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Age of the Dandy: the Flowering of Yoshiwara Arts

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Age of the Dandy: the Flowering of Yoshiwara Arts 5 Age of the Dandy: The Flowering of Yoshiwara Arts Kiragawa Uramaro. Two geisha in typical niwaka festival attire with their hair dressed in the style of a young man. Ohide of the Tamamura-ya, seated, is receiving shamisen instruc- tion from Toyoshina of the Tomimoto school, ca. 1789. Courtesy of n 1751, Tanuma Okitsugu, a politician who left a significant mark on Christie’s New York. the second half of the eighteenth century, was one of many osobashti I serving the ninth shogun Ieshige. Osobashti were secretaries who con- veyed messages between the shogun and counselors, a position of a modest income, which in Tanuma’s case carried an annual salary of 150 koku. By 1767, Tanuma was receiving approximately 20,000 koku as the personal secretary to the tenth shogun, Ieharu. Two years later, with a salary of 57,000 koku, Tanuma was a member of the powerful shogunate council. Although examples of favoritism and extravagant promotion had occurred under the previous shoguns Tsunayoshi and Ienobu, there was no precedent for the degree of actual power Tanuma Okitsugu had assumed. He won his position through a combination of superior intelligence, political skill, and personal charm. In addition, he made unscrupulous use of bribery to coun- selors in key positions and ladies of the shogun’s harem.1 In 1783, after his son Okitomo’s name was added to the shogun’s select list of counselors, father and son virtually ruled Japan. Kitagawa Utamaro. Komurasaki of To strengthen the nation’s economy, Tanuma Okitsugu allied himself the Great Miura and her lover Shirai with the commercial powers of Edo and Osaka and promoted industry and Gonpachi (discussed in Chapter 3). commerce. At the same time, however, he assiduously used his influence for From the series]itsukurube iro no accumulation of personal wealth. His avarice and misappropriation of minakami (Contest of sincerity, origin of love), ca. mid-1790s. Collection of funds inspired rapaciousness and corruption throughout the government. the author. Bribery became an aspect of life, as Tanuma encouraged it among bakufu 130 I YOSHIWARA I AGE OFTHE DANDY / 131 purveyors, colleagues, and subordinates who sought appointments through the white-walled storehouses along the Sumida River in the Kuramae dis- his influence. According to a contemporary description, trict of Edo, rice arrived from all over Japan by boat through sealanes newly opened by the early eighteenth century. Okuramae, the “front-of-store- there were superiors such as Hikone Chfijo and Chamberlain Hamada over houses” area, was famous for its millionaire rice brokers who stored the rice this lord [Tanuma], but everyone depended on Tanuma’s power. Day and and changed it into money. night crowds gathered inside and outside his gate as though it were a market- place, and moving on their knees and kowtowing before him, they competed in pleasing him, buying rare vessels and valuable objects regardless of price The Tsû: Paragon of Sophistication and presenting them to him as gifts. Not only gold, silver, and precious gems but every possible foreign treasure was collected in the household of Lord As the merchants’ wealth increased they became more urbane, and they dis- Tanuma; there was nothing in the world that was not found here.l played their taste and refinement in a carefully orchestrated manner at the pleasure quarters. As the leading sophisticates (tsti) of the day they patron- The majority of the samurai class and farmers were poor and thus ill- ized the Yoshiwara, where the concept of tsti was exalted. equipped to compete in this atmosphere of unmitigated venality. With their Tsti-sophistication and the man who represented it-was the keynote of wealth diminished, samurai found their social prestige as the leading class of the second half of the century. The whole country, particularly Edo, was a Confucian-defined society diminished as well. Economically and socially, fascinated with tsii-both the concept itself and the men who embodied it. the time had become more and more the age of merchants. Peace and pros- The idea of tsti evolved from that of sui (essence), the essence of sophistica- perity allowed the accumulation of great wealth and encouraged the refine- tion, a quality that had been valued in the Kyoto-Osaka area since the ment of sensibilities among members of the merchant class. The merchants Genroku era. The word sui represented elegance not only of appearance but who benefited most from the situation were the rice brokers, a group of pur- also of spirit, as well as savoir faire in human relationships. As the concept veyors who monopolized the official task of exchanging rice into currency. developed in Edo, its name as well as the meaning of the concept itself Samurai were either paid in rice or, like daimyb and a few hatamoto, changed. Edo townsmen used to describe a sophisticated man as a tdrimono obtained their income from rice produced in their fiefdoms. Yet they were (a man with thorough knowledge). Tori and tsti are different readings of the forced increasingly into a cash economy, and the conversion of rice stipends same written character. Thorough knowledge or expertise, however, is to cash provided opportunities for tremendous profit for rice brokers. Fur- something that one can show off. For Edo townsmen, sophistication was thermore, these transactions permitted them to make double profit as not spirit but something tangible that one could display. wholesale rice merchants. Earlier, in 1722, the bakr.& had licensed 109 rice In the early 177Os, the tszi’s ideal characteristics were generosity, cour- brokers and permitted them to form a union.3 Thereafter the number of tesy, consideration, intelligence, wit, candor, refinement, and urbanity. The kabu (shares), or interests in rice brokering, was maintained at approxi- consummate tsti was an elegant man-about-town who dabbled in music, mately the same level, thus permitting a monopoly of the rice market by a painting, poetry, popular song, haiku, tea ceremony, flower arrangement, handful of Osaka and Edo merchants. and calligraphy. A sign of the tsii’s worldly sophistication was for him to be As we discovered in Chapter 4, the extravagance of millionaire mer- seen at the theater and the Yoshiwara, and to be knowledgeable about the chants such as Nara-Mo, Ishikawa, and Yodoya from the late seventeenth * pleasure quarter. His behavior was such that courtesans and staff of the century on led them to bankruptcy, loss of wealth by confiscation, or exile Yoshiwara appreciated him and treated him well. under shoguns Tsunayoshi, Ienobu, and Yoshimune. By the second half of But when an idea becomes a fad, it is susceptible to distortion. Within a the eighteenth century, however, under the increasingly lenient administra- few years the idea of tsti had changed into a notion of mere expertise in mat- tion, wealthy merchants were no longer subject to government censure. At ters of the pleasure quarter, and the tsti became a dandy, a dilettante, and a 132 / YOSHIWARA ACE OF TliE DANDY I 133 habitue of the Yoshiwara. Tsa were such celebrities that a list of the “Eigh- two, and then make another appointment for the patron precisely on a day teen Great TSG” was compiled from time to time after the An’ei era, includ- when she already had an engagement with someone else. The tuiko had to ing men who were role models for the aspiring dandies of Edo. Most were insist that the tayt?l break her previous appointment for the patron. Kizan rice brokers, some were hatamoto and even bordello proprietors, but all stipulated that the patron keep the second appointment, but create an were style setters and lavish spenders. Jlihachi daitsti: Okurumae baka impression that it was an inconvenience by rushing in and out again some monogutari (The eighteen great tszi: Stories of the fools of Okuramae), a time between noon and 2 P.M. (when courtesans received afternoon visi- collection of anecdotes of eighteenth-century tsti compiled by Mimasuya tors). He should avow that, though extremely busy, he had made a special Nisoji in 1846 from earlier sources, reveals that some tsti were not only effort to have a glimpse of his tayti. As part of the pretense, he was to make poor role models but also senseless squanderers4 it clear that he had no time for food or bed, despite the coaxing of the ageya Shallow and limited as the notion of tstl had become, all men, samurai staff. Still, he was to refrain from appearing intractable on these points and and commoner alike, aspired to it. It takes time to become an expert at any- was not to shout to the staff to take the food away. He was instead to act thing, including achieving mastery of the etiquette of the Yoshiwara world, gracefully; he should take a few cups of sake and pretend he had had too which by this time had grown extremely elaborate. Although a clerk of a much *o& drink. While the courtesan was away changing clothes, the patron fabric shop or a petty samurai with a salary of forty sacks of rice a year was to have his tuiko make another appointment for him, tip everyone gen- could ill afford the time and money to acquire savoir faire, such men were erously, and exit quickly and cheerfully, to avoid having anyone think he not dissuaded from learning what they could about tsti. was glum because he could not make love to the tuyti. 5 Thus everything was Long before the mid-eighteenth century, there had been a scattering of to be done with minute calculation and bravura, but without the suggestion instruction books on the ways of the pleasure quarter.
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