清方の師・水野年方は、月岡（大蘇）芳年の門人で、芳年が退いた後、『やまと新聞』をはじめ明治期の新聞挿絵の興隆期に活躍した浮世絵出身の挿絵画家・日本画家です。入門した頃の清方は、年方の挿絵を写したり、版下絵の一部を手伝ったりして挿絵画家としての技術を身につけました。他方、年方は浮世絵出身の画家が町絵師としてその地位をおとしめられていると嘆き、日本画家として歴史画の制作を志しました。清方は挿絵画家時代の年方を描きたかったようですが、結局、師が厭ったその姿ではなく、日本画家時代の晩年の姿を描きました。数枚の写真と主に記憶によって本作を描いたといいます。肖像画は技術だけで描けるわけではなく、その人となりに対する理解が必要であることをこの絵は教えてくれます。

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Senshi no Omokage (Portrait of My Late Teacher) (1949)
color on silk; hanging scroll
114.4 x 69.3 cm
(First exhibited at the 5th Nitten)

Kiyokata’s teacher, Mizuno Toshikata, had studied with Tsukioka (Taiso) Yoshitoshi. After Yoshitoshi retired, Toshikata, a trained ukiyo-e artist, worked as an illustrator for the Yamato Newspaper and elsewhere at a time in the Meiji period when newspaper illustrations flourished. When Kiyokata began his training, he learnt the techniques of an illustrator by copying Toshikata’s illustrations and assisting with some of the block printing copies. Lamenting that painters trained in the ukiyo-e tradition were looked down on as machi-e-shi earning their livelihood in the streets, Toshikata aspired to be a Nihonga artist producing historical paintings. Apparently, Kiyokata wanted to portray Toshikata as an illustrator, but, in the end, he did not because Toshikata disliked the idea. Instead, he painted Toshikata in his last years as a Nihonga artist. The portrait is based on several photographs but mainly done from memory. This painting teaches us that portraiture is not only about technique.