Buddhism and Cultural Heritage in the Memorialization of the Hiroshima Bombing: The Art and Activism of Hirayama Ikuo

Paride Stortini

doi:10.3390/rel13020146

Abstract

Debates on the memorialization of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima have played an essential role in the construction of postwar Japanese identity, public memory, and historical consciousness. Religion, often conceived beyond traditional terms through concepts such as “spirituality” and “heritage”, was part of this process. This article examines the role of Buddhism in the autobiographical and visual narratives of the atomic bomb survivor Hirayama Ikuo, who expressed his personal trauma through art, turning it into a call for peace and for the preservation of the cultural heritage of the Silk Road, associated with the spread of Buddhism. Using recent critical approaches to heritage studies, I will show how the heritagization of Buddhism in Hirayama’s work does not preclude the sacralization of aspects of Silk Road heritage. Placing Hirayama’s approach to the nuclear bombing in the context of postwar discourses on Japan as a peaceful “nation of culture”, I will also problematize his view of Buddhism and the Silk Road by showing how similar views were used in support of imperialism in the prewar period.

Highlights

The Japanese painter Hirayama Ikuo (1930–2009) narrates the story of his career starting from a significant painting that he realized in 1979, when he was already a recognized artist: The Rebirth of Hiroshima (Hiroshima shohenzu, Figure 1)
The concept of an “Atomic Age” ushered in by nuclear experiments and atomic bombings might suggest the idea of a deep break in historical consciousness, a “before and after”, which might be repeated in the construction of public memory and in the role that religious practices and ideas have within it
The hibakusha experience was central in Hirayama’s narratives of his life and artistic career, in his conception of Buddhism as a spiritual salvation from suffering and as a cultural link across borders, and in his universalization of trauma and his call for Japan to preserve the cultural heritage of Buddhism and the Silk Road as its moral duty

Summary

Introduction

The Japanese painter Hirayama Ikuo (1930–2009) narrates the story of his career starting from a significant painting that he realized in 1979, when he was already a recognized artist: The Rebirth of Hiroshima (Hiroshima shohenzu, Figure 1). Buddhism played an essential role in the artistic production of Hirayama Ikuo, as the artist received his earliest awards and recognitions for his painting, The Transmission of Buddhism (Bukkyo Denrai, 1959, Figure 2) His favorite subjects were scenes from the life of the Buddha and the history of the spread of Buddhism, as well as landscapes of sites in Central Asia commonly associated with the Silk Road routes that facilitated the spread of Buddhism. Buddhism played an essential role in the artistic production of Hirayama Ikuo, as the artist received his earliest awards and recognitions for his painting, The Transmission of Buddhism (Bukkyō Denrai, 1959, Figure 2) I argue that, while Hirayama’s view of Buddhism and of the Silk Road is strengthened by the redefinition of postwar, “Atomic Age”, Japan as a country which supports pacificism and international collaboration, it presents continuities with interwar pan-Asian views which were marshaled in support of Japanese militarist expansion into East and Southeast Asia

Transcending History through Imagination

Conclusions