村山知義

Murayama Tomoyoshi was born in the Kanda ward of Tokyo City (now Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) in 1901. His father, Tomojirō, was a doctor with the Imperial Navy, while his maternal uncle, Miura Moriharu, who had studied in Germany, held the post of Professor of Pathology and Pathological Anatomy at Tokyo Imperial University. In 1904, shortly after being diagnosed with tuberculosis, his father transferred to Hashirimizu in Yokosuka, a major naval base in Kanagawa Prefecture, taking his wife Motoko and younger son Tadao. Tomoyoshi remained behind in Tokyo on this occasion but went with the family when they moved again in 1906 to Numazu, Shizuoka Prefecture. Tomojirō was thus able to conduct his clinic in a healthier rural setting, until his death in 1910. The family returned to Tokyo two years later, and in 1913 Tomoyoshi entered Tokyo Kaisei Middle School. His fellows in the same grade included the future philosopher Tosaka Jun and the biologist Uchida Shōzō. In 1918, he entered the First Higher School and later, in 1920, began studying Western-style painting at Hongō Yōga Kenkyūjo (Hongō Institute of Western-style Painting) under the tutelage of Okada Saburōsuke. Around this time, he placed his first illustrations with the children’s magazine “Manabi no Tomo” published by Fujin no Tomo Sha, where his mother had worked as an editor since 1915, and is said to have also contributed unsigned illustrations to another periodical for children “Kodomo no Tomo.” In 1921, Murayama entered the Faculty of Letters at Tokyo Imperial University. He soon abandoned his studies, however, and in January of the following year departed for Germany. Arriving in Berlin, he associated with Herwarth Walden of the Galerie Der Sturm who had been championing German avant-garde art since before the First World War. He participated, along with Tōgō Seiji’s brother-in-law Nagano Yoshimitsu, in the international touring event “The Great Futurist Exhibition” when it reached Israel Ber Neumann’s Berlin gallery “Graphisches Kabinett” in March 1922. In May, they also took part in the “Ersten Internationalen Kunstausstellung” (First International Art Exhibition) and attended the International Congress of Progressive Artists, both organized by the radical Young Rhineland group in Düsseldorf. These activities led on to other international collaborations. That September, the Twardy Gallery in Berlin hosted a solo exhibition of his works. When Murayama first arrived in Germany, his artistic style had been Expressionistic. During the Berlin period, however, it evolved along what have been described as two paths: one given over to works in which he pasted various objects onto a picture plane; and another, in stark contrast, directed at portraits in which he showed a commitment to classical painting techniques. The first approach was inspired by the Dadaism of Kurt Schwitters and the Tactilism of the Italian Futurist leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. The second approach, as Mizusawa Tsutomu has pointed out (note 1), while already present in works he produced aboard ship on the way to Europe, gained further encouragement from his encounter with the Young Rhinelanders who favored a “return to classical techniques” at that time. Murayama left Berlin in December 1922. Following his arrival back in Japan in February, he embarked upon a vigorous program of activities. Writing in the April 1923 issue of the art magazine “Chūō Bijutsu,” he criticized Expressionism and launched “Conscious Constructionism,” which he called “a principle that is truly ‘whole’ and ‘eternal’ in the domain of the visual arts.” A month later, he held the solo showing “Murayama Tomoyoshi no Ishikiteki Kōseishugiteki Shōhin Tenrankai” (Exhibition of Conscious-Constructionist Small Works by Murayama Tomoyoshi) at the Bumbodo (Bumpodo) store in Tokyo’s Kanda district. The items he presented, by virtue of their great variety, foreshadowed the wide range of activities he would subsequently undertake: designing theater curtains and theatrical and film sets, organizing photographs of himself dancing, and producing such works as “Utsukushiki Shōjora ni Sasagu” 美しき少女等に捧ぐ (Dedicated to Beautiful Young Girls) (1923, Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama) that incorporated a piece of stuffed fabric pasted onto the surface. In June 1923, he and former members of the Miraiha Bijutsu Kyōkai (Futurist Art Association) formed the art group Mavo, which held its first exhibition the following month. Works by Murayama were a prominent presence there. Among them, “Hana to Kutsu no Tsukatte Aru Sakuhin” 花と靴の使ってある作品 (Work Employing Flower and Shoe) (present whereabouts unknown) featured flowers in a glass container and a women’s high-heeled shoe arranged within a box. Meanwhile, he helped to found Augustgruppe (August Group) with its leader Nagano Yoshimitsu, who had returned from Germany to Japan on the same ship. In July, the group organized the “Exhibition of the Recent Russian and German Expressionism” (Ryuissō [Ruisseau] Gallery, Kanda, Tokyo), introducing works by Alexander Archipenko and other artists. After the Great Kantō Earthquake of September 1, 1923, Mavo reorganized itself around Murayama. That November, the Second Mavo Exhibition was held at venues in and around Tokyo, and the group’s activities reached their zenith in 1924, amid the city’s frenzied reconstruction. Apart from launching the magazine “Mavo,” the group chalked up one achievement after another, including participating in the “Teito Fukkō Sōan ten” (Exhibition of Plans for the Reconstruction of the Imperial Capital) (Takenodai Exhibition Hall, Ueno, Tokyo) and creating the front curtain for the rebuilt movie theater Aoikan. Murayama, meanwhile, was active also on his own behalf, most notably as a set and costume designer for Georg Kaiser’s “From Morning to Midnight,” which was staged at the Tsukiji Shōgekijō (Tsukiji Little Theater) soon after it opened. His designs gained notoriety as “Japan’s first Constructivist stage set” (Osanai Kaoru). (note 2) The project led to an ongoing involvement with this theater. The art scene of 1925 was energized by the radical group Sanka (Third Division), formed the previous October out of various emerging art movements. When members exhibited at the Matsuzakaya department store in Tokyo’s Ginza that May, the showing included Murayama’s major work “Konsutorukuchion” コンストルクチオン (Construction) (The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), created by pasting cloth patches, pieces of metal, photographs from magazines and advertisements, and other bits and pieces onto a board. During another group activity, “Gekijō no Sanka” (Sanka in the Theater), held the same month at Tsukiji Shōgekijō, 12 performance elements were presented in one evening. The artist performed a dance and also wrote and directed the play, “Ko o Umu Inbaifu” (Prostitute Giving Birth to a Child). The Second Sanka Exhibition (Tokyo Jichi Kaikan Hall, Ueno) was scheduled for September, but it had to be canceled due to an internal conflict. Thereafter the group quickly lost its cohesion. Murayama was increasingly expanding the scope of his activities. Along with the kabuki actor Kawarazaki Chōjūrō and others, he formed the theater company Kokoroza and directed the Georg Kaiser play “Juana” for the company’s first production in September 1925. He became a contributor to the literary magazine “Buntō” and made book and magazine illustrations for this publication as well as “Kindaigeki Zenshū” (Complete Collection of Modern Drama) (Tokyo: Daiichi Shobō, 1927–30), among others. In 1927, together with Takei Takeo and others, he co-founded the Nihon Dōgaka Kyōkai (Japan Association of Illustrators for Children). He continued to provide illustrations for “Kodomo no Tomo,” mentioned earlier, as well as for another children’s magazine “Shōnen Senki,” published from 1929, in which he used proletarian art to communicate the publication’s leftist views. He showed an interest, too, in new photographic movements. Having helped to found the Kokusai Kōga Kyōkai (International Photography Association) in 1929, he was instrumental in bringing part of a large-scale exhibition from Germany presenting the latest trends in European photography and film. “Film und Foto” (1929), retitled “Doitsu Kokusai Idō Shashinten” (International Traveling Photography Exhibition from Germany) was held at the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun Gallery and the Osaka Asahi Kaikan Hall in 1931. Through his involvement with proletarian art movements, Murayama shifted rapidly to the political left. He participated, for instance, in the inaugural convention of the Nihon Puroretaria Bungei Renmei (Japan Proletarian Arts and Literature League) in December 1925. The month before, a retrospective exhibition of his works had been held at the Kanda Art Museum (or possibly Kanda Kaikan Hall; note 3) in Tokyo, bringing his fine arts career to a temporary halt. A book he published in February 1926, “Kōseiha Kenkyū” (Study of Constructivism) (Tokyo: Chūō Bijutsusha), indicated the direction he was headed. It summarized the development of modernism by drawing on El Lissitzky and Jean Arp’s publication “Die Kunstismen” (The Isms of Art) (Erlenbach-Zurich: E. Rentsch, 1925), described the characteristics of Constructivism through an analysis of various articles in Western modernist journals, and concluded by putting forward a vision of the world remade through socialism. During Japan’s proletarian cultural movement—which governmental repression would eventually bring to an end in 1934—Murayama played a leading role as a playwright, stage director, and set designer for different theater groups, despite their frequent forming and disbanding due to conflicting opinions and political pressures. These venues included: the “Toranku Gekijō” (Trunk Theater) (1926); the Zen’eiza (Vanguard Theater) (1926) of the Nihon Puroretaria Geijutsu Renmei (Japan Proletarian Art League) and, later, the Rōnō Geijutsuka Renmei (Worker-Farmer Artists League); the Zen’ei Gekijō (Vanguard Theater) (1927) of the Zen’ei Geijutsuka Dōmei (Vanguard Artists League); the Sayoku Gekijō (Leftwing Theater) of the Zen Nihon Musansha Geijutsu Renmei (All-Japan Proletarian Arts Federation); and the Shinkyō Gekidan (New Associated Theater Company) (1934), formed after the dissolution of the Nihon Puroretaria Gekijō Dōmei (Japan Proletarian Theater League). Among his publications during this period were the collection of plays “Sukāto o Haita Nero” (Nero in a Skirt) (Tokyo: Genshi-sha, 1927), “Puroretaria Eiga Nyūmon” (Introduction to Proletarian Cinema) (Tokyo: Zen’ei Shobō, 1928), and “Kaiteiban: Puroretaria Bijustsu no Tame ni” (For the Sake of Proletarian Art: Revised Edition) (Atorie-sha, 1930). In July 1926, he joined with Yanase Masamu and others in forming the Nihon Mangaka Renmei (Japan Manga Artists Federation), at which time he described the purpose of manga as “not for entertainment, but for caricature, denunciation, education, and propaganda.” (note 4) The following year, he further redefined manga as “ishiki-ga [images of awareness].” (note 5) From his first arrest in May 1930 for violating the Peace Preservation Law, Murayama spent a considerable amount of time behind bars during three incarcerations. His roman-à-clef “Byakuya” (White Night) (“Chūō Kōron,” May 1934), published after his second release on bail, caused a great sensation, being characterized as a “tenkō shōsetsu”: a novel of ideological conversion from communism. After his final release on bail in June 1942, with the Pacific War in full swing, his artistic activities were banned for a period. In October 1944, he held a solo exhibition at the Ginza Gallery of “figure paintings” portraying theater people he had seen around him. In March of the following year, he traveled to Korea, then under Japanese control, and worked for the Chōsen Engeki Bunka Kyōkai (Korean Theater Culture Association), undertaking his resumed theater activities mainly in Keijō (Seoul). That August, a solo exhibition of paintings mostly depicting “Korean entertainers” was held at the city’s Mitsukoshi department store. He returned to Japan after the war, in December 1945, and immediately started to reestablish the theater company Shinkyō Gekidan, which managed to put on a performance at the Hōgakuza theater in Tokyo as early as the following February. Thereafter, he continued to work as a playwright and director, originally with this company and then, from 1959, with the theater troupe Tokyo Geijutsuza. In 1960, a newspaper ran his serialized novel “Shinobi no Mono,” a ninja tale set in the Sengoku period (15th to 16th centuries), later published in five volumes and adapted for a popular film series. In his later years, he wrote “Engekiteki Jijoden” (Theatrical Autobiography), serialized over a long period in the magazine “Teatro,” and published in book form (vols. 1–3, Tokyo: Tōhō Shuppan, 1970, 1971, and 1974). He passed away on March 22, 1977, with the serialization still going on. The fourth volume of the book was brought out by Tokyo Geijutsuza a month later. (Omuka Toshiharu / Translated by Ota So & Walter Hamilton) (Published online: 2024-03-18) Notes 1. Mizusawa Tsutomu, “‘Subete no Boku ga Futtō Suru’ to Iu Genshō: Murayama Tomoyoshi no Genzai no Tame ni,” in “Subete no Boku ga Futtō Suru: Murayama Tomoyoshi no Uchū” (Murayama Tomoyoshi: Get All of Me Seething), exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Takamatsu Art Museum, and Setagaya Art Museum (Tokyo: The Yomiuri Shimbun, 2012). 2. Osanai Kaoru, “Nihon Saisho no Kōseiha Butaisōchi,” “The Yomiuri Shimbun,” December 9, 1923. 3. The venue is named as the Kanda Art Museum in the “Bijutsukai Shōsoku” of January 1926 (“Atorie”), but in the November 15, 1925 issue (“Yomiuri Shō”) of the “Yomiuri Shimbun,” it is given as the Kanda Kaikan Hall. 4. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “1927 nen,” “Bijutsu Shinron,” December 1926. 5. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Manga towa,” “Yūmoa,” April 1927.