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the fear that time and history would show that for all one’s good intentions, one had backed a wrong, shameful, even evil cause, and wasted one’s best years and talents to it.
How so much more honourable is such a contest, in which one’s moral conduct and achievement are brought as witnesses rather than the size of one’s purse.
Noriko was always able to get the better of her elder sister by calling her ‘Boy! Boy!’ Who knows what effect such things have on personalities?
even if Shintaro may at times display naïveté about certain things, this is nothing to be disparaged, it being no easy thing now to come across someone so untainted by the cynicism and bitterness of our day.
One should be thankful there are still those uncontaminated by the current cynicism.
how influence and status can creep up on someone who works busily, not pursuing these ends in themselves, but for the satisfaction of performing his tasks to the best of his ability.
‘Yah! Yah!’
the missing paintings are the very ones you’re most proud of. Isn’t that so?’
‘When you are young, there are many things which appear dull and lifeless. But as you get older, you will find these are the very things that are most important to you.’
I always assumed such feelings fade with time.
If an artist refuses to sacrifice quality for the sake of speed, then that’s something we should all respect.
the ability to think and judge for myself, even if it meant going against the sway of those around me.
That while it was right to look up to teachers, it was always important to question their authority.
The Takeda experience taught me never to follow the crowd blindly, but to consider carefully the direction in which I was being pushed.
And if there’s one thing I’ve tried to encourage you all to do, it’s been to rise above the sway of things. To rise above the undesirable and decadent influences that have swamped us and ...
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We must all endeavour to rise above the sway of things.’
The likes of Mrs Kawakami and I, we may tend to make a joke about it, but behind our bantering there is a thread of serious optimism.
Whatever the eventual outcome, one does feel reassured to be dealing with the likes of the Saito family.
It’s something of a comfort to remember her with you.
Of course, he tries to keep up appearances,
I realize there are now those who would condemn the likes of you and me for the very things we were once proud to have achieved.
But then again, it is always good to re-establish contact with old colleagues.
‘Most things are more complicated than they appear, Mr Enchi. Young men of your generation tend to see things far too simply.
This matter with Kuroda did, I confess, cast something of a shadow over my mood;
one doesn’t want to see people hurt. But the underlying spirit – that people feel the need to express their views openly and strongly – now that’s a healthy thing, don’t you think so, Mr Ono?’
there is certainly a satisfaction and dignity to be gained in coming to terms with the mistakes one has made in the course of one’s life.
there is surely no great shame in mistakes made in the best of faith.
It is surely a thing far more shameful to be unable or unwilling ...
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People like Shintaro, if they don’t want to do something, they pretend they’re helplessly lost about it and they’re forgiven everything.’
For indeed, a man who aspires to rise above the mediocre, to be something more than ordinary, surely deserves admiration, even if in the end he fails and loses a fortune on account of his ambitions.
If one has failed only where others have not had the courage or will to try, there is a consolation – indeed, a deep satisfaction – to be gained from this observation when looking back over one’s life.
teacher or mentor whom one admires greatly in early adulthood will leave his mark, and indeed, long after one has come to re-evaluate, perhaps even reject, the bulk of that man’s teachings, certain traits will tend to survive, like some shadow of that influence, to remain with one throughout one’s life.
Often a new painting would feature some striking innovation, and a debate of some passion would develop among us. Once, for example, I remember we came into the room to be confronted by a picture of a kneeling woman seen from a peculiarly low point of view – so low that we appeared to be looking up at her from floor level.
‘Clearly,’ I remember someone asserting, ‘the low perspective lends the woman a dignity she would otherwise not have. It is a most astonishing achievement. For in all other respects, she looks a self-pitying sort. It is this tension that gives the painting its subtle power.’ ‘This may be so,’ someone else said. ‘The woman may well have a sort of dignity, but that hardly derives from the low viewpoint. It seems clear that Sensei is telling us something much more pertinent. He is saying that the perspective appears low only because we have become so attuned to a particular eye level. It is
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For it is by no means desirable that one be always instructing and pronouncing to one’s pupils; there are many situations when it is preferable to remain silent so as to allow them the chance to debate and ponder.
‘floating world’ – the night-time world of pleasure, entertainment and drink which formed the backdrop for all our paintings.
The best things, he always used to say, are put together of a night and vanish with the morning. What people call the floating world, Ono, was a world Gisaburo knew how to value.’
I suspect the reason I couldn’t celebrate the floating world was that I couldn’t bring myself to believe in its worth. Young men are often guilt-ridden about pleasure, and I suppose I was no different. I suppose I thought that to pass away one’s time in such places, to spend one’s skills celebrating things so intangible and transient, I suppose I thought it all rather wasteful, all rather decadent.
It’s hard to appreciate the beauty of a world when one doubts its very validity.’
I suppose I do not on the whole greatly admire the Tortoises of this world. While one may appreciate their plodding steadiness and ability to survive, one suspects their lack of frankness, their capacity for treachery. And I suppose, in the end, one despises their unwillingness to take chances in the name of ambition or for the sake of a principle they claim to believe in.
‘But the young are ready to fight for their dignity.’
‘No time for cowardly talking. Japan must go forward.’
I am not one of those who are afraid to admit to the shortcomings of past achievements.
An artist’s concern is to capture beauty wherever he finds it.
The communists want a revolution. We want nothing of the sort. Quite the opposite, in fact. We wish for a restoration.
Believe me, Ono, we have the means to do so, but have yet to discover the will.
One can become like someone who travels too much. Best return to serious work before too long.’
Sensei, it is my belief that in such troubled times as these, artists must learn to value something more tangible than those pleasurable things that disappear with the morning light. It is not necessary that artists always occupy a decadent and enclosed world. My conscience, Sensei, tells me I cannot remain forever an artist of the floating world.’
These may sound unnecessarily vindictive words for a teacher to use to a pupil whose admiration he knows he still commands. But then again, when a master painter has given so much in time and resources to a certain pupil, when furthermore he has allowed that pupil’s name to be associated in public with his own, it is perhaps understandable, if not entirely excusable, that the teacher lose for a moment his sense of proportion and react in ways he may later regret.
But I’m hardly the sort to allow my own daughter to suffer simply because I’m too proud to face up to things.’
