Fujiwara no Sadaie

Here we are with our third print of the year, and this one is perhaps a bit special ... not the print itself, but the person portrayed. For Fujiwara no Sadaie, also commonly known as Gonchunagon Teika, is of course the man who compiled the Hyaku-nin Isshu, more than 1200 years ago. He is so familiar to you collectors that I feel a bit embarrassed each time that I have mentioned him in these little monthly 'essays'. Who am I to be talking to you about such a well-known part of Japanese history? But with so many years of my life being spent in this work, it is perhaps inevitable that my thoughts keep returning to him. For had he not created this collection, and had it not become as well-known as it did, what would I now be doing? In just a couple of weeks from now, it will be exactly ten years since I arrived in Japan with my dreams of becoming a printmaker. As you know, that dream came true, but I wonder - to what extent is this due to Teika's help? And not just Teika ...

If I had turned left instead of right one day while walking around trying to find a place to live ten years ago ... If Wakabayashi-san in the realtor's office that I then bumped into had not been so friendly and willing to show me this apartment that day ... If my new friend and neighbour Sakazaki-san had not invited me over to his home one evening to introduce me to Hyaku-nin Isshu ... If Egami-san at the Hamura library had not decided to pull one particular book from a pile on her desk to show me Shunsho's illustration of Tenji Tenno ... If the editors had not chosen that specific illustration to use in the book ... If a copy of Shunsho's book had not been added to the Toyo Bunko collection so many years ago ... The chain is long and complicated, and there are many many more links. If any one of them had been broken - I would not be creating this series, and you would not now be looking at this print, or reading this letter ...

But would I have failed in my attempt to become a printmaker? I suspect that the answer to that question may actually be 'no'. If any links in that chain had been broken, then I may not now be involved in making Hyaku-nin Isshu prints, but I think I would be busy with some sort of printmaking project. If I had turned left instead of right, the opportunities would have been different, but what I made of them would possibly have been the same. I could still have become a successful printmaker - if my committment to that goal had been strong enough.

I think that these 'links', incidents such as these I mention, may influence the particular path one follows towards one's goal, but they will not affect greatly the 'big picture'. Life can indeed run basically in the overall direction you intend. Details will of course be different, but we are ourselves mostly responsible for what happens to us, not the random events of life that push us this way and that ... At least this is what I want to believe. I want to believe that my success is due to my own efforts, and not something dependent on a unpredictable and precarious chain of coincidences ...

And how about Fujiwara no Sadaie? How about his success? After all, there have been many other similar poetry collections produced during the centuries, even others by Teika himself. Why did this one survive and flourish, while the others remain relatively unknown? Well, judging by the number of times that I have heard the phrase 'Hyaku-nin Isshu dai suki!' from collectors of my prints, it is because he did a very good job; his collection really is something special. He too, must have had a dream ...

June 1996

Translation: Kenneth Rexroth, 1964