荻原守衛

Born the fifth son of a farm family in Yabara, Higashi Hotaka-mura, Minami Azumi-gun (present-day Hotaka, Azumino city, Nagano prefecture). His real name was Moriye. Judging from his own signatures in Romanized letters, his family name was pronounced Ogihara. His “gō” (art name) Rokuzan, which he began to use around the summer of 1907, is based on a figure named Rokusan 碌さん who appears in Natsume Sōseki’s “Nihyakutōka” (The 210th Day) (Chūō Kōron, October 1906), which Moriye enjoyed reading during his second period of study in Paris. The reading of his “gō” can also be confirmed as Rokuzan, based on Moriye’s own written alphabet version. Moriye was an excellent student in higher elementary school, particularly in the subjects of drawing, mathematics, writing, and calisthenics. He helped with the family business after graduation. In 1894 he entered the Higashi Hotaka Temperance Society 東穂高禁酒会 and honed his social stance. A heart condition struck in 1896, and because the resulting invalid lifestyle prevented him from helping with the hard labor of farm work, he spent his time pursuing his love of drawing. On October 20, 1899 he moved to Tokyo where he lived in a corner of Meiji Girl’s School. Thanks to efforts by the head of that school, Iwamoto Yoshiharu, he entered the Fudōsha painting school run by Koyama Shōtarō. Then less than two years after arriving in Tokyo, and even though his friends said he was not ready, he decided he wanted to go to the United States. His family agreed, and on March 13, 1901 he set sail from Yokohama harbor for North America. His brother and grandmother provided the funds for his overseas study. While overseas he imposed on his family several more times, and even though they did not respond to every request, his brothers somehow agreed to their younger brother’s pleas and sent him money. Thus it can be said that without the understanding and backing of his family the sculptor Ogihara Moriye would never have been born. His first six months in New York was a time of continuous suffering. His health failed, he looked for work but his inadequate English skills meant he did not last long in a job, and at one point he thought he would die. Then he had the good fortune to become a student worker in the home of the wealthy Fairchild family. They let him study at art school while working for them. He attended the Art Students League of New York during that period, where he studied plaster cast drawing. He then went to the Chase School where he is said to have studied expressionist painting under the direction of the painter Robert Henri. In October 1903 Ogihara set off for his desired destination, Paris. He studied painting at the Académie Colarossi, Académie de la Grande Chaumiere, and then the Académie Julian. His transfer to the Académie Julian was thanks to Nakamura Fusetsu, who had preceded him at Fudōsha and who he got to know in Paris. At the Julian he was taught by the painter Jean-Paul Laurens and he worked from dawn to dusk sketching one arm . Just as he was heading back to the United States to raise funds for further study, he encountered Rodin’s “The Thinker” and decided to change course, become a sculptor. After returning to the United States he is said to have worked hard, studying art anatomy in order to understand human anatomy. Then back in France again, he entered the sculpture department at the Académie Julian and kept studying. In 1907 he visited Rodin at least four times, and sometimes also received his direct instruction. His works from around this time include “Miner” and “Torso of a Woman” (both 1907, bronze, Rokuzan Art Museum, et al.). “Miner” shows his understanding of mass, planes, and movement in sculpture, while the flowing sensibility of the clay handling seen in “Torso of a Woman” was probably inspired by Rodin’s works. Ogihara came to finally realize that the West was not the only true place of art and decided that he would like to study Japanese art. So on December 17, 1907 he set off for Japan. Enroute he viewed numerous masterpieces in Italy, Greece, and Egypt, arriving in Japan on March 13, 1908. After returning to Japan, his second eldest brother Ogihara Honjū prepared a studio for him in the Shinjuku Tsunohazu district of Tokyo. He named the studio Oblivion-an, taking the English term Oblivion from Byron’s dramatic poem “Manfred.” His first work created after his return to Japan, “Priest Mongaku” (1908, bronze, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, et al.), was inspired by having seen the “Self-Portrait” attributed to Mongaku at Jōjuin, Kamakura. He started making a full-length figure on the theme of “struggle,” but the work was completed as a half-length figure. Mongaku was a priest who lived in the Heian and Kamakura periods. He could not shed his worldly desires even after entering the Buddhist priesthood, so Ogihara conflated his own struggles at the time with Mongaku’s suffering form. Ogihara’s own struggles centered on his unrequited feelings for Ryō (gō, Kokkō), the wife of Sōma Aizō, an older neighbor in his home town. This sculpture received a Third Prize at the Second Bunten exhibition (Ministry of Education Fine Arts Exhibition). “Miner,” which he also submitted to that exhibition but was rejected, is today highly regarded as a forerunner to Japanese modern sculpture. Ogihara’s unrequited feelings for Sōma Ryō can also be seen in his “Despair” (1909, bronze, Rokuzan Art Museum) which was never quite finished. Seemingly he was able to overcome those feelings and went on to complete his portrait masterpiece in 1909, “Portrait of Mr. Hōjō Torakichi” (1909, bronze, Tokyo National Museum, et al.). This work received a Third Prize at the Third Bunten exhibition. The plaster model for the work (1909, Rokuzan Art Museum) was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1968. Ogihara’s final work, “Woman” (1910, bronze, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, et al.), was posthumously entered in the Fourth Bunten exhibition where it received a Third Prize and was purchased by the Ministry of Education. The plaster model for that work (1910, Tokyo National Museum) was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1967, the first such honor for a Meiji or later period sculpture. The work’s composition created from the combination of the clay’s sense of flowing movement and the surface plane developed in the wax form brings a sense of dynamism to the work. “Woman,” kneeling on the ground and looking up at the sky while gently turning her body to the right, is shown in a pose filled with sadness. Extant comments from its model, Okada Midori, speak of what a hard pose it was to hold, one she could not long endure. With both arms extended back, as if her hands were held there, the pose can be seen as awkwardly uncomfortable. But somehow her facial expression is gentle. That suggests that this work can be interpreted as someone who, even though suffering in a place not of her choosing, takes the psychological stance of holding on, not forgetting her ideals. If we focus on the fact that the face of “Woman” is not that of its model Okada Midori, but actually resembles that of Sōma Ryō, then it can be said that Ryō was the motif of this work. The psychological aspect of “Woman”’s figure can probably be conflated with Ryō’s form, overcoming the hardships caused by poverty and bad luck. The work can also be interpreted as a symbol of the “new woman” movement of the period, a women’s liberation movement that sought free ways of living for women that resisted old customs. In addition, depending on how Ogihara suffered because of his feelings for Ryō, his “Woman” can be seen as him having overcome the “suffering” seen in his “Priest Mongaku,” and the “despair” in the work of that title. Thus “Woman” is truly a work that offers multiple meanings. “Woman” can be considered the work that best expressed both formally and internally the lessons that Ogihara learned from Rodin regarding the expression of vitality in art. Thus said, however, the still, restrained expression of “Woman” differs from that of Rodin, and can be seen as indicating his aim to move in that direction. After his return to Japan Ogihara espoused the belief that a sense of vitality was preeminent in art, and thus called such art, “vitality art.” He shared this artistic view with his friends and fellow sculptors Takamura Kōtarō and Tohari Kogan, and it was then continued by the next generation, sculptor Nakahara Teijirō and painter Nakamura Tsune. They admired Ogihara and focused on him, they gathered in Nakamuraya, a bakery opened by Sōma Aizō and Ryō. This led to their moniker the Nakamuraya Group. In addition to the fact that all of them died young — Ogihara on April 22, 1910, Nakahara in 1921, Nakamura in 1924, and Tohari in 1927 — that period’s rising expressionist trend in art meant that their spark did not last long. Soon after his death, Ogihara’s works were moved to a building on the grounds of the Shinjuku Nakamuraya that was opened as the Rokuzankan. Then from 1917 onwards they were moved to and publicly displayed at the Rokuzankan in his birth family home. This meant that the majority of his works and materials were not scattered, and they were then inherited by the Rokuzan Art Museum which opened in 1958. (Takei Satoshi / Translated by Martha J. McClintock) (Published online: 2024-03-06)