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Paper short abstract

This paper focuses on the last creative period of the surrealist painter Yamashita Kikuji starting from 1970 that is characterised by an intense exploration of Japan’s wartime past, the imperial system, and his personal guilt.

Paper long abstract

In 1971, the surrealist painter Yamashita Kikuji (山下菊二, 1919-1986) created the “Anti-Emperor-System Series” juxtaposing imagery from Japan’s wartime past such as Emperor Hirohito in military uniform, line-ups of prisoners, frontline shooting, and scientific devices. These paintings are visually powerful and critically address military ideology, war crimes, and the imperial system in Japan. Yamashita Kikuji is a well-known figure in politically engaged art of the early postwar period and his painting “The Tale of Akebono Village” (1953) is appraised as a landmark work of the reportage movement. Accordingly, there is a range of research covering the artist’s endeavours during his early postwar career, but even after 1970 when artists avoided advocating openly leftist positions, Yamashita continued addressing socio-political issues in his works. Most significantly, he consistently broached his personal guilt and war responsibility not only in his works but also in essays. Born in 1919, Yamashita studied art but then he was drafted in 1939 and stationed in the south China frontline for three years. In the late seventies, he confessed that he was involved in the killing of several Chinese civilians.

Even though Yamashita is a primary witness of the Asia-Pacific War and he repeatedly addressed his traumatic war experiences in his works, aspects of war memory are rarely the focus of research on Yamashita. This presentation complements existing studies by focusing on Yamashita’s works created after 1970, especially his “Anti-Emperor-System Series”. In doing so, I apply the perspective of memory studies to explore how a primary witness dealt with feelings of personal guilt, the military ideology, and the war responsibility of the emperor. Moreover, I am showing that Yamashita’s signature surrealist style was particularly suitable for conveying nightmarish memories and for criticising the persisting socio-political structures.