Woman of Culture

Once upon a time I went to the Louvre, and in the Louvre, there are all these paintings by Rubens commissioned by Catherine de Medici.  Apparently (I say, because apparently I did not post a blog of my thoughts from the Louvre) these were intended to be a kind of visual biography, but I remember thinking at the time that if I was a hot blooded Italian woman who was also queen, I would have been appalled at the lack of good looking nekkid dudes.  Not a single eggplant in the whole cornucopia, if you catch my drift, and that just seemed wrong.  I would have called Peter-Paul into the palace and said, “Lovely work as usual, Ruby, but could you add a few naked men?  Why are they naked?  Has anyone ever asked why the women in paintings are nude…there are literally tits out all over the place, JUST GO AND PAINT THEM!” 

Well, now I have a theory about that.  Apparently, the problem was that she just wasn’t a fujoshi.  At some point during the pandemic, I read an article about a temple near Niigata, Kugamiyama Kokujou-ji.  Now, if you’ve read any of my Japan posts at all you may find yourself thinking, “Oh.  Goody.  Another temple she just HAD to visit.  #sarcasm.”  My retort would be that in this quirky country called Japan there’s ALWAYS something new to discover, even when it comes to something as seemingly redundant as Buddhist temples.

So here’s the story.  Kugamiyama Kokujou-Ji came up with the brilliant plan that they could get more visitors by adding some art to the temple.  Enter my new favorite nihonga artist, KIMURA Ryoko.  The panels cover the external walls of the main temple, and feature - among others - the original Minamoto-kun (aka Minamoto no Yoshitsune) and a demon (oni) named Shuten-Doji.

There is, however, one slight, tiiiiny little difference between Kimura Sensei’s work and how these figures are normally portrayed.  Namely, a LOT less clothing.  Okay, so just in case you’re new around here, there’s a subculture of women (originally Asian ones, but it has become a global phenomenon) that enjoy stories and artwork depicting relationships between men.  Of course, there is a whole range of what kind of relationships those are, with a whole lot of ambiguity, particularly at the more innocent end of the spectrum.  There’s probably a lot to be analyzed here about the patriarchy, the female gaze, etc, but my master’s degree is a distant memory, with two years’ worth of dust on the ol’APA-style handbook, so - if this is news to you - suffice it to say that two beautiful men are ALWAYS better than one.

Ok, and if you’re into history and lore, you might realize - for example - that it was an older member of the famous military clan (Minamoto-senpai, if you will), Minamoto no Yorimitsu, who dealt with Shuten-doji.  But if you’re like me, that’s not what y’all are here for.

I mean, if it was, I guess Minamoto Raiko with Shuten-Doji would make a helluva enemies-to-lovers trope, but I digress.

Anywho.  All of the figures in the the murals have some kind of connection to the temple (according to Sora News, anyways - I’m having a hard enough time typing this on my broken keyboard as the Shinkansen darts in and out of mountains to be very thorough in my research).  Apparently Kimura’s vision was to depict all of them living in harmony, even though they were from different times and different backgrounds.  Kinda cheesy, I know, but it’s a good excuse to paint dudes chilling in a hot tub, and nobody hates an onsen episode.  I mean, not unless you also hate fun.

The link that originally introduced me to this cultural wonder also reported that the murals were slated to be removed about a year ago.  Apparently not everyone appreciates the nude male form, or thinks it’s appropriate decor for a temple.  Japan was still closed to tourism back then, and there may have been some gnashing of teeth when I thought that I’d miss it…at least until I discovered Kimura’s Instagram, which features even more work with similar style and content.  Still, there’s something to be said for viewing art in specific contexts, so when I realized I was going to be chilling my heels in Toyama once again, I looked up Kokujou-Ji and was delighted to see that recent photos on Google Maps included the paintings.

One of the things about seeing these in person was I could tell that they were not painted with nihonga’s hand-mixed pigment paints.  This makes sense, as binder for the pigments is water-soluble, and thus susceptible to the weather.  Unless I’m mistaken, Kimura used acrylic, which is much more durable.  If you’re familiar with the anime Hoozuki no Reitetsu, there’s an episode in which Hoozuki gets one of his lackeys to repaint a mural in hell which has weathered over the years.  At the end, it’s revealed that the original painting was by Hokusai.  That is the last thing we’d want happening to these masterpieces, so even though I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to see the way the pigments sparkled in the sunlight, I have to admit that this is for the best.

All that said, Kokujou-Ji is a pain in the ass to get to.  Google Maps clocked it at no less than 3 hours in either direction.  By the time I got to Yoshida station, I decided that time is money, and hailed a cab to take me up the mountain (the bus that would get me “close” would have taken an hour, and I would have had to hike 40 minutes after that!). When I went to Zao to see the foxes and I was frustrated by the lack of a bus, I told myself that someday I’d be back in Japan and I wouldn’t have to worry about taking a taxi all by myself, no matter how much it cost.

Well, that day finally came…and we’re not going to talk about how much that round trip taxi cost, because it now holds the record for my most expensive taxi ride in Japan.  Possibly of all time, but I’m still on vacation for 48 more hours, so I can’t account for inflation and conversion rates.  Besides which, I honestly don’t care.  It was 100% worth it to me to get to see the paintings, and you can factor in the lack of sweat from climbing a mountain as inflation, and the helpful tip that I return via a different station in order to catch the Shinkansen as the conversion rate.