Pathway to Japanese Literature
Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.
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| Original Title | 自画像 |
|---|---|
| Author | 寺田 寅彦 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | A convalescent man, weary of confinement and books, rediscovers oil painting through an old manual—a portal to forgotten middle school days when he first mixed paints on cardboard. As spring stirs dormant gardens, his revived obsession becomes a mirror: each brushstroke resurrects ghostly impressions of vanished tools, youthful scents, and faces half-remembered. Self-portraetry emerges as involuntary compulsion—not vanity, but a confrontation with shifting identities glimpsed in silvered glass. The canvas rebels; eyes drift asymmetrically, cheeks morph into ancestral echoes, completed works startle with strangers’ gazes. Through feverish sessions blending scientific precision and artistic desperation, he grapples with Cézanne’s elusive contours and the uncanny valley between mirrored reflection and painted truth. Ghostly afterimages haunt his nights while daylight reveals canvases that mockingly resemble carpenters or long-dead fathers. What begins as therapeutic diversion spirals into metaphysical inquiry—how many selves inhabit one face? Each failed attempt unravels deeper mysteries of perception, until even living faces dissolve into brushstroke illusions. |
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