原田直次郎

Naojirō was born in 1863 (Bunkyū 3) in the Koishikawa-yanagichō district of Edo (Tokyo) as the second son of Harada Kazumichi (一道, also known as Keisaku 敬策 and Goichi吾一), a samurai of the Bitchū Kamogata clan who later became a major general in the army and was subsequently named a Baron. His mother was Ai, the eldest daughter of samurai Tomizuka Junsaku, a “yōnin” in service to Kawaji Toshiakira. His brother Toyokichi, three years his senior, became a geologist and professor in the Department of Science, Tokyo Imperial University (present-day University of Tokyo). Later in the year that Naojirō was born, his father was sent to Europe as part of the entourage of the shogunal envoy, Ikeda Nagaoki, a shogunal vassal and the head of the Ibara-Ikeda clan in Bitchū Province. His travels took him to the Netherlands where he studied military affairs before returning to Japan in 1866. Both Toyokichi and Naojirō were still young when their mother died and they were raised by their stepmother Shige 志計 (Shigeko 茂子). After the Meiji Restoration, their father who was then a professor at the military college, was transferred to Osaka, so the family moved to Osaka in 1870. Based on his father’s understanding of Western culture, Naojirō and his older brother were both sent to the Osaka Kaisei School where they studied the French language along with Chinese studies. In 1871 their father was again sent to Europe as part of the Iwakura Mission led by Iwakura Tomomi. When he returned to Japan in 1873, the family moved to Tokyo where Naojirō entered the French Literature department at the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages (present-day Tokyo University of Foreign Studies). The following year Naojirō watched as his brother left for study in Germany. Naojirō himself diligently continued his study of French at the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages while also beginning to take an interest in painting. Around 1874 he started studying Western-style painting under Yamaoka Shigeaki. In 1881 he graduated from the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages and married Sada, the second daughter of Ōkubo Masachika. Around that time and while on a visit to Hakone he unexpectedly encountered Takahashi Yuichi, Asai Chū and others on a sketching trip. Impressed by them, in 1883 he entered the Tenkai Gakusha painting school led by Takahashi Yuichi and Genkichi father and son. His desire to fully study Western painting heightened. Seeking the advice of his older brother who had returned to Japan that year from his study in Germany, in 1884 Naojirō himself went to Germany to study. His study destination was based on advice received from the painter Matsuoka Hisashi, then studying in Rome, who his older brother Toyokichi had met there en route home from his own studies. Naojirō enrolled in the Akademie der Bildenden Künste München immediately after his arrival, and there specialized in the Antikenklasse . Julius Exter, who would become his friend, was also enrolled in the class and is known today for his portrait of Naojirō, “Portrait of a Japanese Man” (1884/1885, The Bavarian Administration of State-Owned Palaces, Gardens and Lakes, Munich). Later Mori Ōgai modeled Kose, the hero of his novel “Utakata no Ki” (“Shigarami Zōshi”, August 1890 issue) after Naojirō. In addition to his studies at the Akademie and thanks to a recommendation from Matsuoka Hisashi, Naojirō also studied under his brother’s friend Gabriel von Max. He visited his studio where he received the painter’s advice. At the time the female painter Cäcilie Graf-Pfaff, who is said to have been the model for Naojirō’s “German Girl” (ca. 1886, Tokyo National Museum), was also studying in Max’s studio. In 1886 he met Mori Ōgai (Rintarō), then studying in Germany. At the time Naojirō was living on the second floor of the Café Minerva, a place that became a gathering spot for Naojirō, Ōgai, Exter, and others, so their friendship deepened. Also around this time Naojirō developed a romantic relationship with one of the cafe workers, Marie Huber. Ōgai was inspired by their love and transformed it into a fantasy tale, the above-mentioned “Utakata no Ki”. Naojirō later traveled through Italy and France before arriving back in Japan in 1887. In addition to the above-mentioned “German Girl”, many of the works that Naojirō painted during his study in Germany were highly realistic figure paintings with a sense of contrasting light and shade. His superb painting skills are particularly apparent in his images of old people lit by a single ray of light amidst the gloom, such as the old man seen in “Priest” (1885, Shin-etsu Broadcasting Co., Ltd), and the obstinately workmanlike “Shoemaker” (Important Cultural Property [ICP], 1886, Tokyo University of the Arts). On the other hand he also painted “Landscape” (1886, Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art), on the subject of a blindingly green expanse in Kochel, a village on the outskirts of Munich where Naojirō and Marie would go to escape the summer heat. After his return to Japan and amidst the trend for nationalism, Naojirō set out to spread Western painting in Japan, which was then renouncing Western art. In 1888 Naojirō was living in his father’s home in Urasarugakuchō, Tokyo when Mizuno Masahide, Kobayashi Mango and Itō Yasuhiko visited him and asked to be taken on as his students. Naojirō built a home and a Western-style studio in Hongō 6-chome, and there he opened a private painting school, the Shōbikan. He welcomed Mizuno and many others as his students. He also left the Japan Art Association, where he had displayed paintings since his return to Japan, and in 1889 he participated with Asai Chū, Matsuoka Hisashi and other Western-style painters who denounced the rejection of Western art in the formation of the Meiji Bijutsukai (Meiji Art Association). In order to build up the display of Western-style paintings, he not only entered his own works in the Meiji Art Association exhibitions, he also entered many of works of his students. Not only through his paintings, he also clearly expressed his dissatisfaction with the rejection of Western-style painting and asserted his support of Western-style painters. In 1887, immediately after his return to Japan, he presented his “Kaiga kairyōron” (On Improvement of Japanese Paintings) lecture at the Ryūchikai meeting, to counter Ernest F. Fenollosa’s call to incorporate the strengths of Western painting into Japanese painting. He later published his own thoughts in “Shigarami Zōshi”, “Kokumin Shimbun” and other publications. Most of these writings were written in the form of responses to the statements made by his friend Mori Ōgai. He heralded the importance of studying the essence of Western painting. His desire to spread Western traditional painting compositional types in Japan took public form when he entered his “Kiryū Kannon” (Kannon Bodhisattva Riding the Dragon) (ICP, 1890, Gokokuji Temple, Tokyo, on deposit at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) in the 1890 Third National Industrial Exposition. However, his realistic depiction of a Kannon riding on the back of a dragon in oil on canvas form set off a debate about history paintings, with Toyama Masakazu severely criticizing the painting, questioning the pros and cons of religious paintings, and Mori Ōgai expressing the direct opposite. This cooperative relationship between Naojirō and Ōgai also played out in Ōgai’s literary writing. Naojirō created illustrations for various Ōgai publications, including his anthology of translated poetry “Omokage” published in the magazine “Kokumin no Tomo” in 1889, the cover illustration for “Shincho Hyakushu” No. 12, and the illustrations for his novel “Fumizukai” included in that 1891 publication. In 1892, Miyake Kokki and Wada Eisaku entered his Shōbikan school. Even as the number of young painters espousing Western painting grew, Naojirō had developed a spinal condition that greatly worsened around 1893, lost his elder brother Toyokichi to tuberculosis in 1894, and was forced to continue painting from his hospital bed. That year Ōshita Tōjirō began to study at the Shōbikan, but the school was disbanded in 1895. Naojirō’s last pupil Tōjirō would visit him in his sickbed and was surprised to see Naojirō painting pictures from his imagination, without any photographs as reference material. One of the oil paintings created in this manner, “Susanoo-no-mikoto’s Slaying Yamata-no-orochi (eight-forked serpent)”, was displayed in the 1895 Fourth National Industrial Exposition where it was awarded a Third Prize of Virtuosity. This painting was destroyed in the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, but a preparatory drawing remains, “Esquisse for Susanoo-no-mikoto’s Slaying Yamata-no-orochi (eight-forked serpent)” (ca. 1895, Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art). His infirmity meant that he ended up sketching plants and flowers in his garden. In 1898 he went to recuperate in Koyasu village, Kanagawa prefecture, but then in 1899 Naojirō died from tuberculosis in the University of Tokyo Hospital. He was 36 years old. Ten years after his death, his nephew, Toyokichi’s eldest son Harada Kumao, consulted with Ōgai about holding an exhibition of his uncle’s remaining works. Ōgai himself became the organizer of the exhibition, and with the cooperation of Kuroda Seiki and others, a one-day exhibition of the extant works of Harada Naojirō was held at Tokyo Fine Arts School (present-day Tokyo University of the Arts) Ueno Park. Ōgai then gathered the displayed works, a prospectus, chronology, portrait photography, and the reminiscences of those involved and published them as the “Harada Sensei Ki’nenchō” (Memorial Book of Harada Naojiro) (Shimbi Shoin, 1910). This important book, which includes many works now lost, remains a critical reference work for understanding Naojirō’s oeuvre. (Sakonju Naomi / Translated by Martha J. McClintock) (Published online:2024-03-06)