The Case of the Sharaku Murders (15 page)

Suddenly Saeko cried, “I found something!”

“What is it?” asked Ryohei, trying not to get his hopes up.

“A painting catalogue—I should have looked at it to begin with.” She passed the book to Ryohei, her finger sandwiched between the pages to mark her place.

Painters and Calligraphers of Akita
,
edited by Takaaki Inoue, 1981—published by a local press. It was an impressive tome of over three hundred pages giving detailed information about over three hundred Akita-born painters and calligraphers from the early Edo period to the present. Ryohei opened it to the page Saeko had indicated and read:

Chikamatsu Shoei—Painter. Born in Akita. Vassal of Lord Satake. Flourished circa Bunsei era (1818–1830) [Masu.]

“Is that it?” asked Ryohei, sounding disappointed. Of all the entries in the book, it was by far the shortest. There were three pages of description on Odano Naotake alone, plus four plates showing examples of his work. Needless to say, there were no illustrations of Shoei's work.

“Yes… But this establishes that Shoei was a samurai from Akita, doesn't it?” replied Saeko. She sounded somewhat put out by Ryohei's response.

“The bio in Sato's painting catalogue is better than this. And what does ‘Masu.' mean, anyway?”

“Let me see,” said Saeko, taking the book from Ryohei and opening it to the front. “There seems to be a bibliography. Ah, here it is: ‘Masu.' stands for ‘Masuya Terumizu,
Directory of Samurai Families in Dewa Province
(original manuscript copy by the late Toyosawa Takezo, 1914).' Look, all the entries that cite the same reference are as brief as Shoei's. It must have been some sort of personal notebook.”

“You're probably right. I suppose it was the editor's sole source of information on Shoei.” Flipping through the book, Ryohei found several more entries on other artists citing the same source. All of them were brief and without illustration:

Hasegawa Choshu—Painter. Born in Akita city. Real name Hasegawa Hobin. Southern School. [Masu.]

Miura Bunkei—Painter. Born in Kazuno. Real name Miura Fusaku. Studied painting under Bunryo. [Masu.]

“Well, at least it appears Shoei wasn't an exception. It must just have been the author's personal style.”

Nevertheless, Ryohei could not help feeling disappointed. Whoever Masuya Terumizu was, he must have seen Shoei's paintings in person. Otherwise he could hardly have included him in his notebook, as apparently no other sources of information on Shoei existed. The same must be true for the other artists, all of whom were described in the same confident, declarative style.

Couldn't he have provided a little more detail?
thought Ryohei.

The same could be said for the biography of Shoei in Sato's painting catalogue. Professor Nishijima had thought it was probably based on an old manuscript or else the label on the box in which the scroll had been stored. Either way, if only the biography of Shoei in the catalogue had been more thorough, Ryohei might have been saved the trouble of coming all the way to Kosaka.

Perhaps this Masuya guy was accustomed to writing in classical Chinese and believed brevity was a virtue
,
thought
Ryohei, annoyed.

“There's also an artist named Chikamatsu Eiwa listed here,” Saeko said with curiosity as she perused the table of contents.

“Is that so?”

“But he seems to have lived during the Meiji period.”

“That's no good to us.”

Ignoring Ryohei's remark, Saeko turned to the page listed in the table of contents and began reading.

“Hey,” she said. “He was an Akita samurai too and he was born in the Edo period.” She passed the open book back to Ryohei. This entry was much longer than the one on Shoei and included a plate with illustrations.

Chikamatsu Eiwa—1821–1889. Painter. Real name: Endo Shoeki. Sobriquet: Setsuo, a.k.a. Tokugien. Father's name: Eisho. Served as tea master to Satake Nanka—castellan of Yuzawa Castle—also acting as artist-in-residence. During the time of the young Satake Yoshinari (15th lord of Yuzawa) a “dark cloud” descended over the castle. Constant in-fighting among the lord's vassals erupted into a bitter dispute between the two chief clans, the Yamagata and the Harada, which became known as the Yuzawa Incident. Caught in the middle, Chikamatsu took a position critical of the Haradas. He made a painting showing a samurai wearing the Harada crest beneath a satirical poem which read: “The world today is like a carriage full of women—there's no shortage of idiots.” This led to his being censured and having to flee to Edo. He later returned to Akita and found a position as artist-in-residence in the Yajima region (perhaps in the vicinity of present-day Mizugami). It was at this time that he took the name Chikamatsu.

“Hmm…” mused Ryohei.

The illustration beside the entry was of a vertical painting depicting a hawk perched on the branch of a pine tree, resting its wings. The hawk had an imposing presence and the style of the painting was extremely accomplished.

“This painting reminds me of one by Naotake,” said Saeko, peering over Ryohei's shoulder.

“Which one?”

“Let's see. I just saw it a second ago…” Saeko opened one of the books lying on the table and began leafing through it. “Here it is—aren't they similar?”

The plate she showed Ryohei was also a vertical painting of a hawk perched on the branch of a pine tree. Apart from the fact that the bird's eyes were looking in the opposite direction, the two paintings were nearly identical.

“They
are
similar,” agreed Nara, who had come over and was standing beside Saeko. “Now that's what
I
call art.”

“But Eiwa wasn't an Akita School painter,” said Ryohei. “Granted, his style is very similar.”

“So I guess this isn't enough to go on?” said Saeko crestfallen.

“I'm afraid not. But what intrigues me is why he took the name Chikamatsu after returning from Edo. Whereabouts in Akita is Yajima, I wonder?”

Ryohei got out his map of Akita and began pouring over it.

“Yajima? I think it's near Honjo,” said Nara helpfully.

“Honjo?”

“Yeah. I've got some relatives who live over that way.”

Ryohei looked surprised.

“Isn't Honjo where Shoei lived according to the biography in Sato's painting catalogue?” asked Saeko.

“You're right. He did live in Honjo. No mistake about it,” said Ryohei, nodding.

They checked the map and found there was just one Honjo in Akita Prefecture. It was only about twelve miles from Yajima, quarter of an hour by car.

“He must have been a protégé of Shoei's,” said Ryohei, looking up from the map.

“Or at least if he didn't actually study under Shoei himself, he was influenced by his work, or perhaps studied painting from one of Shoei's apprentices. Then there's his name: Eiwa.”

“What about it?” asked Saeko.

“Well, it doesn't say so here, but I suspect he borrowed the Chinese character ‘
ei
' at the beginning of his name from ‘Shoei.' Just like most of Toyokuni's apprentices took the character ‘
kuni
' as part of their names: Kunisada, Kuniyoshi, Kunimasa, etc. It was a tradition among ukiyo-e artists for students to adopt the second character of their teacher's name as the first character of their own name.”

“Is that so?”

“Eiwa started out as a tea master and eventually became an in-house artist to the Akita daimyo, right? Someone of his stature wouldn't have studied painting under some local town artisan. Shoei was also from a respected and well-established Akita samurai family, so for that reason alone there's a good chance the two were connected. When Eiwa moved to Yajima he must have met Shoei or learned of his reputation and decided to adopt the name Chikamatsu Eiwa.”

Saeko asked, “So it couldn't be a simple coincidence?”

“Unlikely. Painters don't change their names lightly. It's not as though there could have been many artists in a rural place like this. No, Eiwa knew Shoei. They must have been connected in some way for him to take the name Chikamatsu. If he wasn't a protégé, then perhaps he married Shoei's daughter or granddaughter. That could explain why he took his name.”

Saeko nodded.

“Anyway,” Ryohei went on, “this corroborates the information in Sato's catalogue that Shoei lived in Honjo. That's extremely important.”

Ryohei took a number of books up to the library information desk and asked the librarian to make copies of several pages relating to Shoei, Eiwa, and the flood of 1907. Then they left the library.

“I'm famished,” said Saeko, “It's already one o'clock.”

Ryohei suddenly felt a pang of hunger too. “Is there any place to get something to eat around here?” he asked Nara.

“Only a greasy spoon or two… If you want a decent restaurant we'll have to drive some distance.”

“COULD I ASK you something?” Nara, looking rather serious, said to Ryohei once they had sat down and ordered their food. “Excuse me for my ignorance, but what is the Akita School anyway?”

“How shall I put it?” replied Ryohei. “I guess you could say it was the first concerted effort to apply Western painting techniques to depict Japanese subject matter.” He went on to elaborate: “The Akita School was founded in 1773 when Hiraga Gennai arrived in Akita. This was a time when the central government in Edo was under the control of Tanuma Okitsugu. The daimyo of Akita fief, Satake Yoshiatsu, a.k.a. Shozan, had asked Gennai—one of the foremost mining experts of the day—to come to Akita to provide technical advice on increasing the output of the domain's copper mines. Gennai was widely recognized as the brains behind Tanuma's policies, and some have speculated that Shozan hoped to use Gennai to curry favor with Tanuma. At any rate, on Tanuma's orders, Gennai set off for the Ani copper mine in Akita. Along the way he stopped off at the castle town of Kakunodate.

It was in Kakunodate that Gennai made the acquaintance of Odano Naotake. Naotake was a vassal of Satake Yoshimi and an extremely talented artist. It's unclear exactly how Gennai and Naotake met, but since Naotake was a household name in Kakunodate and Gennai was interested in painting, someone probably introduced the two. There is a famous anecdote that goes something like this: Gennai told Naotake, “Paint a picture of a
kagami-mochi
viewed from above.” Naotake went home and, with great difficulty, managed to produce something like the New Year's decoration of two rice cakes, one small and one large, with a bitter orange on top. He took it to show Gennai who took one look at it and said, “I can't tell if this is a rice cake or a plate!” Then he picked up a brush and shaded the picture around the edges. Suddenly it looked like a rice cake. “This is how they paint in the West,” Gennai said. Naotake realized he had at last found someone worthy of calling “master” and prostrated himself at Gennai's feet. The story is most likely apocryphal, but given Gennai's penchant for mocking people, there is probably some kernel of truth to it.

For his part, Gennai was quite taken with Naotake. Once he had completed his work at the copper mine, he was given an audience with Shozan. Though there's no record of the meeting, it's thought Gennai took the opportunity to praise Naotake's skill as an artist. Shortly after Gennai returned to Edo, Naotake followed him there in the official capacity of “inspector of mine production.” It seems Shozan's real intention in sending Naotake to Edo was to have him learn Western painting techniques from Gennai. Shozan himself had been trained in the Kano School of painting and was a strong proponent of Naturalism. But he had a political motive as well, for Gennai held the backdoor into Tanuma's inner circle open. As daimyo of Akita, Shozan knew it could not hurt to have one of his own samurai among the ranks of Gennai's apprentices.

Once in Edo, Naotake took up residence in Gennai's house in Yamatocho in Kanda. Gennai took every opportunity to show off his protégé's paintings to other people. Within a year, Naotake's name was known throughout Edo on account of his illustrations for Sugita Genpaku's
New Anatomy
.
The choice of Naotake as illustrator was largely thanks to Gennai's friendship with Genpaku. Be that as it may, the young man from Akita was more than up to the task. The detail and precision of his anatomical illustrations made Genpaku's
New Anatomy
a phenomenal success and catapulted Naotake to fame. He was twenty-six.

In 1777, Naotake left Edo, having spent the better part of five years there, and returned to Akita. He was by this time thoroughly steeped in the techniques of Western painting, as taught to him by Gennai. Most likely he had had also studied with So Shiseki, who was a friend of Gennai's. Shiseki was a Naturalist in the tradition of the Chinese painter Chen Nanpin, having mastered the so-called “boneless” style of painting that eschewed outlines in favor of shading. It was not quite Western style painting, but the basic tenets were the same. Drawn to Shiseki's style, Gennai asked him to illustrate a book he was writing called
Things and Their Properties
.
This work best exemplifies Gennai's unique genius as a natural historian. Published in five volumes,
Things and Their Properties
is a kind of illustrated encyclopedia of rare plants, minerals, and various products from across Japan. Gennai needed someone who could render objects from the natural world with a high degree of precision and detail, and Shiseki was just the man for the job.