Self-portrait

In 1903, Aoki Shigeru was a student at the Tokyo Fine Arts School. Despite his youth, he made a dramatic debut in the artistic world that year when he received a prize from the White Horse Group, an organization of artists headed by Kuroda Seiki (1866-1924), one of the foremost figures of the Japanese art world. Aoki’s painting was called The Boundary between the Worlds of the Living and the Dead and was inspired by the Chronicle of Ancient Matters, the eighth-century book describing the mythological origins of Japan. Done in pastels and watercolors, the work had a strong aura of fantasy about it. During those brief moments of success, his creative imagination seems to have exploded across the canvas. Many of the works he created about that time give the impression of being incomplete. Perhaps because of this, Aoki split with the White Horse Group within two years of receiving the prize, and he never returned to their company again. This self-portrait was made about that time. His artistic fortunes, financial troubles, and problems with his lover all placed great psychological strain upon him. His troubled expression, which is so romantic in feel, brings to mind the paintings of the French artist Delacroix. Still, the two painters handled their furious passions in profoundly different ways. Delacroix put a lid on his sexual desire, kept his passions to himself, and dedicated himself to his artwork. Aoki, however, was unable to fully control his passions, and at the tender age of twenty-eight, he died with all his dreams dashed.