DOI Heft:
No. 232 (July 1912)
DOI Artikel:Studio-talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21157#0186
Studio-Talk
people. There were some pictures calculated to
foster the spirit of loyalty and patriotism, filial piety
and friendship, chastity, and kindred virtues, while
others did not admit of easy classification or were
difficult to gauge at their true value, but had a
peculiar fascination for the Japanese by virtue of a
certain undescribable charm possessed by each of
them.
It must be noted that there are some favourite
subjects which, with the advancement of the
nation and the shifting of educational ideas, have
no longer been able to hold their own. Thus it is
with the spirit of revenge, which in times past has
been fostered by over-emphasis of the importance
of loyalty and filial piety. Thinking people have
come to denounce this spirit as a remnant of bar-
barism, but there are still many stories of revenge
placed on the stage and heard in the mouths of the
people. In this connection Western readers are
familiar with the story of the forty-seven Ronins—
a story which, though it has indeed other meanings,
every child of the nation is thoroughly familiar
with as a story of revenge pure and simple. The
Soga Brothers, one of the pictures here reproduced,
has for its subject another well-known story of a
similar order, and a very favourite subject on the
stage and with story-tellers as well as with artists.
It depicts two young brothers with torches at night,
searching for the camp of their father’s murderers,
whom they pluckily and successfully attack at the
foot of Mount Fuji, where the party was engaged
in hunting. _
A subject of a different order but at the same
time one of the commonest is Hachi-no-ki, or “ A
Tree of the Pot.” It illustrates a pretty little story
of feudal Japan. A stranger on his way across a
plain in Kouzuke Province was caught in a snow-
storm and came to a humble cottage, where he
asked for a night’s shelter. The master of the
house took him in, but as he was so poor that he
had not enough faggots to kindle a fire in the
hearth to warm the guest, he chopped up a favourite
dwarf tree growing in a pot and burned it. The
stranger was much moved by this act. There was
something in the host’s manner that hinted at no
common birth. The guest noticed a suit of old
armour hanging on the wall, and when pressed for
information, the host, Sano Genzaemon, explained
that poor as he was he kept a horse and trained
himself daily so that when called upon he might be
164
“the soga brothers”
BY UTAGAWA KUNIMINE
“HACHI-NO-Kl” (A TREE OF THE pot) “THE MOTHER OF MENCIUS
BY TAKAHASHI KSKO BY TANZA TOKUZO
people. There were some pictures calculated to
foster the spirit of loyalty and patriotism, filial piety
and friendship, chastity, and kindred virtues, while
others did not admit of easy classification or were
difficult to gauge at their true value, but had a
peculiar fascination for the Japanese by virtue of a
certain undescribable charm possessed by each of
them.
It must be noted that there are some favourite
subjects which, with the advancement of the
nation and the shifting of educational ideas, have
no longer been able to hold their own. Thus it is
with the spirit of revenge, which in times past has
been fostered by over-emphasis of the importance
of loyalty and filial piety. Thinking people have
come to denounce this spirit as a remnant of bar-
barism, but there are still many stories of revenge
placed on the stage and heard in the mouths of the
people. In this connection Western readers are
familiar with the story of the forty-seven Ronins—
a story which, though it has indeed other meanings,
every child of the nation is thoroughly familiar
with as a story of revenge pure and simple. The
Soga Brothers, one of the pictures here reproduced,
has for its subject another well-known story of a
similar order, and a very favourite subject on the
stage and with story-tellers as well as with artists.
It depicts two young brothers with torches at night,
searching for the camp of their father’s murderers,
whom they pluckily and successfully attack at the
foot of Mount Fuji, where the party was engaged
in hunting. _
A subject of a different order but at the same
time one of the commonest is Hachi-no-ki, or “ A
Tree of the Pot.” It illustrates a pretty little story
of feudal Japan. A stranger on his way across a
plain in Kouzuke Province was caught in a snow-
storm and came to a humble cottage, where he
asked for a night’s shelter. The master of the
house took him in, but as he was so poor that he
had not enough faggots to kindle a fire in the
hearth to warm the guest, he chopped up a favourite
dwarf tree growing in a pot and burned it. The
stranger was much moved by this act. There was
something in the host’s manner that hinted at no
common birth. The guest noticed a suit of old
armour hanging on the wall, and when pressed for
information, the host, Sano Genzaemon, explained
that poor as he was he kept a horse and trained
himself daily so that when called upon he might be
164
“the soga brothers”
BY UTAGAWA KUNIMINE
“HACHI-NO-Kl” (A TREE OF THE pot) “THE MOTHER OF MENCIUS
BY TAKAHASHI KSKO BY TANZA TOKUZO