Is Ryunosuke Akutagawa's "Hell Screen" old news? Once upon a time, there was a notoriously eccentric court painter. Though difficult in personality, he was immensely talented and had produced many wonderful paintings. One day, the lord of the domain ordered him to paint the ultimate masterpiece. The lord disliked the painter’s arrogant, condescending attitude. He purposely provoked the artist, using phrasing designed to shake his artistic soul as he requested this "supreme work." A perfectionist obsessed with his craft, the painter began to spiral in his desperate pursuit of greatness. At one point, he tied up his apprentice, made snakes crawl all over his body, and painted the youth writhing in terror. Yet, none of these satisfied him. Something was missing. Troubled and at his wit's end, the painter finally decided to use his own daughter as his subject. To the painter, his daughter was the only person in the world he truly opened his heart to. People in his household even whispered, "He is a demon to everyone else, but a saint in front of his daughter." Naturally, she was well-liked by those around her and had a gentle disposition. Some time later, the painter suddenly requested an audience with the lord, declaring, "I am ready to paint. Please come and witness it yourself." The lord readily agreed, watching with intense curiosity to see what kind of masterpiece would unfold. An ox cart was brought before them. Once the cart came to a halt in the ideal spot, the painter commanded that it be set on fire. The flames spread in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, a horrifying scream pierced the air from inside. It was the voice of the painter's daughter. Through the blazing, collapsing carriage, the terrified, agonizingly distorted figure of his daughter could be seen. While everyone else stood frozen in absolute shock, the painter, with tears streaming down his face and the expression of a demon, painted the agonizing spectacle of his daughter burning to death. The completed painting was of such unearthly, breathtaking beauty that it defied description. After presenting the finished piece to the lord, the painter hanged himself alone in his mansion. The lord, having watched every agonizing moment of the daughter's death, went mad.
A painter in real life actually did something similar. There was an artist named Seiu Ito, known for *seimiga*—bondage art. In the Edo period, there was a ukiyo-e painter named Taiso Yoshitoshi, who had created a painting of a pregnant woman hanging upside down. Seiu wondered if Yoshitoshi had actually observed the real thing before drawing it. So, he hung his own pregnant wife upside down, took photographs, and used them to paint. Following this, she had a stillbirth, went mad, and was hospitalized. What makes it truly horrifying is that, needing a new model, he then tied up his wife's younger sister to use for his bondage art. Incidentally, he was also the man who once lost a bitter rivalry with the artist Takehisa Yumeji over a woman named Oha.
I'm curious—did he manage to figure out if it was drawn from life? That painting was probably the one of the Yama-uba, right?
He did finish the painting. A written memoir remains. He noted that when actually hung upside down, the belly simply sags downward; it does not remain protruding forward the way it does in Yoshitoshi's painting. Therefore, that painting must have been drawn without a live model. Incidentally, since she was at full term, she didn't miscarry—she gave birth. However, the child born was already lifeless...
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