Greetings.
In this world of ours, so blunt and crude that it feels as if people walk about purposefully trampling roadside dandelions with their heavy military boots, I wonder if you, too, are still living your days with shoulders tense. If that is so, I would be most grateful if you might relax a little and lend an ear to my rambling monologue. Or rather, instead of merely listening, I would prefer you to settle in as if you were sitting in the corner of a dusty old café, sipping a cup of stone-cold coffee, vacantly watching some drunkard at the next table spin his weary tales.
Now, today I should like to speak of a man named Tsuguharu Foujita. When I say Foujita, I refer to that painter with the bobbed hair and round spectacles, who painted those milky-white skins and seemed somehow detached from the mundane world. Have you ever seen his work? Those strangely beautiful nudes of women—translucent, yet somehow carrying the faint scent of death. That was no mere artistic technique. I suspect that singular, almost eerie obsession was something like a cry from the soul of a man who had been betrayed by his country, Japan, and had no choice but to cast it aside.
Why was it that Foujita never returned to Japan? History books, in their dry and flavorless way, would tell you it was because he was questioned about his cooperation during the war, or because he was ostracized by the Japanese art world. But can such logical reasons truly drive a human being to the decision of abandoning their homeland? Human beings are far more pathetic, far more helplessly pure, and driven by far more indivisible emotions than that, are they not?
Foujita loved Paris. Yet, more than that, he loved being “free” above all else. Not the freedom of France, but that lonely and glamorous freedom of being entirely himself. In the Montparnasse of Paris, he played the clown. He dressed flamboyantly, danced wildly, drank through the night, and made people laugh. But behind those round glasses, his eyes were always coldly observing himself and the world. He did not wish to become a Frenchman; he simply wished to be a universe called “Foujita.”
However, why is it that this country of Japan so refuses to permit the “individual”? Do you not feel the same? The moment you step outside, a giant monster named “Society” waits with its maw wide open. If told to turn right, you must turn right; if told to fight, you must throw away your pen and take up a rifle. Foujita, too, was swallowed by that vortex. He painted war paintings—chillingly precise, terrifyingly powerful depictions of hell, like the “Fall of Attu.”
After the war, he was denounced. “You glorified the war,” they said. “Young men died because of the pictures you painted.” The very same people who had once lauded him as “Fujita of the World” turned on him like a mob, ready to cast stones. At that moment, Foujita must have realized: “Ah, there is no place for me in this country. These people do not love beauty; they merely utilize it.”
He famously said, “I hope the Japanese art world reaches international standards soon. I did not abandon Japan. Japan abandoned me.” How sad, how arrogant, and how beautiful those words are. He wanted to be more honest with his paintings than anyone else. Even when he painted the war, he may have only been trying, as a painter, to capture the tragedy and the movement of flesh as it truly was. To have that turned into a tool for politics or ideology, and then to have all the responsibility thrust upon him—he could no longer endure such absurdity.
Have you ever been betrayed by someone? By a trusted friend, a woman you loved, or perhaps even by yourself? That sensation of your heart suddenly turning cold and tight. For Foujita, the country of Japan itself was that traitor. He crossed back to France and never set foot on Japanese soil again. He converted to Catholicism, took the name Léonard Foujita, and locked his soul away within a chapel in Reims.
To my mind, the greatest reason he did not return was perhaps that he believed too much in the absolute power of “beauty.” In the face of beauty, nationality, the past, and politics are all as insignificant as dust. Within that milky-white skin, he found an eternal peace. It was a paradise belonging to no country—a paradise that was his alone.
Once a human being has tasted true freedom, they can never return to the cage. For Foujita, the island nation of Japan was a cage far too narrow and suffocating. He flew away from it and consumed himself in the distant sky. If there are those who call that “running away,” I should like to see their faces. Do you possess even one thing more precious than your own life? Foujita did. It was his art, and his pride.
Life is, after all, a ridiculous thing. The harder you try to live, the more you drift away from those around you, treated as an eccentric, only to die lonely in the end. Foujita’s life may have been one such comical tragedy. But that is precisely why his paintings continue to strike our hearts even now. That cold, yet somehow warm, mysterious white—I secretly believe it was the color of the tears he was never able to shed.
Now, my talk has grown quite long. The coffee has gone entirely cold. Where will you go from here? Fading into the crowd is well enough. Mutters to yourself in a quiet room are fine, too. But if you should ever feel as though you are being crushed by the absurdities of the world, please remember that man in the round spectacles. Remember that willful genius who abandoned his country and martyred himself for beauty.
Was he unhappy? No, perhaps he was chuckling to himself in the French countryside, standing before a stark white canvas. “Serves you right, I am this free,” he might have thought. When you think of it that way, does it not feel as though you have been saved, just a little? We are likely to meet no grand end anyway. If so, at the very least, while we are alive, we should like to paint over our own worlds with the colors of our choosing.
The reason Tsuguharu Foujita did not return. It was because he loved Japan more than anyone, and therefore, hated it more than anyone. Love and hatred are but two sides of the same sheet of paper. He tore that paper to shreds and began to write a completely different, never-before-seen story on a new page. That was the true identity of the beautiful rebel known as Léonard Foujita.
Well, it is almost time to say goodbye. You to your path, and I to my darkness. Do stay healthy. Take care not to catch a cold. This world may not be as disposable as you think, or it may be a place more beyond saving than you imagine. Regardless, we must go on living. Just as Foujita never let go of his brush until the end, in search of that milky white.
Farewell. Perhaps we shall meet again in the corner of some café. When that time comes, I shall tell you a better story. A story as translucent as Foujita’s paintings, yet with just a hint of poison—a delightful tale.
Even so, Foujita was truly a fine man. What was so fine about him was his decisiveness. Those who leave are not pursued; those who are left do not speak. He made his silence his greatest eloquence. Are you capable of such a way of life? I certainly am not. That is precisely why I continue to let my pen run, exposing my shame like this.
The name Tsuguharu Foujita will surely shine forever in the skies of France. And from those heights, he must be looking down and laughing at his former colleagues as they stir the mud beneath the Japanese soil. Is that not the true revenge of an artist?
Oh dear, I have spat venom again. This will not do. This is why I am so disliked. Please, do not become like me. You should be more honest, more brazen, and enjoy this world to the fullest. Like Foujita, dress up, let your glasses shine, and walk with your head held high.
Well then, truly, good night. May the milky-white nudes not appear in your dreams. If you were shown such things, you might never be able to return to the real world again. Just as it was for Foujita.
Ah, one last thing. When Foujita completed the murals of the chapel in Reims in his final years, what on earth was he thinking? Was it the mercy of God, or the color of the sky in his distant homeland? That is a secret known only to him. But it is because of that secret that we remain drawn to his paintings. A human being without a secret is like sweet bean soup without sugar. Do you have a secret of your own? Hold it dear, tell no one, and carry it through your life.
Foujita sought to remain as pure as a child throughout his life. He tried to strike down the cunning of adults and the logic of grown-ups with the violence of beauty. In that battle, he won. By abandoning the country called Japan, he gained the country called “Beauty.” I firmly believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was the true and only reason he did not return to Japan.
Now, the story is over. Let us draw the curtain. The audience is you alone; the actor is a nameless clown. If you enjoyed it, I am glad. If you laughed, it was worth it. A toast to the long and glamorous solitude of the man named Tsuguharu Foujita.
And a toast to your solitude, as well.
Goodbye.