Nakagawa Kazumasa's Seal Engraving and His Views on Seal Engraving

A Study of a Japanese Seal Engraver

Abstract

Nakagawa Kazumasa 中川一政 (1893-1991) was a Tokyo-born painter, calligrapher, poet, and writer. His artistic endeavours were extremely wide-ranging, covering calligraphy, painting, seal engraving, poetry, essay-writing, and pottery. It goes without saying that he was a prolific painter, but he also produced many works of calligraphy and seal engraving, and in this article I examine his seal engraving and his views on this subject.

  Nakagawa's speciality was painting, but he did not remain a mere painter. While there have been many studies that touch on his painting and calligraphy, there has been virtually no prior research examining his seal engraving. I investigated and studied materials and documents at the homes of the Nakagawa and Yamada   山田 families in Tokyo and at the Nakagawa Kazumasa Art Museum in Manazurumachi 真鶴町 and also received responses to questions about Nakagawa's career and seal engraving that I posed to people who had been associated with him. In this article, I present some new material, especially documents and materials held by the Nakagawa family.

  There exist several works that reproduce impressions of Nakagawa's seals, representative of which are Kazumasa inpu 一政印譜 (Kyūryūdō 求龍堂, 1974) and Nakagawa inpu 中川印譜 (Kanzankai 寒山会, 1972). On the basis of the seal impressions reproduced in these albums, I probe the distinctive features and beauty of his seal engraving.

  It is true that Nakagawa was a minor seal engraver, but his seals are imbued with a beauty that cannot be rivalled by specialist engravers. His refined and unaffected style of engraving, distinctively Japanese, and his diversity could be described as peerless. In particular, in the history of Japanese seal engraving his ceramic seals may be said to represent a form of engraving art on a par with that of Tanabe Gengen 田辺玄々 and Yamada Kanzan 山田寒山. Nakagawa may be counted among modern engravers, and if a sequel to Nihon injin den 日本印人傳 by Nakai Keisho 中井敬所 is ever compiled, his name should definitely be included.

  Further, his views on seal engraving were underpinned by his experience in actual engraving and his experience in painting and calligraphy and are for this reason all the more convincing. In this article, I examine his views on seal engraving on the basis of his collected writings (Nakagawa Kazumasa zenbunshū 中川一政全文集, 10 vols., Chūō Kōronsha 中央公論社, 1986-87) and other works.

  In brief, this article provides a detailed evidential investigation and comprehensive discussion of Nakagawa Kazumasa's achievements in the realm of seal engraving.