traditional aspects and order. But these early works are not included in the exhibition, as his ultimate style lay in the opposite direction.

In 1959, while suffering from an illness caused by radiation from the A-bomb, he painted scenes based on Buddhist themes, such as "The Transmission of Buddhism" (1959). Buddhist subjects gave him the freedom to paint symbolically, abstractly or figuratively, and develop a luminous, lyrical style characterized by muted-but-glowing colors, unclear lines and ambiguous forms.

Compared to the great canon of Christian art, Buddhism, in purely artistic terms, lags far behind. This is partly the result of an otherworldliness that puts little value on the realms of sense and "illusion," and partly the effect of a stoicism that eschews passion and drama. Hirayama's Buddhist works, though, show the marks of a trip he made to Europe in the early '60s to study Western religious art. "Fantasy of Nirvana" (1961) and "The Jetavana Monastery" (1981) have an element of the religious dramas more typical of Christian Renaissance paintings.

While Japan was in the throes of rampant modernization and materialism, Hirayama headed in the opposite direction, going back to the roots of Japanese culture and spirituality. He traced it to its sources in China and India, as the scholar Tenshin Okakura, one of the founders of the nihonga movement, had done in the 19th century when Japan faced the first onslaught of Westernization. This meant that Hirayama went looking for Japan in the wilds of Central Asia, as he developed a fascination for the Silk Road and the seventh-century Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who spent 17 years traveling between Tang Dynasty China and India in search of Sanskrit sutras.

The works from Hirayama's extensive travels around Asia form the largest part of the exhibition. In the bleakness of the landscapes with their ruins, there is a feeling he was facing up to the cataclysm he witnessed at Hiroshima.

"Glowing Ruins in Turkestan" (1970) shows Bamiyan, the famous Buddhist site destroyed by Genghis Khan, and finished off by the Taliban, as a scene of desolation. Despite this, it is infused with a light that seems to recall the history of the place and its people.

The paintings of scenes along the Silk Road often have the sublimity and spirituality that comes naturally to the vast and the ancient. This reflects that, in essence, spirituality is about how far we can remove ourselves from the here and now. In visiting and painting such vistas, there's a palpable sense of Hirayama finding the perspective that allowed him to look once again at his country and the unbearable events of Aug. 6, 1945.

In "The Glorious Imperial Palace of Fujiwara-kyo" (1969) the grandeur and simplicity of his Silk Road paintings are transposed to Japan, as the great city glows golden among the greenery — a vast, living Utopia rather than the mix of petty hopes, dreams and irritations that make up any city.

The vision he nurtured in Central Asia allowed him to paint what his art had been slowly moving toward for decades. "The Holocaust of Hiroshima" (1979) avoids the hysterics and shrill condemnation in other works dealing with the atrocities of the 20th-century, such as Picasso's "Guernica" (1937).

In Hirayama's work, the red inferno fills six panels above a suggestion of the Hiroshima skyline. Painted in rich, soft waves of powdered pigment with occasional flecks of gold, it becomes, surprisingly, a thing of beauty. Riding in the flames is Acalanatha, the Buddhist deity whose function is to destroy delusion. As well as representing the integrity of the longstanding Japanese culture, the painting shows the new maturity found in postwar Japan.

"Ikuo Hirayama: A Retrospective — Pilgrimage for Peace" ran till October 21, 2007 at the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

Japan Times
September 27, 2007

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Neoteny: The Japanese really are forever young

General Douglas MacArthur famously said that Japan was a nation of 12-year-olds. Well, he wasn’t talking about fighting abilities, as the Japanese gave the Allies the fright of their lives in World War II. Nor could such a remark have applied to their level of intelligence, as Japanese consistently outscore Westerners by an average of 5 to 6 points in international IQ comparisons. Nor was it their business acumen, as, starting from the bombed out ruins of 1945, these “12-year-olds” built their economy into the second biggest in the world in a few decades. So, what the heck was MacArthur talking about? Whether he knew it or not, he was probably talking about neoteny.

Neoteny is a biological term that describes the retention of juvenile characteristics in adults, something that is widely recognized in the animal world. For example, we know that tadpoles mature into frogs, losing their juvenile aquatic character along the way. However, the axolotl species of salamander remains fully aquatic throughout its life, merely becoming a large version of a tadpole. A better known example of neoteny is the giant panda, which retains its baby-like cuteness into adulthood. Indeed, humans have juvenile characteristics relative to other primates. Our sparse body hair and enlarged heads are in fact reminiscent of baby primates.

Now, many of the physical characteristics we associate with the Japanese are also characteristics we associate with children: smoother, less hairy skin; lack of physical stature; slenderness; less voluptuous curves in women; large head-to-body ratio; flatter faces; and higher pitched voices. Very few people would argue with the idea that the Japanese are cuter than most other races.

But neoteny doesn’t stop at physical characteristics. The Japanese clearly behave in more childlike ways, the most obvious examples being the cult of cute, as exemplified by Hello Kitty (who herself shows remarkable symptoms of neoteny). They tend to be shy, read comics rather than books, and lack initiative — all this despite their higher average IQs.

No one can deny the neoteny apparent in the physical characteristics and behavior of the Japanese, but what is the mechanism that drives it? How can the Japanese be so different from Westerners — I mean, the scientific consensus is that humans only branched out from Africa about 60,000 years ago, while evolution clearly takes millions of years. How could such differences arise in such a short time?

The answer can be found by looking to another famous example of neoteny: the many types of dogs that have been bred from the common wolf in the last few thousand, or even few hundred, years. Almost all dog breeds exhibit immature mannerisms and physical features when compared with wolves, to which they are so closely related that even a laboratory DNA analysis cannot tell them apart. Neoteny, by using the differences that exist between an adult and a child of a species as its template of change, is able to act as an alternative form of adaptation to evolution, and one that can be rapidly passed on and increased from generation to generation. By utilizing the characteristics of young wolves — like softer hair, floppier ears, looser skin, smaller legs, more playful dispositions, etc. — remarkably different breeds of dogs have developed over incredibly short periods.

I am convinced that something very similar has been at work with humans. In this case, though, it isn’t dog breeders but differences in geography and population density that have played the key role. The Japanese, along with several other Asian races that share similar characteristics, have long been a rice-eating nation. This is relevant because intense cultivation of rice is capable of supporting a much denser population than wheat cultivation or pastoralism. In other words, the Japanese have for thousands of years lived with far higher population density than the peoples of Africa, Europe or the Middle East.

In the animal world, aggression rises in direct proportion to how crowded a species is. This applies especially to adult males. However, among mammals, it is common for juvenile males to live together in relative peace and harmony until they reach maturity. It seems probable that, as rice-eating peoples started to live at unprecedented population densities, they started to increasingly take advantage of the juvenile characteristics of appearance and behavior offered by neoteny as a means of defusing the rising tensions and aggression inherent in the new situation. The fact that Japan became an overcrowded island meant that this process was not only intensified, but also that its neotenized population was sheltered from less neotenized populations from outside the rice-growing areas, developing into perhaps the most neotenized race on Earth.

Since developing this idea, I’ve been applying it left, right and center to explain everything I see around me in this unique society. And, I can tell you, it’s all starting to make sense now—especially that comment by General MacArthur.

Tokyo Classified
November 18, 2005

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Pearl Harbor: How Japan Saved the World for Democracy

December 2001 marks the 60th anniversary of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Once again we have the opportunity to either look back in anger or, now that the embers of history have grown cold, to rake through them and ask what was the real significance of that fateful day.

It is often said that history is written by the winners. Although every nation committed horrendous atrocities in World War II, Japan is still cast as one of the pure villains. But, considering that many historians now believe the Japanese were unwitting dupes in one of the most complicated games of propaganda, espionage and diplomacy ever played out across the world stage, isn’t it time to revise the Hollywood version of history and admit the existence of gray areas, especially as the Americans would have been unable to play their full part in the defeat of Nazism without the cooperation of Japan?

The well-planned and devastating strike that crippled America's Pacific battle fleet and killed 2,403 Americans, was the decisive act of the war, but not in the way the Japanese intended. Although it gave the Japanese navy control of the Pacific for six vital months, enabling the Imperial army to conquer a vast area and establish a formidable defensive perimeter, it did little to aid Japan's allies, Germany and Italy. The main effect of launching a surprise attack on American soil was simply to resolve the disagreements inherent in any democratic system, divisions that in America's case threatened to prevent its participation in the war until it was too late.

Anyone who believes that Pearl Harbor was incidental to the war should ask two key questions:
(1) Did America's entry into the war make a decisive difference?
(2) Could America have entered the war in time to make a decisive difference if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor?
The answers are 'yes' and 'probably not.'

THE WOLVES AT THE DOOR

At the start of December 1941 the two powers actively opposing Nazism, the British Empire and the Soviet Union were both close to collapse. Britain, after consecutive defeats was reduced to military impotence and was so threatened with starvation by Germany's U-boat campaign that even a form of cannibalism was being advocated in government circles: In 1941 nutritional scientist Dr. Magnus Pyke submitted a proposal for making black pudding from discarded blood plasma to help boost protein levels, a suggestion that was thankfully vetoed by the British PM, Winston Churchill, who was interested in blood – along with sweat and tears - purely in a rhetorical sense.

Russia was in even worse straits. Since the German invasion of June that year, they had lost 2.5 million of their original 4-million-man army; while, of an original 15,000 planes in their air force, only 700 remained. Both the capital city, Moscow, and Leningrad, home of the 1917 revolution, seemed on the verge of falling. The Soviet government had already fled to Kuibyshev, some 500 miles to the East.

The only thing that could prevent the defeat of these powers was the entry of America into the war. Many Americans, including President Roosevelt, were sympathetic, but, ominously for democracy's prospects, many more Americans wanted nothing to do with a European war. Americans viewed the pacts and alliances of European politics with deep distaste, and feared the high financial cost of entangling alliances and a large military. Many were also convinced that the country had been maneuvered into World War One to support the interests of profiteering bankers and munitions makers. This feeling was recognized in the Neutrality Act of 1935, which explicitly banned loans and the export of war implements to belligerents.

Also, despite general sympathy for Britain and its short-lived French ally, a sizable minority of Americans were sympathetic to the Axis powers, including tens of millions of Americans of German, Italian and Irish descent. When Roosevelt strongly criticized Mussolini for his stab in the back attack on a defeated France in June 1940, it lost him the votes of many Italian Americans at the polls later that year.

KEEPING THE GIANT SLEEPING

These antiwar sentiments, mobilized in groups like America First, led by the famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh, were strongly represented in Congress, which stubbornly maintained America's neutrality. As world-shaping events unfolded, Roosevelt, who fervently believed in fighting side-by-side with Britain, was forced to sit on his hands. Any concessions he wrung from Congress to provide material support for the Allies, such as Lend-Lease were paid for by increasingly explicit pledges to "keep American boys out of the war."

Interestingly, US isolationism was directed more towards Europe than Asia. Here, the US traditionally took a more active role. Despite fears of greater vulnerability to attack, the main base of the Pacific fleet had been moved to Hawaii, while a large US military presence was maintained as far forward as the Philippines. Following Japan's invasion of China in 1937, the US provided extensive military aid, including advisors and volunteers to assist Nationalist China. Also, with the occupation of France and Holland, the US extended its protection to their Asian colonies, secretly collaborating with the British and the Dutch in a common defense plan against possible Japanese action. In negotiations with Japan, the USA, while it exercised hegemony over the entire New World under the Monroe Doctrine, attempted to deny Japan any rights or influence outside its own borders.

Although the Roosevelt administration saw Germany as the main threat to democracy, it took more active steps against Japan. With far fewer Japanese Americans than Italian or German Americans, an aggressive approach towards Japan was more politically acceptable. Also racist attitudes led the US government and military to underestimate the ability of the Japanese military.

After the fall of France in 1940, there was a widespread fear that Hitler would soon be reaching across the Atlantic. Despite this, an opinion poll in July found that only 15% of Americans were prepared to go to war. With isolationist sentiment still strong, the key to winning the war for the Axis powers was to resist any provocation offered by President Roosevelt that might escalate into a full war. In Japan, the Prime Minister, Prince Fumimaro Konoe was well aware of this danger and was prepared to make important concessions to appease the USA, including withdrawing Japanese troops from China.

Hitler knew that America's entry into World War One in 1917 had shifted the balance of power decisively against Germany. To avoid a repeat of this, he was prepared to tolerate a great deal of provocation: By 1941 America had frozen German assets; given 50 destroyers to aid Britain's wartime effort; and supplied the British with easy credit and vital war materials under the Lend/Lease agreement. Also, using the extremely elastic concept of America's defensive waters, FDR had extended American naval patrols far out into the Atlantic with a policy to shoot-on-sight, resulting in unprovoked depth-charging of German U-boats. All this, it should be remembered, was from a country that was officially at peace with Germany. Despite this, Hitler ordered his U-boats to only fire if fired upon.

It is often assumed that Japan had to take the gamble of attacking Pearl Harbor if it was to preserve its ascendancy in Asia, but there were other options available. Japan could have avoided Americas oil embargo by not occupying French Indo-China, and even if it had, there were other sources of fuel. When Japanese-American negotiations reached the danger point, President Suzuki of the Japanese Planning Board reported that petroleum was the only item which posed a serious problem and that even here, major investment in the synthetic oil industry, would produce more than could be obtained from the Dutch East Indies under wartime conditions.

Japan's best chance of success lay in the general victory of the Axis powers. This was something understood by Konoe's foreign minister Yosuke Matsuoka. Although a hawk who wouldn't flinch from war with the United States, Matsuoka strongly advocated turning Japan’s military might against the weakening Soviet Union, a move which Konoe rejected because he felt it might upset the Americans.

THE SORGE SPY RING

If the Japanese had decided to attack the Soviet Far East instead of Pearl Harbor, not only would the details of the war have been altered but also its final outcome. Although the vital regions of Russia were located thousands of miles to the West, a Japanese attack or even a threat of one at this crucial moment would have sapped the Soviets of the strength they needed to survive. Luckily for the Soviets, they had established an effective spy ring in Japan that gave them vital intelligence.

This was led by Dr. Richard Sorge, the son of a German father and a Russian mother, who used his cover as a journalist for the Frankfurter Zeitung, to gather information both from Germans and Japanese. A dedicated Communist since his time in the German army in World War One, Sorge had been operating in Japan since 1933. In early May 1941, he warned Moscow of the coming German blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union. Stalin, relying on his political instincts, ignored this information with the result that the Soviet army was taken by surprise and nearly annihilated, but after this debacle the Kremlin started to take their man in Tokyo much more seriously.

Although he had several sources of information, Sorges most important one was undoubtedly Hotsumi Ozaki, a correspondent for the Asahi Shimbun and a secret Communist sympathizer, whom Sorge had met in China. As a recognized authority on China, Ozaki was employed as a government advisor. More importantly, he was also a member of Japan's equivalent of the Old Boy network, with many of his associates active in the highest circles of power.

It was through Ozaki that Sorge was in a position to assure Moscow by early September that, barring a total collapse on the Russian front or a complete withdrawal of Soviet forces from Siberia, there would be no Japanese attack on the Soviet Far East that year. This news came just in time for the Soviets to switch 11 rifle divisions to the West, a move which military analysts believe saved Moscow from falling into German hands.

RAISING THE STAKES

Sorge's spy ring also gave the Soviets an inside view of the internal power struggles in the Japanese government between those, like Konoe, who wished to compromise and negotiate, and hardliners like the War Minister Tojo, who believed that America was essentially insincere in its claim to be seeking a peaceful solution. Frustrated by America's unbending attitude and foreseeing a future conflict, the Japanese occupied French Indo-China in July, 1941, to use as a base against China, and as a stepping stone to the oil producing Dutch East Indies.

America responded by freezing Japanese assets and imposing an oil embargo. This strong stance did nothing to help the moderates in the Japanese government. In early October, PM Konoe was still suggesting that confrontation with America could be averted by withdrawing troops from China. Tojo opposed him, insisting that such a move would destroy the army's morale. The result of this argument was the resignation of Konoe and the appointment of Tojo as his successor.

Informed of matters by Ozaki, Sorge was able to tell Moscow well in advance that the Japanese would strike at the Americans probably in November. With a high degree of certainty that the Japanese army would be fully committed elsewhere, the Soviets now transferred further divisions from the East to the West to launch their winter offensive. It is no coincidence that at exactly the same moment the Japanese army struck South at the Philippines and South East Asia, the Siberian divisions of the Red Army were striking West, pushing the German panzer divisions back from the gates of Moscow.

Although some of the wilder allegations about Roosevelt having precise foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack are rightly dismissed as ridiculous, it seems clear from the general pattern of his administration's actions that FDR had decided to provoke Japan as an adjunct of his policy towards Germany.

One danger this raised, however, was the possibility of war breaking out in the Pacific, while the USA remained at peace with Germany. Although they were allies, Germany had no real obligation to assist Japan in the event of a war with America. After all Japan hadn't joined Germany's attack on Russia. To prevent this danger, Roosevelt had adopted a much more aggressive Atlantic policy towards Germany. The Germans steadfastly refused to take Roosevelt's bait, but with a high state of tension between the two countries, there was a good chance that war with Japan would lead automatically to war with Germany. Japan now became the back door to the international war that Roosevelt so keenly desired and the new Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo was the perfect fall guy.

THE GAME ENDS

With close ties to the Imperial army in China, Tojo was much less willing to consider withdrawing from China or even slowing down the war there. Blindly ignorant of the important role that public opinion played in American politics, Tojo's government decided to snap at the bait of the American Pacific fleet lying at its moorings.

Roosevelt had always justified his caution in not bringing America into the war sooner on the grounds that he dared not get too far ahead of public opinion. When the first wave of 214 Japanese aircraft struck at 7:50 a.m. on the morning of the 7th of December, 1941, President and public were finally united in the same opinion: a great crusade would have to be fought. Given the strict legalism of American foreign policy, the question of whether the crusade would also include Germany continued to hang in the balance for a few days until Hitler, impatient of the game in the North Atlantic and confident of crushing the Russians before America could make a difference, declared war on Dec. 11, giving Roosevelt the war he had always wanted.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was the first large scale, long distance attack by carrier planes in history. It was a military achievement of such rare distinction, that until it happened almost any other course of action seemed more probable. Studying this particular event, it is possible to feel that we are now living in a parallel universe where the least likely course of events prevailed. If instead of taking a long shot with Pearl Harbor, Japan had pitched in to help its German ally in its war against the beleagured Soviet Union, or just waited for America to strike the first blow, American intervention in World War II would probably have been delayed until it was too late, with the result that we would be living in a world dominated by the ideals of Nazism.

This December 7th freedom-loving people everywhere should join together to thank those brave Japanese pilots who knew not what they did, but in doing it helped save the world for democracy.

Tokyo Journal
December 2001

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