Life Teacher Hideo Kobayashi
Shōhei Ōoka
Life Teacher Hideo Kobayashi
Shōhei Ōoka
'My View of Life,' published at the height of postwar democracy, was a scathing critique and protest against the cliquish, easy believers in the historical present. This attitude has remained consistent to the present day. It is easy to call it reactionary, but perhaps a hasty tactical theory is not enough to overtake this solidly constructed idea.
For Kobayashi's part, however, references to democratic "historical scorners" and "party grumblers" are no longer needed. It is part of the art of criticism to reveal the contours of the self by depicting the other, but from Kobayashi's perspective, the complainers have long since been refuted and need no longer be addressed. As long as the collective evil does not reach the scale of "evil spirit" pigs, it should not be a problem.
Kobayashi traveled to Europe from 1952 to 1953. His travel writings were already renowned for his impressions of Manchuria and China during the war. His "eyes of observation" are free from the empty, curious observations of a tourist or the prejudices of guidebooks, and he has achieved unparalleled impartiality. His writings are written with a critical spirit, always seeking to "collide with things and feel their spiritual response." This is a notable feature of 'Impressions of Greece,' 'Pyramids,' and the recent 'Soviet Journey,' all of which are included in this collection.
Kobayashi had simply traveled around the tourist route with Izumi today, not visiting the islands of Baudelaire or Rimbaud like literary tourists, but carefully visiting the art museums in each area and even taking to the trouble of going deep into Egypt and the outlying borders of Greece at the risk of inconvenience.
'Modern Painting' was inspired by the Western paintings he saw for the first time on this trip. Instead of writing a travelogue, Kobayashi retraced the formation of his own aesthetic sensibilities, as seen in the opening chapter on Baudelaire. However, Kobayashi's discussion does not end with Baudelaire as an art critic. The young Kobayashi recalls in 'Rimbaud' how the flawless critical spirit that emerged in mid-nineteenth-century France played a role in his spiritual formation.
"I was trapped like an insect in this incomparably exquisitely finished sphere (the Chapter of Malice), (omission) and I looked up at the colourful murals that covered the interior of the dome, wishing that I could somehow make a hole in that part of the ceiling (omission)... It was then that Rimbaud appeared. The sphere shattered and scattered. I was able to depart."
This section therefore contains Kobayashi's intention to reconstruct the past that he himself had destroyed, but he seems to have some difficulty in recalling it. There are rare traces of anguish in his writing.
He also refers to the works of the great nineteenth century impressionists such as Manet, Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin. The point where man and work critically intersect is noteworthy. For Kobayashi, paintings are more than just objects to be admired. This is also reflected in his focus on "view" in 'My View of Life' and his emphasis on the "appearance" of things.
"The painting before your eyes actually demands a radical revolution in your perception," Kobayashi asserts. "We must seriously consider the fact that when we transform perception into a concept, something rich is inevitably lost. If so, is there not a way for the same force of will that tries to leap from perception to concept to penetrate endlessly into perception, not discarding anything that we perceive, but rather going ahead and expanding it as far as possible? If philosophy can be developed from such a path, then perhaps one philosophical system would be sufficient."
Kobayashi says he got this idea from Bergson. Following 'Modern Painting,' Kobayashi wrote a series of 'Impressions' in 'Shinchō,' in which, as in 'My View of Life,' he discussed philosophy without borrowing the terminology of philosophers, demonstrating a unique achievement in modern Japanese. Vision lives with things, while science only analyses and manipulates them. Kobayashi's intuition was that although it is doubtful whether the human will has the power to overcome this categorical gap, a great painter can express this through his work.
Of course, Kobayashi believes in will. The relationship between the two is most powerfully depicted in the chapter on Cézanne in 'Modern Painting.' The reader who is forced to follow Kobayashi into the drama of the geniuses' work must pause for breath when he reaches Renoir's tepid, inimitable chapter. The style is as tense and anguished as this.
The chapter on Picasso, which occupies the last third of 'Modern Painting,' attempts to deal with this twentieth-century master while citing Wollinger's theory, but it seems that the discussion did not evoke the same enthusiasm as the discussion of the nineteenth-century masters. This is probably because the desire to understand and analyse came first, and there seemed to be no sympathy as in the case of Cézanne.
Kobayashi was over fifty at this time. At the end of the chapter on Degas, he writes about the age of fifty, when the self closes, like a door closing. Or perhaps when he spoke of Socrates' daemon, who suddenly stopped speaking, Kobayashi was talking about himself. It is Kobayashi's conscience that indirectly reveals his own image, but if that is the case, then 'Modern Painting' is the result of a titanic effort. And it is this kind of willpower that strikes us with Kobayashi's writing and always appeals to the hearts of his readers.
Kobayashi's efforts continued in his 'Impressions,' but he also happened to begin writing an intermittent series of essays summarised today in 'Bungeishunju' as 'Hints for Thinking.' Because of the nature of the magazine, the writing was crisp and easy to understand, and required careful consideration. This was like Kobayashi's attempt to make contact with the earth after he had penetrated too deeply into the clouds of philosophy. The essays gained a large readership and became Kobayashi's first book to become a bestseller.
In his recent dialogue with Kiyoshi Oka titled 'The Construction of Mankind,' his image as a teacher of life seems to have become even clearer. Kobayashi also has a recorded dialogue with Hideki Yukawa, but there is no other living art critic who can compete with scientists and mathematicians on their own terms. Kobayashi's ability and greatness lie in the fact that he has accumulated such knowledge outside his field of expertise out of necessity and need for his own personal development.
From the very start, Kobayashi's solitary spirit was not without its perils of self-absolutisation, sterility through monogenetic reproduction, and fixed thinking patterns, which he overcame by perseverance and effort through constant practice. This is a sign of true greatness.
(November 1965)