About Okakura Kakuzo

Portrait of Okakura Kakuzo from The heart of heaven, being a collection of writings hitherto unpublished

Portrait of Okakura Kakuzo from The heart of heaven, being a collection of writings hitherto unpublished

BORN: 1862/3 DIED: 1913
1911: Master of Arts from Harvard [Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) Bulletin, Vol. 9, No. 52, Aug., 1911]

[From the Museum of Fine Arts bulletin, Vol. 11, No. 67, Dec., 1913]

OKAKURA-KAKUZO was born at Fukui, the capital of Echizen Province, Japan. His father was a samurai who, feeling a deep interest in developing the trade of his country, obtained permission to relinquish his rank and devote himself to mercantile affairs in Tokyo and Yokohama,— a pursuit in which he was able to amass a comfortable fortune. Under such circumstances Okakura-Kakuzo received his early education and, while still very young, entered the Department of Literature in the Imperial University of Tokyo. Here he employed much of his time in the study of English and Chinese, and in 1880, at the age of eighteen, he graduated with the degree of A. M. and with honors in Philosophy and English Literature.

While a student at the University he came into intimate contact with the late Prof. Ernest F. Fenollosa, who was then lecturing there, and under whose stimulating influence Mr. Okakura’s attention was, perhaps, first turned to the field of endeavor in which he afterward attained such distinction. From Fenollosa he received many of his early impressions in regard to the arts and ideas of the West, and in return acted as interpreter at Mr. Fenollosa’s lectures, accompanied him on tours of research among the temples, and read widely on matters pertaining to art in the literatures of China and Japan.

In 1886 he became Secretary to the Minister of Education, and was put in charge of musical affairs. But later in the same year he accepted an appointment to membership in the Imperial Art Commission which the Japanese government organized and sent abroad to study the fine arts of the Western world. The results of these investigations in Europe and the United States met with just recognition, and on Mr. Okakura’s return to Japan, the Government showed its appreciation of his services and attainments by making him Director of the new Imperial Art School at Ueno, Tokyo. This institution represented the first serious reaction against the lifeless conservatism still affected by adherents of the Bijitsu Kyokai Art Association and the equally uninspired imitation of Western Art fostered heretofore in the old Government Art School.

While recognizing the ideals and realizing the possibilities of ancient Japanese Art, and at the same time aiming at a love and knowledge of the more sympathetic aspects of art in the West, the new school sought to rehabilitate the native arts on a new basis whose corner-stone should be “Life True to Self.” For the carrying out of such a project Mr. Okakura possessed unusual qualifications, equipped as he was with a profound and reverent understanding of Asiatic Art, and a considerable familiarity with the best that Europe had produced. But rapid political changes in Japan brought in their train renewed insistence on the adoption of Western ideas in every branch of activity, and when, in 1897, it became clear that European methods were to be given an ever-av creasing prominence in the curriculum of the new Art School, Mr. Okakura felt obliged to resign ha Directorship. Six months later he had gathered about him thirty-nine of the leading artists of the time,—including such painters as Hashimoto, Gaho. Kanzan, and Taikan,— with whose collaboration he organized and opened the Nippon Bijitsu-in, or Hall of Fine Arts, at Yanaka, in the suburbs of Tokyo. Here a fresh effort was made to assimilate all that is best in Western Art with the loftiest native traditions, so as to extend, without impairing, the vigor of national inspiration. The major and minor arts in all their forms were practiced and exhibited, and the success which attended this undertaking was soon felt in the strong influence which it exerted.

Prior to and during these activities, however, Mr. Okakura was profoundly interested in the researches which the Government had been led to make with a view to seeking out and registering the art treasures which then, much more than now, were scattered among the temples and monasteries of Japan. The first tentative steps in this direction were those taken by Professor Fenollosa during the early eighties. But the work was soon more thoroughly organized, accurate registration was begun, and to the prosecution of this important task Mr. Okakura devoted much of his energy. As time went on, stress was laid upon the increasing rapidity with which the great painting and sculptures, accumulated through the centuries by the religious sects, were passing into the possession of collectors all over the world, and public opinion finally became sufficiently aroused to enable Mr. Okakura to secure the enactment of legislation which declared all such works of art to be National Treasures, prohibited their sale or removal, and established as their custodians a body of artists and scholars known as the Imperial Archaeological Commission. With the work of this Commission Mr. Okakura was associated in an active or, later, advisory capacity until his death; and it is to him more than to any other man that Japan owes the preservation within her own borders of the painted and sculptured masterpieces of art which will always rank among the greatest achievements of the human race.

The results of Mr. Okakura’s visits to China and India, where he made exhaustive studies, are brilliantly set forth in his book, “The Ideals of the East” (1903), explaining his important and now generally accepted analysis of the movements of thought and art throughout Asia. Other books by him, dealing with similar subjects, are “The Awakening of Japan” (1904) and “The Book of Tea” (1906). But apart from these volumes his literary activity was considerable. Some of his writings appeared in periodicals, notably in the earlier numbers of Kokkwa, and others are more permanently preserved in the art section of Brinckley’s Japan and in Japanese Temples and Their Treasures, a government publication, of which Mr. Okakura was the editor and, to a great extent, the author. He also contributed to the publication of the “Histoire de l” Art du Japon,” a monumental work compiled for the Japanese Commissioners to the Paris Exposition in 1910, and, in addition, he delivered many lectures — some of which have been published — before various learned societies and at the Imperial University of Tokyo, where, in 1909, he was appointed Lecturer on Esthetics.

His connection with this Museum, first as Advisor and later as Curator of the Department of Chinese and Japanese Art, began in 1906. His first care was to begin the arrangement and classification of the vast collections of the Department with a view to cataloguing them. The mere mechanical labor was far greater than any one man could attend to, and he secured the assistance of competent experts from Japan to classify the lacquers and metal work, while he himself undertook the examination and cataloguing of paintings and sculptures. It was a matter of great interest to see how rapidly the systematic study of art in Japan along the lines of Western research had altered the standards of judgment in twenty years, especially in the matter of the conventional attributions, many of which were completely reversed. Pictures supposed to be originals were in some cases discarded, while their places were taken by others to which, twenty years before, relatively little importance had been assigned. This catalogue, which was finished comparatively lately, was made out in such a form that, after the usual details about the size, character, and attribution of each picture, a blank space is left for comment by any qualified expert who may be visiting the Museum. It remains a model for all time of what a catalogue should be.

Mr. Okakura’s work was untiring, incessant and extended in many directions. He did a great deal to arouse this community to a realizing sense of what a wonderful treasure it possesses in the Japanese and Chinese collections. The Museum was, and still is, at its beginnings in many respects. Many departments of art are inadequately represented and feebly supported, but in this one department it has, outside of the Imperial collections in Japan, no equal in the world; a fact which, thanks to Mr. Okakura, is gradually penetrating the minds of the community.

He lectured much at the Museum and on many subjects. He had a remarkable faculty of clear statement and of making his subject interesting. His brief, occasional reports on special points to the Director were models of terse, vigorous English and sound common sense. He had the simplicity of genius. He was, perhaps, the greatest scholar and most original writer of modem times on Oriental Art. But this was far from being his only interest His mind was encyclopaedic. It seemed impossible to ask him a question, not only in regard to art and poetry, but in regard to history, or philosophy, or religion, in Japan, China, or India, which he could not answer from first knowledge, not only as a student, but as a traveler. He had bees around the world repeatedly. He had been to China many times and visited pretty much every place noted in its religious, artistic, or political history. He spent nearly two years in India, which he was equally familiar, notably in respect to religion, art, and philosophy. His grasp of our Western literature and fine arts was extraordinary. It was a pleasure to go to see pictures or bear music with him. His appreciation was keen and his judgment sound and extremely discriminating. After a Beethoven symphony he said to his companion, “This is perhaps the only art in which the West has gone farther than the East.” On the other hand, when taken, in spite of his misgivings, to hear a modern, comic opera, with its loud orchestra and chorus and its stage crowded with color and tinsel, he said, smilingly, next day, “It was an iridescent nightmare.” He liked Raphael and disliked Rubens. Of the Cubist pictures he said, ” I stretch out my mind toward them; I touch nothing.” He was past master in those refinements of Japanese civilization which are part of the education of a gentleman, such as writing poetry and arranging flowers, in music, in the formal tea ceremony, fencing, and jujitsu. He was an “Admirable Crichton” in his way, with a grasp of the best intellectual products of the highest civilizations on both sides of the world, which completely invalidated Kipling’s famous line:

“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”

They met in Okakura-Kakuzo.

The Trustees of the Museum on October 16 adopted the following minute, of which copies were sent to Japan and to the Japanese Embassy in Washington:

“The Museum of Fine Arts learns with deepest sorrow of the death of Okakura-Kakuzo. His profound and varied scholarship, his keen and sound judgment, his rare combination of technical knowledge and poetic insight, his absolute honesty of purpose, and his unwavering devotion to the highest ideals have rendered him not only to the Museum of Fine Arts, but to America, a typical representative of Japan in those high qualities which command respect, admiration, and love.”

“By teaching and example he labored unremittingly to promote the establishment and maintenance of mutual appreciation and respect between Japan and America on the highest plane of art, literature, philosophy, and religion. His death is a loss to both countries.”