Dear customers and friends,
Kon-nichiwa,hello from Ginza,Tokyo
This is Shukado Newsletter No.6 from "Japanese-finearts.com by Shukado".
It has been really cold in Tokyo. As for this year, it is said that it is colder in northern hemisphere than that of previous years. Last week, the news said that there was a snowfall in Afghanistan causing a serious damage for local residents. What is the weather like in your country?
About 80 days has passed since we opened our website. We are very happy to receive many purchase orders from many countries. As we expected, we have biggest number of orders from U.S. while we saw orders coming from Canada, Germany, Czech Republic, Spain, Austria, Holland, Switzerland, etc. We would like to extend our sincere gratitude for our customers. Thank you very much! I feel that this is the benefit of the age of Internet where we can exchange e-mail and trade with people from allover the world!
To our surprise, we have not received any order from U.K. and France. People from those two countries first discovered the value of Japanese fine arts in the old times. We are looking forward to the orders from customers in those countries!
By the way, let me refer to the continuation of my writing on “The tale of Genji”. I have been researching The Tale of Genji in order to write this news letter since last week. To be honest, I am puzzled to find out that the world of the Tale of Genji spreads in a massive scale like a little cosmos.
The Tale of Genji a very long novel consisting of 54 volumes or chapters. In addition to that, as the time passed, the story of the 54 volumes developed and expanded as if 54 children of Murasaki-shikibu had their individual children and, 1000 years later, numerous amounts of descendants are living in 2008.
For example, if you search “Genji” or “The Tale of Genji”with Amazon U.S., you will get quite a lot of hits. You will be able to find several translations, videos, games and more.
I also heard that, in France, a richly bound book of The Tale of Genji translation by René Sieffert with wonderful artworks taken from various kinds of The Tale of Genji picture books was published last year.
http://www.amazon.fr/Dit-Genji-coffret-volumes-monogatari/dp/2903656371
The overseas impact of The Tale of Genji has been seen around only about these 100 years. Not to be mentioned, in Japan, there are countless numbers of goods related to The Tale of Genji including manuscripts of the original writings, translations made in later periods, paintings and picture books depicting characters and scenes from the Tale of Genji. The images of the Tale of Genji are used as graphic designs for kimono and other products.
When Japanese culture and the source of power in Japanese politics are discussed, many people often mention that there is a “vacuum” or “emptiness” in the center. At the time of Murasaki-shikibu, the Emperor had a political power in Japan. After a while, “Shikken”or Emperor’s political advisors became de-facto rulers. Then Shikken’s reign was taken over by samurai warriors and samurai’s reign continues for about 700 years. However, in theory, the Emperor was always considered as a greatest political figure.
Some academians say that “The Tale of Genji” played a very significant role for the “story” or “illusion” of Emperor’s political governance. Although I have not looked this theory in detail, if I were to believe in this story, I, as a Japanese national, would feel very much like taking close look at The Tale of Genji once again.
It can also be said that “emptiness” also exists in the structure of “The Tale of Genji” itself. As I mentioned in the previous newsletter, its original manuscripts do not exist at present. Even direct manuscript of the original does not exist. Current “The Tale of Genji” was re-constructed from variations derived from manuscripts passed down from generation to generation surviving war fires.
By the way, the manuscript written at the time when The Tale of Genji was written looks like this:
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/2008/02/part-of-genji-monogatari-emaki-national.html
This is a part of scripts from “The Tale of Genji Picture Scroll” which was created in the area near the imperial palace in early 12th century and is the oldest existing manuscript of the tale. This scroll is designated as a National Treasure.
Although this script is written in very elegant and dainty Higarana or Japanese phonetic alphabet, most of Japanese people in the modern time can not read such writings.
Modern Hiragana consists of about 50 letters (the combination of 5 vowels of a,i,u,e and o and 9 consonants of k,s,t, etc. ). Since Hiragana was invented as phonetic alphabet writing by simplifying shapes of Chinese characters, there were several different letters for one sound. In the Heian period, there were approximately 300 letters with Hiragana. After a wile, in the Meiji era, the number of Hiragana letters was reduced to current number of 45 letters to be taught at schools. Since then, old Hiragana letters became obsolete and Japanese people became incapable of reading old scripts.
Even if you can read old Hiragana letters, it is extremely difficult to understand its meaning since old Japanese grammar is quite different from that of modern Japanese and the relations between a subject and a predicate is further vague with old Japanese.
Therefore, Japanese people in the modern time have double or triple obstacles in having a clear picture of original “The Tale of Genji.”
Despite its difficulties in understanding the meaning, don't you think the strikes of the writing look very elegant and beautiful? Calligraphic works from the Heian period are exceptionally beautiful. Therefore, even now, Japanese people appreciate their beauty and treasure manuscripts, scrolls and dankan (a piece of calligraphic work) created in this period. You can see such artworks in the museums in Tokyo and Kyoto.
From art dealer's view point, I would like to touch upon their market value. Beautiful calligraphic works from this period are priced around a couple of million yen (several tens of thousands US dollars). As for very precious ones, even a piece of such artwork is highly valued for a few billion yen (a few million US dollars). Unfortunately, it is prohibited to export many of such artworks (designated as National Treasures or Important Cultural Assets) by Japanese government. It is pity that overseas readers of this newsletter can not purchase them even though having enough money. But don't be disappointed. We are hoping to introduce you some super class calligraphic works from this period in the near future. Please wait for a little while until then.
Sorry, I went off the main topic. Let me get back to it.
To be honest, in reality, there are not many Japanese people who completely understand the content of The Tale of Genji. On the other hand, there are millions of modern Japanese translation, manga comics and paintings based on it. Additionally, various kinds of artworks in a wide range of genre influenced by the tale can be seen now. Therefore, it can be said that most of Japanese people are living unconsciously with the influence of its images and stories,
However such influential existences of the“Emperor”and “The Tale of Genji” serving as binding tools of Japanese people’s mind do not stand out in the society. This may be very Japanese phenomena that important figures are always low-key. In addition, Japanese people do not think so seriously about their main belief, “Buddhism”. While many people have funerals in Buddhist style, Christian style wedding is the most popular followed by Shinto or Buddhist style wedding. Although I sometimes pray for God, I am actually not aware of what sort of God I am praying for.
Making additional comment on the “emptiness” in the core, except Prime Minister Koizumi who had stayed in the office until last year, many of our previous Prime Ministers did not have strong leadership and their stints were very short. This may be due to the fact that Japanese people have temperament to avoid having a strong leader and, as a result of this, a low-key person always serves as a de-facto leader. I do not think this is a very good thing for Japanese politics.
I got off the track too much. I shall stop writing this newsletter here.
For your reference, this year marks 1000th anniversary of the compilation of The Tale of Genji and its anniversary symposium as well as exhibitions and lectures will be held this year. Please visit the website as below for more details.
http://www.2008genji.jp/iinkai/english.html
http://www.pref.kyoto.jp/2008genji/index.html
The topic of The Tale of Genji will continue next week.
**
We have Two NEWS.
News One: Shukado Catalog No.13 / Early Spring of 2008 Edition was just published last Friday!
Why don't you see that:
https://www.syukado.jp/en/catalog/index.html
News Two: Our staff, Ikuko Kuwata just married Smoky (American) YESTERDAY!
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/2008/02/ikuko-just-married.html
She is our customer servicer for overseas and also in charge of editing the Shukado Catalog, the latest edition of which was just printed on last Friday!
Please BLESS her and her new husband!!
**
Everyone, please take care of yourself in the cold weather. I also wish the people in the warm country their well-being!
See you next week!
Chiaki Tanaka
**We are sending Shukado News Letter - the information of
new arrivals.
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