Pathway to Japanese Literature

This was neither a solemn treatise on Kosugi nor a biography of Kosugi.
When I took up my brush，these became my 'Kosugi impressions' that flowed forth without obstruction.
I seemed to know more about Mr.Kosugi than others did.
First，my daily interactions with him and profound interest ran deep.
But was I truly his oldest acquaintance from the very beginning?
My humble acquaintance with Mr.Kosugi spanned barely a quarter-century since the Spring Sunshine Society—phrased thus it might sound brief，yet twenty-five years was in truth no short span.—I remained unacquainted with Mr.Kosugi's 'former days.'
To begin with，our ages differed.

――Truth be told, in this writing, rather than using the formal “Mr. Kosugi” by which I normally address him, it would feel more natural to directly call him “Hoan.” However, as will soon become clear in the text, this subject of discussion is what people call “a man of two names,” so there is a risk of confusion arising in the narrative. Therefore, I have decided to proceed with the formal mode of address: “Mr. Kosugi.”

I have always made sure to remember Mr. Kosugi’s and Henri Matisse’s ages—as long as I don’t forget my own—but Mr. Kosugi shares my zodiac sign of the Snake, being one full cycle apart from me. Then another full cycle (twelve years) older than that Snake was Henri Matisse. Who in the art world, I wonder, would correspond to a Snake one cycle younger than me? I’ve never paid much attention to this before, but who would be forty-two this year—their unlucky year? Exactly at the end of that unlucky year, Mr. Kosugi founded the Spring Sunshine Society. And who might now be that Snake thirty years old, one cycle younger still? At thirty years old, both I and my contemporary Nakagawa Kazumasa were the age when we had joined the Spring Sunshine Society in the past. And even though eighteen years old in the Snake year—one cycle younger than thirty—is still young, there must be those of that age now beginning to emerge into the art world. Mr. Kosugi too must have set his sights on Tokyo from his hometown around that age, I imagine. When I was eighteen, I graduated from middle school and soon began attending the Hakuba-kai research institute; the year before that (December 1909), the Freedom Theatre had produced Night’s Lodging. Someone like me at eighteen was an “artistic youth.”

Mr. Kosugi had submitted *The Woodcutter* to the Fourth Bunten Exhibition (Meiji 43/1910, age thirty) and won third prize—strange as it may sound, this appears to have been his first gateway as “Kosugi of the Dragon Gate.”
“Dragon Gate” might be an odd metaphor for a gateway to success, but since the Bunten Exhibition back then differed from its modern incarnation, it likely truly merited that name in the literal sense.
If my hearing serves me right, prior to this *The Woodcutter*, Mr. Kosugi had apparently experienced rejections with works submitted to the Bunten Exhibition.
“Those rejections back then were a real blow,” I once heard him say.
“But that’s how I finally landed a hit there.”
“After that, I just had to dig in and keep going,” he added with a laugh, narrowing his eyes.
Mr. Kosugi had also remarked on another occasion:
“Back then, I worked purely out of rivalry.”
“Nothing but competitive drive.”
“‘This time I’ll surpass that fellow,’ I’d tell myself.”

When speaking of such personal matters, Mr. Kosugi had this habit: he would grow bashful—or rather, avert his gaze while fussing with his head (that bald pate), glossing over details in meandering fashion yet thrusting straight to essential points all the same. While "boasting" might aptly describe recounting one’s own achievements or favorable private tales, he harbored particular distaste for such self-promotion. Yet this did not make him some hypocritical villain. Though conveying necessary assertions with precision, he remained exquisitely attentive—herein lay Mr. Kosugi’s distinctive bearing. Grand endeavors advanced under his hand, yet there too existed the "Mr. Kosugi" who attended meticulously to minute particulars.

Mr. Kosugi was a man utterly devoid of brazenness or brusque edges, yet within his nonchalance lay composure—considerate in his comings and goings, meticulous in all matters. Through cultivation and willpower, he likely possessed an appropriate measure of "discernment" in this.

Mr. Kosugi’s appearance differed from descriptors like “high-strung,” “timidity,” or “frail constitution.” Given his broad shoulders, sturdy limbs, and solid bone structure—the very image of a “robust type”—one might expect such a stalwart figure to exhibit the so-called boldness and rough edges typical of that mold? Contrary to such expectations, one found nothing of the sort in Mr. Kosugi. This astute observation had already been clearly stated by the late Akutagawa Ryunosuke in his brief character study on Mr. Kosugi. Mr. Kosugi was a man who had acquired an Education Sentimentale “training” that stood diametrically opposed to crudeness. Half stemmed from acquired refinement, while the other half must have been his innate talent.

Though through some unexpected turn I abruptly plunged my brush into the midst of this Kosugi discourse, Mr. Kaburaki once wrote: “When conversing with others, it proves difficult to speak or listen while fully adopting the other party’s position or state of mind.” He had recorded this reflection as something he resolved to keep in mind. Whether Mr. Kosugi shared this view or not, from my observation, even had he tried to act contrary to it, his conduct and mindset would already have been a step ahead—those of a man who converses by becoming “the other party’s position or state of mind.” He was someone who had always engaged in conversation this way.

Mr. Kosugi possessed ample training to withstand others’ strength or injustice, but when faced with weakness—especially when it was just—he found a certain delight in yielding.
When facing those who were strong and righteous, he straightened his collar and met them head-on; he would not hesitate to remove his shoes even for the young—emptying his mind not merely in relation to “people,” but preemptively toward “heaven.” A man of flawless discernment yet one who would charmingly crumble into tears if brought a sentimental tale.
He must have been deceived by people at times.
Since he was not one to deceive others, the harm was never significant.

Mr. Okakura Kakuzo once boldly declared, “People say we should avoid those who flatter and fawn, but aren’t flatterers rather endearing?” However, Mr. Kosugi harbored no such absurd tendencies.
In his prime, he likely dabbled in such eccentric pursuits.

Mr. Kosugi was likely not the sort of fiery "master" who would seek to rewrite history or brandish a greatsword to overcome the corpse-strewn battlefields of the art world. In contrast to this, I consider him one of those humane and profoundly wise individuals who had learned compassion through life. Those who pursued a scholarly path like Mr. Kosugi’s were unlikely to easily emerge as second or third of their kind in the art world henceforth. That scholarly path—or rather, to learn from Mr. Kosugi’s life—was what could be described by the character for “cultivation,” or in simpler terms, “reading books.” Because this cultivation, alongside the act of painting, required no ordinary number of years. I believe that eighty to ninety percent of Mr. Kosugi’s scholarship had its foundation in drawing from ancient China. (To this add Japanese literature—indeed, the European lineage was nearly absent, giving it distinctive characteristics when viewed today.) Wasn’t this “cultivation” more deeply tied to history than to literary arts, and of greater interest in that realm? I believed that even if we considered those outside the art world, someone who had mastered Chinese classics to the extent Mr. Kosugi did would be an exceptional case. To dismiss this as merely a “hobby” or cultivated pastime would be to miss the mark entirely. Although Mr. Kosugi himself would never have called it “scholarship,” the so-called “scholarly aura” born of reading utterly divorced from utility had directly become part of his very blood—coursing within him and flowing outward from him. When one listened to Mr. Kosugi speak of even the most voluminous historical texts with such affection, they seemed like jewels, always resting in the palm of one’s hand. Moving forward, this “type” would become increasingly scarce, and even then, someone like Mr. Kosugi within scholarly circles was rare.

To maintain one’s vitality past fifty years—especially when keeping it taut—requires confronting a decisive struggle for survival; without this, I believe it cannot endure. Inevitably, people will likely fall into boredom, weariness, or senility… Though sustaining both time and spirit so flawlessly proves difficult for most, those who fix their sights on grander, more arduous goals appear all the steadier for it.—As for painting, Mr. Kosugi discovered his guiding principle upon encountering works like Rubens’s in Europe. While others pursuing Western art sought to adopt even the “greasiness” of oil painting into their practice, Mr. Kosugi made it his mission to purge this very “greasiness” from his work.

If my recollection proves mistaken, I shall retract it, but Mr. Kosugi once recounted how, upon seeing Rubens at the Louvre, he had deeply felt: “This won’t do for Japan.”

I remember it that way.

The “ikenai” in “This won’t do for Japan” likely carries an undercurrent of “cannot go,” but its primary sense was undoubtedly “must not”—the prohibitive “ikenai.”

Mr. Wakimoto Rakunoken, in the *World Art Compendium* (Volume 32), states regarding Plate 76 (*Waterside Village* by Kosugi: “A scene of a fisherman wearing a headband standing in a small boat tending his net—some critics at the time of its submission to the Fifth Bunten Exhibition wrote of its ‘Chavannes-esque decorativeness’…” Yet I cannot help but think: wasn’t this “Chavannes-esque decorativeness” rather a natural expression flowing from the artist’s brush at the time? One of the models for the “artistic sensibility” that Mr. Kosugi grasped during his European travels would likely have been Chavannes, who was closest at hand.

Misei’s *Ugahi*
Sketch

Later, Mr. Kosugi exhibited a painting titled *Cormorant Fishing* at the Taisho 4 (1915) Spring Exhibition of the Inten—though I cite this work not for any particular significance here, but simply because a reproduction with clearly discernible details happens to be at hand, making it convenient to discuss, and ultimately what I might say about it would apply equally to his other representative works—yet this piece derived its raison d’être largely from its “composition” and decorative intent, with the technique underpinning it relying predominantly on “lines.” However, it had shed the previously noted “Chavannes-like decorativeness,” becoming distinctly Japanese and, simultaneously, distinctly Kosugi’s own.
And I believe there lie both merits and demerits in this.
The “merit” lies in the artist’s mastery of Western studies and his pioneering of this new frontier—this goes without saying—while the “demerit” resides in the manner of his departure from those Western methods.
Though the artist’s individuality—or perhaps his artistic realm—was likely established early through this method of departure, whether the essence of painting gained much or lost much by this must remain in question for some time.

If my next piece of hearsay also proves mistaken, I shall correct it, but Mr. Kosugi once said, “I was no good at oil painting sketches.” This referred to the realism or naturalism of *d’après nature*.

Wakimoto Rakunoken said:
“The author (Mr. Kosugi) had long since made his name as a cartoonist, yet as a serious painter had not yet revealed his talent to the world…”
This refers to “Waterside Village”
and compares it to the artist’s earlier period (before his thirties).
“Mr. Kosugi”—that is, Misei—had already achieved such renown as a cartoonist, rough sketch artist, and illustrator that even now, one occasionally hears the resonant name “Kosugi Misei” spoken with reverence.
Mr. Kosugi is a man who split himself into two personas—Misei preceding and Hoan following—but Kosugi Misei now belongs to history.
Counting back, the name “Kosugi Misei”—active in the art world and celebrated across society from a quarter-century ago to two decades prior—must evoke considerable emotion in Mr. Kosugi himself when he reflects on those vanished years.

I shall set aside for now the period when he studied under Master Ioki Bunzai in Nikko during his youth.
After setting out for Tokyo with his pack, Mr. Kosugi pursued formal painting studies at Master Koyama Shotaro’s Fudosha while—one imagines—the young man in his twenties, whose very bones had been forged through rote recitation of Chinese classics and poetry under Master Ioki’s tutelage alongside painting, found it only natural that the path unfolding before him should demand both artwork for print publications and literary endeavors. For this was no youth content to idly study art alone, but a man of fervent ambition and ceaseless seeking.
And so Mr. Kosugi prolifically produced rough sketches and also wrote articles in great number.
The sheer number of works Kosugi Misei churned out in magazines and books at the time—truly enough to fill oxcarts and overflow houses, as the saying goes—would surely amass to an astonishing volume if stacked before one’s eyes just as they were.

Conversely, if we were to rephrase this now in historical terms, our “Kosugi Misei” would be recognized as a pioneer of illustrations and cartoons—yet this was simply talent that gushed forth spontaneously from the young Mr. Kosugi at the time.
There was undoubtedly extraordinary effort, but I do not believe he particularly intended to blaze a trail as a pioneer in illustrations or cartoons.
It should be regarded as an achievement where he tackled—one after another—all the work that existed and all the work that came his way.
As a result, this—surpassing his peers and standing out so prominently that one might say it was inevitable—established Kosugi Misei as a master of illustrations and cartoons.
—And here, I think, Mr. Kosugi’s "early period" began.
Simultaneously, he faced the art world with that very approach.

The early period was something no one could clearly discern as it was, but just as they say “the child is father to the man,” a person’s essence invariably revealed itself when you examined their beginnings. This crystallized into something truly fascinating.—What I wished to convey was this: when examining Mr. Kosugi’s “early period”—whether through his cartoons or illustrations—in every case, elements of decorative talent densely occupied eight out of ten parts within his paintings. To rephrase, symbolic forms were markedly stronger in his works than those resembling realistic depictions.

Mr. Kosugi engaged in such work—where the character for “work” (仕事) leans more toward *task* than *work* in the sense of *Work*—while never wavering from formal study in painting, in the sense of *Work* or *Study*. From the perspective of the form of his work, this was likely a process that led his paintings toward realistic depictions—a style he struggled with—rather than his forte of symbolic decoration. For Mr. Kosugi, this was undoubtedly a process where arduous study outweighed any ease or enjoyment in the study of painting.

Even after later traveling abroad, I believe that for Mr. Kosugi to reach the visceral realization—through his very being—that European oil paintings were ill-suited to Japan’s, or rather Kosugi Misei’s, disposition, it required that the whip of hardship had thoroughly lashed through his very bones, culminating in a life-risking epiphany.
To purge “greasiness” from one’s work—

Mr. Kosugi would often recount tales of his own bald head with reluctant yet amused self-deprecation to geishas at banquets—but picture him in Europe, rising at an inn in Bordeaux or some such place and facing the washstand, only for clumps of hair to catch in the teeth of his comb as he groomed himself.
“Well, that’s how it happened—bit by bit, until I ended up like this.”
“Ah ha…” Mr. Kosugi laughed.
But while surrounded alone by grand oil paintings in France, every morning when he combed his hair, clumps would come out in bundles.
The rejection of oil painting and realism that he contemplated amid that environment and discernment must have been the driving force that completely restructured the framework of the artist “Kosugi Misei”—this is not difficult to surmise.

Yet one wonders whether Mr. Kosugi himself realized how deeply the very realism he had consciously “rejected” had in fact sunk into the marrow of his soul—how thoroughly he had carried it back with him.—It is said that when Mr. Mitsuya (Kunishiro), during their travels together, resolved to “return to square one” and “become an apprentice” to a certain artist abroad (the specific name escapes me now) to relearn the ABCs of the craft from scratch, Mr. Kosugi remarked thus:
“That’s all well and good, but we’re no novices back in Japan.”
“That requires no deliberation.”
The wording may differ, but such was the essence.

As figures destined to become masters in Japan yet studying Western arts in France during that time, both Mr. Mitsuya and Mr. Kosugi made for fascinating subjects.
Mr. Kosugi grasped his guiding principles through discernment—that is to say, not proceeding from the “hand” but through the intellect.

And so Kosugi Misei returned from abroad having discovered “the path of painting,” but it was there that “Kosugi Misei” reached completion.
He was no longer Misei the cartoonist, nor Misei the illustrator.
He had become a man of canvases so vast that even with arms outstretched to their fullest across the walls of Take no Dai Building No. 5, they still exceeded one’s grasp.
—Here, I believe what Kosugi Misei—discovered and completed by Mr. Kosugi—gained most profoundly as an artist was his mastery of the path toward grand works: one aspect being his contribution to the art world, and equally, a form of substantial self-nourishment for the man himself.
This equipped him with the robust capacity to propel his innate decorative talent onto a grand trajectory.
I consider this to be Mr. Kosugi’s second period—the “mid-career” phase.
It could be called his mature period, but this continued until it transformed into the next phase of “Hoan.”
In terms of artistic associations, until the formation of the Spring Sunshine Society; chronologically, until the advent of the Showa era; and in terms of the artist’s age, until he was fully into his forties.

Whether one calls it resplendent, or—to put it plainly—striking, or even dashing… Mr. Kosugi’s “era” was in this “mid-career” period. With Mr. Taikan overseeing arrangements, even the lavish editions of Tokaido Journeys displayed there could no longer match the gravitas of Misei’s reputation—and when, at twenty-four years old (Meiji 37/1904), he had been dispatched by Senjigahosha to the Manchurian front wearing that armband,

Among the items Misei carried on this journey, the most frequently used was a mess kit with a handle of the type employed by soldiers. The mess kit could hold two or three meals’ worth of rice in full; its first and second pots were to boil water in place of standard cookware and cook requisitioned pumpkin and pork. The third lid served as a tobacco tray for the clinking convenience of pipes; the fourth, as a candle holder when wielding brushes during midnight encampments; and the fifth became a makeshift pillow—yet as for his pistol, thanks to our ever-victorious army’s provisions, it merely added dead weight to the luggage without serving even a sliver of purpose. If they were to promote the mess kit to first-class merit, then should not the pistol duly return its rank certificate? (*War Pictorial*, Issue 23)

Among Mr. Kosugi’s colleagues were individuals like Kimura Hanshin, Ashihara Roku, Mizushima Nanpei, and Okabe Tenrai—all frantically wielding their brushes in what would today be termed “war correspondent” work. Yet a decade later, a vast gulf had formed between “Kosugi Misei” and his former colleagues—a divide not of Mr. Kosugi’s making.

However, though I said “completed,” I do not mean that art itself was completed.
Mr. Kosugi had first and foremost completed “Misei.”
And to speak bluntly—had this been another person—Mr. Kosugi might well have slumbered peacefully within the resplendent curtain of “Misei.” But without his profound devotion to art and life’s path, no one could have truly re-emerged from “Kosugi Misei” into “Kosugi Hoan.”
In an ordinary life, this would be unthinkable.
By this point, “Misei” had already become a daimyo of the art world.
However, from art’s perspective—where the insights, discoveries, achievements, and approaches up through “Misei” could not fully encompass all that was required—for Mr. Kosugi in his “Hoan” period (it should be noted that the pigments he now held were not Western paints but Japanese ones), I do not consider even the oil paintings Mr. Kosugi created after the Spring Sunshine Society to be “Western paintings.”
I fully consider them to be “Japanese painting.”
Upon reaching this juncture, art bloomed brilliantly, like a flower in its second flowering.
There are works such as young cherry trees painted on two-panel folding screens; rocks; birds; and particularly in small-scale pieces measuring mere inches—poignant expressions of a traveler’s heart or Taoist and Buddhist figures—all rendered with brushstrokes of profound beauty that flow unceasingly.

Mr. Kosugi had become someone who painted these works using purely Japanese painting materials.
In other words, he had become Kosugi the “Japanese painter,” casting off “Misei”—which had been grounded in both Japanese and Western painting.
Fundamentally, the very vocabulary we use—these terms “Japanese painter” and “Western-style painter”—is flawed.
Here too, such unavoidable words and concepts exist, so even I end up circling back with redundant explanations—but in truth, there is no need to insist he specifically became “Japanese painter Hoan.”
It was around the time Mr. Kosugi adopted the name Hoan that he restarted his journey as a pure painter.—At least until then, whether in Japanese or Western painting, Kosugi Misei—the earlier incarnation of Mr. Kosugi—had never escaped a certain inadequacy in the very act of painting itself. Yet here, gazing upon the mountain pass of fifty years, the transformed Mr. Kosugi who restarted as a “pure” painter and emerged as a Japanese painter was both an expression of Painter Kosugi’s inherent character and a destiny ordained for him.
Yet here lies something even more deserving of our attention—a new development in the story of Painter Kosugi that must be particularly emphasized: the greatest significance of his transformation into “Hoan” resides in this—the rebirth of realism within his brushwork.

It would be no exaggeration to call this a miracle in the history of Painter Kosugi.
In my view, this miracle originated from Mr. Kosugi’s annual exhibitions—by no means modest in scale—held successively at Mitsukoshi, which prompted him to take up bird-and-flower subjects.
I believe this circumstance served as the catalyst.
And once he began these works, Mr. Kosugi—much like the grand oil paintings from his Misei period shown at the Inten Exhibition, broad in effect yet shallow in depth—would sweep across the canvas.
——Rejecting this approach, he instead aimed for the material’s core, standing his brush upright to drive straight downward.
He began to paint vertically rather than applying strokes horizontally.

The fact that Western painting techniques were something he had struggled with and found difficult to attempt; his having once abandoned them in Europe through his own “earnest resolve”; and now, as the Japanese painter “Hoan,” adopting a comeback determination to grapple head-on with realism—this compelled me to declare: He had now achieved his aspiration here.

It did not mean that realism represented the ultimate aim of painting. While “painting” exists apart from this, one celebrates the auspicious blossoming of realism in Painter Kosugi.—The character 習 (*shū*, “practice”) from *The Analects*’ “Is it not a joy to learn and practice what is learned?” is said to depict a fledgling bird, poised atop its eggshell as it ceaselessly flaps its wings toward the sky. In this vein, Mr. Kosugi first flapped free from Master Ioki’s nest to grasp the style of a sketch artist; in his Misei period, how he must have flapped to shed the shell of that sketch artist; and then, as Hoan, how he flapped once more to cast off Misei himself. This was the true form of Mr. Kosugi—a man of unceasing artistic pursuit.

Mr. Kosugi was first a master of illustrations and cartoons, then a leading figure in the dazzling art world—a "great master," soon an "elder statesman" and "member"... but these were all mere bubbles.
The crucial thing is that Mr. Kosugi remained, above all, a man immersed in art; thus, even his near-impossible re-emergence from "Misei" to "Hoan" was splendidly accomplished without being swept adrift in the whirlwind of his vigorous prime.—Now peace has come.

“Hoan” marked Mr. Kosugi’s third period, through which he would eventually transition into his “late years.” Yet upon reaching this path, no matter how far one advanced, it seemed it would never reach its end.

If we were to ask what visibly “changed” from Misei to Hoan, the clear answer lay in the transformation of his “lines.”—Indeed, one could view Mr. Kosugi’s entire artistic career as a history of “lines,” but in his early works, while many lines had been drawn for compositional priorities (or perhaps decorative intent), few were directly rendered to capture the manifold aspects of his subjects—regardless of realism or non-realism.
There were lines that avoided the crucial points where they should tighten, slackening and meandering freely.
During the early “Misei” period, the artistic style of his rough sketches and cartoons appeared to have been crafted in this manner.

In his work *Three Generations of Japanese Painting*, Mr. Ishii Hakutei writes of Mr. Kosugi: “When viewed alongside works like *Demon Subjugation*, pieces such as *The Woodcutter* from the Fourth Bunten Exhibition and *Waterside Village* from the following year showed considerable refinement.”
“…However, the outlines of those figures had a certain idiosyncrasy, and by the time of *Bean Autumn* in Taisho 1 [1912], there was an overwhelming sense of something like an enlarged comic panel.” While Mr. Ishii states this, what I find impossible to overlook in *Bean Autumn* is how—even in the aspects where Mr. Ishii finds dissatisfaction—the very same era also saw the simultaneous birth of Mr. Kosugi’s unique skill: the success of “composition” (decorative intent).
In the lines of *Waterside Village*, the brushwork of early Misei had been thoroughly refined—or perhaps purified—of its “slackness” and “playfulness.”
There is no lingering hesitation.
They have become lines drawn from nature through the painting itself.—The phrase “from this nature” may just as well be rephrased as “from aesthetic sense,” for the artist Misei of this painting is not strictly a practitioner of *d’après nature*.

Mr. Hakutei states, "The outlines of those figures have a certain mannerism..." This "mannerism" he refers to emerges when Mr. Kosugi paints with ease; however, precisely because of its presence, his large-scale works progress and extend into decorative and symbolic effects—a dynamic that frequently served this artist's strengths. However, had this not been restrained, Painter Kosugi might have become ensnared by his own lines—a path toward complacency. The artist's unwavering devotion to his path gradually subdued what one might call the serpent dwelling in the thicket of this work over time.

The late Togari Soshin-an, while acknowledging the effectiveness of Mr. Kosugi’s favored hemp paper for ink wash works, also critiqued its shortcomings. There was a time when Mr. Kosugi frequently employed a technique of dabbing broken ink onto the rough surface of hemp paper—that is, the hemp fibers embedded during its production—to draw out the painting’s “flavor.” He lamented that this approach killed the essential underdrawing for the sake of superficial “flavor.” — In later years, Hoan no longer did this.

As for the technique of *Cormorant Fishing* exhibited at the Inten Exhibition—it extended these lines to their utmost limit. While I believe this undoubtedly constituted a necessary style as a grand painting technique (eschewing centripetal underdrawing to instead gather effects through centrifugal decoration on a large scale), it nevertheless lacked tautness. If likened to a folding fan, it had splendid ribs that spread magnificently, yet due to a loose rivet, it wobbled—an approach that failed to mask the frailty of its framework. Yet even this was later reflected upon and corrected by Hoan.

The path of Mr. Kosugi, who had earlier employed the unusual phrase “gateway to success,” saw his works *Waterside Village* (Fifth Bunten Exhibition, Meiji 44 [1911]) and *Bean Autumn* (Sixth Bunten Exhibition, Taisho 1 [1912])—following his third-prize-winning *The Woodcutter*—receive successive second prizes. Regarding *Waterside Village*, Rakushiken remarked, “With this work, he abruptly rose to lead the ranks of emerging artists, and upon presenting *Bean Autumn* the following year, his position in the art world was firmly established.” This account may indeed be accepted as written—the journey of the artist “Kosugi Misei” in his prime.

From around the time of the founding of the Inten Exhibition’s Western Painting Division (Taisho 3 [1914]), Mr. Kosugi’s artistic path grew ever broader with each passing year, though his work increasingly distanced itself from oil painting’s greasiness, and even his materials came to rely more heavily on Japanese methods.
As a Western-style painter’s path, it was a natural progression that mural-like works—rather than easel paintings—became this man’s domain.

In the murals lies the drive with which he himself sought to erect a commemorative monument through this work—the ambitious working style he demonstrated in the Tokyo Imperial University’s lecture hall mural, having taken on the task himself.
(Taisho 14 [1925])—This work was likely the largest wall surface in Japan to be treated with painting.
The artist, too—rather than being motivated by intentions such as showing his work to others—recognized the honest germination of this pictorial concept in his pure-hearted resolve to “make this vast surface into a painting and see,” and thus embarked on the endeavor.

It was during a rather hot summer.
Mr. Kosugi, using Mizutani Kiyoshi as his assistant, painted this mural over 150 days in a cavernous, deserted workspace on the Tokyo Imperial University campus—unknown to anyone outside those involved—working from dawn till dusk each day, wearing nothing but a shirt during the peak of summer’s heat—and if I may add one more word, he painted it with genuine enjoyment.

The mural was arched in shape, and I believe its height was just over three *ken* (approximately 5.5 meters), with a width of five *ken* (about 9.1 meters).
I do not have the exact measurements at hand now, but as an additional note, this grand work was an act of devotion by the artist.
The artist wanted a large wall on which to work single-mindedly.

In his later years, Mr. Kosugi—whose brushwork had grown austere—had, since about a decade prior, been thoroughly enjoying an abruptly transformed meticulous “realism technique,” all while progressing year by year toward the hall of “Japanese painting methods,” where he remained to that day.
And in recent years—or rather, it might be better to say by then—the recent letter he gave me stated:

“…I would like to depict Nobunaga’s vassals on fan motifs within the fusuma sliding door paintings of Azuchi Sōken-ji Temple. I believe you might possess reference materials from that era showing formal crest-adorned attire and armored figures. Might I trouble you to lend them? The borrowed reference books were lost in the recent wartime fires. I must profoundly apologize for this matter. The condiments survived unscathed. October 19, Showa 21 (1946), Hōu.”

(Mr. Kosugi would write various things in his letter signatures—Half-Bald in earlier days, now simply Bald; Hoan-Bald, Meandering-Bald, Hōu, Mountain Sage...), appearing increasingly drawn to figure painting of late. This old age of Mr. Kosugi's—I consider it a path that may be becoming one of the most intriguing realms for an artist, while growing ever more austere and refined, his endeavors sinking deeper into the sphere of his mind.—May fortune grace Mr. Kosugi's tranquil old age.

Hoan had followed such a path in his pursuits; yet if I, a junior, may briefly reflect here, Kosugi Hoan was not necessarily a swordsman who had squarely directed the blade of his life’s single-minded duel—the very substance of his existence—solely toward “painting.” Rather than positioning painting as his main path, his single-minded duel was aimed at “life” itself—its poignancy, the unity of joy and sorrow. Having aimed at this, would he not have had the bearing of a swordsman in priestly robes?

And this very “target”—though others may not have known it—was Mr. Kosugi, who in his youth had rushed eastward to Tokyo under Master Ioki’s tutelage, become a rough sketch artist amid ceaseless toil, created poetic landscape paintings, depicted *Water Margin*, chronicled wartime scenes, and then, amid the Bunten Exhibition’s rising momentum—a path strikingly similar to Mr. Kaburaki Kiyokata’s—transformed into a “great master,” further ascending to become the art world’s “preeminent master”… this man who had shaped the painting realm for forty years.

However, Mr. Kosugi’s very objective had never been about becoming a preeminent figure in this field.
Even becoming a great painter—though whether he had considered this in his prime or middle age remained unclear—was something Mr. Kosugi in recent years likely never contemplated.
He had devoted his heart to this long ascetic practice, desiring to attain life’s Buddhist fruition through the devotional recitation of his painting work.

Kosugi Hoan is, I believed, an esteemed master of our time.
With the loss of Uzaemon, even the vibrant torch of kabuki had to first be considered a historical milestone, I thought.
Were it not for Kosugi Hoan of our time, I could not help but feel that the true torch of our literati painting tradition would cast but the faintest glimmer—Mr. Kosugi’s presence had become an invaluable thing.
How earnestly I hoped that Mr. Kosugi would continue to nourish himself.

In this fine season of late, Mr. Kosugi lived in leisurely contentment amidst the birdsong, grasses and plants, strange rocks around him, and the mountain stream where salamanders dwelled in Akakura—a place where the temperature rarely climbed above eighty degrees. Yet while the loss of his Tokyo home and various furnishings in the recent war devastation had been heartbreaking, what pained me most whenever I thought of it was how his books had been burned—a truly grievous matter.
I could not regard this as someone else’s affair.
These had been books accumulated over several years through repeated searches around Beijing’s Liulichang—volumes unlikely to be obtained again so easily—and I found it truly distressing.
Ah, for Mr. Kosugi, this must surely have been the greatest blow of the wartime devastation.

Among Mr. Kosugi’s old friends was Master Koda Rentaro, who once calmly remarked: “I will likely die before you, so when I do, you may have all my books.” However, I’d like you to keep lending them to me until I die.

Mr. Kosugi has such friends in reality.
Or perhaps he is one of those who have attained the greatest happiness a human can possess.
Mr. Koda, too, is an esteemed master of our time who could conversely express the same sentiments through Mr. Kosugi.—What one should contemplate is this astonishing, enviable reality of Showa 21 (1946): how such a world within the bamboo grove has been solidly established within the environment of the man called “Mr. Kosugi.”

Mr. Kosugi had always been fortunate in friends, yet one might also say he followed a strange fate of being ill-fated in friendship—Oshikawa Shunro, Kunikida Doppo, Nakazawa Rinsen, Imamura Shikō, Morita Tsunetomo, Kurata Hakuyo (addendum: Yamamoto Kanei)—all close friends from whom he gradually parted, one by one.
Be that as it may, it was when Mr. Morita’s illness had grown critical.
As with Mr. Kurata too, even before their passing, whenever their names arose, Mr. Kosugi would persist in saying—whether “Morita, don’t die” or “Kurata, don’t die, don’t die”—speaking nothing but talk of “dying” regarding Mr. Morita and Mr. Kurata, who were then gravely ill, leaving someone like me frequently at a loss for responses.
And though this flowed with the clarity of wise waters, unless Mr. Kosugi himself became aware of it, each time he would find his heart overflowing—truly unable to endure their deaths, utterly inconsolable—with piercing, profound sorrow.
Therefore, conversely, by voicing it aloud—while continually laying groundwork against the worst—he had been restraining his loneliness.
I believe this could be called a gesture Mr. Kosugi could not suppress through composure.—And these bitter draughts of parting with close comrades one after another must have tempered his character into one of deep benevolence and finely considerate dignity.

Mr. Kosugi was from Nikko, but perhaps owing to Kanto’s disposition as contiguous land—and particularly because his myriad cultured experiences and various paths had all trodden proper ground—he bore no trace of someone from a remote region. He was a richly seasoned, dapper old man—something like a hard-bitten survivor of old Edo. (If it came to sheer style, Hoan of Nikko—that rascally old man “Wakar”—outshone even Mr. Kaburaki right under his nose.) It was during the height of the Purple Faction’s influence in the capital that young Kosugi left Master Ioki’s tutelage and ventured to Tokyo. It was said that Master Ioki, conversely, did not wish to throw himself into the midst of that vortex.

And so when Mr. Kosugi came to Tokyo, he joined Tōfūsha—a sworn enemy of the Purple Faction—and later, at some lecture in his later years (when was it?), sharing the stage with Mr. Wada (Eisaku), after Mr. Wada’s speech, Mr. Kosugi took the podium and reportedly recounted how he had once regarded those present—Mr. Wada and the generals of the Purple Faction—as enemies to be opposed with a “To hell with them!” Mr. Wada also listened with a broad smile, and as Mr. Kosugi recounted this story, he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself.

Mr. Kosugi was a man of deep sentiment and sensitivity, and at one time drank heartily.
One time, someone thrust a live mamushi directly into a one-shō bottle of sake, enshrined it in the alcove, and went to sleep—only for “the viper to thrash around inside the bottle, see? In the middle of the night, the whole thing tipped over.”
Sake flowed everywhere; the viper crawled out.
“Oh, I’ve been at my wit’s end over that one!” he said.
In his prime, he was a formidable leader in the Tengu Club faction, and moreover, the fact that he remained an active member of the Poplar Club for tennis over many years was something known only to those in the know.
Mr. Kosugi’s undiminished health in his later years likely stemmed from his training in tennis and these many years of mountain climbing.
Mr. Kosugi was also a man who delighted in mist-clad mountains.
There was scarcely any place in Japan proper that he had not been to, and he had also made several round trips to China.

I once met the late Master Ioki’s wife at Mr. Kosugi’s Tabata residence, where he all but took her by the hand to introduce this refined elderly lady to me.
Mr. Kosugi had published a posthumous collection of Master Ioki’s writings and poetry.
In Mr. Kosugi’s studio hung an oil painting—Number 12 in size—depicting Master Ioki’s Nikko Waterfall.

The Kosugi family crest was Yotsume; Mr. Ogawa Uosen’s crest too was Yotsume; mine likewise Yotsume—whenever crests came up in conversation, this became our recurring topic, though if we delved deeper, we wondered whether there might be some connection beyond that to figures like Sasaki Takatsuna.

“Kosugi Misei (later renamed Hoan), after studying under Ioki Bunzai in Nikko and then at Tōfūsha, was one who… Just as the artist himself seemed to possess both a boldness and a sentimental aspect, so too could these qualities be glimpsed in his works.”
This was the phrase with which Mr. Hakutei concluded his article in *Nihon Kaiga Sandai-shi* (Chronicle of Three Generations of Japanese Painting).

○ On the Hoan Art Name

People gradually came to call Mr. Kosugi "Misei" less and less. That said, this did not mean "Kosugi Misei" had vanished—there were surely still old friends and acquaintances deeply familiar with him who continued to call him "Kosugi Misei."
From the present-day Mr. Kosugi, the former "Kosugi Misei" had been nearly entirely erased, transformed into the new "Hoan." Yet the essence of work forged under this "name" called "Kosugi Misei" did not fade; it remained deeply ingrained in people's memories and the art world's collective recollection alike, making Mr. Kosugi's transformation a process demanding considerable effort.

As for when exactly "Kosugi Misei" became "Kosugi Hoan," discrepancies might emerge if one meticulously scrutinized the timeline—but stating it thus would suffice for clarity, and with no significant error in doing so, it may be said that upon reaching his fiftieth year, Mr. Kosugi became Hoan and ceased to be Misei.
Up through the sixth Spring Sunshine Society exhibition, Mr. Kosugi had submitted paintings under his "Misei" art name.
When it came to the 7th Exhibition (Spring of Showa 4 [1929]), in the exhibition catalog under No. 146,

Mountain Youth at Play by Kosugi Hoan

the line "Mountain Youth at Play by Kosugi Hoan" appeared.
And strictly speaking, this would become the first commemorative characters to serve as official documentary evidence for future reference.
If calculated correctly, in Showa 4 (1929), Mr. Kosugi would have been forty-nine years old.
(Postscript: This was later told to me by Mr. Kosugi: “Through that writing, even I came to understand myself clearly for the first time.”)

I had previously mentioned that Mr. Kosugi painted the mural for Imperial University’s lecture hall in Taisho 14 [1925], but later, when including that work in the *World Art Compendium* and writing its commentary—a task that fallen to me—I found myself troubled over whether to list the artist’s name as Misei or Hoan.
I appended a postscript stating, “...the author had traditionally used Misei as his art name, but in recent years has employed Hoan more frequently than Misei,” and deliberately listed the artist’s name as “Kosugi Hoan.”
(Showa 5 edition, Complete Works Volume 35, Figure 66) This was likely the first instance of something being written under the name Hoan and becoming an official printed work.

Though I had missed hearing the precise circumstances behind why Mr. Kosugi abandoned his Misei art name and adopted Hoan, there was a time when an old acquaintance asked him about it at a casual drinking party among friends.
“Why did you abandon Misei?”
“Don’t you use Misei at all these days?”
Mr. Kosugi answered, “Yes.”
Yet when met with this “why” inquiry, he offered no response, so the questioner pressed further: “But don’t you think Misei was a fine art name? (laughing) Or did you grow to dislike what these characters for Misei implied?”
Mr. Kosugi sipped his sake cup and laughed with a hearty “Oh,” Ha ha ha ha.
The questioner also smiled and now turned to me: “Not Misei but Kisei—already awakened, perhaps? No—Misei is better, I say.”
“Mr. K, what do you say?”
“It’s better not to wake up, don’t you think?...”

Mr. Kosugi had been laughing along with us the entire time—but now that I think of it, this was the only occasion before or after when the abandonment of "Misei" became a special topic of discussion between us. Before long, Mr. Kosugi smoothly transitioned from Misei to Hoan, and we, too, accepted this without hesitation or finding it at all strange. And from my personal perspective—not necessarily speaking from having grown accustomed to the name afterward—I believe the current Hoan art name is better than the former Misei one. One reason must also lie in its suitability to Mr. Kosugi’s advanced years.

For Mr. Kosugi himself as well, regarding his abandonment of the Misei art name—even when faced with casual questions at drinking gatherings, his difficulty in giving straightforward answers only made it seem all the more natural—might this not have been a change he had made with deliberate nonchalance? Just as people naturally change into season-appropriate attire at the turn of seasons, one might reflect that even without over-scrutinizing the seemingly significant implication of the characters for “Misei,” there were likely signs—intuitively speaking—that Mr. Kosugi himself had grown displeased with them.

Originally, the art name “Hoan” was one that Mr. Kurata (Hakuyo) had conceived for his own use, but owing to the easygoing camaraderie between Mr. Kosugi and Mr. Kurata—which led to remarks like “That doesn’t suit you, Omahe-san”—it became something Mr. Kosugi ended up appropriating, and such is its origin.
――In his later years, Mr. Kurata went by the art name Bōsai.
And it was Mr. Kurata who most frequently began calling Mr. Kosugi “Hoan.”
Mr. Yamamoto (Kanei) and others often called him Kosugi, Kosugi.

To discuss Mr. Kosugi properly, I must also record his relationship with Mr. Taikan—otherwise, I would lose one significant facet of the material—but since this is something I can write about only through hearsay, I have chosen to omit it.
My relationship with those two teachers during the Inten Exhibition era was precisely what you might call a hierarchical gap—like that between a soldier and an officer, or a student and a teacher.
Because if the distance is too great, we mustn’t conceal errors in perspective.

Whenever Mr. Taikan saw my face, he would invariably say “Tabata,” “Tabata,” and Mr. Kosugi would often say “Kayabacho.”
At the time of the Bijutsu Hōkoku-kai (Art Patriotic Association), Mr. Taikan—that is, the “Chairman”—had been in a situation where he could hardly have taken action unless he added Mr. Kosugi to his staff as a director of the association.
One time, Mr. Taikan (quite drunk) said to me: “This Mr. Kosugi here belongs to Mi.”
“Mi means Snake.”
(With strange gestures) “It slithers out of the hole...looking this way and that...then starts crawling out.”
“But when it thinks ‘Haa—this won’t do,’ it doesn’t crawl out after all.”
At this, Mr. Taikan flashed his uniquely endearing smile while suddenly casting a sharp glance at Mr. Kosugi beside him: “You see? This man here is exactly like that.”

At that time, I said to Mr. Taikan.

“Mr. Taikan, I too am a Snake.”
“I’m a snake one cycle younger.”
“Oh no—this won’t do.”

Mr. Taikan scratched his head.

Regarding Mr. Kosugi—his essays, his poetry, his writings—these too must truly be discussed. There will likely be an opportunity to supplement this at another time.
(And for me—without regard to my youth—Mr. Kosugi had been the gracious host and exemplar who, for years, shared with me the “Tokyo chic” he embodied.)
“Chic”
Now utterly transformed, Mr. Kosugi had become an “old sage” who spent most of each year secluded in the mountains—a present where we, in defeated Japan, were reduced to paupers subsisting on rationed rice. Yet there remained the moons we had seen together over the years, the beautiful or refined people, the songs, Mr. Kosugi’s wine cups, the myriad foods, the various parlors… and sometimes even the rustic merchant inns of Toride’s waterside or Ushiku…….

……This gave me countless living lessons through practical instruction.
It was unforeseen, and it was also the “chic” of “Great Japan”—something that could never be seen again.

While there may be those to consult on the path of painting, for the study of living, the only teacher is heaven’s endowment.
I am deeply indebted to Mr. Kosugi for his profound mentorship.

(Showa 23 [1948] Autumn Journal)