Connections: Souvenirs of Japan
Shotaro Mori, a bassoonist who joined the South Fork Chamber Orchestra for the Choral Society of the Hamptons concert at the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor last weekend, was among the freelance musicians for whom choristers played host. Mr. Shotaro and a young cellist spent two nights with us between rehearsals, and he became an overwhelmingly welcome guest.
What happened was that one morning, after the cellist had gone out for a walk, we got talking about Japan, where he grew up, and it occurred to me to ask if he might know something about three Japanese prints I inherited. Thus began a few hours of enlightenment.
Ev Rattray, my late first husband, had visited Japan after graduating from Dartmouth in 1954 and, fulfilling his obligation as a recipient of a Reserve Officers Training Corps scholarship, he joined the Navy as a lieutenant junior grade. The prints had been gifts to his mother, way back then.
Mr. Shotaro immediately recognized them as woodblock prints, that their paper was old (perhaps even ancient), and he began reading some of the calligraphic script.
Before long, I learned that one of the prints, which had hung in a downstairs bathroom, showed men, and a few women and children, parading in front of a ceremonial tree that probably represented a god, with a two-story building at rear and a drum offstage at right. Mr. Shotaro then turned his attention to a similarly framed print, which hung in my bedroom. It showed men logging on a river under a dark and snowy winter sky. A large, seemingly incongruous umbrella in the foreground contained the script for “fish.”
Mr. Shotaro seemed to be having as much fun as I was, although he apologized about what he called insufficient knowledge of the script. He then took his iPhone in hand and began Googling.
The first print we had looked at was one of a triptych at the British Museum: According to the museum’s description, “a great street procession outside Tenno shrine in Edo; two floats of lion-dogs carried by bearers in centre; tree covered in devotional prayer-slips in left; sake barrels in right. Inscribed, signed, sealed, and marked.” It dates to 1795 or 1800.
The other print was one of a mid-19th-century series in the possession of the Brooklyn Museum. It is “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo” (modern Tokyo), and the original, “Lumberjacks at Fukagawa” (the river), had been painted by none other than Hiroshige, who is revered as the last great master of the ukiyo-e painting tradition. His family name was Utagawa but he used his given name in signing his art.
At this point, I ran into the living room and took down a small print of a ferocious samurai. This woodblock print was also of a ukiyo-e painting, and my copy was one of a large series of samurai at the Tokyo Metropolitan Library. The artist, Utagawa Yoshiiku, was a student of another famous Japanese painter, Utagawa Kuniyoshi. And the samurai, Saito Tatsuoki, the son of a “great ruler,” was born in 1548.
Enlightened, I was nevertheless chagrined. I had admired these works of art for years without attempting to learn anything about them. In the old days, doing so might have meant seeking out an expert or dealer. It would be hard to use such an excuse now that Google has arrived. Thank you, Mr. Shotaro, your visit was a gift.