恩地孝四郎

Born in Yodobashi-machi, Minamitoshima-gun, Tokyo (the present Shinjuku-ku) on July 2, 1891 (Meiji 24). His father, Wadachi, was a public prosecutor at Tokyo District Court at the time, and later served as steward to Kitashirakawanomiya and his family and on the Board of the Ceremonies at the Imperial Household Ministry. He also assumed the heavy responsibility of taking care of Higashikuninomiya Naruhikoō as a child at the Onchi family’s home and educating the young prince. Consequently, Kōshirō was brought up in a rigorous environment different from ordinary families. In 1904, he entered Doitsugaku Kyōkai Gakkō Chūgaku (German Association School Junior High School), a junior high school run by the Verein für deutsche Wissenschaften, after which he was supposed to go on to Dai-ichi Kōtō Gakkō (the First Higher School) and become a medical doctor. However, he failed the exam in 1909 and was obliged to make a radical change of course. It was in 1909 that Onchi met Takehisa Yumeji, who was to lead him toward his career as an artist and book designer. Their friendship began when Onchi wrote his impression of having read “Yumeji gashū, haru no maki (A collection of paintings by Yumeji: Spring)” (Rakuyōdō, 1909) and handed it to Yumeji. Thereafter, Onchi was influenced considerably by Yumeji. In 1910, aspiring to become an artist, Onchi entered the preparatory Western-style painting course at Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkō (Tokyo Fine Arts School). He later reentered the Sculpture Department and the Western-style Painting Department, but left the School without graduating in 1915. However, during that time, he contributed illustrations to Yumeji’s “Tokai sukecchi (Urban sketches)” (Rakuyōdō, 1911) and tanka and poems to literary magazines. Thus, Onchi’s creative work spread from painting to literature too. Thereafter, until his later years, Onchi’s creative activities developed in both fine art and literature. More or less at the same time as producing paintings, Onchi also began designing books, and established friendships extensively with writers and musicians such as Mushanokōji Saneatsu, Kitahara Hakushū, Miki Rofū, Murō Saisei, Hagiwara Sakutarō, and Yamada Kōsaku. Throughout his lifetime, Onchi created more than six hundred kinds of designs including those for books and musical scores by his above-mentioned friends. His aesthetics of book design are expressed in “Hon no bijutsu (The art of the book)” (Seibundō Shinkōsha, 1952). While Onchi was studying at Tokyo Fine Arts School, he met fellow students Tanaka Kyōkichi and Fujimori Shizuo and began producing woodcuts from 1914. The early 1910s was a period during which respect for the artist’s individuality was called for, and “sōsaku-hanga” (creative prints) based on a “self-drawn, self-carved, and self-printed” policy, too, emerged as a new art representing the artist’s individuality. Onchi, Tanaka, and Fujimori devoted themselves to “sōsaku-hanga,” and published “Tsukuhaé” (Reflections of the moon), a coterie magazine of poems and prints from Rakuyōdō (nos. 1–7, 1914–1915, The Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama, et al.). The series of woodcuts entitled “Lyric,” which Onchi presented in that magazine, contained nonfigurative works expressing the inner emotions of a human being employing colors and forms with plenty of poetical sentiment. A representative example would be “Lyric: The Clear Hours” (1915). Through this series, Onchi became known as a pioneering artist who presented abstract works in the Japanese art world ahead of the times and as a print artist who promoted the modern print movement. The woodcuts by Onchi dating from this period demonstrate marked influence of Edvard Munch, Odilon Redon, Aubrey Beardsley, and German Expressionism, particularly Wassily Kandinsky, which was introduced in “Der Sturm” (Hibiya Museum, Tokyo), an exhibition held in 1914. Meanwhile, from the 1910s to the early 1920s, alongside printmaking, Onchi also undertook oil painting. He produced several oil paintings including “Self-Portrait” (1915–1919, Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art) and “Still Life” (1915–1919, Koriyama City Museum of Art), which were presented at the 6th Nika Art Exhibition (1919) and a solo exhibition (1920, Kabutoya Gadō, Kanda, Tokyo), and was regarded as an up-and-coming painter. However, he ceased presenting oil paintings from the latter half of the 1920s and chose prints as the genre he would work on throughout his lifetime. He presented his works mainly at Nihon Sōsaku-hanga Kyōkai (The Japan Creative Print Art Association) formed in 1918 (Nihon Hanga Kyōkai [The Japan Print Association] from 1931), Kokugakai, and Shinkō Bijutsuka Kyōkai, and also submitted his works to the Teiten (Imperial Fine Arts Academy Exhibition), which began accepting “sōsaku-hanga” from 1927. On the other hand, he also continued contributing prints to print coterie magazines such as “Shi to hanga” and “Kaze” in an effort to enliven the print circles. As Onchi’s creative activities extended broadly to book design, illustration, photography, poetry, musical composition, and stage art, his attitude was basically cross-genre. Therefore, his illustrated books of poetry including prints were overflowing with an experimental spirit. Leading examples of his books of poems and prints are “Umi no dōwa” (Fairy tale of the sea) (Hangasō, 1934), “Hikō kannō” (Sensation of flight) (Hangasō, 1934), which also included photographs, and “Mushi, uo, kai” (Insects, fishes, shells) (Aoi Shobō, 1943). Onchi referred to them as “shuppan sōsaku” (creative publications). The characteristic of Onchi’s art which spanned approximately forty years from the mid-1910s to 1955 lies in the point that it was composed of multiple series. For example, from the latter half of the 1920s, after the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, to the 1930s, he produced the “Study of Human Body” series. In the mid-1920s, not only Futurism and Cubism but also information on Russian Constructivism reached Japan, and such trends were attentively perceived in that series. In the 1930s, he began working on a new series entitled “Ongaku sakuhin ni yoru jojō” (Lyric on musical composition), in which emotions aroused by contemporary pieces of music were expressed as a group of prints abstract in composition. As represented in “No. 1, Moroi Saburō, ‘Prelude’” (1930–1932, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) and “No. 4, Yamada Kōsaku, ‘Good Night’” (1933–1935, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art), making free use of the characteristic printmaking effect of overlapping one block on top of another, Onchi explored the interchange of music and fine art. Here, we can detect Onchi’s firm resolve in the 1930s, a decade referred to as “a blank period in abstract painting,” to advocate the significance of abstract painting and expand the field of artistic expression. Nevertheless, that is not to say that Onchi produced only abstract works until the wartime era. Look, for example, at “Among the Rocks” (1929, Chiba City Museum of Art), which was submitted to the 10th Teiten, “The Sea, Triptych” (1937, The Art Institute of Chicago), which was submitted to the 12th Kokugakai Exhibition, and “Futatsu no tsuisōzō (B) Hyōtō no chosha” (later renamed “Portrait of Hagiwara Sakutarō, Author of Hyōtō [lit. Ice Isle]”, 1943, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), which was submitted to the 18th Kokugakai Exhibition. In parallel with the abstract works created until World War II, Onchi also produced numerous figurative prints. Being in a leadership position within the print circles, in order to spread “sōsaku-hanga” and promote its status, Onchi undertook a broad array of prints including figurative works as rich in texture as oil paintings, popular works with subjects easily understandable by the general public, and semi-figurative works overflowing with poetic sentiment. During World War II, Onchi partook in wartime cooperation by serving as chairman of Nihon Hanga Hōkōkai (Japan Patriotic Assistance Association for Prints). On the other hand, he is also known to have hosted “Ichimokukai,” meetings to study printmaking, at his own house from 1941 and instructed the younger generation. It was from here that, after the war, young print artists such as Saitō Kiyoshi and Komai Tetsurō, who were to be recognized internationally, started out. After the war, having escaped war damage, Onchi’s house became the office for the Japan Print Association, and Onchi took charge of reconstructing and developing the postwar print world. By serving as a director of Nihon Bijutsuka Renmei (Japan Artists Association) and chairman of Kokusai Hanga Kyōkai (International Print Association), and forming Japan Abstract Art Club with Hasegawa Saburō and others and the Art Club with Okamoto Tarō and others, he bridged “sōsaku-hanga” and postwar contemporary art. Regarding Onchi’s postwar work, figurative prints more or less disappeared, and he produced a number of series exclusively employing abstract expressions. One after another new series such as “Lyric,” “Poem,” “Form,” and “Composition” emerged, and the total number of prints exceeded 180. He also produced multiblock prints, in which the block is not engraved, such as “Lyric No. 12: Uncertain Hope” (1951, The Honolulu Museum of Art) and “Impromptu No. 1 (2) Wet Pavement” (1949, Museum of Fine Arts Boston) and continued to pursue potentials of new expressions in printmaking. Such works close to monotype were collected by Americans who were stationed in Japan during the occupation period and taken back to the US. Consequently, many representative examples of Onchi’s postwar works are currently in the collections of American museums such as the Art Institute of Chicago and the Honolulu Museum of Art. Amid the surge of international appreciation of Japanese prints in the 1950s, leaving “Image No. 9: My Death Mask” (1954, private collection), Onchi died at his home in Suginami-ku, Tokyo on June 3, 1955 (Showa 30). In a memorial address, his lifelong friend Murō Saisei described Onchi as “an unfinished person,” which was a commendation with full knowledge of Onchi’s never-ending experimental mind and his lifelong pursuit of new ideas about printmaking. (Kuwahara Noriko / Translated by Ogawa Kikuko) (Published online: 2024-08-15)