明治29年(1896)の『文藝倶樂部』に、樋口一葉の名作「たけくらべ」が一括掲載されました。本誌を読んだ清方は、深い感銘を受け、以降一葉文学をこよなく愛読するようになります。数ある一葉の小説のなかで「たけくらべ」に最も親しみました。
明治33年(1900)に、泉鏡花が『新小説』誌上で短文「一葉の墓」を発表すると、清方はこれに触発され、築地本願寺にあった樋口家の墓を訪れました。香華(こうげ)をたむけた際に、「たけくらべ」の主人公・美登利の姿がありありと脳裏に浮かんだといいます。
この時に写した墓のスケッチには「墓標の高さ、わが丈にして乳のあたりまで」と書き留めてあり、本作品の構想がすでに浮んでいたことがうかがえます。
虚と現実が交錯する本作品を、清方は後年に「さまざまの意味を籠(こ)めて、これは私生涯の制作の水上(みなかみ)」であると述べました。
Ichiyō Joshi no Haka (Grave of Higuchi Ichiyō) (1902)
color on silk; hanging scroll
128.7 x 71.0 cm
(First exhibited at the 5th
Ugōkai Exhibition)
Higuchi Ichiyō’s masterpiece
Takekurabe (Child’s Play) was published in the
Bungei Club literary magazine in 1896. A reader of the magazine, Kiyokata was deeply impressed by the story and from then on, he read Ichiyo’s writing with great pleasure.
Takekurabe was his favorite among Ichiyō’s many stories.
In 1900, when Izumi Kyōka published
Ichiyō no haka (Grave of Ichiyō), a short piece in the literary magazine
Shin Shōsetsu, Kiyokata was inspired to visit the Higuchi family grave at Tsukiji Honganji temple. When he offered flowers and incense at the grave, a vivid image of Midori, the heroine of
Takekurabe, flashed into his mind.
Kiyokata noted that “the height of the gravestone is roughly up to my chest” on a sketch he made of the grave at the time, suggesting that he head already thought of the composition for this work.
Later in life, Kiyokata said that this work, which blends fiction and reality, “is filled with many and varied meanings for me. Indeed, I think it represents the source of my life’s work.”