新海竹太郎

Born on the fifth day of the second month of Keiō 4 (Gregorian calendar, February 27, 1868) in present-day central Yamagata city, Yamagata prefecture, the first son of the Buddhist sculptor Shinkai Sōmatsu 宗松 and Sada. Trained in the family’s Buddhist sculpture business, in his mid-teens he began studying under his father’s teacher, the Buddhist sculptor Hayashi Jirobei, in Ōe, Yamagata prefecture. His early period works handed down in private collections in Ōe-machi, Hōraiji in Yamagata city, Hōraiji in Yamagata city, and Shiota Gyōya in Shirataka-machi are all “regional” style sculptures that fully convey his technical prowess and the fact that his father was adept at carving tool sharpening. On the other hand, starting in 1883 (Meiji 16), he began studying at a Chinese studies school near his home run by father and son Hosoya Fūō and Beizan. There he studied, and developed a strong interest in, Chinese studies, calligraphy, and painting. He also decided he wanted to become a soldier. In 1886 (Meiji 19) he set out from home enroute to Tokyo where he hoped to take the officer’s examination and enter the Army. He failed that test but was then conscripted as a household cavalry battalion soldier in December 1888, after reaching the official enlistment age of 20. In 1891, one of his military superiors saw a wood carving of a horse that he had done to amuse himself and he was urged to become a sculptor. He was sent to the former military member and sculptor Gotō Sadayuki. In November of that year, after his demobilization at the end of his service period, he went to live in Gotō’s home and study sculpting. The following year he assisted Gotō with the creation of the wood model for the “Statue of Kusunoki Masashige” (1900, Kōkyo Gaien National Garden, Tokyo), then being produced at Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkō (Tokyo Fine Arts School, present-day Tokyo University of the Arts) by a group centered on Takamura Kōun. In 1893 he left his teacher’s home and established himself as an independent sculptor. The following year he entered his wood sculpture “Battle Horse” (whereabouts unknown), in the Ninth Sculpture Competition, where it was awarded a Bronze Plaque prize. He was sent to the front during the Sino-Japanese War and the occupation of Taiwan that followed. In 1896 (Meiji 29) after his return to Japan he was commissioned to produce the wood model for the bronze equestrian statue of Kita Shirakawa no-miya Yoshihisa Shinnō (Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa). In 1899 he completed that wood model. That bronze sculpture, which became his independent debut work, was installed and unveiled in 1903 in front of the Household Guard Infantry First and Second Regiment Barracks Gate. After World War II, it was moved to its current position in Kitanomaru Park, Tokyo. Around the time that he was producing that model, he formed a study group with other wood sculptors of the day, including Yamazaki Chōun and Yonehara Unkai. In 1898 he was named a full member of the Nihon Bijutsuin (Japan Art Institute) founded by Okakura Kakuzō (Tenshin). He studied drawing under Western-style painter Asai Chū and learned modeling techniques from the Western-style sculptor Ogura Sōjirō, thus broadening his expressive range. In 1900 he set off for Europe to see the Paris World Exposition. After spending a few months in Paris he studied in Berlin from that summer through November of the following year. He was taught by the major Academician of the region Ernst Helter. While fully studying clay modeling techniques, he also encountered the latest trends in European sculpture, including the works of Auguste Rodin, Alexandre Charpentier, Constantin Meunier, and Adolf von Hildebrand. After returning to Japan in January 1902 (Meiji 35), he spent the latter half of his 30s active as a young and spirited Western-style sculptor. He became a member of the Taiheiyō Gakai (Pacific Painting Association) — the group which had formed that same year as the successor to the Meiji Bijutsukai (Meiji Art Association) — and displayed a series of freshly conceived works in the group’s exhibitions. He taught sculpture in the group’s institute established in 1904, training Hori Shinji, Nakahara Teijirō, Tobari Kogan and other students. He frequently wrote articles on sculpture for magazines and newspapers. He strove to spread sculptural arts in Japan through the production of plaster sculptures of Western literary greats sold by Maruzen bookstore in 1903, while also lending his hand to design of furniture and book covers. In 1907 (Meiji 40) he entered a life-size female nude plaster sculpture “Bathing” (National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, designated an Important Cultural Property in 2000), in the First Ministry of Education Fine Arts Exhibition (Bunten). While based on classical Western sculptural expression, this work displayed on a special Art Nouveau-style pedestal accurately captured a Japanese female facial form and gesture and intentionally incorporated the artistic expression trends of a new age. (note 1) Shinkai went on to effectively use a variety of expressive techniques, from modeled clay to wood sculpture, created both in the round and in relief form. He made a range of works on themes old and new, from East and West, including “Primitive Man” 原人 (1909, not extant) on the subject of evolutionary theory; an image of a soldier with a missing leg, standing with the aid of crutches “Memorial Day of War Victory” (1912, The Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shōzōkan); a relief sculpture recounting the life of Sakyamuni “The Eight Phases of Sakyamuni” (1915, not extant), and a relief carving reminiscent of the Secessionist style “Dōjōji” (1922, not extant). “The Five Continents are included in the distance... of Japan’s new sculpture” and “It is good to do and look with all one’s might, not obsessed with past rules or definitions” (‘Nihon Chōkoku,’ “Tokyo Asahi Shimbun,” December 7, 1909), and “I interpret sculpture broadly. The world is broad and boundless ... to the degree possible, one must work as broadly and grandly.” (‘Chōso no Shinpo,’ “Yomiuri Shimbun,” October 15, 1911). These and other statements indicate his attitude and his pursuit of his own artistic form in this place called Japan today. In his group of molded plaster works that he displayed in 1912 (Meiji 45) as “Ukiyo Chōkoku,” Shinkai used themes from everyday life with the aim of making things that “would not evoke a ‘they look like copies of Rodin’ reaction” (‘New Experimental Works “Ukiyo Chōkoku”,’ “Shoga Kottō Zasshi” No. 47, April 1912). Of those works, his “The Escape of Chūbei and Umekawa” (1912, bronze version, Yamagata Art Museum) depicts a scene of travelers from Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s “Koi no Tayori Yamato Ōrai,” 恋飛脚大和往来 fully expressing the love of a man and woman who shelter under a single umbrella as they elope. This humanistic direction can also be seen in two works, namely his wood sculpture of the previous year depicting a couple struggling with a cart overloaded with straw, “Unison” (1911, The Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shōzōkan) and his late period wood sculpture “Song of the Bell” (1924, The Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shōzōkan), modeled after his casting master Abe who cast many of his sculptures. The latter work depicts a motif from a poem by the German poet Friedrich Schiller. During the Taishō period, Shinkai, along with Asakura Fumio and others, was one of the few sculptors who could make a living solely from their sculpture. This income allowed him to collect Chinese ceramics and many books on Western and Asian art. The main source of his income was portrait sculpture, including many monumental bronze masterpieces, such as his images of Marshal Ōyama Iwao (1918, Kudanzaka Park, Tokyo), the imperial family member Prince Arisugawa Takehito (1920, Tenkyōkaku, Fukushima), the politician Hirata Tōsuke (1921, Yonezawa city, Yamagata), and the English architect Josiah Conder (1922, on the grounds of University of Tokyo). (With the exception of the Josiah Conder work, all have been moved to their present location.) He created these large works, one after the other, all while being a central presence in the Taishō period sculpture realm, as seen in his serving on the judging committee for each Bunten exhibition, his appointment as an Imperial Artist in 1917 (Taishō 6), and his nomination as a Teikoku Bijutsuin (Imperial Fine Arts Academy) member in 1919. Despite this success and recognition, he had no direct connection with the Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkō which produced most of the sculptors of the time, and he remained in an outsider position in sculptural circles, even as he trained such promising students as Hori Shinji, Kunikata Rinzō, Asakawa Noritaka, and his nephew Shinkai Takezō. His professional friendships and interactions, more so than with other artists, developed with specialists in other fields, such as art historians Hirako Takurei and Nakagawa Tadayori, literary figure Uchida Roan, aesthetics philosopher Ōtsuka Yasuji, religious studies scholar Takashima Beihō, architect Itō Chūta, and ceramics scholar Okuda Seiichi. These interactions also greatly influenced his works. He taught modeling in the Architecture Department at Tokyo Imperial University, and advised the students who formed the Bunriha Kenchiku Kai (Secessionist Architectural Group) in 1920. On March 12, 1927 (Shōwa 2), Shinkai died from an illness in Tokyo. After his death a collected works “Kochiku Iin” (Tokyo: Ōtsuka Kōgeisha) was published, and a bust portrait by Shinkai Takezō was erected in the center of his hometown, Yamagata city (in the grounds of Utakake Inari Shrine). In 1934 the Teikoku Bijutsuin commissioned Takezō to write a biography of Taketarō as one element of their history of the art of the Meiji and Taishō periods. He completed the commission after gathering detailed information from the deceased’s friends and acquaintances. That manuscript remained unpublished for many years, but it was preserved in the Tokyo National Research Institute of Cultural Properties (present-day Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties), the postwar successor to the Teikoku Bijutsuin’s art research institute. There it was discovered in 1974 by Institute staff member Nakamura Denzaburō. In 1981 Taketarō’s descendants and other relatives included it in their private publication of Taketarō’s writings (Shinkai Takezō, compiled by, “Shinkai Taketarō Den”). Takezō also supervised the installation of a gallery dedicated to Taketarō’s works in the Yamagata Art Museum annex which was completed in 1968. (Tanaka Shūji / Translated by Martha J. McClintock) (Published online: 2024-03-06) Note 1. Four versions of the bronze “Bathing” were cast after his death. The two casts created under the supervision of Shinkai Takezō in 1957 are today in the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and Yamagata city. The two later casts are in the Yamagata Art Museum and the Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum.