The articles on this page originally appeared in JSSUS newsletter Volume 8, no.2, 1970. Page 1
Shinkichi Hara by Otto Kuymmel
Translated by Helga E. Reap and Alan L. Harvie
Shinkichi Hara by Otto Kuymmel
Translated by Helga E. Reap and Alan L. Harvie
On July 8th of this year, 1 Shinkichi Hara 原辰吉 the assistant of many years to Justus Brinckmann of Hamburg's Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe , died after a long and serious illness. Hara was born, not of the military caste, but as the son of a bourgeois doctor in the crucial first year of Meiji (1868) in Akita, Dewa Province. After a thorough classical education he studied, as far as I know, at the Imperial University of Tokyo: chiefly medicine, but certainly without particular inclination. he took, apparently after he had taken the State examination, an educational trip to Germany, which at that time was part of the education of the Japanese medical man. In Freiburg, whose medical faculty attracted many Japanese medical doctors, he entered into friendly relations with Ernst Grosse, in whose home the Freiburg Japanese gathered. He was not attracted to medicine and, according to his own reports, the clinic and lecture room seldom saw him. But he attracted favorable attention from his countrymen through his good, ancient classical education, which by then was no longer required of the Japanese academician. Chinese poetry was his hobby, which he joyously exercised to the end of his life. In 1896 Justus Brinckmann was in need of Japanese help for the extensive Japanese collection in his museum; Grosse recommended this medical man against his better judgment. Brinckmann appointed him and has never regretted this decsion. In 1896 the Japanese section of the museum was already quite extensive, but, as in all collections of that time, a haphazard work. Brinckmann was one of the first to realize the importance of Japanese applied art. But his knowledge was limited to the chaotic stocks of the European art dealers, who themselves were helpless victims of their Japanese vendors. The only literary aid, Gonse's Geschichte der japanischen Kunst, helped little or not at all, and the then still quite meager Japanese literature was, for the European, legend, not reality. That Brinckmann, after a few hours study with the Japanese Parisian art dealer Hayashi, managed the for that time excellent and still interesting today book, Kunst und Handwerk in Japan, belongs to the most important accomplishments of this outstanding man.
Hara did not only know the language, history and folkways of Japan and China, but had made himself familiar with the fine arts of his country as far as was possible at that time for a Japanese of modest background. The present contents of the Museum have been defined and cataloged by him in the excellent style of Brinckmann with the same thor oughness and conscientiousness which also distinguishes the other catalogs of the Hamburg Museum. But, above all, Hara became Brinckmann's adviser as to his purchases during that fortunate time at the beginning of our century, in which almost all great East-Asian collections of Paris--Hayashi, Gillot, Bing, Rouart and what have you--came under the ham- mer. Unfortunately, despite the utmost friendship for his Japanese colleague, Brinckmann was much too authoritative and conceited to follow or to seek his advice, and with many of his purchases at that time Hara deserves neither credit nor blame. Brinckmann stayed European, Hara true orthodox Japanese. In the early Hamburg days it looked as if his activities would take a very sudden end. Hara had Japanese woodcuts which, to Brinckmann's horror, he folded up and used as bookmarks, for the Japanese at that time vieux pa- pier imprime, as Hayashi once expressed himself.
The strong point of the Japanese section of the museum always lay in the collection of Japanese sword-fittings, whose beginnings went back to that fine time when sword-tired Japan shipped its swordguards to Europe by the bagful. Japan Hara had rarely occupied himself with these small marvels. The contents of the Museum, and a series of German and foreign collections offering him ample material, forced the thought upon him and Brinckman to be a leader in this almost unknown world. So grew Hara's first and only book, Die Meister der japanischen Schwertzierathen, which in 1902 was handed over to the astonished participants of the Hamburg Orientalists Day, and immediately carried Hara's name beyond Germany's border. It was a work which could not be written in Europe, but it had to be written in Europe because it just was not written in Japan. To the best of my knowledge, there is still lacking a similar work in Japan, and with the exception of a few experts whose collections are far superior to Hara's book, the Japanese also depend on "Hara" where one can find in a few moments that which otherwise would take days of laborious work. The European would be completely helpless without the "Hara" which was published 1931/32 in a second, corrected edition. The old saying 弘法弘法も筆の誤まり the Japanese version of dormitans Homerus, by all means applies to Hara's work on which he had labored with such great accuracy. As for the accomplishments of his European imitators he could feel, with justification, superior. He also, occasionally, gave vent to his fury about these inadequacies with a clearness that did not reveal much Japanese politeness.
His preface to Fenollosa's (in a form that F. certainly never expected) book Ursprung und Entwicklung der chinesischen und japanischen Kunst uncovered the shortcomings of this indeed incredible work with a pitilessness which was far off from the dutiful enthusiasm of an editor. Here he had to limit himself to critical remarks. Other books, such as Brockhaus' Netsuke (1905), bear the names of European authors, but are in reality, except for the outward form, his based, as far as East-Asia is concerned, completely on Hara; Also, the excellent reports of the Hamburg Museum are Jacoby's publications, various collection and auction catalogs, as well as Perzynski's book on masks, owe Hara a great. deal if not everything. Under his name are only the small catalogs of the auctions of Japanese woodcuts published by Saenger's art shop.
The Chinese mode of the last decades, which in Europe afforded Japanese art a greatly unmerited neglect, has Hara, just as every Japanese, loving Chinese art almost more than his own, never taking it extremely seriously. With the exception of his work on sword fittings, which he not infre quently defended almost capriciously, even when he obviously was wrong, he, in general, took nothing very seriously. He was an artist at living who greatly enjoyed this world, and with the material pleasures weighing no inconsiderable amount. That man should eat his bread by the sweat of his brow he never took for anything other than a curse, and withdrew from it whenever he could. It was always comfortable with him and his small malices, which were born of a clever knowledge of the world and human nature, were never insulting. His not extensive scholarly work will last, but also the man, Hara, will not be forgotten by all who knew him.