From aestheticism to "Chunqin Copy", look for beauty in the ruins of art

Author: Decline

On July 30 this year, 56 years after the death of Junichiro Tanizaki, this aesthetic writer is one of the most important in the history of Japanese literature. Born in 1886, Tanizaki has created many classics in his nearly eighty years of life, among which "Haruka" is considered by many readers to be the most artistically accomplished novel.

The emergence of "Haruka" was inseparable from the aesthetic literary trend in Japan at that time. Aestheticist literature originated in France in the mid-19th century and later flourished in Britain, and its most famous representative is Oscar Wilde. Regarding aestheticism, Wilde famously advocated, "Art for art's sake", from which we can glimpse the inner nature of aestheticism. They are far from reality, transcend reality, do not consider social responsibility, education and other meanings, and pursue simple beauty. All this has made aestheticism controversial and questionable, especially in the face of war and people's wisdom.

Nevertheless, aestheticism exerted a great influence in the literary world, gradually spreading from Europe to Asia, in Japan, and concentrated in the early 20th century such as Nagai Hokaze and Tanizaki Junichiro. Compared with Europe, Japanese aesthetic literature integrates many local characteristics, manifested in the pursuit of a sick sense of flesh and the decadent beauty of art, etc., and the emotions conveyed in the text are often extreme and paranoid, and even wander on the edge of ethics and morality.

Aestheticism is controversial, and Tanizaki's style is even more so than his work, and he has always liked to find art and beauty in decadence. Tanizaki's novels are strange in style and pursue the ultimate in beauty, and many of his works reflect the worship of women, and show the beauty of women through cruel ways. In his novels, women mostly have absolute beauty, which makes people fascinated, and at the same time assumes the aesthetic significance of art, with the role of symbolic symbols.

"Chunqin Copy" is a typical example of this. Harukamoto was originally a young lady of a herbal medicine merchant in Osaka, who was accidentally blind at the age of nine, and has since worked hard to learn the three-stringed violin. Sasuke Daiharu is four years old and was originally the servant who guided Haruka in class, and later followed Haruka to learn the piano. The two have been together for decades, and Haruka treats Sasuke in a way that is almost abusive, while Sasuke is almost adoring Haruka, which seems incomprehensible to others.

"Chunqin Copy" is only tens of thousands of words, Andazaki leaves a lot of white space, but the world outlined between the lines of the words makes people only feel poignant and sad when reading. Haruka is a proud and paranoid young lady, Tanizaki describes her vivid beauty in many words, and Sasuke's life has always been her vassal-like existence. Tanizaki makes good use of contrasts, ladies and servants, masters and apprentices, wives and husbands, arrogance and humility, and several extreme contrasts stimulate the reader's cognition and make the novel more and more fascinating. Tanizaki's subtle classical descriptions are scattered between every page of "Haruka", a story that seems to be full of eroticism and curiosity, but he describes it as pure and beautiful. How Haruka and Sasuke came together to become lovers, and how Haruka became pregnant and gave birth, the author has skipped several times, and most of the pages are about Haruka, Sasuke only presents the image of hard work, how this humble vassal went from servant step by step to the inspection school (the highest official position granted to the blind in ancient Japan), but still humble and pious, and the book also does not appear. This is Tanizaki's cunning, he only outlines, leaving a shocking emotion that makes people curious.

Whether it is "Haruka Scribe" or Tanizaki's other works, the love described in it is extreme and paranoid, and is not accepted by ordinary people. In Sasuke's case, the love between him and Haruka has transcended husband and wife or relatives to form a religious love. Chunqin is his deity, and the two have always maintained a close relationship that cannot be separated or equal. If "Chunqin Copy" only describes the lives of the two in this way, I am afraid it is not ordinary, but the description after Chunqin's disfigurement can be described as a stroke of Genius. After Chunqin's appearance was destroyed, he fell off the altar and did not want to see people, but Sasuke did not take this opportunity to close the distance between the two, but chose to self-destruct his eyes to always remember Chunqin's former moving face.

"He tried to pierce the left pupil with a clothing needle, but the black pupil is not easy to pierce, and the white of the try to pierce the eye, its shape is stronger, the needle can not enter, the black pupil is relatively soft, after trying to stab two or three times, the needle body accidentally pierced into two points deep, the eyeball is white in an instant, and the vision is lost." This harsh description of Sasuke, with a vague erotic and martyring meaning, coincides with his feelings for Haruka, and reads it to make the reader more curious about how the two of them can completely attach themselves to extreme love in the past. After Haruka's death, Sasuke lived alone for twenty-one years, creating an increasingly distinct her in his mind, which can be said that the two have not even been separated.

At first reading, the love depicted in "Chunqin Copy" is quite unacceptable, but when you read it carefully, you can see that the two rely on each other and obsess over each other for a lifetime. This style of writing favored by Tanizaki, which expresses the sick love and cruel beauty of the characters in an elegant oriental style, is often called "demonicism". His ultimate pursuit of sensual beauty is also an aspect of the aestheticians' yearning for pure art. The constant interweaving of images such as Haruka, Sasuke, Sanshin, and Lark weaves the beauty of the "Haruka Copy" that constantly moves towards the ruins of art.

The development of literature has come to the present, the admiration of aestheticism has become almost inaudible, and pure artistry has gradually disappeared into society, but the beauty that has been constantly moving towards the ruins of art is also difficult to forget. (Downsizing)

Source: Guangming Network - Literary And Art Review Channel