Biographical Overview

Youthful Days

During his late teens and early 20s, Hakutei became increasingly serious about his art. He studied under Western-style artist Asai Chū for 2 years and was accepted into Tokyo School of the Arts, but he always had to work at the same time. After 9 years at the Printing Bureau, Hakutei went to work at a newspaper company doing illustrations. Photography was still in its infancy and instead of press photographers, newspapers hired artists to draw sketches which wood engravers then made into woodcuts to be printed in the newspaper alongside the articles. Hakutei even went to sumō (traditional Japanese wrestling) tournaments to make drawings of sumō matches, which he described as quite challenging since everything happened so fast and he did not have any experience in this kind of drawing.

Hakutei suffered from an eye disease called trachoma, also known as granular conjunctivitis. He had it treated periodically, but it got bad enough that the doctor told him he would go blind if he did not rest his eyes and get proper treatment, so when he was 23 years old, he moved to his oldest sister's home in Osaka, took a complete break from drawing and received regular treatments at an eye clinic there. During this break from drawing, and away from his colleagues in the art world in Tokyo, he made friends with many poets in the Osaka area and became increasingly interested in poetry.

After a little over a year, his trachoma was cured, so Hakutei returned to Tokyo and stepped right back into the art world there.

Hōsun

Outside of Japan, Ishii Hakutei appears to be most well-known for his woodblock prints and his role in promoting sōsaku hanga, original, creative prints as opposed to prints made solely for the purpose of reproducing other paintings. There actually were already quite a few art magazines being published in Japan at this time, but in 1907, Hakutei got together with his fellow artists and good friends Yamamoto Kanae and Morita Tsunetomo and started an art magazine called Hōsun. Hōsun means a square sun, which is roughly equivalent to a square inch. Hakutei got the idea for the name from an old Chinese book of art theory and criticism, and the concept behind it was shrinking Mother Nature down to something the size of a square inch. One of the goals of Hōsun was to popularize creative printmaking, so they inserted lithograph, woodblock, and copperplate prints into every issue, and they also included essays written by the expanding group of Hōsun members. 

For the cover of the inaugural issue, Hakutei drew the decorative newts and aquatic plants which Yamamoto then carved as a woodblock. Hakutei also drew the picture of Shōki, a deity from Chinese mythology who protected against evil spirits and illness. Printing technology was still rather primitive and printing this magazine was challenging. They only printed 200 copies of the first issue, and over time, gradually built up to 750 copies. Some went directly to monthly subscribers while the rest were sold in bookstores and magazine shops. It was not an easy endeavor, but they kept at it for 4 years until the final issue was published in July of 1911.

Hakutei did artwork for and published poetry and editorial articles in Myōjō, the magazine started by the poets Yosano Hiroshi and Akiko, and wrote for many other magazines and newspapers, including Zanboa, Subaru, Bijutsu Shinpō, Chūō Bijutsu, Taiyō, Atorie, and Tokyo Asahi Shinbun.

First Overseas Trip

In the early 1900s, most Western-style artists in Japan aspired to travel to Europe, and particularly, to France, which was considered to be the mecca of the art world. Many of Hakutei's peers were from wealthy families or had patrons who sponsored them, but Hakutei had to raise money for his travel expenses on his own, and he also had to make sure his family had a source of income while he was gone. He raised money by selling what he called "modern Nihonga paintings," traditional hanging scroll pictures on silk, with real-life scenes that he traveled around to paint. 

This also was when he started his woodblock print series, "Twelve Scenes of Tokyo." He had geisha pose in different ways and included a scene of a Tokyo neighborhood in an inset behind them. He finished the first 2 prints before going abroad, and completed 7 more after he returned, but he stopped after the ninth one, so it is actually "Nine Scenes of Tokyo." 

Hakutei secured contracts with Asahi newspaper and several art magazines where he would send them articles reporting on his travels and in exchange, they would send money to his family each month. He then finally was able to set off on his first trip abroad in December 1910 when he was 28 years old. He traveled on a French ship, stopping in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, India, Egypt, and Turkey, before arriving in Italy. He traveled all over Europe before returning to Japan on the Trans-Siberian railroad almost 2 years later. He carried with him a conversation booklet in 4 languages, English, French, German, and Italian, which he said he found very useful.

Married Life

Hakutei married Sasaki Kayo at the end of 1913, the result of a classic arranged marriage with a bit of a twist. Hakutei and Kayo's oldest brother, Koyama Genji, were good friends and it was Koyama who suggested the marriage to Hakutei. Kayo had been at Koyama's house a few times when Hakutei was visiting, but Hakutei did not remember her. It was clear that Kayo remembered him and was interested in him, leading her older brother to make the marriage introduction. 

Theirs was a very happy marriage, and they went on to have 7 children. Their daughter Hatsumi described Hakutei as being "far from the stereotypical grumpy, difficult-to-please artist." He traveled a lot and was away from home much of the time, but when he was home, he enjoyed spending time with his family. Curator and art historian Seo Noriaki wrote that one difference between Hakutei and other Japanese watercolor artists of the early 20th century was that while theirs were mostly pure landscapes, Hakutei's paintings included the people and things around him as well. In many cases, the people in his paintings were family members who were used almost like models, but in a much more natural way. 

Throughout his 40s and 50s, Hakutei did a lot of things besides his primary work of traveling and painting. He was one of the founders of Bunka Gakuin, a specialized girls' school focused on literature and art which later became coed and just closed its doors in 2018. He taught at Bunka Gakuin 2 days a week, he also taught weekly art classes at 2 art study centers, and he taught freehand drawing once a week at the Architectural Department of Tokyo Imperial University. He did editorial work at Chūō Bijutsu, an art publishing company, and wrote reviews of art exhibitions for various newspapers and magazines. He also wrote numerous books, including art textbooks and books on art history and criticism. Art critic Takumi Hideo once wrote that Hakutei did at least three times the work of an average person.

Life During World War II 

On the night of March 9th and early morning hours of March 10th, 1945, 334 B-29 bombers fire-bombed the most heavily populated civilian areas of Tokyo and the neighborhood where the Ishii family lived was burned to the ground. The Strategic Bombing Survey estimated that in one night alone, close to 88,000 people died, over 40,000 were injured, and over a million people lost their homes. Other estimates put the death toll over 100,000, with a million more injured and a million left homeless. 

The Ishii family was fortunate in that none of them were killed or even injured. However, they did lose their home and most of their possessions, except for the things they had sent to other places for safekeeping. Kayo was from Osaka and Hakutei was from Tokyo, so they did not have a hometown in the countryside where they could evacuate. An artist friend who was from Nagano Prefecture urged them to evacuate to Asama Onsen, a hot spring town just outside Matsumoto City, and that is where they went. 

They ended up liking the area so much that they stayed there for the next 13 years until Hakutei's death. Hakutei became a central figure and leader in the art world there. Today, there is a very vibrant art community in Nagano Prefecture, there are numerous art museums in the area, and many people in the art community even today speak of Ishii Hakutei's contribution to making this happen.

Even during the last months of the war when travel was extremely difficult, Hakutei continued to travel both to produce his own artwork and also to teach at special seminars for local art teachers. In his book Sanga ari or Nature As Before, he wrote the following about why he continued his work under such difficult conditions:

"Both jobs are far-removed from the current war situation, but it can be said that at a time when the American military is making bombing raids repeatedly, doing this kind of work without losing heart is also a form of resistance. For elderly people like us who cannot be useful to the war effort either directly or indirectly, doing as much cultural work as we possibly can is a kind of public service under these circumstances, and in a broader sense, I believe it is something that will be for the good of the country as a whole...."

Hakutei was rather bullish about the war, so he took Japan's surrender and loss quite hard. A poem he wrote when the war ended is engraved on a rock in the village of Asama Onsen:

"Basking in the warmth on a day of spring sunshine, standing on a hill, for a short time I forget our country's defeat in war."

Trip to the United States and Europe, 1954-1955

Hakutei made a second trip to Europe from November 1922 until January 1924, this time via the United States where he visited Honolulu, San Francisco, Los Angeles, the Grand Canyon, Chicago, Niagara Falls, and New York, before crossing the Atlantic and visiting France, Italy, Belgium, England, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. He traveled across the United States and through Europe once again in 1954 and 1955, this time with his wife Kayo, fulfilling a promise he had made to her 40 years earlier at the time of their marriage, that one day he would take her with him on his travels. This trip was very memorable for Kayo and she wrote about it in an article for the Nihon Suisaigakai (Japan Watercolor Painting Society) magazine (Issue #13, March 1959):

"Assisi was one of my husband's favorite cities and from way back, he had been recommending it as a place that visitors to Italy must see. We spent four days traveling the length and breadth of that city, to every nook and corner. There are many churches in that ancient, medieval city on the hill, and the sound of bells echoes all day long. The women of the city gather in sunny places and busy themselves with embroidery work for souvenirs. There are ever so many scenes to make into paintings. While my husband set up his easel, I stood at the base of the castle wall, surveying an unbroken view of the spring fields with a shimmer of heat in the air, and gave thanks for the happiness of this day."

Kayo gave further insight into Hakutei's character in the same article:

"The Italian my husband learned on his first trip to Italy 40 years ago was quite useful on this trip as well. My husband habitually used simple Italian words at home, like aspetto [appearance] and grazie [thank you], and this had spread to the whole family, so I also was able to greet the innkeepers in the morning and evening without much difficulty, and I think it brought them much pleasure. From way back, my husband had tried to learn even a few words in the native language wherever he traveled, learning a little bit of Chinese when he went to China, and Korean when he went to Korea, and so on, and he encouraged the use of those foreign words."

Although he was mostly self-taught, Hakutei diligently tried to use whatever language skills he had. On his last trip abroad with his wife Kayo, he kept a diary in English while they were traveling in the United States, and in French and English while they were in Europe.