The first place Chikabo worked at was a design company called Japan Studio. It was 1933. Japan Studio was a news photography and pattern company, established by Natori Yonosuke, who had been influenced by the Bauhaus ideology, together with Kimura Ihei. Whilst fashionable words such as ‘design’ are used nowadays, at the time only ‘pattern’ was used and so Chikabo’s job title then was ‘pattern-maker.’ He worked at the company because of the graphic designer Yamana Ayao, his much-admired mentor. Yamana had participated in designs so deeply familiar to the Japanese as Shiseido’s logo and the grape mark of Shinchosha, and had really opened up the world of Japanese graphic design. At that time, Chikabo was his apprentice.

‘Mr Yamana and I got along very well; although we didn’t talk about anything, we understood one another. Moreover, he was very pleased with my work and called me in to Japan Studio.’ Chikabo was given responsibility for editorial design at NIPPON, a graphic art magazine aimed at promoting Japan abroad and produced in four languages, English, German, French and Spanish. Although used for so-called propaganda purposes, turning the pages now, the high quality is surprising. The composition of the pages and the way in which photography is used is original; in spite of the fact that it was launched before American Life magazine (first published in 1936), even that couldn’t rival its stylishness. In modern times it seems unexpectedly fresh but, looking at it again more objectively, it absolutely possesses a universal beauty which appeals to people’s hearts across the ages.

‘In those days, I worked so hard it was physically unhealthy. It was interesting because I could do the things I liked, in the way I wanted to do them. And so, unintentionally, I worked until late and went home late. Before I joined Japan Studio I was always just having fun; after I started working there, all I did was stubbornly work.’

Japan Studio was at Kyobashi and couldn’t be reached from Chikabo’s house in Yokohama without using the train. Well, I say train but commuting conditions were not as they are now and the commute must not have been easy. When I ask him about the route, it seems that there were also points along the way where he had to walk. He would go from Yokohama, through Shinagawa, before arriving at Shinbashi. From there he would head towards the Kyobashi office and, taking the Yamanote circle line, head to Tokyo station before walking from there to Kyobashi.

Still, however hard that must have been, just seeing the names of the staff working there must have made it all worthwhile. Distinguished names such as the founder and photographer Natori Yonosuke, Chikabo’s mentor Yamana Ayao, the photographers Domon Ken and Fujimoto Shihachi, all were going about their work, opening up as yet unknown worlds, in this tiny office. One can only think that the god of fame had brought together all this creative talent by some chance at Japan Studio, which revolutionised the world of news photography and made the world sit up and take notice of the value of graphic design. Incidentally, as I said, Kimura Ihei (the photographer) participated in the early stages of Japan Studio and Kamekura Yusaku (the graphic designer who took charge of work on the Tokyo Olympics), Chikabo’s junior by many years, also worked there. It really is no exaggeration to say that Japan Studio built the cornerstone of the history of Japanese graphic design. Although oblivious at the time, Chikabo must have had a unique experience working there.

‘I was really close to Domon. He joined the company the year after me but was two years my senior in terms of age. He had a rough temperament, was always mocking people with his eyes, and swaggering. He often shouted at Mr Natori, the Director. Nevertheless, for some reason, he was kind only to me. I cannot explain it in words but we had a relationship of mutual trust. Mr Natori would often tear up a photograph Domon had taken much effort over and then he would often hide himself away in the dark room. When that happened it was my job to draw him back out. I would knock on the door using a code that only the two of us understood and he would come out.’

Domon Ken is known as a doyen of photography even among people who know little of such things. Above all he is famous for his photographs of Buddhist statuary, for being the devil of realism, and his technique of closing in on his subjects is still talked about as legendary among many of today’s photographers. They talk of how, without eating or drinking, for a whole day and night, he would continue taking photographs. However angry the great men who were his models became, he just kept on taking photographs of their angry faces – his tenacity and zeal for taking pictures must have been extraordinary. Therefore, a man touched but a little by culture, just on hearing his name, will straighten his back with the power that resides in the name Domon Ken. The Domon Ken conjured up by Chikabo’s words is, however, very different.

‘Domon came from a really poor family and he was rough; handed a camera, he didn’t know how to use it properly. The first place he and I were sent to take photographs was Waseda University to take a group photograph of the students. It was Domon’s first photograph. Nevertheless, so far as setting up the camera and covering himself with the cloth, he did it right but then, for what seemed like an eternity, he didn’t come out from under it. The students began to get irritated that the photograph seemed to be taking forever. I had no choice, therefore, but to ask him “Domon, what on earth are you doing?” to which he answered, calling me by my nickname, “Goro, the students won’t fit inside the frame.” “What are you doing? If you pull the camera back they should fit in,” I told him. When he did as I had said he was delighted. “They fit, they fit!” From then on he would often ask me how he could take good photographs. Though I was a pattern-maker who depicted nature in nature, he came to rely on me and asked me many things. So, I gave him some hints.’

It feels strange to hear the devil of realism, the legendary Domon Ken, being talked about as a clueless youth. However, Chikabo is not the type to exaggerate or lie. It is obvious just from looking at his pictures, or from thinking of his faith in his god, that he has a personal conviction that he must express himself honestly. The Domon Ken he describes is, in some respects, goofy and unsophisticated.

‘Later, Domon came to take as his subjects Buddhist statuary, bunraku, and kabuki but, originally, he wasn’t used to such cultural things. So, I think his first real chance to experience culture was, along with me, doing NIPPON. One time we had the opportunity to photograph a doll in a private house. So, I suggested we make the room pitch-black and then light it from here and there. We did it and Domon enjoyed taking the photographs and felt pleased that the finished product looked much more three-dimensional than expected. So, when I suggested to him that, as Buddhist imagery of the time was all very flat, it would surely be interesting if he were to take photographs of Buddhist statuary in this way, he went out to take some, already on cloud nine.’

Of course, Domon was only human and so it’s only natural that, as a creator and as a person, he should take influence from something or someone or other. However, I can’t help but be surprised at the various influences Chikabo reveals in talking about Domon Ken just as if he were reminiscing about an old partner in crime at a class reunion. However, Chikabo’s next assertion astonishes me further still.

‘It was good that he got so carried away and went out to take the pictures but, in the end, he didn’t take any good ones and came back feeling down. So, I said to Domon, “It’s no good just rushing out thinking, ‘let’s take the pictures, let’s take ‘em.’ One time, you should just leave the camera behind and check out how you can best capture these Buddhist statues. One day, sit down in front of a statue and just look.” He listened carefully and obediently to what I said. The second time he came back from taking the photos, he said happily, “Goro, thank you. I’ve got it.” Still, I think the reputation he earned later was absolutely because of his passion for photography and because he studied with such enthusiasm.’

Chikabo is a devout Christian. Even so, within him, there breathes a way of thinking, of interacting with all creation, in common with animism. This spirit is strongly embodied in his pictures of insects and of flowers. Many of his works are the result of his dialogue with living things. The advice he gave to Domon was to do exactly that which he himself had practised since he was young. Later, many people who met Domon Ken would comment that he was a ‘man of observation.’ That is, he observed things too well. It would be too much to suggest that this came from Chikabo, but there is no doubt that Chikabo had a considerable influence on him.

Chikabo says, ‘Back then, Mr Natori sometimes said to me, “You too, take photos!” He seemed to think that as he wanted to make NIPPON visually perfect, if he got me, a designer and artist, to take photographs, I would be quick to acquire the skills, would quickly get good at it. But I answered, “God gave me two eyes and the eye of my heart, a triple-lens reflex camera so to speak, so I cannot do it.” It seems that when I made the same exaggeration in front of Domon he remembered it well. In his late years, when I visited a photographic exhibition of his, he said, “Goro, I gave in to your realism.” I guess that, although to compare the realism of photographs with that of paintings is inevitable, something about what I said stuck in his head.’

Japan Studio, in the worlds of graphic design and news photography, and Domon Ken, in the photographic world, are legends which shine brilliantly within Japan’s creative industries. For Chikabo, having lived through that time, in that moment, in that place, both bring back nothing but good memories. Therefore, the story he recites has none of the sepia-toned nuance so typical of legends but, rather, like a diary which overflows with affection, though plain in tone it is nonetheless told joyfully.

Living to 97

Man’s life of fifty years is but as a dream.
Once receiving life, can any man not perish?

This is a passage from Atsumori, the play so beloved by Oda Nobunaga, the warlord who unified Japan in the Warring States period. It was long thought that to live a whole life was to live for roughly fifty years. In fact, it was not until the post-war period that the average Japanese life expectancy exceeded fifty; in the Meiji and Taisho periods, the average life expectancy was between forty and fifty years of age.

Therefore, in the past ‘to live’ and ‘to grow old’ must have meant something very different to what they mean today.

Chikabo was born in 1911 (Meiji 44 in the Japanese calendar). It was still the Meiji period and neither of the two world wars, nor the Great Kanto Earthquake had happened yet. It was a time before television and, of course, before the internet. Those born after the war, and in the Heisei period, can only imagine what the age in which he was born was like. However, they would feel sure that Chikabo at that time would never have thought he would live to be ninety-seven years old.

“I was a sickly child by nature. I was so frail that I was soon bed-ridden and had no physical strength and so, until I was about four years old, I couldn’t even go outdoors like other children. At that time, all I could do was read picture books in the house or play in the garden with the flowers and the insects. By no means would it ever have occurred to me that I might live to be ninety-seven, painting pictures, still active as an artist.”

Still active, still working, at ninety-seven. I expect there is hardly anyone with such aspirations. Thinking about society today, the issue of ‘old age’ comes to most people’s minds. Growing old and anticipating their retirement, they wonder what on earth they will do when they retire from active life, how they will spend their time, and what the meaning of their life will be. There are people who take up fishing and others who begin learning to play an instrument.

Then, there are those who participate in local activities, and those who take an interest in the education of young people. Certainly, I think each course gives meaning to old age in its respective way. Despite the fact that there are those who would grow sick of a life of incessant work, I imagine many would empathise. However, Chikabo never had in his head anything like the systematic life figured by the so-called middle-class salaryman.

“To me, even now I’m not old. You see, I was so poor I could hardly even talk of such a thing. I had to be always moving, always working. Until my sixties, my life was just like I was swimming in the mud. It was in my seventies that the flowers began to bloom a little and the spring of youth began. So, for me, seventy was a renaissance. And my eighties were the full bloom of youth because, really, day after day I flourished. As was to be expected, in my nineties, my physical strength declined, and yet everyday I’m still enthusiastic about everything. When people lose their enthusiasm, it’s the end isn’t it?”

Chikabo says his seventies were the spring of his youth because that was when finally he came to be acknowledged as an artist, as Kumada Chikabo. It was in 1981, when, at the age of seventy, exhibiting his work in an international exhibition of picture book originals in Bologna, that his work came to be appreciated. Of course, this appreciation did not stop at the domestic, but spread overseas.

“The way that Europeans show their appreciation is quite interesting. Seeing my pictures, Japanese people appreciate them without saying so. ‘It’s just as though Kumada’s pictures are alive. In his pictures you can feel the same spirit as with Fabre.’ That’s the kind of thing they’d say. That made me happy. Because I was being compared to Fabre, who I love.”

This was all a new experience for Chikabo. Until then, as an artist, he had felt that he was fumbling in the dark. And then suddenly, before his eyes, in a flash, it became bright. So, for him, the events that followed were bewildering. The media came to him frequently with cameras. When his pictures received exposure in magazines, newspapers and on television, the ripple of his fame spread wider and wider.

Then the Kumada Chikabo’s World series, which he still works on on an ongoing basis, began to sell with further editions year on year. To listen to the voice of your own heart is important but, however much an artist might love a life of isolation, receiving attention from the world would surely not make them unhappy – their pictures would receive public appreciation and, furthermore, they could enjoy having a little money. The age of seventy at which Chikabo experienced these things is, without a doubt, an age at which people are labelled as ‘elderly.’ Nevertheless, he felt with his whole being that his life truly began then. He sensed a complete change in the air. A time of joy and of busy activity, for him, there is no old age.

Sometimes you hear such things from people as ‘Who wants to live forever?’ and ‘I don’t want to get old.’ The many holes in our underdeveloped social security system stand out all the more in today’s aging society and the sense of unease surrounding old age cannot just be wiped away. In reality, even if we were to live a long life, the present situation is such that we cannot even begin to imagine what kind of a life that would be. In short, as the Buddha explained, ‘This world is suffering; to live is to suffer.’ Life brings with it emotional pain. Surely most people know this from personal experience. However, what on earth might cross our minds when we see Chikabo, ninety-seven years old and even now diligently working, moving his brush, his eyes sparkling with life? It must certainly make us reconsider that thing we call ‘old age.’ During the writing of this book, he asked his interviewer, ‘How old are you now?’ and, when I answered, ‘I’m thirty-five’, with a tremulous voice, he narrowed his eyes and simply declared ‘Lucky you.’

What I do not understand, I do not understand
“I still understand nothing.”
Chikabo, turning 97 years of age, declared this.
On first hearing them, these sound like the words of someone lacking confidence, and yet his facial expressions are overflowing with confidence.
“People all want to feel ‘this is this way, that is that,’ but I still understand nothing.”
As most of us know, people living in today’s urban civilisation are convinced that they must become social adults. We gather notions together from the narrow environment in which we personally have lived and store them up in our heads. And then we bind the spirit and the actions of ourselves and our families, our friends and our lovers, with those standards. Without a doubt, doing so is indispensable in staving off our insecurities, and in surviving this friendless world. That’s what I believe. ‘Hey you, how old are you? Stop acting like a child.’ Even without words, most people feel in some way that such implicit messages are embedded everywhere in their daily lives. Then, people call them common sense and, casting a sidelong glance at this common illusion, try desperately to grow up. How much peace of mind can being told ‘You too are a grown up now’ give to today’s adults?

Chikabo’s way of life was condensed in his short utterance, “I don’t believe anything.”
Why he came to think this way is a mystery.
However, he instinctively knew that the standards of society’s common sense would not make him happy.
“The house where I lived was broken to little pieces by the Great Kanto Earthquake. Yokohama had become a mountain of rubble. Looking at such scenes, anxious thoughts about what would become of me now passed through my mind. But, the next instant, school came into my head and I asked my father ‘What will happen with school now?’ He said, ‘I have no idea what will happen with school from now on.’ Hearing that, I thought ‘Yes! Just desserts!’ Mysterious things happen in my life. When I’m in trouble, the gods always come to help me. Ever since then, I was free from school.”

I expect many people will wonder what kind of person could speak with such insensitivity. In the Great Kanto Earthquake, more than 140,000 people died and more than 100,000 were injured. Nevertheless, he calls it salvation from the gods. However, who on earth can condemn his feelings as wrong? Accepting the reality of the Great Kanto Earthquake as a natural disaster, he offered prayers that the deceased who had fallen by the roadside would rest in peace and extended a helping hand to the injured. And, with his whole being, he felt indescribable sadness and dread. However, amidst that great disaster, he had come to find some thing of joy: his elementary school had been reduced to rubble. That, for him, was the real feeling. Chikabo, unswayed by common sense, social responses, was simply giving himself up to all the feelings, the honest responses of his heart.

Doing so, he saw something like a paradise even in the burned-out ruins spread out before him.
Whilst there is purity in such honesty, his apparently anti-social outlook was at times disdained as being thoughtless and too worldly-wise.
However, he paid no heed to such voices.
In his heart, and in his head, there was no equation:
‘Earthquake = a cause for regret.’
The Great Kanto Earthquake was, to him, no such simple, mechanical incident.
It was much more pregnant with complex meaning, much more raw than that.
In it, there was much he didn’t understand.

There was much beyond his imagination.
Perhaps it was not difficult to give an appearance of sympathy.
But, to share in sadness, in its true meaning, is no simple thing.
Chikabo did not lightly give himself up to those parts he did not understand.
Rather, he gave himself over to the real heart welling up within him.
To this day, Chikabo still doesn’t understand the social significance of the Great Kanto Earthquake.
The one thing he felt for sure was that it had freed him from school, that scene of homework and melancholy.

An old man

A garden into which sparkling sunlight streams overflows with greenery and flowers in bloom. Butterflies and bees dance, ants and mantises parade. Among the busily moving insects, a solitary old man stoops over, motionless. His eyes, hardly even blinking, follow the shapes of the insects. Sometimes reflecting the sun, they are as clear as an infant’s. Because of his age I guess, wrinkles run across his face but even so his skin is quite moist. He watches the insects so as to commit to memory their expressions and movements. Afterwards, in no time at all, the forms of those insects are, through his fingertips and well-loved brush, duplicated on drawing paper.

This man is an artist. “I am the insect, the insect is me.” Often saying such curious things, he works hard painting pieces of botanical art. Botanical art, as the name suggests, is ‘plant art.’ However, this man draws insects rather than plants and flowers; flowers and vegetation take a supporting role. And so why is it then that he is recognised as Japan’s leading figure in botanical art? He doesn’t mind being categorised as a botanical artist; no one is more easygoing than him. Day after day, he has observed the insects in this way. Whilst gazing at them, with the passage of time, he too has aged. Now, he is ninety-seven years old. He is approaching the one hundred mark. However, astonishingly, he is still at work. And so, even today, his eyes are on the insects in the garden.

The first encounter

I found out about him through an article in a magazine. I picked it up by chance while I was killing time in the magazine corner of a bookshop I had casually dropped into. Flipping through the pages absentmindedly, I stopped my hand. It was of no particular significance. It really was by mere chance that I happened upon an interview with the man called Kumada Chikabo. If I remember correctly, there were several photographs, including a portrait of him. Although I am a writer in the design, art and craft world, I didn’t know of him. ‘Wow, that guy’s got something about him,’ I thought. Why was I drawn so strongly to the way he looked, to his name, and even more so to the fine detail of the pictures? I decided to read the characters lined up there. To read an interview in a bookshop was quite something. Generally, when I stand reading in a bookshop, my goal is simply to blankly release my consciousness into the air. The editors of the magazine must really have excelled for me, usually so ambivalent, to have thought to stand and read an article. Or else was there some other reason? At any rate, moving my eyes, I began to read the interview.

His words were simply wonderful. Immediately, the thought arose in my mind, “I must cover this.” It wasn’t the technical things that professional and amateur illustrators care for that interested me but his life that I wanted to know more about. I did my best to remember his curious sounding name. “Kumada Chikabo. Chikabo. Chikabo.” The general opinion is that editors and writers are supposed to be objective. However, such objectivity can only be applied to viewpoints and expressions formed after the initial subjective selection has taken place. Without subjective judgement in the selection of subjects, that is to say themes, you cannot create any kind of article or story. In those days, overall responsibility for a web magazine had been left in my hands. This bilingual magazine basically took ‘making things’ as its theme. Its subject matter was the engineers and directors of regional small to medium enterprises and dyed-in-the-wool craftspeople. Therefore, to all intents and purposes, to cover this solitary artist ran counter to the magazine’s themes. Even so, I wanted to write about him no matter what and, therefore, at an editorial content meeting, baffling the staff with my explanation that “a botanical artist is a kind of craftsperson,” I half forced the decision to cover him.

A house on a hill

His house is near a station in Yokohama. Narrow alleys run wriggling through the residential district. There is a large park relatively close to the urban area and the singing of summer cicadas echoes through the skies. The area is not flat and so I guess you would call it hilly. You get the impression that the lay of the land and of the streets is all slanting. It seems that the home of this artist who is almost one hundred years old is at the top of a hill. Ascending the gently sloping steps, I emerged at the summit. Even though it was the top of a hill, decent lower-middle-class homes formed a line in this residential district. I hadn’t expected his house, which I had seen in a photograph in the magazine, to be in such a modernised area. Could I have taken the wrong street? Such thoughts came to my mind. In any case, I was about to meet a mystic of the picture world; it was fitting for him to quietly retreat to an old-fashioned house. Unconsciously, I ran away with such self-indulgent wild ideas.

Therefore, the first time I saw his house, it seemed so ordinary that I remember feeling a little disappointed. A man came out and invited me inside and, taking a few steps down a short corridor, I came to a room about six tatami mats in size. I sat down in front of a small worktable in the room and a man was sitting there smiling; of course, this was Kumada Chikabo. How can I explain in words the softness of that smile, manna from heaven? “Welcome.” A voice with substance reverberated around the room. It was surely too vigorous a voice to have come from a man of short build in his nineties. “Thank you.” Lowering my head silently I made an end of the greetings and, as always, commenced the work of the interview.

Beautiful eyes

He spoke in whispered tones during the interview. Even so, his words flowed smoothly. Now and then he uttered them in a surprisingly clear and strong manner. His appearance was certainly that of an old man but surely no one would have thought he was ninety-seven. His eyes sparkled and even where his skin had wrinkled it was moist and bright. He had a smooth tongue and his memory was clear. When he spoke I felt I was talking with a youth who had only just entered society. Completing the interview in about two hours, his pure and anarchic words had overwhelmed me. Now and again you do get wonderful and emotive interviews. However, this was the first time I had experienced an interview where I felt my body and soul to be completely sucked in and swallowed up. It wasn’t particularly because he spoke much or that he did so skilfully. And yet his bearing, expressions, the quality of his voice, his lucid eyes, the frequent beauty of his language, his sense of humour, rich in wit, all caught this listener’s heart firmly, so as not to let go. At the time I forgot that I was working and, throughout the interview, my eyes were round with admiration and I couldn’t stop laughing. I felt almost as if I was experiencing something sacred, and even that I had been purified. I also felt that I had met a lifelong friend who put me at my ease.

Although it couldn’t do him justice, I tried to convey this magnetism in the article and introduce him to a worldwide audience. There was a reaction from countries all over the world and it vividly showed me how words with substance transcend language and resonate in people’s hearts. So, more than anything, when he has come into my thoughts in daily life, I have found myself unconsciously encouraged by his words. They have the power to set people’s minds at ease. And, regardless of age or gender, they overflow with a charm that brings romance to people’s lives. Feeling this, it was only natural that I should be taken with the notion of comprehending more deeply this man called Kumada Chikabo, and of capturing his spirit in book form.

A new, experimental story

However, his appeal is not easy to convey. With just his words, just his photograph, just his works, or even a mixture of all three of these elements, something is still missing. You have to meet him to understand his real charm. But, of course, it is unlikely that everyone who would wish to meet him could do so. Therefore, having been given permission by Kumada Chikabo himself to write about him, I hit upon the ingenious idea that together we should write an autobiographical documentary story about him. I would interview him, try to capture his thoughts and sentiments in the story, and then, finally, he would check it. If we did this, it would be possible to enjoy it as both a record and a story. Therefore, this work is neither solely an objective work of journalism, nor solely his autobiography, a subjective expression of his sentiments. It is both objective and subjective; a fantastic true story. Please read it light-heartedly. To conclude this preface, it should be noted that this new, experimental story was inspired by his words, “I really love to do new things, things that people haven’t done before.”