The sculpture Yukio Mishima was obsessed with at the Vatican Museums! Feeling the unique personality of Mishima
[Rome Travelogue] (20) Did Yukio Mishima visit the Vatican Museums? The sculpture he was obsessed with
In previous articles, I introduced the Vatican's big three, which are the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica.
And in this article, I would like to talk about some points regarding the Vatican that I personally find unmissable.
Now, as I wrote in the title of this article, that point is "Yukio Mishima and the Vatican Museums"...
Yukio Mishima and the Vatican.
You might be wondering why Yukio Mishima and the Vatican are connected.
However, it is said that Yukio Mishima visited this place during his world tour starting in 1951 and was deeply impressed by a certain statue in the Vatican Museums.
And to begin with, the reason why I am interested in this author who passed away 50 years ago is precisely because of this Vatican connection.
"What are some recommended Yukio Mishima works for beginners? I also thought about the reading order" As I mentioned in the article, my encounter with Mishima was here at the Vatican.
I visited Rome in 2022 for my research on "Shinran and Dostoevsky".
And at that time, the Italian guide who helped me recommended him, saying, "Yukio Mishima is wonderful. His writing style is extremely beautiful. As someone who likes Dostoevsky, you will definitely like him." This guide is my great benefactor who arranged a special tour inside Vatican City for me.
It was a strange experience to be recommended Yukio Mishima by an Italian, but this was the trigger for me to start reading Mishima's works.
And I was struck by his literature. That is how I came to have a strong interest in Yukio Mishima.
And as I learned more about him, I found out that Yukio Mishima also visited this museum and had a very strong attachment to a certain statue.
As I mentioned earlier, Yukio Mishima set off on a world tour at the end of 1951. Among those places, Greece and Rome seem to have become places with deep emotional significance for him. Mishima stated the following about these lands:
Even today, while in a trance, I think about whether these two weeks in Greece and Rome, this continuous feeling of ecstasy, will ever visit me again in my life. Like others, I know the joys of the senses, and I know the supreme joy of rest after finishing my work, but those have never lasted for two days before.
As I have talked about on this note so far, I also love Rome. The magnificent St. Peter's Basilica, the eternal Roman Forum, the masterpieces of Michelangelo and Raphael, and the stunning church architecture of Bernini...!
However, strangely enough, Mishima showed almost no interest in these. The thing that captivated him most in Rome was the statue of Antinous displayed in the Vatican Museums.
Antinous was a beautiful young man favored by the Roman Emperor Hadrian. It is said that after he drowned mysteriously in the Nile River during a trip to Egypt in 130 AD, Emperor Hadrian, mourning his loss, ordered the creation of numerous sculptures to honor him as a god. It may have been precisely this history that attracted Yukio Mishima, who revealed his homosexual tendencies in 'Confessions of a Mask', to this sculpture.
Visiting the Vatican Museums today, I was captivated by two beautiful statues of Antinous—one a bust and the other a full-length figure in ancient Egyptian attire (omitted). Even while looking at masterpieces in various other rooms, my heart was with Antinous, and as a result, my overall visit to the Vatican ended up being extremely unproductive.
As Mishima says here, he fell in love with this sculpture at first sight and could no longer see any other works. He even went out of his way to revisit the Vatican Museums later to bid farewell to this sculpture.
Today I visited the Vatican again to bid farewell to Antinous. I had entered the Rotunda before and looked at the bust, but I had not noticed the huge standing statue right beside it. This was perhaps because I was too mesmerized by the bust, and also because the standing statue was so deified that it lacked the freshness of the bust or the Egyptian-style standing statue, making its characteristic features less noticeable.
I stood for a while again in front of the statue in the Egyptian room, and then left the Vatican in a hurry so that the impression of these three Antinous figures would not be disturbed by various other things. I am returning to Japan today. Goodbye, Antinous. Those figures are eroded by the spirit and already aged, and cannot compare to your supreme beauty, but I pray, Antinous, that the form of my work may, even if only slightly, approach the supreme poetry of your form. —May 7, 1952, in Rome—
It is clear how much Mishima fell in love with this sculpture. Yukio Mishima, who had almost no interest in famous works... His view of art was discussed as follows in 'The Art Loved by Yukio Mishima' by Kikuo Miyashita and Takashi Inoue.
Inoue From here, I would like to retrace Mishima's museum visits, focusing on Rome, with art historian Mr. Miyashita. First, shall we organize Mishima's itinerary according to the descriptions in 'Cup of Apollo'?
1952
May 2: National Roman Museum (Museo Nazionale Romano)
May 3: Borghese Gallery
May 4: Vatican Museums
May 5: Capitoline Museums
Palazzo Venezia Museum
May 6: Vatican Museums
Miyashita He went to the Vatican twice.
Inoue He fell in love with the statue of Antinous and went to see it twice. However, the Vatican Museums are always crowded, and you have to wait in a long line to get in, don't you?
Miyashita No, that is a recent phenomenon; it wasn't that crowded in the past. In addition to the bust and the full-length statue, the Vatican Museums also have a standing statue of Antinous dressed as Bacchus. Antinous was a boy favored by Emperor Hadrian, one of the Five Good Emperors of Rome, but he drowned in the Nile River in 130 AD. Whether it was a mere accident, whether Emperor Hadrian ordered his death, whether he tried to escape the Emperor, or whether he became world-weary, the reason for his death is unknown. Emperor Hadrian was deeply saddened and subsequently had statues of Antinous made repeatedly. Since he died in Egypt, he had them made in the guise of an Egyptian god. There is a town called Tivoli near Rome, where there is a vast garden and villa called Villa Adriana, which Emperor Hadrian built to remember Antinous. As the Antinous statues were made again and again, they became increasingly idealized, and the standing statue dressed as Bacchus [p. 17] looks just like a statue of Apollo. Mishima also missed this when he came to the Vatican for the first time. The one closest to the reality is probably the bust [p. 19].
Inoue It is certainly a beautiful bust, but what is its quality or standard as a work of art?
Miyashita The series of Antinous statues mark the end of Roman classical art, but this bust is not particularly important. The most famous ancient sculptures in the Vatican are the 'Apollo Belvedere' [p. 27 left] and 'Laocoön' [below], and the huge 'Belvedere Torso', which is also extremely important in art history, is another Hellenistic sculpture. Also, what Japanese people usually expect most when they come to the Vatican is Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. However, in 'Cup of Apollo', he only mentions Antinous and almost ignores important ancient sculptures like 'Laocoön' and Michelangelo. Michelangelo's paintings feature many muscular figures, but perhaps he wasn't very interested in them. Among things well-known to Japanese people, there are also the 'Stanze' frescoes such as Raphael's 'The School of Athens', and 'The Transfiguration' in the Pinacoteca, but Mishima does not mention them at all.
Inoue 'Apollo Belvedere' and 'Laocoön' are mentioned, but only by name. He saw some Raphael as well, but it didn't seem to resonate with him.
Miyashita From the perspective of anyone who knows even a little art history, that is impossible. However, when people generally take an interest in art, it is not always because they highly evaluate the work as art; I think there is also an interest in art as an expression of one's own unique aesthetic sense or sensibility. To put it plainly, the quality as a work of art might not be much, but perhaps the face of that painting or sculpture just happens to be their type. It might be better to understand Mishima's interest in the Antinous statue in that way.
Inoue I see. However, that doesn't mean Mishima's level of art appreciation was shallow. People who go to the Vatican Museums to see Michelangelo or Raphael might just be doing so because it's written in a guidebook.
Miyashita When I said earlier that Mishima himself liked art very much, I meant it in that sense as well.
Many of the famous works mentioned here were also introduced in the article 'Introducing the Highlights and Famous Works of the Vatican Museums! Raphael's Masterpieces Are Truly Exceptional!'.
It is certainly almost impossible to come to the Vatican Museums and not mention these famous works.
Moreover, as Mr. Miyashita states, 'The series of Antinous statues marks the end of Roman classical art, but this bust is not particularly important,' the Antinous statue that Mishima fell in love with clearly pales in comparison to these masterpieces.
I myself have visited the Rotunda where the standing statue of Antinous is located many times, but it has left no impression on me at all. I didn't even take a picture of it. However, Yukio Mishima loved this Antinous statue, which I wouldn't even bother to photograph, beyond words. His attachment to it is as described in Mishima's own words above. He was so infatuated that he even went out of his way to bid it farewell when leaving Rome.
This seems to be a very important point regarding Mishima's view of art, or perhaps a matter of his personal taste. Regarding this, Mr. Miyashita later says the following:
Rather than an artistic interest, it is a tendency to be drawn to things that feature the model one is obsessed with, where such personal preferences overlap with one's own aesthetic sense.
I see... It could be said that Yukio Mishima was superimposing the images he was obsessed with onto Greece and Rome rather than having an artistic interest.
And what is interesting here is that although Mishima also visited the Capitoline Museums and Borghese Gallery in Rome, he hardly mentions the works of Caravaggio.
The works of Caravaggio, the painter of light and shadow who lived in the Baroque era, are also famous for their homosexual orientation. However, Mishima does not seem to have been interested in these many masterpieces. What does this mean? In the same book, 'The Art Loved by Yukio Mishima', it was stated as follows:
Miyashita: Well, it is easy to understand if you contrast it with Caravaggio, whom I specialize in. Caravaggio has famous works like 'Saint John the Baptist (The Sacrifice of Isaac)' at the Capitoline Museums, specifically in the New Palace. However, Mishima does not mention it at all. There are several reasons for this, such as the fact that Caravaggio was hardly introduced in Japan at the time, or that he does not appear in Goethe's 'Italian Journey', but another thing that can be said is that Mishima did not like things that were too realistic. Caravaggio is called the founder of modern realism because he emphasized the contrast between light and shadow and depicted subjects realistically by putting common people on the canvas, but Mishima did not like such things.
Inoue: Then, if we ask how the attachment to the balance, restraint, order, and compositional beauty of Greek sculpture connects to Rococo taste, it connects in the sense that it is not realism.
Miyashita: I think it is safe to say so. Both have in common that they are oriented toward ideal beauty and utopia, away from reality.
'Mishima did not like things that were too realistic.'
'Oriented toward ideal beauty and utopia, away from reality.'
Oh! When put this way, it clearly connects to Yukio Mishima's literature and way of life. So this was the background for why Mishima did not like Caravaggio. Furthermore, compared to the Antinous that Mishima loved, the bodies are clearly androgynous, or have a thin and soft atmosphere. As is well known, Mishima began bodybuilding around the age of 30 and worked hard on body transformation. As was also discussed in Mishima's first full-length novel 'Confessions of a Mask', it is understandable that Mishima, who longed for a strong and muscular body, did not have much affection for Caravaggio's androgynous male figures.
Now, I have talked about the Vatican Museums and Yukio Mishima so far, but the 'Collection of Travelogues by Yukio Mishima' used as a reference here also contains Mishima's subsequent travelogues.
Therefore, you can read travelogues not only from overseas but also from within Japan. Personally, I am very impressed by the travelogue 'Things That Go Against Beauty', which mentions Mishima's visit to Disneyland in California in 1960. Mishima highly evaluates Disneyland here.
The charm of this book, 'Collection of Travelogues by Yukio Mishima', is that you can read such various travelogues by Mishima.
Furthermore, "Cup of Apollo," included in this book, is packed with the Greek and Roman experiences that could be called Mishima's formative experiences. It is a work that serves as a very useful reference for understanding his literature and way of life. I highly recommend this book not only to Yukio Mishima fans but also to those planning to visit Greece and Rome.
This may have strayed a bit from the highlights of the Vatican Museums, but I wanted to introduce it as a way to enjoy the experience that is a little different from standard sightseeing.
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