The Case of the Sharaku Murders (5 page)

“That makes sense,” Ryohei agreed. As any expert knew, Satake Shozan and Odano Naotake were the best-known painters of the Akita School.

“But then when I read it I was disappointed. I doubt I'll be able to sell it. I just put that label on out of desperation…”

Ryohei looked at the price. It was eight hundred yen.

“If you're interested you can have it,” Mizuno offered, reading the look on Ryohei's face. “Maybe it will come in handy for your research.”

“That's very nice of you but I couldn't…”

Ryohei was indeed interested. For Kiyochika to have written the preface to a book of paintings unrelated to ukiyo-e must mean he had some connection to either the author or the publisher.
Who knows—it might yield something interesting
,
he thought.

“Don't worry. You bought a book from me already,” Mizuno said with a smile, taking the book from Ryohei. Then, removing the label, he handed it back to him. “Please accept it as a gift.”

Great Paintings from the Collection of the Master of
Mountain Lake Villa

Preface

In these abundant times there is no shortage of books, and each passing month brings more and more. But most appeal to popular tastes and passing fancies. They are mere trifles that contribute nothing to our field. This is something scholars like myself greatly regret.

Thus it is that we welcome the publication of this catalogue of paintings from the collection of the late Sato Masakichi, a.k.a. Master of Mountain Lake Villa, which I have been eagerly awaiting for some time now.

I came to know Sato when I was living in Shizuoka Prefecture. He grew up in a small village in the mountains and at one time aspired to make his name in the world as a scholar. But due to circumstances beyond his control he was forced to abandon his formal education without finishing middle school. Coming from an old and well-respected family, with many art connoisseurs among his friends and relations, he acquired an extensive knowledge of painting from an early age and through self-study nurtured a great love of art. When he came of age, he was conscripted into the army and thereafter had to make his own way in the world, for family reasons. He eventually found his way to Akita Prefecture and spent a number of years in Kazuno County, working in the mining town of Kosaka.

After I left Shizuoka I did not see Sato again for over thirty years. When we at last reestablished contact with one another I began to visit him often. I still remember fondly my stay with him from November 23 to 28 of last year.

On September 17 of this year, Sato was killed in the historic flooding that hit the Kosaka area. I was deeply saddened when I heard the news.

Fortunately, the flood spared Sato's paintings and I heard that his widow intended to collect them into a book. I was delighted. In this way I know his love of painting will never die. On his behalf, I pray that many people will now be able to see his paintings and not just those of us who had the privilege of knowing him.

December 1907

RETURNING to his apartment in Kunitachi where he lived alone, Ryohei ate a simple dinner and brewed himself a large pot of coffee. Only after starting on his second cup did he at last unwrap the paper parcel he had brought back with him from the book fair. As he did so he caught the unmistakable musty smell of old books. It was a smell he was fond of.

His hand went first to the painting catalogue Mizuno had given him.

The title on the cover read:
Great Paintings from the Collection of the Master of Mountain Lake Villa
.
The book was surprisingly heavy for its size, dried up and brittle though the pages were after the passage of so much time. This was no doubt due to the nearly one hundred over-sized photographic plates pasted inside.

Ryohei began reading Kiyochika's preface. At first the verbose Chinese-style prose was difficult to follow. His eyes had to pause on each Chinese character, making it hard for him to grasp the overall meaning. But as he read along haltingly in this way, the sense slowly began to sink in. Never before had he read anything quite like it. Leave it to the Japanese to come up with such an overwrought prose style to conceal the fact one was saying absolutely nothing! He recalled how once Yosuke had said much the same sort of thing.

Mizuno was right
,
thought Ryohei. The preface was disappointing, but at least it mentioned the dates Kiyochika had visited Akita. That might come in useful sometime.

Ryohei turned the page. There, staring out at him was a photograph of a distinguished-looking gentleman which had turned sepia with age.

He was about forty, with a round face and a handlebar moustache, and was seated in a chair wearing a suite and a pinstriped tie. His lips were pursed and his clenched fist conveyed a sense of tension. The photograph had clearly been taken in a studio. Behind him hung a painted backdrop out of which a window had been cut. Through it one could see clouds floating by outside. In this era of snapshots, it seemed a bit peculiar, but Ryohei had no doubt it was nothing unusual by the standards of its time. The Western-style lamp that stood ostentatiously to the right of the chair was obviously brand new, but to Ryohei it recalled a bygone age.

Beneath the photograph appeared a caption:
The late Sato Masakichi, Master of Mountain Lake Villa—1905
.
According to Kiyochika's preface, the gentleman in question had met his untimely death two years after the photograph was taken. Of course, nothing about the photograph gave any hint of the tragic fate that awaited him.

The paintings began on the next page. As Ryohei flipped through the pages something fell out of the book and fluttered to the ground. At first he thought one of the plates must have come unglued from the page, but when he picked it up he saw it was an old postcard. No doubt the previous owner of the book had been using it as a bookmark. Ryohei placed it on the table and turned his attention back to the book. The plates were all different sizes; some were tall and narrow while others were short and broad. But without exception all of the paintings in the photographs were mounted on Japanese scrolls.

Each plate bore only the title of the painting and in some cases a short profile of the artist. There was no explanatory text. That in and of itself was rather odd.
Perhaps after Sato died there hadn't been anyone who knew enough about the paintings to write something about them
,
thought Ryohei. Or perhaps the book had been put together by someone who didn't know anything about art catalogues and thought it was enough just to publish the paintings. Typically, books of this kind were full of commentary that went on and on ad nauseam about how the collector had acquired each work, how great the artist was, and that sort of thing. By comparison, Ryohei liked the minimalist style of this catalogue.

There were seventy-four plates in the book, fifty-two of them by one artist in particular. Apparently, Sato had been a fan of his work. Indeed, from the moment Ryohei had first set eyes on these particular plates while at the book fair, he had recognized the artist was someone of no mean ability. Now that he was able to study them at his leisure his opinion remained unchanged. But the name of the artist meant nothing to him. Apart from ukiyo-e Ryohei did not know a great deal about Japanese painting, but he did have a basic knowledge of the other major artistic movements. Moreover, since he was from Iwate Prefecture the Akita School had always interested him—Iwate and Akita being right next door to one another—and he was familiar with the names of many of its major artists.

There's more to this than meets the eye
,
thought Ryohei, ignoring for the moment his own lack of knowledge on the subject.

How remarkable that so formidable a talent should have been completely forgotten. But in one sense, to be remembered simply meant that one's work was still seen by people. An artist might create any number of masterpieces but if they were never put before the public, how would his achievement ever be recognized? No doubt there was any number of great artists from remote parts of Japan who languished in obscurity.

Perhaps I'm on to something…

It was the lifelong dream of every art historian to discover an unknown artist and bring him to the attention of the world.

Ryohei felt an unexpected rush of adrenaline. It was still too early to say anything for sure, but it would be worth his while to do a bit of research. If the artist in question really was a complete unknown, Ryohei held the key to establishing his reputation.

He continued flipping through the book, looking for the page that gave the artist's biography. He found it next to the last plate in the catalogue. It read:

Chikamatsu Shoei—Born in 1762 into a samurai family in Kakunodate, Akita fief. Having demonstrated an interest in painting from an early age, he took up studies with Odano Naotake in 1780. In the early 1780s he went to Edo [now Tokyo] in the service of Lord Satake Yoshiatsu of Akita. When Yoshiatsu died in 1785 Shoei left his lord's house and took up with Shiba Kokan. After his return to Akita in the 1790s he settled in Odate, later moving to Honjo. He died in the 1820s.

Ryohei was somewhat taken aback by the terseness of the biography. It was not even a hundred words. But at least it contained some essential information. It gave Ryohei a place to begin his investigations. While it was not surprising that Odano Naotake's name should be mentioned in connection with Chikamatsu, Ryohei was intrigued by the reference to Shiba Kokan. The foremost Western-style painter of his day, Kokan's name was familiar to many people today because of his copperplate engravings. But surprisingly few knew that earlier in his career Kokan had been an ukiyo-e artist. The thought that Chikamatsu might be connected, however tenuously, to Ryohei's own field of expertise made him seem less remote a figure.

Ryohei's curiosity was piqued. He turned his attention back to the paintings, which before, he had only glanced at casually. He began pouring over them one by one, scouring them for additional clues to the artist's background and looking for any inscriptions in the corners.

Before long one of the paintings caught his eye—a picture of a lion that seemed to jump out at him from the canvas of a hanging scroll. It was a powerful work of art.

His gaze became riveted to the painting, but not because of the power of the image. He had noticed an inscription in one corner of the painting. He began reading. When he got to the end, he could hardly believe his eyes. It was signed,
Chikamatsu Shoei, formerly known as Toshusai Sharaku
.

Ryohei read the words over and over again. There was no mistake. He felt as though here were dreaming.

TOSHUSAI Sharaku.

Of the more than two thousand or so ukiyo-e artists who ever lived, no name is as recognized today, save perhaps those of Utamaro, Hokusai, and one or two others. But it is not simply a question of being famous. Compared to other ukiyo-e artists, there was something unique about Sharaku. Considering the very short period of time during which he was active, he produced an astonishingly large number of works. Moreover, all of his prints were issued by a single publisher. Over a period of just ten months, he published more than one hundred and forty prints. Then he suddenly vanished. Exactly who he was is still unclear. In short, Sharaku is a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

Even in
Ukiyo-e Ruiko
,
widely considered the most reliable source for information on Japanese ukiyo-e artists, there is only a cursory entry under his name:

Sharaku—Lived late eighteenth century. Commonly known as Saito Jurobei. Resided in Hatchobori in Edo. Employed as a Noh actor by the lord of Awa province [modern Tokushima Prefecture]. Made portraits of kabuki actors, but these were too true to life for contemporary tastes and his career lasted less than a year.

This brief description has come down to us from the notebook of one Sasaya Hokyo, written sometime in the 1790s, and provides the best glimpse we have of Sharaku from his own time. It forms the basis for the view, widely held today, that Sharaku was not well regarded as an artist in his own day. His contemporaries, so it is claimed, were incapable of appreciating his modernist style. But if so, how did he manage to publish over 140 works in just ten months? Nobody knows.

Today, the notion that Sharaku was a Noh actor from Awa province on the island of Shikoku has been thoroughly discredited. Most scholars instead ascribe to the theory that Sharaku was the pseudonym of some other artist. How else, they say, can one begin to explain the riddle of Sharaku's identity?

Apart from the appeal of his art, it is this riddle that continues to fascinate art historians.

October 25

ONE EVENING two days later, Ryohei set out for Ginza.

At seven o'clock Fujisawa Hiroshi, one of the core members of Nishijima's alumni group, was hosting a party at
Sakamoto
,
a restaurant on Namiki Street, to celebrate the publication of his new book. It was just a small private affair, but the professor was certain to be there.

As Ryohei approached his destination his pulse began to race wildly. How ought he to explain the painting catalogue he had found to Nishijima? Would the professor be interested in what he had to say? These questions had been causing Ryohei a great deal of unease. He had hardly slept for two days. He had perhaps stumbled upon a discovery that would shake the field of ukiyo-e studies—indeed, the entire art world—to its very foundations. This realization left Ryohei in no state to sleep. Today, he had again gone to the university early in the morning and spent most of the day in the art history department and the library. If it were not for the fact that Professor Nishijima planned to be there that evening, Ryohei might even have skipped the party with hardly a second though. That was how engrossed he had become in his new project.