Location and Times

Itsukushima is one of Japan’s most famous temples. Located in the Hiroshima prefecture Itsukushima is actually a holy island important to both Shinto and Japanese Buddhists. According to the legend of the island, three deities appeared before a man and instructed him to build a temple there in 593 CE. Later in the 15 th century the Buddhist holy figure Benzaiten became associated with the shrine. Thus the shrine became a major link between Shinto and Buddhism. Its most famous feature is the 160 meter Torii in the center of the Hiroshima Bay. In fact much of the shrines temple structure are built on the water on a complex layer of docks.

The Story of Yamauba and Kintaro:

Yamauba is a mountain woman of legend. In the stories Yamauba is often purported to have supernatural powers such as control of the weather or powers to see the future. Some stories say she has always been in the mountains. Other stories tell of a demon woman living with animals named Yamauba. Still more stories discuss a courtesan of unknown origins sent to tempt leaders sent into the wilderness. Finally Yamauba is vengeance personified for her slain husband. In all stories she is depicted half wild with loose flowing hair and unusual cloths often in a state of undress.

Kintaro is the famous legendary hero of great strength. Kintaro appears in both Buddhist and Shinto stories as an impossibly strong man, a hero who overthrows corrupt leaders and rights wrongs. He is also an avenger. His relations to Yamauba, who he is pictured with as a boy, vary as much as her origins. Some say he is a boy she found in her mountain travels and raised with her magic and wild ways. Other stories say he is her son, raised to take vengeance either upon his father or the ones who killed his father.

Interpretations

Nagasawa Rosetsu often reinterpreted works. His confident line work is often remarked upon thanks to his unique brush stroke techniques of shading with drier ink using a single stroke. His style influenced heavily by the Muryama School’s adoption of new techniques from the west and a new focus on subjects that the more predominate schools had ignored allowed Nagasawa the freedom to reinterpreted traditional styles and motif in a new context.

In this case however his reinterpretation of the story is fascinating. In other works Yamauba is pictured as a voluptuous healthy young woman whose clothes while tattered or opened to reveal her body are still sumptuous and refined. She is sexually charged in other works. Often she is a beautiful woman with voluptuous full breasts which hang out of her clothes. Kintaro in one work suckles on these unusually large bosoms. The loose hair and torn robes create an obvious sexual aspect to the work. In all the other works her gaze is fixed upon Kintaro as if she serves him completely while under her charge. Connotations of a wild woman serving a man create further sexual tension. In Nagasawa Rosetsu’s Yamauba is old and decrepit looking. While not frail, obviously her appearance lacks they sexual nature of the other works, her breasts and front firmly covered. Her robes are old and her umbrella is in tatters. Her teeth are sticking out over her lips denoting advanced age. Her gaze looks at the viewer instead of Kintaro unlike in other works and coveys a feeling of great wisdom and knowledge.

Kintaro is often pictured as a young nobleman’s son. His hair done up in a proper pony tail and dressed in normal children’s cloths. He has the appearance of a Japanese boy. However in Rosetsu’s beguiling and strange work, Kintaro is very much the wild man in the stories. In fact the way he clings to Kintaro his unwashed and wild hair kinked and laying about make him seem less then human, more animalistic in fact. There is a level of racism in the work as Kintaro is very much not a member of the Japanese nobility in his appearance. In fact he appears to be very dark skinned like a Polynesian islander. This creates a strange tension between a normally heroic figure highlighting perhaps a tension other artist’s ignore in the noble wild man hero story. It also creates a feel of the dependence upon Yamauba as he clings to her. The sexuality of previous works is removed in favor of highlighting the wisdom and maternal nature of life cycling back to the Zen principles to which Nagasawa Rosetsu adhered.