Viewing page 36 of 147

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Letter #8

4

work of his, declared him his strongest painter.  This was shortly before 1868, and all these works were soon after burned; but not before Hogai had won the reputation of founding a schism in the school, of whom four representatives, including Gaho had already been dubbed "Hogai's Four Deva-Kings".  After the smash of 1868 he painted occasionally for the Daimio of Choshu and Satsuma, but supported himself partly by farming in the latter province, refusing to follow the new western canons od drawing, and coming pretty near starvation.  He tuned up in Tokio in 1882, having heard of the revival movement in Japanese art which we had already started; and I first saw a picture of his, painted for the first modern art exhibition, that of 1882.  "Who is the painter of that?" I asked of my fellow judges.  "O, and old crazy man from the country" they replied.  "Crazy or not," I said, "he has sent the greatest work of the show".  They gave him a second prize on the strength of my words.  Soon after he was brought by Kano Tomonobu to call on me, and I admired his sunny temperament and deep insight as much as his skill.  In 1883 he painted two pictures to be sent with a first, (and last) Japanese exhibit to the Paris Salon of that year, at the close of which Bing took the lot over to help pay expenses.  Later in that year I took Hogai into my empl0y, paying him a monthly salary, and letting him paint for me as he felt.  Then I got him a house near mine where we began a long series of experiments looking consciously to the perfect control of his strongest powers.  These works came out at the monthly meetings of the art club I had established, and were mostly my property, though I occasionally allowed him to paint for others.  His few great works that remain and have influenced all art since his day were done for me at this time.  At these club exhibitions Gaho also, influenced by Hogai's example, offered perfect work, such as he never before had been encouraged to attempt, and the best of these I bought.  In 1886, when I went to Europe on the Art Commission, one of my most eager acts was to buy back form Bing Hogai's two Salon pictures of 1883.  Of these "The Creation of Man", which I send you, is one.  In 1886, too, a preliminary staff for the future art school was created, and to this national movement