I stood there in the center of mighty Notre-Dame and wished the image of my own mother could have been forever cast in panes of glass, my mother in violet robes, my father swathed in gray.
I imagined Father kneeling at her side, her bleeding womb cut crimson, my infant form bluish white. Our story played out in colors, a drama that required no masks.
* * *
Not far from the Pont Neuf you can pay fifteen sous to ride a boat down the Seine. On Thursday, Takada joined me for an hour as we took a slow ride through the center of Paris.
We admired the Louvre, the Garden of the Tuileries, as we passed them. Takada took a bottle of wine from his satchel and unwrapped two glasses tucked in his furoshiki.
“We shall do as the French do and admire beauty with a glass of wine.”
He poured the dark red liquid into my glass and clinked his goblet against mine.
“To us Japanese in Paris!” he said boldly. “May we live here amid splendor and return to Japan only on our own accord!” It was the first time I had seen him laugh, and I noticed that his teeth were perfect.
“To Paris!” I said, adding “Kanpai!”
We leaned over the rail of the boat, the bottle of wine resting near Takada’s feet, and inhaled the fragrant mist that was rising off the Seine. The wind was growing stronger, and Takada was leaning over the rail, his face beet-red from the wine.
“Look, there’s Notre-Dame,” I said, pointing to its two formidable towers.
“The mighty empress of stone!” he cried as he craned his neck and rested all of his weight on his elbows, the sleeves of his jacket straining to contain his full, round arms.
Then suddenly there was a tremendous gust of wind. It rose from the waves, as if directed by a force other than its own and, before I could warn Takada, his black hat had been swept off his head and sent clear into the water.
“Oh, no!” I cried with despair. “What will we do now?” The small black hat was bobbing up and down on a ribbon of waves.
“We just watch it and enjoy it,” Takada said, and he was still laughing. I looked at him, and I will always remember his face. It was the only day on which I can recall that he was forever smiling.
* * *
Takada and I said our farewells and agreed to meet in a few days. By that time he hoped to have scheduled a meeting between his friend Hashimoto and me. In the meantime, I decided to acquaint myself with the area adjacent to the École des Beaux-Arts, so I would seem more knowledgeable of my surroundings.
I awakened early and at once began wandering through the long and winding back streets that reminded me slightly of the unagi no michi of Kyoto, the streets that we say are as narrow and curvy as eels.
I passed the patisseries, with their jelly tarts and their buttered rolls. The luxurious and rich smells of the sweet shops permeated the damp air, and I recalled my first smells of Tokyo: the rank stench of the fermenting nato, the heavy grease frying the tempura, and the fish skins roasting on the fire. In Paris, women’s perfume intermingled with the smell of preserves, a cloud of sweetness masking anything foul.
The cobblestones under my feet, however, felt hard and awkward. I missed the feeling of earth beneath my sandals. I felt as though I had lost a sixth sensation: with the heavy leather shoes encasing my feet, I no longer could be sensitive to the floor beneath me.
I wondered how my father might have felt here in this city. The cold feeling of constantly being surrounded by stone rather than wood. I wondered how he might react to the throngs of people, the abundance of color and light. I saw him in my mind. His blue face shining like lapis. His hand covering his eyes from the blinding sun. I saw him in the shadows. His fingers withdrawn into the folds of his kimono. Wearing his ache. Sniffing for his wood.
And I saw my mother too. Imagined how she would have rejoiced in this city’s splendor. Marveled at the freedom of the spirit that dripped like garlands from the lantern posts. What the creative mind unleashed could accomplish! she would have thought. I vowed to make her proud.
I bit my lip, tasted a feral droplet of blood, and was brought out of my daydream of glory and ghosts. Daigo was far from here, curled within my heart and forced into a long sleep. Here there were no mountains with which I could mark the seasons. Here there was no Noboru in whom I could truly confide.
But here there was freedom.
I wandered through the streets and let the presence of my parents’ spirits fall away. Hours later I found an art supplies store neatly tucked behind a modest facade on the Rue de Rennes. I walked inside, mesmerized by the quantity of material stacked throughout the store. They had five different types of easels and an entire section of drawing utensils: colored and graphite pencils, block and vine charcoal, pastels and colored chalk.
At the back of the store, the proprietor had stacks of paper and rolls of canvas and, at the base of the middle display case, he had watercolor sets, gouaches and individual tubes of oil pigment. Brushes were arranged like flowers in large silver canisters. Sticks of charcoal were wrapped in tissue and tied with twine.
There was so much I had never seen before. I did not recognize the jars of gesso and linseed oil, nor did I have any idea how to use so many other materials. I had never stretched a canvas; I had only painted on paper or wooden boards. I was humbled by what I had to learn.
I bought some paper so I could attempt a few watercolor sketches during the late afternoon. I needed to increase the relatively small portfolio I had brought from Japan, which included only a few of my paintings and some pencil and charcoal sketches. I was most pleased with my anatomical studies and my watercolor of Daigo. The paintings I had done in Tokyo were overworked and lacked the freshness of my earlier work. Against my own will, I had also brought some of the ink paintings I had done in Morita’s class. Noboru had thought it best.
I knew he would have loved the art store. He would have walked through the narrow aisles like a priest through a temple. He would have touched the bristles of each brush, examining the softness of the hairs, the firmness of the point. He would not have been shy or intimidated, like me. He would have held the amber varnishes to the light and marveled at the hue. He would have brushed his fingers across the rolls of canvas and intuitively known which was best.
But now he was so far from here, this place of stone and golden light. The rush of rickshaws was replaced by the trotting of horse and carriage, and the trembling spire of the church was substituted for the pagoda from the local shrine.
How long would it take for him to receive my letter? Would he write as soon as he received it or take his time in his response? So much was changing in my life and it had only been four days since I had arrived. I wondered how I would keep track of all that was transpiring. I would be meeting with Hashimoto, Takada’s art student friend, on Tuesday and perhaps he would be able to assist me in finding a teacher. I shivered with excitement. Tossing a scarf over my shoulder, I returned to the hotel in the hope that I could capture on paper some of the new and fresh images I had just seen.
FORTY
It is the following afternoon; my easel is in front of me. I work quickly so that I might capture the view from my window before it turns dark.
Dressed in my yukata, I am daubed with smudges of pigment; I am intoxicated by the fumes of turpentine and shiny-palmed from the leaking of the linseed oil.
I paint the peeling yellow walls of my room and the large windows opening to the city. I paint the faded fringe of the green linen curtains and the steely arabesque of the wrought-iron balcony. I paint the red of the potted geraniums and the black of the church’s cross.
I paint with an energy and a bliss that is common among those who have had no formal training. I re-create the images I see before me with no guide other than my eyes. The colors lack proper mixing, the perspective is askew, and the shapes are distorted, but I have created a painting that is sincerely felt and on
e that retains its artist’s original eyes.
My painting is not memorized. Here the colors, the shapes, the cockeyed perspective are all intuitive. It is far from the reproductions of ancient paintings that I did in Morita sensei’s class, where every line I created was a regurgitation, where every brush-stroke was the same one copied by each entering class.
* * *
Years later, even after I had begun my formal training, I would always return to that first painting. I have kept it in my studio and have never disposed of it, despite its many technical flaws. It is my first self-portrait, even though my face is nowhere on the canvas. Yet it is I: an excited Japanese looking past the open glass and onto a city that I know now I can never call my own.
FORTY-ONE
Hashimoto Ryazaburo appeared at the entrance of the café wearing a black suit, a white shirt, and a white cravat. He was a strange-looking Japanese, his skin as pale as the powdered face of a maiko, his hair cropped so short around the crown of his head that it resembled a skullcap made of black satin. His eyes were framed by tiny silver pince-nez, and his ears were shiny and large.
Takada and I were sitting at a table, our chairs facing the glass so we could view the Parisians on their afternoon strolls. Our eyes followed the women’s silken bustles, the lines of their parasols, the coattails of their escorts, while our ears were lost in the clicking of their heels on the cobblestones, the idleness of their chatter, the lightness of their being.
Hashimoto recognized us immediately. Arriving without hesitation, he came to our small table and introduced himself to me. I stood up to offer him a bow, but he extended his hand. “Let us not forget that we are in France, gentlemen,” he said in French.
“Do not worry, Yamamoto-san,” he said in his impeccable Tokyo accent “I have not forgotten my Japanese!” He forced himself to laugh loudly like a European, and his white teeth were broad and sparkling.
The waiter poured three cups of coffee. I placed one hand around the cup and the other at the bottom, drinking the liquid as we drink our tea in Japan. Takada coughed, and I looked over to see that he was concentrating his gaze on the handle of my porcelain cup. I changed the position of my hands.
Hashimoto at once began to speak of his own experiences in France. He had arrived five years earlier thanks to generous funding from his father, a doctor in Tokyo, to acquire the artistic training that was then unavailable in Japan. His father had been a close acquaintance of the Kuroda family and, upon his arrival in Paris, Hashimoto met with Kuroda Seiki, who made the introductions necessary for him to be accepted into the Beaux-Arts.
“There aren’t many Japanese in Paris,” he said between sips of his coffee. “Kuroda Seiki and Kume Keiichiro left two years ago, and I have not seen or heard from Fuji Masazo in a long time. I am one of the few left! Of course, now there will always be Takada.” He looked over at Takada, now looking ashen and deflated in his brown suit. “And a new brother—Yamamoto!
“Yes, the Japanese art community is small here, but we are in the best city in the world for art. Where else does one find such museums, such color, and such stimulation for the eyes and the soul? Nowhere on this earth, I tell you. Nowhere!”
I was nervous in the presence of this excitable Japanese. He seemed so unlike Takada and me. So unlike Noboru and Father. In fact, I had never before encountered anyone so brazen.
I was nervous to ask him questions. But I also realized that he was my main resource. So finally, after ingesting several cups of coffee, I managed to ask him where I might find instruction.
“Hashimoto-san,” I said delicately, “perhaps, you could tell me how you came to attend the École des Beaux-Arts?”
Hashimoto sat back in the rather small café chair and reclined against the pane of glass. After two sighs, he responded.
“My father would not support me unless I attended the same school as the great French masters. Before I even submitted my application, I received private instruction in French language. My father had me tutored for five hours every day by a student of French at the Imperial College. I traveled to Paris for my interview and started my lessons at the école that September.”
“I doubt that I could attend such a rigorous program,” I said with a tone of despair. “My French is not particularly good, and even if it were, it seems I have completely missed the interviewing period.”
“Do not worry, Yamamoto,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I suggest that you get in touch with Raphael Collin.”
I looked at him blankly, not having recognized the name.
“Collin instructed both Kume Keiichiro and Kuroda Seiki,” he continued. “Unlike some of the other teachers, Collin is a well-respected master who was trained as an Academic painter, but does not object to introducing some of the newer, fresher techniques of the Impressionists. At the Beaux-Arts, we are limited to the Academic style, so our creative freedom is shackled. In the five years that I have been in Paris, I have changed tremendously, but you could hardly glean that from my paintings.”
As he spoke, his experiences reminded me of my time at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. Disillusioned by his description of the Beaux-Arts, I turned my head to the window. I needed to remind myself that, no matter what happened, I had at least been bold enough to make the journey.
Hashimoto lit a cigarette. He placed it between his thin lips and sucked deeply, inhaling the smoke into his lungs. I was terribly impressed with his sophistication, his savvy, his ability to adopt Western mannerisms.
As he spoke of his time in Paris, his voice became softer, his tone firmer, and his words carefully chosen.
“I will tell you, Yamamoto-san, my first few months here, before I began my studies at the Beaux-Arts, I made only sketches in charcoal of everything that I thought was beautiful. I went almost every day to the Louvre and tried to perfect my renderings of the human form. It was as if I lived there, among the marble statues of the garden—I, a Japanese, crouched at the feet of so many Greek and Roman gods. There in that stone chamber, with my hands blackened by the crumbling bits of charcoal, I learned, after countless hours of practice, the formula for perfect human proportions. What I did not learn, however, was how to actually make my figures seem human. They appeared exactly like what I was drawing—perfect figures without flesh or blood. I had succeeded only in copying.
“Once I entered the Beaux-Arts, we worked from live models, and still, my figures were as stiff and lifeless as stone. I was so consumed with rendering them perfect that I couldn’t bear to create anything human, because human figures are not as perfect as Roman statues. No, they move, they have slightly crooked limbs, asymmetrical faces, and skin that falls in all sorts of directions. Now I understand that. It is part of my growth as an artist.
“And it is with that same growth that I feel constrained by the stiff, old-fashioned style of the Academics. I see the work of the Impressionists, the way they diffuse light by diffusing their brush-strokes, the freedom of their palette as well as their subject, and I am envious. I cannot do that type of work in the classroom. My hours are dedicated to learning the techniques of the old masters—a worthwhile education, indeed—but I am bound to it until I graduate. Then, in my future, once I return to Japan with my degree, I will begin to experiment, using all of the knowledge I have acquired here. I only hope I will be able to do that. To achieve something in my art that will make me memorable.”
“You are too hard on yourself, Hashimoto,” comforted Takada.
Hashimoto pressed his pince-nez to the bridge of his nose and inhaled again from his cigarette. “I guess you could say that I have always had a special weakness for the image of San Sebastian. My original inspiration for wanting to paint in the Western style came after I saw the painting The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian by Piero della Francesca.”
As he spoke, his eyes glistened as if he were seeing the painting for the first time. “I was absolutely awestruck b
y the realism of the painting. The egg-white color of the tortured man’s skin, his body pierced so many times by the unforgiving arrows, and his eyes facing the heavens, brimming with tears. Was it the anguish or pain, or was it the thrill of spiritual ecstasy that marked his face? It always left me perplexed.”
Hashimoto stared at me with his now naked eyes. The pince-nez dangled from his forefinger and carried the reflection of his face in the spectra of the far lens. I could tell by his demeanor that he was challenging me.
“I believe all martyrs feel a spiritual ecstasy through their pain, just as artists find inspiration from their suffering,” I replied. “This does not mean that we do not suffer, or that Saint Sebastian does not feel pain, but rather that we welcome the pain in order to experience the ecstasy and the artistry.”
Hashimoto smiled this time with his mouth closed. “Very well said, Yamamoto-san.”
“Artists are not the only ones who suffer,” Takada mumbled into his coffee, now cold.
“What’s that, Takada old man? You have it too good. What’s that rumpled envelope in your breast pocket? Another check from your father?”
Takada placed his palm over the gray letter. “It’s nothing,” he said and he stuffed it deeper into the satin lining of the pocket.
“Well, I must be going, friends,” Hashimoto said, as he motioned the waiter for the check. “I will send Collin’s address to your hotel and relay a message to him that you might be interested in attending his atelier—if he will have you, of course.”
“Thank you for your kind assistance,” I said to him while rummaging through my pockets for some coins.
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