'Old Taoist'
Tomioka Tessai (1836-1924) is often said to be the last of Japan's literati artists. However, in 1985 Stephen Addiss discovered a landscape in the 'nanga' style by a relatively unknown painter named Fukuda Kodôjin ('Old Taoist') or Fukuda Seisho. Kodôjin, who painted and composed both Japanese 'haiku' and poetry in Chinese ('kanshi'), died only in 1944.This book is the result of Addiss's efforts to bring this 'final true literati poet-artist of Japan'(dust jacket) to life.
* By ANNA BEERENS
The first chapter is an account of Kodo¯jin's life and his development as an artist. It is followed by a chapter with translations of Kodo¯jin's haiku, the Japanese text given in transcription, and a few waka without transcription. The third chapter, written by Jonathan Chaves, is an exploration of the figure of the Chinese poet-recluse T'ao Ch'ien (Tao Qian, 365-427), who is presented as 'by far Kodo¯jin's favorite Chinese writer and the model for his personal style' (p.74), followed in the fourth chapter by translations of Kodo¯jin's Chinese poetry, again without any original texts. The final chapter is a short essay by J. Thomas Rimer attempting to place Kodo¯jin's work in the context of his period.
The most fundamental problem of this book is that there is actually not much known about this person, which shouldn't be surprising, for he is praised repeatedly for his reclusive lifestyle. We have some data about his formative years; we know of his friendship with the haiku poet, Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), we know something about his family, about where he lived and how he gained his livelihood, and we have some names of people who were his friends and pupils. These scant facts and some anecdotes would be enough for about five pages of biography. In order to put another fifty pages of flesh on the skimpy bones of his 'last of the great poet-painters' (dust jacket), Addiss plunders Kodo¯jin's work in search of 'autobiographical' information. Because all literati art is self-referential, he finds exactly what he is looking for. But are we entitled to use Kodo¯jin's art and poetry in this way? Prompted by Kodo¯jin, who writes about an ideal self, Addiss is able to provide us with the perfect portrait of the last of the literati. Now, of course, Addiss knows very well that Kodo¯jin did not live on a mountain top. On p.24, he writes: 'To some extent, the persona of a poet-sage living in unspoiled nature was something of a fantasy, since the literati of both China and Japan...were seldom completely free to live in seclusion'. But notwithstanding this insight, he bases his biographical chapter more on what is actually 'image' than on historical fact. Well-chosen quotations and a plethora of words like 'perhaps', 'most likely', and 'must have been' are used to dress up an otherwise meagre story. This is efficiently done, but the result lacks substance.
I cannot help thinking that Chaves' chapter on 'Kodo¯jin and the T'ao Ch'ien tradition' is part of the same strategy. Chaves tries to convince us that T'ao Ch'ien was Kodo¯jin's most important role model (p.74), so that when reading about T'ao Ch'ien we are actually reading about Kodo¯jin. In this way, Chaves' essay completes the carefully constructed image of the first chapter. Chaves also touches upon the image/reality problem -- already around AD 500 Chinese authors realized that T'ao Ch'ien was not 'a farmer in the fields' (p.74). But Chaves continues: '...the image itself may be seen as a literary creation by T'ao, albeit based on reality, and therefore may, if anything, add to our admiration for him as a poetic craftsman' (p.75). So again, we end up with a wealth of speculation and not much else.
The four-page essay by J. Thomas Rimer adds but little, which is hardly surprising because after all the trouble that has been taken by Addiss and Chaves to detach Kodo¯jin from his surroundings, it is not very desirable to put him back there again. Rimer makes an attempt to compare Kodo¯jin with 'two of the most famous overtly 'dropout' poets of the interwar period', Ozaki (not Ozakai, as on pp.158 and 172) Ho¯sai and Taneda Santo¯ka. But the comparison is forced: both men became Buddhist monks, which is not the same as a quiet life in a Kyoto suburb. Otherwise, Rimer has some interesting comments to make, but his essay is too short to shore up the ramshackle building to which it is attached.
When looking at the information, which this book does provide about Kodo¯jin's daily reality, questions arise about the actual state of literati culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. It is generally assumed that the so-called literati movement was dying a slow death after the 1880s. But apparently, for forty years Kodo¯jin could make a living giving private lessons in Chinese poetry and selling paintings in the literati style to pupils, followers, and admirers. And can we say that nanga painting was dying, if it was considered worthwhile to establish a Japanese Nanga Society (Nihon nanga kyo¯kai) in 1897? Is it likely that there was no interest in Chinese poetry when Kodo¯jin was given the position of kanshi editor of the newspaper Nippon in 1899 (p.4)? The figure of Kodo¯jin could have been the point of departure for a careful re-evaluation of literati culture in this period. Only Rimer makes some remarks in this direction.
It is not clear for what sort of audience this book is meant. For the layman this seems to be a rather arcane subject, for the specialist the book has disappointingly little to offer. Uncertainty about the intended audience may explain a lack of structure and balance: either too much or too little is explained. One gets the impression that what might have been an interesting article has been blown up into a book, and rather hurriedly at that, judging from the large number of irritating misprints, especially in the notes and index (e.g., Masaoki Shiki, Matsaoka Shiki, Matsuoka Shiki). Addiss's efforts have saved Kodo¯jin from being neglected or even forgotten, but his image of the 'Old Taoist' fails to convince and his book leaves one with more questions than answers. *
- Addiss, Stephen, Old Taoist. The life, art and poetry of
Kodo¯jin (1865-1944), with translations of and commentary on the
Chinese poems by Jonathan Chaves, and an essay by J.Thomas Rimer, New
York: Colombia University Press(2000), 173 pp,
ISBN 0-231-11656-X, ill.
Anna Beerens, MA is a PhD candidate at the Research School CNWS, the School of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies, Leiden. Her research concerns eighteenth-century Japanese literati.
E-mail: A.M.J.J.Beerens@let.leidenuniv.nl