Mr. Koichiro Kondo
In this compact portrait, Ryunosuke Akutagawa considers the painter and cartoonist Koichiro Kondo with a characteristic mixture of critical insight, irony, and affectionate mockery. He argues that Kondo’s move from caricature to orthodox Japanese painting was no abrupt transformation: the visual humor already present in his cartoons could become landscape art merely by adopting a more dignified pose. Akutagawa especially admires the earthy appetite beneath Kondo’s seemingly traditional style, seeing in it the creative greed of an artist eager to absorb nourishment from everything. The essay then widens into a sharp observation about changing fashions in cultural conformity before returning to a personal recollection of Kondo—his neurasthenia, rising fame, bristly haircut, student-like appearance, and memorably enormous cherrywood walking stick.
Kondo was famous as a cartoonist. Now he is also famous as a Japanese-style painter who follows the orthodox path.
This, however, is no accident. Some cartoons derive their humor from the comic idea behind them; others from the comic quality of the drawing itself; and still others combine the two. Most of Kondo’s cartoons either combined both kinds of humor or relied upon the humor of the drawing itself. It is only natural, therefore, that the moment one of his one-page cartoons assumes a more dignified bearing, it should turn into a full-fledged landscape painting.
Kondo’s paintings are not dryly austere. Even in his landscapes, reminiscent of the Southern School, there lurks a certain persistent quality, something almost fleshly in its odor. It is delightful to feel so openly expressed there an artist’s voracity—the desire to suck nourishment from everything around him.
Today’s conventional taste is not yesterday’s. Yesterday’s conventional-minded public was habitually indifferent to everything rebellious. Today’s is habitually indifferent to everything that is not rebellious. To make his way in modern Japan, where these two varieties of conventionality are intermingled, Kondo too will have to plant himself firmly upon the Diamond Seat and pursue his discipline as though his life depended on it.
I first met Kondo at just about this time last year. He then claimed to be suffering from neurasthenia and was in very low spirits. Yet, judging from the fact that he carried a cherrywood walking stick almost as thick as a log, even with neurasthenia he must surely have had enough strength left over to beat at least a dog to death. When I saw him again recently, however, he told me that his neurasthenia had passed, and he looked exceedingly well. His health had undoubtedly recovered, but it is also true that in the meantime his reputation had begun to rise considerably. On that occasion he and I talked a little about Mr. Misei Kosugi. Kondo’s head was still cropped as short and bristly as a burr. His student-like appearance, too, was unchanged. But that magnificent cherrywood stick, thick as a log, was no longer to be seen in his hand.—