Inkers MAGAZINE - Horiyoshi III

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Horiyoshi III

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INTERVIEW HORIYOSHI III

@pascalbagot

With Japan reopening its borders only a few months ago, after years of closure due to the pandemic, it was high time to catch up with the Horiyoshi III legend. The reunion was moving, painful even, once we knew the difficulties faced by the master from Yokohama. With straightforward honesty, he exposes the reality of his deteriorating health. He also talks about his forthcoming projects, in this case two books to be published by the Dutch publisher Kintaro.

How are you doing Sensei?

Since we last met (2019), I've had two strokes. I also fell down the stairs once. I was on the floor for several hours, unconscious, and if no one had found me I would probably have died. My rheumatism has also got worse. My back hurts and I have to go once a fortnight to a clinic in Tokyo for injections. Then I had an intestinal operation, which meant I had to stay in hospital for a month. During that time, my legs got weaker and I can't walk like I used to. If I had to have a Sumo wrestling match with a schoolboy, I think I'd lose.

The news is not good.

At the moment, there's nothing but pain and unhappiness. I don't think life is simple. It gets even more complicated as I get older. But I have to live until I die, because my death is not of my choosing. I don't want to commit suicide, so it's up to heaven or god to choose when I go. I have to live until that moment. They say that if in life there is a moment of happiness or joy, the rest is painful or unhappy. But you have to put up with that.

You receive a lot of visitors, are they moments of pleasure?

Yes, that's part of the joys of life. The problem is that I've had memory problems since my strokes. Famous people like Horiuno or Horigorō (famous Japanese tattoo artists) I remember, of course, but I can forget the names of new people very easily.

Do you still get pleasure from working or painting?

Yes, I'm still learning from my work and my profession. Because irezumi is my life and irezumi is myself. But since my strokes I've had less control over my hand. It should be fine for painting, a small format, but I'm used to working on kakejiku, on a large format. And that would take a lot of energy.

Do you have any current projects?

A book of paintings will be coming out soon. Painting is part of my irezumi art, but in this book there will not only be irezumi paintings, but also representations taken from Zen culture, from Daruma for example, which cannot be tattoo motifs. There is also a painting depicting a scene from the assassination of the warrior Oda Nobunaga. The reader will have to imagine how this representation could be translated into a tattoo. This book will in any case be published by the Dutch publisher Kintaro, before a third volume in the future.

What will this other book be about?

It will be a collection of my paintings on the theme of murder. I've tried to imagine for myself how to kill an opponent in a logical, rational and effective way. For example, by holding his armed hand with my foot while trying with my katana and all my weight to pierce his body. These paintings are in the ukiyo-e style, but the scenes are more rational and correct in terms of proportions. If printmaking masters like Yoshitoshi or Yoshihiku are known for their bloody paintings, I have the impression that mine are even bloodier.

Were you also inspired by history and news stories for these murders?

I did a painting based on a very simple text recounting a scene. It takes place during a banquet organised for a funeral. Two people meet up by chance, start a fight and it turns into a butchery. In Yoshitoshi and Yoshihiku's time (two great ukiyo-e artists), killings and assassinations were part of everyday life. So these artists had the opportunity to witness or hear these kinds of stories. In my case, that's not possible and I have to use my imagination. At the end of the Edo period, there were many stories about social justice. We don't know if they were real or not, but, for example, one of them tells of the murder of five people in Kyoto. The circumstances are unknown, so I imagined that it could happen in a bamboo forest, in the bedroom of a house. Imagination is part of the fun of my job. I have to invent, but I also have to be aware of rational elements to make the scenes believable. For me, tattooing is about making something unreal concrete, or the opposite. For example, in the case of the karajishi botan motif, the peony and the lion cannot be represented on a real scale. The formats have to be translated and reproduced. My master Horiyoshi I used to say to me: tattooing is fiction. Today I understand better. + IG : horiyoshi_3