Rodin Works: masks of HANAKO |
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"I have made a study of the Japanese actress, Hanako. She has not a particle of fat.... Therefore she has an anatomy totally different from that of Europeans, but is exceedingly beautiful in its unique strength.... Beauty is character and expression. The human body is, above all, the mirror of the soul, from which the greatest beauty comes.... What we adore in the human body is definitely more than its form, however beautiful; it is the flame that illuminates the body from within." [Rodin in: Paul Gsell, Auguste Rodin - L'Art]
Who was Hanako?
At the age of 15, she entered a
short engagement as a Geisha, by that time a respectable way of receiving
training in song, dance, and shamisen playing. Her marriage was
confronted with financial desaster as well, as her husband spent all the
money they had saved and returned to his parents, who had always opposed
to the wedding. But not only in Europe Hisa's fame increased; after her tour in Russia, the resonance for her dancing acts was overwhelming: Small, comical, touching Hanako! I call on all the actresses of our decrepit stage to admire and learn from you, for you never rely on 'clever' scripts or costly costumes or complicated sets, but only on your own arts, which are so much fresher so truly theatrical, and so charmingly beautiful. Oh, how vulgar are the speech arts of our actresses compared with yours! [Yevreinov]
The tiny Madame Hanako, with extraordinarily agile face She showed such refinement of technique and control of her reflex actions that, when she mimicked a cat, the pupils of her eyes seemed to have dilated. [Meierkhol'd] At the same time, traditional critics in Japan denounced Hanako's performances, stating the fame of this self-made person in fact was a shame for the nation. In 1914, when the World War I broke out, Hanako travelled to London together with Rodin and Rose Beuret, where she had an engagement at the Ambassadors Theatre. As it was getting more difficult to obtain stage contracts, she opened a Japanese restaurant named "Kogetsu (Moon-Lake)" in Dorset Square, London in 1917. Four years later, she returned to Japan for good. According
to the promise Rodin made before he died, the French government sent two masks
after Hanako : 'Head of Death' and 'A
Meditating woman'. Within a short time, the returned model received demands of men of
letters and artists for having a look at these portraits; specialists and also
students from the Schools of Fine Art came to visit her and art dealers showed
active interest in purchasing the works. For Hanako, this growing interest
became increasingly disturbing - she feared the precious works might be
damaged. When the World War II broke out, France and Japan became enemies. Any person dealing with France was easily branded as a traitor, so that the popularity of the masks now turned into a risk for their owner. The retired dancer found a safe place for them in the house of Dr. Hideo Akatsuka, artist and medical doctor, where the masks remained intact till the end of the war. On 2 April 1945, Hanako died at the age of 77, before her house was destroyed by an American bomb. The masks are now kept in the Niigata City Art Museum. [Biographical information summarized from the book 'Rodin and Hanako" by Sawada Suketaro, son-in-law of Hanako's adopted son.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY (supplied by The
National Gallery of Art, Washington):
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After leaving the stage in Marseille, Hanako came to Paris, where Rodin asked
her to become his model. In 1908 or 1907 - but maybe even as early as 1906
- he executed the first 'Mask of Hanako'.
In the following years, he continued making masks of the Japanese dancer, many of them
expressing death agony. Although the Kabuki Theatre with its
extensive repertoire of stylised facial expressions was closed to women
, Hanako doubtlessly was so familiar with the Japanese stage traditions
that she was able to control her body to the utmost and turn her own face
into a mask - a mask that the riddled sculptor in turn tried to scrutinize
for the human emotion behind it. In this sense, these 53 works not only are
masks: they deal with masks as such, with the possibility to transfer
emotion by means of a fixed outer appearance, and the limits of such an
effort.
Hanako was born in 1868
in Kamisobue Village located on the River Kiso in the Aichi
Prefecture. Her real name was Hisa Ohta, but she was also known as Hisako
Hohta - a heroine from the play 'The Geisha's Vengeance'.
Hisa's parents, Hachiuemon Ohta and his wife Ume, were wealthy and had three sons and five daughters including
Hisa. Enthusiastic
for Japanese music and dance, they made extraordinary efforts in training
her and her four sisters even in their early childhood. As her parents
became faced with financial misery, Hisa moved to a foster family, till
her fosther father went into bankruptcy as well and left his home. At the age
of ten, Hisa participated in a travelling group of women-actresses, who
had noticed her dramatic skills.
Left alone in Yokohama, she boarded a ship for Denmark in May 1902, to act
in a circus-like show in Copenhagen; subsequently, she organized her own group and toured
around Europe, at last with great success.
Cladel, Judith. Rodin:
The Man and His Art. Trans. S.K. Star. New York, 1917: 161-165.
