The cruelest children’s story: The test of survival
Have you ever read “A Dog of Flanders”? I don’t know why, but this story is immensely popular in Japan. It was even made into an animated TV show, and probably more than 90% of Japanese kids knew the story during my childhood. I wonder if the situation is the same in Belgium (the setting) or the UK (the writer’s country).
Although the book is widely regarded as a masterpiece of children’s literature, I honestly don’t think it is entirely suitable for children. I read it when I was young, and the first lesson I learned was: “It’s impossibly hard to survive in this harsh world.” I often felt it was too early for children to grasp such a cruel reality.
The Nello test: Art vs. Appetite
As I mentioned the “first lesson,” there was another lesson in the story that I found equally cruel. It made me face the harsh reality that I lack artistic talent or sensibility entirely.
Let’s recall the tragic climax: The poor protagonist, Nello, dies with his beloved dog Patrasche in front of Rubens’ The Elevation of the Cross—the painting he sincerely desired to look at before he died. Can you truly believe it? When he was dying from hunger and cold, what he desperately craved was Art.
If I were Nello, I would be wandering about like a zombie, desperately searching for a warm place and a stale crust of bread. The children’s literature made the young me realize, with painful clarity, just how vulgar and appetitive I was. The ultimate “Nello Test” for defining true art is: Would you rather look at a masterpiece than eat a warm meal? (I fail this test every time.)
The unexpected art of the micro-movement
I’ve lived with this traumatic injury inflicted by A Dog of Flanders for decades. Now that I’m an adult, I still wander from one art museum to another, hoping to awaken the artistic soul that Nello possessed.
The other day, I visited the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art in Sapporo for a rare Vermeer exhibition. (I only found out that Girl with a Pearl Earring wasn’t included after taking the pamphlet.) I walked through Vermeer’s works, nodding knowingly as always, but I still didn’t find the catalyst to arouse my artistry.
However, one element genuinely inspired me: a short movie showing how a painting was meticulously restored.
Defining art by concentration: From cupid to craft
The featured work, Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, had recently been restored to reveal a hidden painting of a Cupid on the back wall. The restoration work shown in the short movie was utterly captivating.
The master repairers used a small knife to scrape off layers of varnish and paint, little by little, demonstrating superhuman concentration and unbelievably precise movements. Their concentration and precision looked almost supernatural.
If the true purpose of art is to move people’s hearts, then I believe the restoration work itself—the precision, concentration, and dedication of the master repairers—can absolutely be defined as art. It is the art of the perfect, focused movement.
In that sense, the master furniture craftspeople in our factory, too, are artists. They possess the same supernatural concentration and execute the same precise human movements, albeit with wood instead of canvas. Please come and see the furniture artists in our factory—they are the perfect embodiment of art defined by the knife.
Shungo Ijima
He is travelling around the world. His passion is to explain Japan to the world, from the unique viewpoint accumulated through his career: overseas posting, MBA holder, former official of the Ministry of Finance.