DOI Heft:
No. 67 (October 1898)
DOI Artikel:Anderson, William: A japanese artist, Kawanabé Kiōsai
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19230#0052
Kawanabd Kiosai
unhappily was drawing near.
In the following year his
health broke down, and al-
though he knew his days
were numbered, the love of
his art appeared to be his
all-dominating passion. He
died on May 14, 1889. The
account of his closing days,
given in the Japan Mail, is
painful and touching.
"Three days before he
died the desire to paint once
more seized him irresistibly,
and he sketched upon the
paper slide behind his bed a
weird outline of his own
emaciated form, bent and
tottering as he stood to paint,
and suffering from the symp-
toms of his fatal disease. A
few straight lines below the
knees, suggesting too plainly
the square shell in which he
was soon to be enclosed,
showed that he knew well
this sketch would be his last.
Heartrending and horrible,
shaky and imperfect, these
touches contain some of the
genius of Kiosai."
It is not easy to assign to
Kiosai his rightful place
amongst Japanese painters.
hawk, from the "ehon taka kagami " by kiosai That he had rich gifts of
genius and originality is un-
doubted, but his life-work
paring to sketch his portrait; and a fine carp, scarcely reached the elevation to which his ability
becoming restive under the process of observation, might have aspired. Some of this disappointing fact
has turned a somersault out of his bath into the must be attributed to his surroundings, which left him
uncongenial medium of the outer air. It is a won- little chance of refined or invigorating associations ;
derful picture of a life school of the most convenient but self-indulgence and lack of continued industry are
and practical kind. The remaining volumes of the perhaps chiefly responsible for his relative failure, and
work are of less interest. In one he gives some we must not forget that he died at the age of fifty-
careful copies of Leveille's anatomical drawings. In four, while Hokusai rejoiced in five-and-thirty years
others he imitates the styles of many ancient Chinese of activity and productiveness after he had passed
and Japanese masters of painting, the description this term. His habit of seeking inspiration in the sake
of each pictuve being printed above in what purports cup has been explained by an apologist as a necessary
to be English. His English, indeed, is even carried stimulant to his imagination : but, in point of fact,
to the extent of long paragraphs explanatory of the many of his most spirited compositions were dashed
principles of Japanese art; but the sentences are off when his funds were exhausted and he lacked
too cryptic for the intelligence of the foreigner on the wherewithal to purchase the enemy which, it is
whose behoof they are expressly designed. to be feared, more often paralysed than stimulated
After this we hear little more of Kiosai, whose end his witty brain. The weird inventions in many of
37
drawing of a
unhappily was drawing near.
In the following year his
health broke down, and al-
though he knew his days
were numbered, the love of
his art appeared to be his
all-dominating passion. He
died on May 14, 1889. The
account of his closing days,
given in the Japan Mail, is
painful and touching.
"Three days before he
died the desire to paint once
more seized him irresistibly,
and he sketched upon the
paper slide behind his bed a
weird outline of his own
emaciated form, bent and
tottering as he stood to paint,
and suffering from the symp-
toms of his fatal disease. A
few straight lines below the
knees, suggesting too plainly
the square shell in which he
was soon to be enclosed,
showed that he knew well
this sketch would be his last.
Heartrending and horrible,
shaky and imperfect, these
touches contain some of the
genius of Kiosai."
It is not easy to assign to
Kiosai his rightful place
amongst Japanese painters.
hawk, from the "ehon taka kagami " by kiosai That he had rich gifts of
genius and originality is un-
doubted, but his life-work
paring to sketch his portrait; and a fine carp, scarcely reached the elevation to which his ability
becoming restive under the process of observation, might have aspired. Some of this disappointing fact
has turned a somersault out of his bath into the must be attributed to his surroundings, which left him
uncongenial medium of the outer air. It is a won- little chance of refined or invigorating associations ;
derful picture of a life school of the most convenient but self-indulgence and lack of continued industry are
and practical kind. The remaining volumes of the perhaps chiefly responsible for his relative failure, and
work are of less interest. In one he gives some we must not forget that he died at the age of fifty-
careful copies of Leveille's anatomical drawings. In four, while Hokusai rejoiced in five-and-thirty years
others he imitates the styles of many ancient Chinese of activity and productiveness after he had passed
and Japanese masters of painting, the description this term. His habit of seeking inspiration in the sake
of each pictuve being printed above in what purports cup has been explained by an apologist as a necessary
to be English. His English, indeed, is even carried stimulant to his imagination : but, in point of fact,
to the extent of long paragraphs explanatory of the many of his most spirited compositions were dashed
principles of Japanese art; but the sentences are off when his funds were exhausted and he lacked
too cryptic for the intelligence of the foreigner on the wherewithal to purchase the enemy which, it is
whose behoof they are expressly designed. to be feared, more often paralysed than stimulated
After this we hear little more of Kiosai, whose end his witty brain. The weird inventions in many of
37
drawing of a