2024.08.30
In 1914 when Kyoka’s Nihonbashi was published, Takehisa Yumeji opened a store named Minatoya Ezoshi-ten in Gofuku-cho, where he got to know Kasai Hikono, who would become his beloved.
Hikono was born in Nishijima, Nakatomi Village of the Minamikoma District, Yamanashi Prefecture (currently Nishijima, Minobu-cho), in 1896. Later, she moved to Tokyo with her family, and his father Muneshige ran a paper wholesale business at Honshirogane-cho 2-chome of Nihonbashi-ku (currently near Nihonbashi-Muromachi 4-chome). Hikono had quit a school for girls at the age of 18 and had also suspended the study of painting, which she liked, just when she encountered Yumeji. This active budding artist must have been shining brilliantly in the eyes of her.
In 1915, when the breakup of the relationship between Yumeji and his ex-wife Tamaki, with whom he continued to have a relationship after the divorce, was definite, the relationship between Yumeji and Hikono deepened rapidly. However, their relationship was fiercely opposed by Muneshige, and Hikono was forbidden to even go out. Feeling anguish since he could not see his beloved, Yumeji wandered to the Ichikokubashi Bridge where he had met Hikono secretly. His true feelings are noted in his diary:
〈After bathing at a sentou (a public bath) for the first time in a while, I stand on the Ichikokubashi Bridge later tonight. The night wind I feel on my skin is the fully fall one. The rustle of willow leaves is clear. Even the groaning tram makes me feel lonely like the distant sound of a cold winter wind. The time when matter perishes will inevitably come. / However, the transience and melancholy of these flickering lights reflected on the surface of the water of the channel and the entangling dark shadows and faint light fading away tonight will be remembered forever. / The monster-like building of the Bank of Japan, riverside willows, storehouses standing side by side, and the stone walls of the castle will return to the earth someday…〉 (Dotei e [To a Cerry Boy] in Yumeji Nikki [Yumeji’s Diary], September 1915)
This scenery will also perish someday, but the transience and melancholy, which existed there definitely, will remain forever…. As it is sometimes said that Yumeji’s pictures are nostalgic, I think that the changing town space in the process of modernization Yumeji witnessed may have affected his sensibility, which was fostered as the background.
In addition, Yumji left many tanka (short poems) expressing his love for Hikono in conjunction with the scenery near the Ichikokubashi Bridge, including 〈Nishigashi no Ojizosama no Joshirazu / Mikuji wo Hikeba Mata Kyo to Deru [The Jizodo Temple in Nishigashi knows no mercy / When I draw a sacred lot, it says “kyo (bad luck)” again]. 〉(Trappist in Yumeji Nikki [Yumeji’s Diary], October 1915), and〈Omoide wo Kanasiki-mono ni Tazo ya Seshi Ichikokubashi no Shirube-ishi hamo [Who made my memories sad? It is really the stone marker for information about stray children on the Ichikokubashi Bridge…] 〉(Kasyu Yama e Yosuru [Poetry Anthology Thinking of the Mountain]).
〈Nishigashi no Ojizosama〉refers to the Jizodo Temple of Nishigashi in Nihonbashi mentioned in Part 1, which is famous as a matchmaking deity. 〈Ichikokubashi no Shirube-ishi〉is the stone marker for information about stray children, which remains even now on the west side of the south end of the Ichikokubashi Bridge. Yumeji and Hikono met in secret here, calling Yumeji and Hikono “Kawa (river)” and “Yama (mountain)” respectively.
Later, they began living together in Kyoto overcoming innumerable difficulties, however, Hikono soon fell ill. At the end of 1918, while she was in the hospital in Kyoto, she was hauled back to Tokyo by her father Muneshige and died from tuberculosis in 1920 at the age of 23 without seeing Yumeji again. Yumeji, while he was unable to see Hikono, published the said poetry anthology Yama e Yosuru [Thinking of the Mountain] with love to her. “Yama (The Mountain)” meant Hikono. Though Minato-ya Ezoshi-ten could do business for only two years, the changing scenery of the bridge was inscribed deeply in Yumeji’s memory together with the image of his beloved.
The illustration inscribed with “ICHIKOKUBASI” from Yama e Yosuru [Thinking of the Mountain] by Takehisa Yumeji, published in 1919 (Shinchosha). The man standing on the Ichikokubashi Bridge may be the drawing of Yumeji himself. You can see the stone marker for information about stray children in the foreground, and storehouses on the riverside, and the Western-style building of Mitsukoshi standing in the back.
The newel post (right) and the stone marker for information about stray children (Shirube-ishi, left) at the south end of the current Ichikokubashi. Yumeji wrote in his diary that “the Shirube-ishi, which I have been afraid it would be removed, stands still there.” Probably he thought this stone marker would vanish from there, but it is standing by the bridge even in the 21st century when redevelopment is underway now.
In October of 1914 when Minatoya Ezoshi-ten opened in Gofuku-cho, an authentic French restaurant opened at Minami-Denma-cho 2-chome of Kyobashi-ku (currently near Kyobashi 2-chome), facing the Nihonbashi Odori Street (currently the Chuo-dori Street) where Meiji-ya is located now. Maison Konosu, which was established as a Western food restaurant at the foot of the Yoroibashi Bridge in Koami-cho in 1910 and moved to Kiwaradana later as mentioned in Episode 4 Part 2, newly started business as the restaurant Konosu here.
The first floor of the four-story building housed a bar and a café, and the second and third floors housed restaurants with a banquet hall. And there was a person who often visited this restaurant, which was always famous as a hive of of literati, drinking beer until late at night and eating beefsteak with gusto. He is Kitaoji Rosanjin (1881–1959), who would create the sign of this restaurant in 1916, two years later after the opening.
Rosanjin, who was multitalented as a ceramist, calligrapher, seal-engraver, epicure, and gastrologer, was born in Kamigamo Village of Atago District, Kyoto Prefecture, (currenty Kita-ku, Kyoto City) in 1883. His real name was Fusajiro. About the details of his unhappy childhood, other biographies would help you, but he had to move from one house to another repeatedly. In 1903, he moved to Tokyo and lived in the house of his relative Niwa Shigemasa located at Takashiro-cho 3-chome, Kyobashi-ku (currently near Hacchobori 3-chome, Chuo-ku). After he became independent and opened a calligraphy school, he began to apprentice under the calligrapher Okamoto Katei in 1905, aiming to become a block copy artist, and lived at Minami-Denma-cho 2-chome (currently Kyobashi 2-chome). Okamoto Katei is a person who created the sign “Yamamotoyama,” one of the long-established stores in Nihonbashi, and is the father of the cartoonist Okamoto Ippei and the grandfather of the artist Okamoto Taro.
Rosanjin was already independent and distinguished as a calligrapher to begin relationships with the literati and connoisseurs just when he created the sign for Konosu. In 1915, he took on the challenge of porcelain painting at Suda Seika’s kiln for Kutani-yaki ceramics through Hosono Endai who was called “the last literati in Kanazawa.”
The sign for Konosu was made by carving each of the three letters of “鴻 (Kou),” “乃 (no),” and “巣 (su)” dynamically on three camphor tree boards 2.5 to 3 shaku (75–90 cm) on a side, respectively, and was put above the entrance of the first floor of the rounded building. Rosanjin carved this sign in one night and received 500 yen, which was unprecedented compensation at that time when the starting pay of bank staff was 40 yen.
The pictures of the store at that time show that the unconventional, rough, and bold letters written dynamically are very impactful. I hear that Rosanjin also created some other signs for large stores on Nihonbashi Odori Street (currently Chuo-dori Street), including the long-established dried food store Yamashiro-ya and the kimono store Korindo, so his reputation must have spread greatly all over town.
The house of Okamoto Katei is said to have been located in Minami-Saya-cho, but Kitaoji Rosanjin written by Shirazaki Hideo says that the house was in Minami-Denma-cho at first, and it was relocated to Minami-Saya-cho in about 1908 after Rosanjin became independent. So I used the latter theory in Eppisode 6.
It was in 1919, at the age of 36, three years after creating that sign, that Rosanjin opened the antique store Taiga-do Geijutsu-ten (renamed Taiga-do Bijutsu-ten in the following year) less than a three-minute walk from Konosu. It was located at 1-banchi, Minami-saya-cho of Kyobashi (currently Kyobashi 2-chome) facing Higashi-Nakadori Street, which is lined with antique stores even now. He rented the house from Noda Reikichi who ran Ikkan-do as a second-class drug seller whom Rosanjin had known for a long time, and it was across the street from Ikkan-do.
Before long, Rosanjin came to cook dishes and arranged them on the old pottery he sold at the antique store to enjoy the dishes with several close customers. It created a buzz among the visitors to the store, which led to the foundation of the membership-only restaurant Bishoku Kurabu (literally “a club for epicureans”) that was the ancestor of the latter-day Japanese-style restaurant Hoshioka Saryo. Takeyama Itta, who was apprenticed to Taiga-do and then worked as a head chef of Hoshioka Saryo, looked back on the scenes of the store as follows:
〈A kitchen with a wooden floor was at the back, and the floor below the wooden floor was already concrete where there were soft-shelled turtles and others. For eels, a live box was placed together with a stone lantern outside of the store into which eels were released. 〉
I think Taiga-do must have been the first and only antique store with soft-shelled turtles and eels. Rosanjin particularly liked soft-shelled turtles, and Okuda Komazo, the owner of Konosu, opened the soft-shelled turtle restaurant Maru-ya at a house rented by Ikkan-do prior to the opening of Taiga-do, which was recommended by Rosanjin. For your information, Maru-ya’s sign inscribed with “○” (depicting “Maru”, a circle in Japanese) was also created by Rosanjin.
Rosanjin procured fresh fish from the riverside fish market in Nihonbashi every morning and showed his culinary skills. Takeyama Itta, who was a porter for Rosanjin, revealed in later years that he asked Rosanjin to allow the use of a bicycle but Rosanjin did not allow it saying, “Shaking of a bicycle hurts fish.” It makes me smile to imagine a large man in Western clothing walking through the fish market filled with swarms of chefs like a boss and a boy following him.
Maybe due to his particular tastes, Bishoku Kurabu was thriving enough to gather more than 200 members at one time. However, the restaurant ended its business because it burned down because of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. In this context, borrowing from Hoshioka Saryo, which had remained closed, was considered.
The main street of Tokyo before being burnt down: the Nihonbashi-dori Street seen from Kyobashi in around 1922. The Kyobashi Intersection was photographed from the Kyobashi Bridge side before the Great Kanto Earthquake. The building probably with round decorative windows, which is indicated by a red arrow (I added the arrow) is Konosu. The tall building on the right of Konosu is Daiichi Sogokan designed by Tatsuno Kingo and completed in 1921. (Photo from: Chuo City Kyobashi Library)
Relocation from Taiga-do in Kyobashi to Hoshioka Saryo in Nagata-cho – it was a significant milestone for Rosanjin who had long based his activities in Kyobashi.
More details about Rosanjin’s residence after he moved to Tokyo, he moved to Tokyo in 1903 and began living in Niwa Shigemasa’s house at Takashiro-cho 3-chome (currently near Hacchobori 3-chome), followed by moving twice within the town. In 1904, he moved to the neighboring town of Motojima-cho (currently near Hacchobori 3-chome) driven by the award winning in the art competition hosted by the Japan Art Association. Next year, he was apprenticed to Okamoto Katei living at Minami-denma-cho 2-chome, and in 1907, he became independent as a block copy calligrapher and lived with his first wife Tami in the house in Nakabashi-Izumi-cho (currently near Kyobashi 1-chome). He moved repeatedly from one place to another within the narrow area. Later, he stayed in Korea and spent his life in various places as a freeloading guest for a certain period, and he returned to his home ground again by opening Taiga-do.
However, during the period of running Taiga-do, he broke up with his first wife Tami and married Fujii Seki, the daughter of the bookseller Matsuyama-do at Minami-Denma-cho 1-chome (currently near Kyobashi 1-chome) and had a house in Surugadai-Higashi-Kobai-cho (currently near Kanda-Surugadai 4-chome). However, as he drank late every night with his friends and worked early in the morning, I can say that he almost lived on the second floor of Taiga-do.
One of the reasons that Rosanjin moved in the area on the east side of Kyobashi-ku may be many antique stores and tea utensil stores standing side by side, which were convenient for seeking secondhand goods. Other significant reasons include the fact that the area had various restaurants, including Western-style and Japanese-style ones, and that it was convenient for procuring plenty of fresh ingredients because the riverside fish market and Daikongashi, which was a fruit and vegetable market, were within walking distance of the area. In addition, a writer Shirazaki Hideo assumes in Kitaoji Rosanjin, the critical biography he wrote, that the area of merchants and craftsmen who have been there since Edo and were kind, friendly, and unfussy about details, which was different from historical Kyoto, might be comfortable for Rosanjin who had passed an unhappy childhood.
This urban area was probably generous enough to accept a young man who had lived his life inspiring himself because there were many people who left their hometowns alone and lived their lives vigorously by establishing their careers based on their own skills and wisdom in this area. So, his decision to leave the area may have meant that he had developed confidence enough not to stay within the bounds of the familiar area.
Komura Settai was born in 1887, Takehisa Yumeji was born in 1884, and Kitaoji Rosanjin was born in 1883. Considering their birth years, I am surprised at the fact that there was a time when these three persons with different natures and different creations lived in close proximity at about the same period. However, only the elder Rosanjin experienced the war and witnessed the world after the war.
In 1914, when the three persons appeared in and around Nihonbashi, Tokyo Station was just completed after six years of work. On the day following the completion, the Tokyo Taisho Exhibition was held at Ueno Park, and an escalator appeared for the first time in Japan. As industrialization expanded, Western culture was no longer the object of admiration. People became able to reach it. And because of the outbreak of World War I in the same year, Japan boomed economically and would enter the era of hedonism.
Unlike Ginza, which was a similar merchant and artisanal district that had been transformed into a brick townscape at a stretch in the early Meiji period, the Nihonbashi and Kyobashi areas still had remnants of the Edo period here and there. From the Nihonbashi Bridge that was replaced in 1911 by a Western-style double-arch bridge, riverside storehouses could be seen, and just near the new building of the Mitsukoshi kimono store in a Renaissance style that was said to be the birth of a department store, the bustling riverside fish market in Nihonbashi could be seen as it had been. In this area where disappearing things and new things coexist, those three persons may have felt nostalgia for the familiar townscapes of the past that were being lost forever.
There is no evidence that the three distinctive persons visibly interacted with each other. But somehow or other I get the same feeling from them. It may be because all of them lived during the period between the old and the new.
All of them found a mentor in ancient times, not studying under a certain teacher. There is no doubt that Settai and Yumeji were influenced by Ukiyo-e (Japanese woodblock prints), and Rosanjin’s pottery making started from making copies of ancient pottery. But what is more common to them may be that they found their ways into new techniques, media, and places to express themselves to meet the needs of the times, not just being immersed in the past.
While cherishing old things, they transformed the feeling into new expressions. It was novel, not odd. It had not ever been seen before, but was nostalgic—their expressions tell that modernism unique to this area, that is, something to be called Nihonbashi Modern, emerged during a certain period in this town.
References:
Takehisa Yumeji Seiden [True Biography of Takehisa Yumeji] (1984) Makoto Okazaki, Kyuryudo
Yumeji Nikki 1 [Yumeji’s Diary 1] (1987) Takehisa Yumeji, edited by Mikio Nagata, Chikuma Shobo
Hyoden Takehisa Yumeji Jidai ni Sakaratta Shijin Gaka [Critical Biography of Takehisa Yumeji: A Poet and Artist Who Went Against the Times] (2000) Hideaki Mita, Geijutsu Shinbunsha
Takehisa Yumeji no Sekai (Bessatsu Taiyo Nihon no Kokoro) [The World of Takehisa Yumeji (Separate Volume of The Sun: The Japanese Spirit )] (2014) edited by Bessatsu Taiyo Henshubu, Heibonsha
Takehisa Yumeji Taisho Roman no Gaka, Shirarezaru Sugao [Takehisa Yumeji: the Taisho Roman Style Artist – His Unknown True Face] (2014) Supervised by Takehisa Yumeji Museum, Kawade Shobo Shinsha
Kitaoji Rosanjin-den Tosetsu [Biography of Kitaoji Rosanjin (Explanation of Pottery), The Japan Ceramic Society, between May issue of 1960 and December issue of 1961 (April and October issues of 1961 are excluded) Kozo Yoshida
Kitaoji Rosanjin (Bessatsu Taiyo Nihon no Kokoro) [Kitaoji Rosanjin (Separate Volume of The Sun: The Japanese Spirit)] (1983) Heibonsha
Kitaoji Rosanjin Hito to Geijutsu [Kitaoji Rosanjin: His personality and Art] (2000) Isao Nagahama, Futaba Raifu Shinsho
Shirarezaru Rosanjin [Unknown Aspects of Rosanjin] (2007) Kazu Yamada, Bungei Shunju
Rosanjin to Hoshioka Saryo no Ryori [Rosanjin and Dishes Served at Hoshioka Saryo] (2011) Shibata Shoten
Kitaoji Rosanjin <Jo><Ge> [Kitaoji Rosanjin <Part 1><Part 2> ] (2013) Hideo Shirazaki, Chikuma Bunko
Taisho Bunshi no Saron wo Tsukutta Otoko Okuda Komazo to Meizon Konosu [A Man Who Created a Salon for Literati of the Taisho Period: Okuda Komazo and Maison Konosu] (2015) Mari Okuda, Genki Shobo
Mukyo Kitaoji Rosanjin no Sakuhin to Kiseki [The World of Dream: Works of Kitaoji Rosanjin and His History] (2015) Kazu Yamada, Tankosha
Eien nare Rosanjin (Bessatsu Taiyo Nihon no Kokoro) [Rosanjin Forever (Separate Volume of The Sun: The Japanese Spirit)] (2019) Supervised by Kazu Yamada, Heibonsha
Editor and writer mainly on food and crafts. Author of The Secret of Rice Omelets and the Mystery of Melon Bread – The Story of the Birth of Popular Menu Items (Shincho Bunko). Editor and compiler of Hand-crafting Your Life – The Earthenware and Life in Iwai Kiln in Tottori by Noriyuki Yamamoto (Stand! Books), Nichiniimashi – Ryukyuan Cuisine and Okinawan Words that Will Create a Better Tomorrow by Ayaka Yamamoto (Bungeishunju) and more.
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