川端龍子

Born on June 6, 1885, in Wakayama city. Real name Shōtarō. He attended the Uchimachi-higashi Elementary School (present-day Wakayama City Municipal Honmachi Elementary School). His birth family had a kimono business, Tawaraya, in Honmachi, but the business failed and his father closed the shop. Around the age of 10, Ryūshi, his mother, younger sister, and father moved to Tokyo. However, his father already had a household setup in Tokyo, and Ryūshi moved in with that family. Nobukazu, his younger brother by the woman of that household, was born in 1897. Nobukazu was later active as a haiku poet named Kawabata Bōsha. Ryūshi graduated from Jōtō Elementary School in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, and entered the Tokyo Furitsu Daiichi Chūgakkō Bunkō (later independent as the Furitsu Daisan Chūgakkō, present-day Tokyo Metropolitan Ryōgoku High School). In 1903 his work was selected for the Meiji Sanjūnen Gashi (A History of Painting in the 30 Years of the Meiji Era), a public submission exhibition organized to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, and he decided at that time to become a Western-style painter. He quit middle school and in 1904 at the age of 19 he moved out of his father’s home where he had been living and into a maternal relative’s house in Ōmori, Tokyo. He studied Western-style painting at the Hakubakai Yōga Kenkyūjo (Hakubakai Institute of Western-style Painting), but he quit that school after about two years and moved to the Taiheiyō Gakai Kenkyūjo (Pacific Art Society Institute). There he befriended a fellow student, Tsuruta Gorō, and about three months later quit that institute, too. He announced, “I hereby announce that my own formal study period at the Pacific Art Society Institute has ended,” (note 1) and thus began his own artistic production through independent study. Then at the age of 21 he married and supported himself primarily by creating illustrations for “Tokyo Puck”, led by Kitazawa Rakuten, and other publications. He also continued producing oil paintings, and in 1907 his works were accepted for display in the Tokyo Kangyō Hakurankai (Tokyo Industrial Exposition) and the First Bunten (Ministry of Education Exhibition), as well as the Second Bunten exhibition the following year. Also in 1907 he wrote a letter recommending himself to the Kokumin Shimbun newspaper and was hired to work in the editorial department. The painter Hirafuku Hyakusui worked at the desk next to Ryūshi at that company and they both received training in haiku from Takahama Kyoshi, a poet in the company’s newly formed literary arts department. The following year, 1908, Ryūshi began producing illustrations for the inaugural and later issues of “Shōjo no Tomo” (Girls’ Friend), Jitsugyō no Nihon Sha’s newly established magazine. He adopted his Ryūshi name around this time. When asked why that name, he wrote that his father’s deep dissatisfaction with him led him to think “I am a dragon’s castoff child” and so he selected Ryūshi, literally a dragon’s child, “as the family register name for the art I myself have created.” (note 2) In 1913 Ryūshi’s trip to America for study at the age of 28 provided a turning point in his life. Even though he saw famous European paintings in America, he was most impressed by the Asian art collection he saw when he visited the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He was endlessly fascinated by the Kamakura period work, “Heiji monogatari emaki” (Night Attack on the Sanjō Palace, from the Illustrated Scrolls of the Events of the Heiji Era) among the works on display. Returning to Japan after about a six-month stay in the USA, Ryūshi shifted away from Yōga (Western-style painting) towards Nihonga (Japanese-style painting). The year after he returned to Japan, 1914, he had his first Nihonga work accepted by the Tokyo Taishō Exposition, and this marked the birth of the Nihonga painter Kawabata Ryūshi at the age of 29. That same year Yokoyama Taikan reorganized the Nihon Bijutsuin (Japan Art Institute), and Ryūshi entered his “Rail Crossing” (on deposit at the Ota City Ryūshi Memorial Museum, Tokyo), but unfortunately it was rejected by the judges. His first acceptance came the following year when his “Kitsune no Michi/Komichi” (Fox Path; destroyed) was accepted for the Second Reorganized Inten Exhibition. He entered his “Reisen Yurai” (Source of the Sacred Spring; Eisei Bunko Museum, Tokyo) in the 1916 Third Reorganized Inten exhibition, where it was awarded a Chōgyū Prize and he was nominated a friend of the institute. The acceptance of his work submitted to the Fourth Reorganized Inten Exhibition the following year led to his nomination as a member of the institute. Thus he gained a major stage for the display of his paintings just three years after he began painting Nihonga. In the Nihon Bijutsuin Ryūshi created works on traditional or mythological themes and a strongly Western painting-style, such as “Reisen Yurai” mentioned above, while also displaying works that are a paean to nature, such as “Divine Light of Love: Morning, Evening” (1918, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) and “Mother Earth” (1919, Ota City Ryūshi Memorial Museum). In 1920 he built his own home and painting studio that he named Gogyōsō 御形荘 in the Araijuku neighborhood of Ōmori (present-day Minami-magome, Ota-ku, Tokyo). The first work that he painted in his new studio, “Red Fudo, God of Fire (Yamato Takeru no Mikoto)” (1921, Ota City Ryūshi Memorial Museum) showed Ryūshi breaking new ground in his paintings. The massive scale and vivid palette of this work led some to criticize it as “art for exhibition halls”. In response, Ryūshi stated, “Art in exhibitions provides a way to link with the greater masses, and in that sense, exhibition art is a good thing.” (note 3) From 1926 to 1928 Ryūshi made good on his exhibition art comment by creating a large-scale three-part series “The Ascetic Way Triptych” depicting the legend of the Shugendō patriarch En no Ozunu, presenting one panel of the series in the Inten exhibition each of those three years. While the third work which can be seen as the conclusion of the series, “Great Godly Bodhisattva” (Ota City Ryūshi Memorial Museum), was on display in the 1928 Fifteenth Reorganized Inten exhibition, Ryūshi suddenly resigned from the Nihon Bijutsuin. He said that while Taikan had expressed great faith in him, he had determined that he must set out on his own to pursue his own art. In 1929, the year after quitting the Inten, Ryūshi at the age of 44 formed his own art group, the Seiryūsha (Blue Dragon Society). The group consisted of about a dozen members, and his display of works such as “Naruto” (Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo) at the First Seiryūsha exhibition (Seiryūten) garnered much attention. Then with the banner cry of “An advance army heading towards a strong and sturdy art in contrast to most of today’s overly refined and intricate styles,” (note 4) Ryūshi set out to create exhibition art. As the militaristic mood deepened in Japan in the 1930s, Ryūshi produced several series of works on an unprecedented scale that reflected the spirit of the time. He presented one each year in the Seiryūsha exhibitions, with the following works all in the Ota Ryūshi Memorial Museum: “Taiheiyō” (Pacific Ocean), “Tatsumaki” (Giant Waterspout) (1933), “Wave-Riding Fudo, God of Fire” (1934), “Bonfire of Palm Leaves” (1935), “Kaiyō wo Seisuru Mono” (Conquerors of the Sea) (1936), “Tairikusaku” (Strategies for Mainland China) and “Chōyōrai” (The Sun Comes Up) (1937), “Minamoto Yoshitsune” (Genghis Khan) (1938), “Hsianglufeng Mountains” (1939), and “Gods of Cloud Picking Flowers” (1940). Each was enthusiastically received by masses. All while his concentrated power as the leader of a non-governmental exhibition group grew, he was appointed a member of the official Teikoku Bijutsuin (Imperial Fine Arts Academy) upon its reorganization in 1935. Then his outsider spirit shone through again when he tendered his resignation from the group upon its subsequent reorganization the following year. He was also dispatched to the Chinese continent four times as a military painter from 1937 through 1940. After World War II began, he was sent to the southern front in 1942. Just before the war ended, on August 13, 1945, his house in Ōmori was destroyed in firebombing raids. One of Ryūshi’s major works depicts the scene at the time, “Bomb Exploding” (1945, Ota City Ryūshi Memorial Museum). Ryūshi led one of the first art groups to hold an exhibition after the war ended, opening the Seiryūsha exhibition in October 1945. He then started a period of feverish work with the aim of helping Japan in its postwar recovery. He painted dragon ceiling paintings for Buddhist temples, in 1949 at Meguro Fudōson (Ryūsen ji, Meguro, Tokyo), in 1952 at Shuzenji (Izu city, Shizuoka), and in 1956 at Sensōji (Taitō-ku, Tokyo). As before the war, in the postwar era Ryūshi also preferred creating works on timely themes, producing a succession of large-format works such as “Kinkakuji on Fire” (1950, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo). Both his wife and third son had died during the war, and so he set off on Buddhist pilgrimages, such as the Shikoku pilgrimage and the Saikoku pilgrimage, creating landscape pictures enroute. It is also noteworthy that he began to paint humorous pictures of “kappa” (water imps) in mature, mellow brushwork. From 1952 to 1957 his works were displayed in a series of “Three Great Masters” exhibitions alongside those by Yokoyama Taikan and Kawai Gyokudō (Kensodō 兼素洞, Tokyo), firmly cementing his position in Nihonga painting circles. He was awarded the Order of Culture in 1959, and in 1963, upon his own initiative and design, opened the Ryūshi Memorial Museum in front of his home in Ōmori. Management of this museum was transferred to Ota ward in 1991, which operates it today as the Ota City Ryūshi Memorial Museum. In 1966 he fell ill while painting the dragon ceiling painting at Ikegami Honmonji (Ota-ku, Tokyo), and died on April 10, 1966, at the age of 80. The following year the Seiryūsha was disbanded in line with his wishes. Upon his death Ryūshi’s accomplishments in modern Japanese art were praised as, “opening a third path in Nihonga circles,” (note 5) one that was neither Inten nor Bunten. He continued to challenge himself to create large-format works until he was forced to put down his brush. His unfinished ceiling painting at Ikegami-Honmonji remains as his final work. (Kimura Takuya / Translated by Martha J. McClintock) (Published online: 2024-03-06) Notes 1. Kawabata Ryūshi. “Waga Gaseikatsu” (My Life as a Painter), 29. Tokyo: Dainihon Yūbenkai Kōdansha, 1951. 2. Ibid., 72. 3. Ibid., 122. 4. Kawabata Ryūshi. ‘A March’, in “Seiryūsha Dai 1-kai Tenrankai Mokuroku”. (Exh. cat.). Tokyo City: Seiryūsha, 1929. 5. Kawakita Michiaki. “Gadan no Nichōrō o Itamu. Sandai ni Ōkina Sokuseki”. Yomiuri Shimbun, April 11, 1966.