An Initial Study of the Ryūminkai

On the Vacillations of the Six Dynasties School of Calligraphy

Abstract

As moves towards establishing institutional systems for art accelerated on the part of the administration during the Meiji 明治 era, calligraphy too underwent major changes. The realities of these changes were strikingly demonstrated by the emergence of the so-called Six Dynasties school of calligraphy. It is generally acknowledged that the Chinese scholar-collector Yang Shoujing 楊守敬 came to Japan with a large corpus of materials related to bronze and stone inscriptions, whereupon Kusakabe Meikaku 日下部鳴鶴 and other Japanese calligraphers who were stimulated by their contact with him established the new style of Six Dynasties calligraphy, sweeping away old calligraphic conventions. But this does not necessarily accord with actual developments thereafter. The new style of calligraphy proposed by Meikaku and others had a strong correlation with existing Tang-style calligraphy, and its character was such that it could be better referred to as “new Japanese-style calligraphy.” Subsequently the direction taken by Meikaku and others came to form the central axis of calligraphy during the Meiji era, but it was only natural that calligraphers and groups advocating a different orientation should have appeared, and the Six Dynasties school of calligraphy assumed a multilayered character.

  In this article, I first examine the actual substance of the Six Dynasties school of calligraphy as advocated by Meikaku and others, and then I undertake an examination of the activities of the Ryūminkai 龍眠会 (Society of the Slumbering Dragon) founded by Nakamura Fusetsu 中村不折 and others who lay at the opposite pole among the various parties espousing Six Dynasties calligraphy. Research into the history of Japanese calligraphy during the modern period has until now been primarily concerned with publicly recognizing outstanding calligraphers individually, and a stance that would clarify their relationships and trace historical developments has been wanting. In this article, I compare ideas of differing character that were put forward in relation to the Six Dynasties school of calligraphy while also ascertaining changes in calligraphy over time and the circumstances surrounding calligraphy with a view to making a start on forging links between past individual studies.