Hirao Rosen

Hirao Hatsusaburō Sukemune, better known as Hirao Rosen, was a Japanese polymath, painter, ethnographer, folklorist, and student of the nationalist kokugaku school. He has been called "the da Vinci of Aomori Prefecture.

Biography

Hirao Rosen was born to Hirao Tōjirō, the middle-class proprietor of the Obama-ya fish wholesaler in Hirosaki castle town. At an early age he was recognized as a child prodigy, having a natural talent for painting coupled with an eidetic memory. He studied the art of painting with Kudō Gohō and Imamura Keiju of the Kanō school among others, and researched the techniques of the Chinese-style artist Sō Shihō. He later studied poetry with the Shintō priest Osari Nakaakira.
In his youth, Hirao was ridiculed as a "Xian for his eccentricities. He gave himself the name "Rosen" by adding ro to the sen of sennin.
In 1855, Hirao sailed to Matsumae and traveled overland across the Oshima Peninsula to Hakodate in order to survey the situation in the Matsumae Domain and Ezo. Hakodate had recently been opened to foreign commerce under the terms of the coercive unequal treaties, and Hirao encountered many Westerners during his stay in the town. He made a number of sketches in Hakodate, including one of the Japanese army encampment at Chiyogadai. Hirao published accounts of his visit to Ezo under the titles Hakodate kikō and Yō'i meiwa.
Hirao was a disciple of Hirata Atsutane, and in his writings he severely criticized Confucian theories on the non-existence of the soul. His primary works on local folklore were Gappo kidan and Tani no hibiki.
In Hirao's magnum opus, the 8-volume Yūfu shinron with 14 supplementary volumes, he elaborated on Atsutane's theory of a physical overlap between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The complete manuscript of Yūfu shinron was eventually sent to Atsutane's successor Hirata Kanetane. Kanetane's son Hirata Nobutane gave the manuscript an endorsement, but it was ultimately never published.
Hirao entirely rejected Western culture, and he became increasingly depressed and apathetic as society Westernized around him throughout the early Meiji era. He eventually built a schoolhouse in his backyard and gave lessons to neighborhood boys and girls. At one point, Hirao's granddaughter was moved to tears by his recounting of how, in the 14th century, the treachery of Ashikaga Takauji brought down the Kenmu Restoration. Hirao reportedly said, quoting the words of Kitabatake Chikafusa in the opening lines of the Jinnō Shōtōki:
Hirao died in 1880.