Kaneko Mitsuharu

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Kaneko Mitsuharu ( Japanese 金子 光 晴 ; * 1895 in Tsushima , Aichi Prefecture ; † 1975 ) was a Japanese anti-militarist poet and painter who spent his formative years in Belgium.

Life

Kaneko Mitsuharu was born in Aichi Prefecture in 1895 as the son of a liquor store owner under the name Ōga Yasukazu ( 大 鹿 安和 ). When he was two years old, his unsuccessful father gave him up for adoption into the affluent Kaneko family in Nagoya . The adoptive father Kaneko Sōtarō was the son of a boarder from Edo , who directed the fortunes of the construction company Shimizu-gumi and was a bon vivant of the old school ( 通人 , tsūjin ). The family moved to Kyoto in 1901 , and to Tokyo five years later . From 1908 Mitsuharu attended the French mission school Gyōsei Gakuin , whose severity did not suit him. After graduating in 1914, he briefly attended the preparatory school at Waseda University .

Already at the age of 6 he was given lessons by Hyakkei ( 百 圭 ) in the classic tsuketate-hō style. At the age of 11 (1906) he became a student of Kobayashi Kiyochika ( 小林 清 親 ; 1847-1915). After dropping out of preparatory school, he attended the Japanese Style Painting ( Nihonga-ka ) branch of the Tokyo Art Academy . He did not graduate from high school.

First trip to Europe

Under the title Akatsuchi no Ie , Kaneko's first volume of poetry was self-published in 1919. In February of that year he drove from Kobe on board the Sado Maru to Europe with the antique dealer and friend of the Suzuki Kōjirō family . On the crossing, Suzuki realized that his companion had no talent as a businessman, but should rather study art. To this end, he introduced him to the Belgian art collector Ivan Lepage (1883–1947) in May . Lepage introduced Kaneko to European art and made contacts. Kaneko became a friend of the family and was living in a boarding house near their residence in Diegem near Brussels. He drew and made watercolors, at the same time he read works by Baudelaire and Émile Verhaeren . In November 1920 he traveled to Paris for two weeks, then on to Marseille, from where he returned to Japan in December.

After his return he published Koganemushi ( こ が ね 蟲 , Eng . "A scarab") in July 1923 . Soon afterwards he met Mori Michiyo (1905–1977), whom he married in July 1924 after getting her pregnant. The relationship remained turbulent, but also "open".

Second trip to Europe

In order to separate his wife from her lovers, among other things, Kaneko began his second trip to Europe in September 1928, both of which led to Paris in January 1930 via various stops in Asia. The couple were constantly short of cash, so Michiyo took a job with a Japanese company in Antwerp . Mitsuharu initially stayed behind, then traveled to Brussels in January 1931, where he renewed his friendship with the Lepage family and began mainly to paint watercolors. The couple divorced by mutual agreement on March 9, 1931 at the consulate in Antwerp . From autumn they lived together again in Brussels. Lepage helped Kaneko exhibit his paintings, and the family kept some that were not sold. At that time he found no poetic inspiration.

After 1932

After returning to Japan in 1932, Kaneko wrote symbolist poems criticizing Japanese militarist imperialism. He did not publish anything during the war, after which he turned extremely productively to realism.

From October 1937 to the beginning of 1928 he traveled with Michiyo through the Japanese-occupied part of northern China.

Kaneko remarried Michiyo in 1953, not without having had other relationships. In the same year he received the Yomiuri Literature Prize in the poetry category. He died in 1975 shortly before all the volumes of his collected works were published.

family

His wife Michiyo was also a poet and connoisseur of classical literature. a. which Tosa Nikki translated into the modern language. With her had a son who bears the mother's name, Mori Ken (born March 1925).

Works, literature and sources

  • Collected works: Kaneko Mitsuharu zenshū . Tokyo 1975–77, 15 volumes
  • A Wandering Poet-Painter: Kaneko Mitsuharu . in: WF Vanden Walle, David de Coonman (Eds.): Japan & Belgium: Four Centuries of Exchange . Brusseles / Aichi 2005, ISBN 2-9600491-0-1
  • Iijima Kōichi (Ed.): Nenkan koganemushi: Kaneko Mitsuharu kenkyū . Tokyo 1988 (Kaneko Mitsuharu no kai; series 6 issues)
  • Painting: Kawamura Bun'ichiro: Kaneko Mitsuharu gajō . Tokyo 1981
  • James Morita: Kaneko Mitsuharu . Boston 1980, Twayne's World Author Series, № 555

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ on the school system of the time see: Hermann Bohner : Japans Bildungswesen . in: E. Schwartz (Ed.): Evangelical Pedagogical Lexicon. Velhagen and Clasing, 1929
personal data
SURNAME Kaneko, Mitsuharu
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 金子 光 晴 (Japanese); Ōga Yasukazu (maiden name); 大 鹿 安和 (Japanese, maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese poet and painter of the Shōwa era
DATE OF BIRTH 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Aichi prefecture
DATE OF DEATH 1975