The Case of the Sharaku Murders (2 page)

“So you live in Fuchu now?”

“Yeah. I've been there almost a year.”

Now Ryohei understood. He had been wondering why on earth Yosuke had gone to the funeral.

Anyone with any connection to ukiyo-e was familiar with the name Saga Atsushi. Ryohei had read his books and seen him at exhibitions on several occasions, though he had never been introduced to him.

But for the past five years, Nishijima and Saga had been engaged in what one might call a feud over differences of academic opinion.

This feud was taken up by Ryohei and the other students in Nishijima's seminar. Whenever Saga came out with a new article, they would compete with one another to point out its flaws, rarely taking any of his arguments seriously. Despite their common love of ukiyo-e, Nishijima's students treated Saga as though he was from another planet, they dismissed him completely.

And yet there was Yosuke, standing behind the reception table at Saga's funeral.

At first Ryohei thought it must just be someone who resembled Yosuke. But then Yosuke had called out his name. Even now, as he sat in the café talking to Yosuke, Ryohei still couldn't shake the astonishment he felt when he realized it really
was
him.

It never occurred to me he might have known Saga other than through ukiyo-e
,
thought Ryohei, realizing he had jumped to conclusions. Then he picked up the conversation where he had left off:

“The book club you mentioned—did you mean the Bibliophilic Society? At the funeral I noticed they had donated a large floral wreath.”

“Don't be fooled by the size of the wreath; the club has less than twenty members.”

“So that's why you were at the reception table?”

“Yeah. I was on tenterhooks standing there thinking I might run into the professor. You see, since the incident at the party I haven't seen him… At one point I even thought of asking someone else from the club to take my place. So I was glad it was you who came to the funeral instead of the professor.”

“You didn't really think the professor would come, did you?”

“Why not? He and Mr. Saga had known each other for thirty years. It's only natural to expect he'd show up… I mean, given the way things had been between them over the past few years, I can see why he sent you, but I have to say, I'm somewhat disappointed in the professor.”

“Were they such good friends once?”

“Yes. They used to share an office at Shokodo, apparently.”

Ryohei could scarcely believe it. Of course, he had heard of Shokodo—a well-known publisher of art books before the war, now defunct—and he also knew Nishijima had worked there at one time. But the professor had never mentioned Saga had also been with the company. Given how improbable it seemed, neither he nor any of the other students had ever thought to ask, but all the same, Ryohei couldn't help feeling somewhat hurt.

Saga had been an independent scholar unaffiliated with any university or museum. He hadn't even been a member of the Edo Art Association, or EAA for short, an academic society of which the professor served as a trustee. Moreover, Saga had been a central figure in the Ukiyo-e Connoisseurship Society, a group formed in opposition to the EAA. The simmering feud between the two men had its origins in the rivalry between these organizations. And as each rose in prominence within his respective organization, the rift between them widened. It was a rivalry that lasted twenty years.

Since Saga and Nishijima were both scholars of ukiyo-e, initially each had followed the other's research closely, but as time went on differences of academic opinion resulted in an irreparable split between their two organizations.

One of these differences concerned
nikuhitsu-ga
,
or hand-painted ukiyo-e. The two organizations had clashed bitterly over the question of how much importance to place on nikuhitsu-ga.

The Edo Art Association held that ukiyo-e consisted essentially of woodblock prints. That is to say, it considered woodblock printing key to ukiyo-e's development within Japanese popular culture due to its low-cost and reproducibility. Of course, the EAA did not by any means dismiss the importance of nikuhitsu-ga, which, after all, were painted by ukiyo-e artists. But when one thought of ukiyo-e one thought principally of woodblock prints; nikuhitsu-ga were merely supplemental.

The Ukiyo-e Connoisseurship Society, on the other hand, asserted that ukiyo-e could not have existed without nikuhitsu-ga. The definition of ukiyo-e is “art that depicts scenes and objects from everyday life,” and in this sense there had been ukiyo-e-style nikuhitsuga long before woodblock prints came along. While one cannot deny that woodblock printing contributed greatly to the development of ukiyo-e, a woodblock print was simply a mass-produced work calculated to appeal to popular taste. While the original line drawing was the work of an artist, the reproduction was the work of a block carver. How, then, did one judge an artist? How much of the final work was attributable to the artist's skill and how much to the block carver's? It stands to reason that the only true basis for judging an ukiyo-e artist is to go directly to a work from his own hand; that is, a nikuhitsu-ga.

Sometimes, when looking at a nikuhitsu-ga from the late Edo period, one is surprised to find that it is by a famous ukiyo-e artist even though it appears rather clumsy. One could take this as proof that when the artist's crude sketches were turned into a woodblock print, the block carver and the printer compensated for his inadequacies.

This is especially apparent when it comes to the depiction of hair. When an artist does a preliminary sketch for a woodblock print, he does not draw each individual strand of hair. Instead, he only depicts the coiffure in rough outline and inks in the rest before handing it over to the block carver. It is up to the block carver to use his ingenuity to fill in the rest. Therefore, it is natural that slight variations should occur among woodblock prints by the same ukiyo-e artist depending upon the skill of the block carver who executed the final product.

Hokusai is one ukiyo-e artist known not only for his many superb nikuhitsu-ga but also the care he took in ensuring the high quality of his woodblock prints. He would sometimes go so far as to write to his publisher specifying that a trusted block carver be used for a certain job. A woodblock print was not the work of a sole artist but a collaborative effort between artist, publisher, block carver, and printer. It is for this reason that studying nikuhitsu-ga is critical to understanding ukiyo-e.

This was the view held passionately by members of the Ukiyo-e Connoisseurship Society.

To an outsider, it must seem that there are merits to both arguments and that the rift between the two camps is no more than an amusing academic squabble fueled by scholarly passions. But below the surface of this conflict, the so-called Shunpoan Affair of 1934, which shook the Japanese ukiyo-e establishment to its core, still casts its long shadow.

Nearly half a century has passed since then, and though no one talks openly about it any longer, the truth is that the conflict over nikuhitsu-ga first flared up in connection with this incident.

It all began with an article published in
The Asahi News
on April 26, 1934 announcing an upcoming auction of nikuhitsu-ga from a private collection whose owner was identified only as “Shunpoan.” The article quoted Sasakawa Rinpu, an expert on ukiyo-e and scholar of Japanese literature, who praised two of the works in the collection by Sharaku, thereby generating considerable public interest in the auction. In part, the article read as follows:

Rare Sharaku Paintings Discovered

Following the tragic destruction of the only known Sharaku nikuhitsu-ga in the Great Earthquake of 1923, the discovery of two such masterpieces in the collection of a former daimyo has been hailed by Sasakawa Rinpu, who appraised the paintings, as the “find of the century.” According toProfessor Sasakawa: “The paintings are from the collection of a nobleman who wishes to remain anonymous. Having examined the nineteen paintings in the collection, which are all extremely rare, the two works by Sharaku foremost among them, I would put their total value at between 150,000 and 290,000 yen.”

That comes to over 500 million yen in today's currency. Such a sale was unprecedented for its time. The art world was abuzz.

But on the day of the auction it was revealed that it had been an elaborate scam perpetrated by a criminal gang. The paintings were forgeries and the name Shunpoan was a complete fabrication.

As for the ukiyo-e experts who had become unwitting accomplices in the fraud—above all Professor Sasakawa—who not only appraised the paintings but also wrote the explanatory notes for the auction catalogue and publicly proclaimed their value—the affair showed up their incompetence before the entire world. Fortunately, being innocent of any wrongdoing, they did not have to face criminal charges, but the scandal effectively ended their careers.

Ever since, ukiyo-e scholars have steered clear of making pronouncements on the authenticity of nikuhitsu-ga.

The Shunpoan Affair was a perfect illustration of the proverb, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Professor Sasakawa had been the foremost ukiyo-e expert of his day. It would not have been surprising if the sudden downfall of so towering a figure had been seen by other ukiyo-e scholars as the result of hubris. But what is undeniable is that the affair had a devastating effect on the value accorded to nikuhitsu-ga, which up until then scholars had regarded on a par with woodblock prints.

From then on, they adopted an extremely cautious attitude toward nikuhitsu-ga. Whenever a previously unknown work turned up, no one dared declare it genuine until a hundred other scholars had done the same. In this way, newly discovered works could languish in obscurity for years without any determination of their value being made.

This only led to greater confusion.

At last, fed up with the situation, a group of experts came together and formed a society for the sole purpose of studying nikuhitsu-ga: the Ukiyo-e Connoisseurship Society, or UCS for short.

That was twenty years ago. To this day, the rift in the art world has persisted. In the meantime things have gone from bad to worse; now everything comes down to academic egos. It should probably not be surprising then, even after all this time, that Nishijima had never mentioned his former friendship with Saga to any of his students.

Even so, the news came as a shock to Ryohei.

Whenever he got together with Yoshimura and the professor's other former students they always started bad-mouthing the Ukiyo-e Connoisseurship Society, or—as they only half-jokingly referred to them—“the enemy.” What on earth must be going through Nishijima's mind as he listened to such talk? Ryohei could not imagine.

“By the way,” said Yosuke, changing the subject since Ryohei remained silent. “I hear the professor is planning to publish his collected papers.”

“Yeah. The editor from Shugakusha is breathing down our necks about it…”

“Is he going to include his early stuff?”

“Yeah. Right now he's got me and Iwakoshi busy organizing it all. He's even planning to include some research papers from his student days.”

“Just as I thought,” said Yosuke, frowning. “It doesn't surprise me in the least. But is any of it worth reprinting? When I was in college I remember him having us read some of those old papers of his. That was when he still ascribed to the theory Sharaku had been a Noh actor from Awa. Even
he
disowned that long ago, so won't reprinting them just generate confusion? I think the field would be better served if he used this opportunity to sink his teeth into Sharaku again. I mean, he hasn't produced any new research since that book of his came out twenty years ago; he's just been rehashing the same material over and over again. I'd like to see him take up Sharaku again for real, not just write the explanatory notes for art catalogues.”

Ryohei was speechless. Yosuke had put into words exactly what he, Ryohei, who worked directly with Nishijima, had been feeling.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” continued Yosuke. “Speaking of Sharaku, I read your own contribution to the subject.”

“Really?” said Ryohei, taken aback.

The paper Yosuke was referring to—“Sharaku: The State of the Debate”
—
had appeared in
The Edo Art Association Journal
,
which Professor Nishijima was instrumental in publishing. Primarily a vehicle for his own students' research, it appeared at irregular intervals and was distributed free to publishers, libraries, and museums. Some people snidely referred to it “Nishijima's publicity rag” behind the professor's back. It was especially unpopular with members of the Ukiyo-e Connoisseurship Society. Since it was not commercially available, Ryohei wondered how Yosuke, now ostracized from Nishijima's circle, had gotten hold of a copy.

“It impressed Mr. Saga too… He asked me about you, you know. He said it was a fine piece of research for someone so young.”

“Are you serious?”

“Why would I lie? It's not like the UCS doesn't have its ear to the ground.”

Ryohei was touched. His article was nothing groundbreaking—just a survey of all the scholarly literature on Sharaku published up to the present. But it had taken him two months to write; it felt good to hear it praised. And by none other than the Ukiyo-e Connoisseurship Society's own Saga Atsushi! Nothing his university colleagues might have said could have pleased him half as much.