paper no - 107

Name: Dhruvita Dhameliya

Roll no : 03

Semester : 2

Year: 2021 to 2023

Subject: The twentieth century literature from world war second to the end of the century.

Topic: An Artist of the Floating World - Art.

E-mail ID:-

dhameliyadhruvita24@gmail.com

Submitted to: S. B. Gardi Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Introduction of the writer:-

Kazuo Ishiguro, in full Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, Japanese-born British novelist known for his lyrical tales of regret fused with subtle optimism. In 2017 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his works that “uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.”

Notable works:-

1)Klara and the sun

2) Never let me go

3)A pale view of hills

Introduction of the Novel:-

Full Title: An Artist of the Floating World

When Written: 1980s

Where Written: England

When Published: 1986

Literary Period: Post-Postmodern Literature - Realism: New Sincerity.

Genre: Realist Fiction

Setting: An unnamed city in Japan in the years following the end of the Second World War.

Climax: At Noriko’s miai, Ono tells the

Saitos that he admits making mistakes in his career.

Antagonist: Pride; Nationalism

Point of View: First-person

An Artist of the Floating World tells the story of a former artist named Masuji Ono. Ono is both protagonist and narrator, and he provides a highly subjective account of the events that shaped his career, family life, and reputation, grappling with his past as he tells his story. Though the narrative leaps in and out of different periods in Ono’s life, from his first job to his childhood to his role working for the government in World-War II era Japan, the strongest linear thread revolves around the marriage of Ono’s daughter. In the years after the war, Ono works to negotiate a traditional arranged marriage for his younger daughter, Noriko. In light of a failed marriage negotiation for Noriko a year before, in which the groom’s family mysteriously pulled out at the last minute, Ono’s older daughter Setsuko suggests that he visit various old acquaintances. This way he can ensure that, if these acquaintances are interviewed about Ono and his family as part of the negotiation, they will provide positive testimony. Ono believes that Setsuko is politely telling him to find a way to make his past less of a problem, since his career before and during the war has destroyed his reputation. The exact nature of that career occupies much of the space in the novel.

"If on a sunny day you climb the steep path leading up from the little wooden bridge still referred to around here as the "Bridge of Hesitation," you will not have to walk far before the roof of my house becomes visible between the tops of two gingko trees".

Matsuji Ono

Themes:-

Role of Art and the Artist

Intergenerational Conflict

Imperialism and Sovereignty

Aging

Grief

Pedagogy

Marriage

Four types of Art:-

Four kind of Art :-

For Aesthetic delight 

For the voiceless people

For business

For nationalism

In the novel every character has a different view towards art and belief in pursuing art. Some characters in this novel believe that art exists to capture beauty, especially if that beauty will otherwise go unrecorded. Moriyama, for instance, subscribes to such a belief. Other characters, most notably Matsuda, believe that art should exist as part of social and political movements, and that aesthetics should influence rather than imitate life. Ono begins his career under Moriyama's tutelage and is clearly struck by his ideology of art, but Matsuda manages to eventually convert him to his own side. After the war, at the time of the novel's narration, Ono seems torn. His descriptions come alive when they focus on the floating world of Moriyama's paintings, but he also speaks about his political awakening and political art with vivid conviction. In the end, it seems, Ono believes that art is powerful enough to do both, or else - he fears powerless enough to do both without causing any disruption or change.

An Artist of the Floating World presents two visions of what an artist should attempt in his or her work, and of what kinds of goals are achievable through art. For the characters who are artists or who are passionate about art, these different visions are so essential that they can lead to personal conflict.

 One vision of art's purpose is embodied by Ono's teacher Moriyama. Moriyama believes that art should be used to create and mimic beauty, especially fleeting, temporary beauty. Moriyama's art values aesthetics above all, and his students are expected to master difficult techniques in order to capture visual beauty. Matsuda subscribes to the opposite vision. He believes that art should engage with the outside world and be explicitly political. 

According to Matsuda, artists should not hide away from the outside world, but should try to change it. These two artistic visions are presented as the most important ones, and neither Ono nor Ishiguro ever quite chooses one or dismisses another. However, several other ideas about art appear in the book and then fade away as Ono rejects them. One such idea is his father's. Ono's father believes that art is unnecessary and that all artists are degenerates. The other is the mindless assembly-line artistry of Master Takeda's studio, where both ideas and technique are ignored in favor of pure productivity. Ishigure never seriously entertains Takeda's vision of art. Rather, he focuses on Moriyama's and Matsuda's principles, and on the damage that results when one of these visions becomes so hegemonic that artists who diverge are punished.

Ono has ambitions to become a great artist, but has no idea what kind of art he should produce towards achieving this end. Despite Ono’s description of himself as someone who courageously follows his convictions and talent, the actual events of his life suggest a man who follows others opportunistically instead of thinking for himself. Ono’s early works as a teen are paintings of landscapes. He has an incredible facility for capturing the way a specific place looks. Throughout his later career, however, Ono’s work focuses on other subjects, suggesting that he may have abandoned his true talent, simple and familiar as it may have been in the eyes of others. Ono’s first paid work as an artist is producing stereotypically Japanese paintings that are exported to foreigners who exoticize the Japanese tradition. Ono is initially pleased that he is earning a living as an artist, defying his father’s predictions that he would live in squalor if he pursued art as a career. He is also glad to be one of his firm’s leading artists.

 Gradually, however, Ono comes to feel that this commercial work at Master Takeda’s firm is beneath him, and he leaves the firm. Ono spends the next six years at the villa of Seiji Moriyama, or Mori-san. There, Ono paints in the style Mori-san advocates: paintings of “floating world”- or pleasure districts - depicted in a more Western style called Yoga. Mori-san urges his students to live among geishas, drinking late into the night and painting scenes from nightlife, but Ono struggles with doubts about whether this lifestyle is really the path to greatness. His father, after all, predicted that he would spend his life living in squalor if he pursued a career as an artist. Once again, however, Ono earns acclaim. He becomes Mori-san’s favorite student and is allowed to exhibit his paintings alongside his teacher’s. After conversations with the nationalist art-appreciator Matsuda, who teases Ono for being naïve and having a “narrow artist’s perspective,” Ono leaves Mori-san’s villa and begins to create paintings with political messages. While Ono portrays this, in hindsight, as another moment in which he took a courageous risk to follow his artistic convictions, he is once again merely exchanging one person’s doctrine for another. He eventually rises to prominence as a nationalist painter in his city. A cohort of younger artists consider him their teacher, and he wins prestigious awards. However, after Japan’s defeat in the war, the culture of militant nationalism is reviled, and prominent nationalist artists commit suicide. Ono is forced into retirement, which he takes as a sign that his work had an important - albeit now-discredited - impact on his society.

In the end, other characters' statements suggest that Ono’s presentation of himself is skewed, his belief that the courage of his convictions led him to paint original, ground-breaking works that have since been discredited seems nothing more than self-aggrandizement. In his final conversation with Matsuda, Matsuda says that they “turned out to be ordinary men with no special gifts of insight” and that their “contribution turned out to be marginal.” Ono rejects taking Matsuda’s words at face value, saying that there was something in Matsuda's manner that suggested he believed otherwise. In Ono’s last conversation with his daughter Setsuko, she reassures her father that he does not need to feel guilty for encouraging the militarism of the war years because it was not really culturally significant.

The novel’s presentation of a vain and self-deluding artist whose contributions lose their importance with the passage of time gives the title its meaning. Ono feels encouraged by a lifetime of acclaim for his work to believe that his contributions were important and will be remembered. But, in fact, he was only one of the many artists of his time who painted derivative works in styles invented by others. Although Ono leaves Mori-san’s villa and ceases to paint the geishas of the “floating world” of pleasure districts, the ultimate unimportance of his career makes him an “artist of the floating world” in a different sense. Ono finds a transitory success by shaping his work to fit the demands of specific times and places, and by copying others who have gained acclaim. But this world is neither timeless nor permanent; it is transitory, “floating.” The novel shows how the world in which Ono was an important artist is already floating away, superseded by new currents, ideas, events, and artists.

Conclusion:-

Ishiguro creates characters seeking redemption from acts they have committed, which they may 

not be proud of any longer, sometimes acknowledging their past as old homes which seem far 

away from their current paths. Ono’s identity is depicted with great authenticity: he is a Japanese 

painter who struggles to understand where he belongs in a society undergoing deep changes 

during the aftermath of the war. His narrative brings to light the floating grounds of politics and 

history during wartime as he is caught between ambiguous values: he longs for the preservation 

of the ideal of the old customs, although he eventually comes to acknowledge the mistakes of a 

totalitarian regime, while wishing hopefully for the reconstruction of the country.

Insofar as the nation is driven towards a new political and ideological scenario, the artist 

examines his role in history. While agonising over his support for the fascist movement, he 

struggles to accept that his past actions may have endorsed an ideology which has become a 

shameful affair in face of the new liberal democratic ideas suddenly enforced after the rendition. 

Self-deception, memory and desire are at stake when the painter attempts to justify his

nationalist contributions. Contradictory stories inevitably surface when he struggles to bury 

unwelcome memories. Eventually, the artist perceives that there is a floating territory full of 

cheerful young people in transit, walking across a bridge between two worlds; and he feels 

hopeful about their future. While he is contemplating them from a distance, his description 

reminds us of the motifs he used to paint at Mori-san’s villa; paintings that had given him a 

glimpse of the floating world in the past, seem transmuted now into a floating optimistic hope 

for the future of the next generation.

Word count:-1988

References:- 

“An Artist of the Floating World Themes: Course Hero.” An Artist of the Floating World Themes | Course Hero, https://www.coursehero.com/lit/An-Artist-of-the-Floating-World/themes/.

Ishiguro, Kazuo. “An Artist of the Floating World Themes.” GradeSaver, https://www.gradesaver.com/an-artist-of-the-floating-world/study-guide/themes.

        

LitCharts. “An Artist of the Floating World Study Guide.” LitCharts, https://www.litcharts.com/lit/an-artist-of-the-floating-world. 

Turgut, Zeynep Rana. “Looking at the Changing World through a Displaced and Estranged Artist ...” ReasearchGate, 13 Jan. 2017, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316596194_Looking_at_the_changing_world_through_a_displaced_and_estranged_artist_Kazuo_Ishiguros_an_artist_of_the_floating_world.