I have repeatedly sensed a kind of “poison” lurking beneath the cold, icy surface of Kano Sansetsu’s paintings. Art critics like to plaster him with bland labels such as the legitimate successor of the Kyoto Kano school or the pioneer of eccentric styles, but in my opinion, he was more than just a painter. Wasn’t he, in a sense, a “martyr of art,” an extremely pure and clumsy man who agonized over his own fastidiousness and his inability to reconcile with the world? Sansetsu, whose real name was Mitsuie, was born in Hizen, Kyushu, and through a chance encounter, became a disciple of Sanraku, the head of the Kyoto Kano school. He was adopted, his talent was recognized, and he inherited the family business. Hearing only this, it might seem like a smooth and successful elite career path. However, reality is not so kind. At that time, the art world was dominated by Tan’yu and other Edo Kano artists who bore the prestige of the Tokugawa shogunate. Their paintings were bright, expansive, and almost carefree and liberating. They were, so to speak, paintings for the victors of the new era. In contrast, the position of the Kyoto Kano, which Sansetsu had to protect, was bleak and insignificant. Every time I look at his painting, “Old Plum Trees on a Folding Screen,” I feel a pang in my chest. Those twisted, writhing, creeping plum trunks—they are not merely realistic depictions of trees. Aren’t they the death throes of Sansetsu himself, or perhaps of the declining aesthetics of Kyoto? He could not grow straight. His pride would not allow him to blend into the lighthearted atmosphere of Edo. That is why he obsessed with details, becoming extremely intellectual, and at times escaping into eerily geometric compositions. Some may laugh knowingly, saying that a plum branch couldn’t possibly bend at such a right angle. But for Yamayuki, that was the true form. The result of trying to forcibly draw lines with a ruler and shove the unresolved emotions swirling inside his heart into a mold was that bizarre, beautiful form.
Looking back on his life, it’s truly heartbreaking. In the year of Shōhō, he was imprisoned for some offense. The reason is unclear. But how could such a meticulous, argumentative man, yet one who harbored a burning passion within, possibly endure the incomprehensible questioning of officials in silence? He must have blurted out some unnecessary, righteous statement. I find it incredibly endearing to imagine him in that cold prison cell, gazing at his slender fingers, still contemplating the composition of “beauty.” Some say that there is little emotion in Sansetsu’s paintings. Certainly, there is none of the unrestrained nature of Sesson or the misty lyricism of Tōhaku. His paintings are utterly dry, cold, and almost like the blueprints of a terrifyingly precise machine. However, just beneath that icy surface, a boiling passion stagnates, unable to find an outlet. He knew his own weakness. He knew that if he let his emotions run wild, he would break down. That’s why he clad himself in an armor of “form” that was as hard as it could possibly be.
The pseudonym Bankoku is also good. A valley on a board. Deep, unwavering. He never pandered to Edo, but simply honed the good old traditions in Kyoto with his own kind of pathological obsession. The same is true of the book he compiled, “Honcho Gashi” (History of Painting in Japan). His obsession with meticulously compiling the lineage of Japanese painters. Wasn’t that his own way of mourning those who were fading away? Didn’t he want to bind the evidence that they had been there with the chains of logic? I like the birds that Sansetsu paints. Those eyes that are somewhat cold, yet sharp. That arrogant expression that seems to mockingly say, “I can see right through your heart.” Sansetsu may not have trusted people very much. That’s why he so persistently elevated the forms of plants and animals to geometric patterns. He wanted to escape the murky calculations of the human world and live in a world of perfect balance. But the more he paints, the more deeply human attachments and loneliness seep into his work. What an irony.
We modern people look at his paintings and praise them with superficial words like “high design quality.” But I don’t want them to be dismissed with such words. Those bizarre compositions, those obsessive details—the breathing technique of his soul, something he absolutely needed to survive. For him, painting was both a salvation and an ordeal that pushed him to his limits. In the end, Yamasetsu was a man who could not sleep with his time. That is the proudest and most unfortunate way of life for an artist. But that is precisely why the works he left behind still pierce our hearts with a cold blade, even centuries later. They reject easy empathy and confront us with the harshness of the simple act of “seeing.” I am overcome with the urge to bow deeply, deeply, to his stubborn aesthetic. Ah, Yamasetsu. How much despair have you erased with the tip of that slender brush? Those rigid flowers you painted still bloom in the cold, desolate room of my heart, like a single, yet ever-wilting, poisonous flower. Just knowing that there was a man like you makes this hopeless world seem a little less bad.