Fukuda (Haritsu) Kodōjin (1865–1944) was part of the long tradition of Japanese literati poet-painters. While the Chinese literati ideal as it was understood by Japanese painters and poets of the nineteenth century was not particularly concerned with popularity or communicating to the masses, by Kodōjin’s time it must have been clear that the tradition had become an artifact of an earlier era. Was he a last great figure expressing himself in the centuries-old manner of the Chinese literatus, or was he a stubborn Luddite resisting the inevitable changes that were guiding Japan into the modern age? Was his art a final example of masterful understanding of the literati tradition of the preceding three centuries, or was it outdated and incompatible with Japan’s new social environment? These questions underlie the discussion of Kodōjin’s life in Old Taoist: The Art and Life of Kodōjin (1865–1944). Regardless of our answers to these questions we can appreciate his work, but depending on our stance, his images and poems assume the tone of nostalgic odes to the past or pointed critiques of the modernization of Japan.

Stephen Addiss and Jonathan Chaves provide an intriguing introduction to the poetry and painting of Kodōjin. In this presentation, the authors generally adopt a laudatory stance, seeing the work as a last great expression of traditions of painting and poetry that reach back to fifth-century China. Through examinations of records of the artist’s life, Japanese haiku, Chinese kanshi poetry, and several paintings, this brief text sketches the image of a man passionately dedicated to the traditional literati lifestyle even as Japan engaged in its modernization and imperialist expansion. Remaining unclear is the extent to which Kodōjin modernized in his own expressions and to what degree he was actively commenting on the modern world.

In the first of five chapters, Addiss provides a brief biography of Kodōjin as well as translations of several of the artist’s haiku. The earliest of these poems was purportedly written by the five-year-old Kodōjin (1). Repeating this event (myth?) begins a pattern in the book that seems to struggle in justifying Kodōjin’s importance as an artist. Following his youthful affinity, Kodōjin moved from his hometown of Shingu in Wakayama Prefecture to Kyoto, where he studied with the haiku poet Hayashi Sokyo and the painter Suzuki Hyakunen. These teachers laid the foundation for much of Kodōjin’s later work by spurring the young artist to pursue the literati tradition. From these early studies Kodōjin developed a painting style tied to studies of Chinese brushwork but always open to individual idiosyncratic expressions. This approach is in keeping with the Chinese ideal of the amateur scholar-painter. In poetry, Sokyo directed Kodōjin to study the style of the Basho tradition. This led the young artist to move to Tokyo where he could learn from Masaoka Shiki, the reformer and first modern master of haiku. As a follower of Shiki, Kodōjin was among the elite of the haiku world. With these teachers acknowledging his skills, it is curious that the authors should feel it necessary to argue for the artist’s “natural talent.”

Kodōjin returned to Kyoto in 1901, where he lived the rest of his life on the outskirts of the city. He continued to write haiku but also wrote many kanshi during his later years. These works focus on the grand tradition of Chinese literature and in some instances directly address events drawn from Japanese history. The paintings illustrated in the text were all created during the four decades Kodōjin spent in Kyoto. Most of these works are landscapes, but they also include other common literati themes and haiga, or paintings accompanying inscribed haiku. Nineteen landscapes and haiga are illustrated in the text, seven of them in color. Addiss introduces each of the paintings with a visual description and translations of any inscribed text. While some of the works receive a great deal of attention, others are offered as examples and so are left for the reader to explore. These works show Kodōjin’s connection to the past, but they omit any visual reference to the modern world.

The last decades of Kodōjin’s life are spent immersed reading old books. This is the mark of the scholar and is certainly the role Kodōjin embraced. Addiss finds references to a variety of eccentric acts, including leaving his money in the bank as the economic crash of 1929 ravaged Japan. Kodōjin seems to have seen the importance of his faith in the institutions and tried to rise above the panic of the masses (50). As the war approached, Kodōjin accepted the price of imperialism even as it took the life of his son in China. As an old man he drifted from poor scholar to poverty-stricken literatus but maintained his values and continued his studies to the end. Among his last acts was the destruction of much of his own work in what Addiss calls an attempt to control the image he would occupy in our collective memory (55). Sadly, this act drastically curtailed the number of remaining poems and paintings from the artist’s hand.

Following this biographical sketch, Addiss translates many of Kodōjin’s haiku and other Japanese poetry. These works are derived from publications dating back to the artist’s lifetime. Each haiku is transcribed phonetically and translated to reflect the spirit of the texts. These poems are both intriguing and refreshing to read, but their impact could be greatly enhanced by further annotations revealing their historical references and connections to the haiku tradition.

In the third and fourth chapters, Chaves discusses the relationship of Kodōjin’s Chinese poetry to that of the fifth-century Chinese poet T’ao Ch’ien (Yuanming). T’ao is explored as a Confucian poet whose work reflected a strong connection to Taoist philosophy. Chaves traces the respect for him through the comments of later Chinese poets including Tu Fu, Li Po, and Su Shih. These poets became the exemplars for the Japanese literati, and their reverence for T’ao appears first in the poetry of Fujiwara no Sukeyo in the ninth century. The bunjin Ike Taiga and Yosa Buson followed in the tradition of praising T’ao during the eighteenth century, Tanomura Chikuden and Uragami Gyokudō in the nineteenth , and, finally, the lively kanshi of Kodōjin honored T’ao during the twentieth. In the hands of Kodōjin, Chaves sees Japanese kanshi in a form that was rarely achieved during the preceding centuries. He says, without hesitation, that “Kodōjin’s four-character-meter poems must be considered among the finest ever attempted” (86). This is remarkably high praise given the time period and the fact that the author was writing in Chinese. Chaves goes on to translate kanshi selections from Kodōjin’s 1912 publication Poems from the Quiet Mountain Palace and other sources. These works are presented with but a few scant remarks in Chapter 4. The poems are interesting, but their overarching point or theme is sometimes lost in this sixty-five-page list.

To complete this text, a short essay by J. Thomas Rimer places Kodōjin in the context of the poets and painters who came before him and those who shared his position at the turn of the century. Rimer’s effort is to pull our thinking away from the later domination of Japanese poetry by forms derived from European models to realize the continued importance of classical Chinese models for the poets of Kodōjin’s formative years. This is a valuable point to keep in mind as Rimer offers one explanation for why the artist so easily slipped into obscurity following his death.

While this introduction to Kodōjin’s work is a valuable addition to our understanding of the final years of the literati tradition in Japan and to our broad understanding of the literary culture of the pre-WWII era, two aspects of Old Taoist leave the reader wanting more. First, the limited discussion of the paintings in this text leaves room for a good deal of further study. Absent is a discussion of the stylistic roots specifically recalled by these works. As artwork from a literatus, Kodōjin’s paintings deserve equal treatment alongside his poetry. There are only a handful of examples presented in the text, and they represent only two of the stylistic approaches embraced by Kodōjin. The inclusion of a broader range of styles even in this limited number of illustrated works would have greatly enhanced the sense of the artist’s diversity in painting. The second weakness comes in the nearly complete lack of Asian-language text in the volume. Poetry written in Chinese and Japanese loses a great deal, even in the hands of the most skillful translators, when the original is hidden from view. Printing the poems in their original language beside the translated text or in an appendix would provide a wealth of interesting material to the specialist, the student, and others interested in Chinese or Japanese poetry or translation.

These criticisms aside, Old Taoist has opened a door for the English reader to Kodōjin’s work and deserves praise for keeping interest in this artist alive in the West.