1a
美術家の戦争責任問題
The Question of Artists' War Responsibility

【本文確定】

アジア諸国に大規模な侵略を行った日本は、アメリカに二発の原子爆弾を投下され、１９４５年８月１５日、連合国に無条件降伏しました。１９３８年に国家総動員体制がしかれて以来、美術家たちも戦争への協力を強制されていましたが*1a1、この日を境にその軛をまぬかれることになりました。しかしその一方で、戦時中に美徳として行われた戦争協力は、かつての過ちへと転じたのです。

一般的に、どんな侵略戦争も聖戦と称され、占領も解放と称されるものです*1a2。日本の国民の多くは軍部の思惑にしたがって「聖戦」に加担した後、次にはすんなりとアメリカの思惑にしたがって敗戦を「解放」と受けとめ、歓迎しました。美術家たちも例外ではありませんでした。中堅以上のほとんどの画家が戦争画を描きましたが*1a3、それは技術を買われたゆえの強制だったと、後から釈明したのです。

この釈明が説得力を帯びるためには、誰かが身代わりに責めを負わなければなりませんでした。民主主義美術を標榜し多くの美術家が当時参加した「日本美術会」は、スター的画家の藤田嗣治［レオナール・フジタ］に「戦犯画家」のレッテルを貼りました。理由は戦争画家としての成功と、軍部との親しい交際でした。藤田嗣治は孤立を余儀なくされ、ついに１９４９年、「絵描きは絵だけ描いてください。仲間げんかをしないでください。日本画壇は早く世界的水準になってください」と皮肉を述べて日本を去りました*1a4。このように特定の個人に罪をかぶせることによって日本の美術家たちは自らに対する責任追及から逃れましたが、引き換えに公明正大な主体性を喪う立場となりました。そしてそれは、日本の美術界がアメリカの意向に従うことも意味しました。つまり戦時の指導者たちを戦犯として処刑するかわりに、天皇と国民の責任は追及しなかったアメリカの方策が、美術界においても繰り返されたわけです。

冷戦をにらんで日本を味方につけようとしたアメリカは、戦後の混乱からの復興を優先課題としたため、日本の美術界の再建も驚異的な速さで行われました。１９４５年９月には政府によって、１９４３年以来中止されていた文部省美術展覧会（新文展）の復活が決議されました*1a5。戦時中に活動を停止していた二科会、独立美術協会等、民間の美術団体（公募団体）も相次いで再建され、官と在野という戦前の美術界の対立図式も復活しました。

ちなみに新文展は日本美術展覧会（日展）と改称されて翌１９４６年に第１回展を開催し、１９５８年には社団法人となって、２１世紀の今日まで存続しています。日本独自のサロン的な官製アカデミズムを継承していますが、かつての権威は失われました。次節以降では敗戦直後に復活した戦前の体制が瓦解してゆく過程を見ていきます。

Japan, having so far advanced large-scale invasion over Asian nations, surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Powers on 15th in August 1945 finally after two atomic bombs dropped by the USA. Ever since the National Mobilization Law took effect in 1938, the whole nation, including artists too, had been forced to engage with war efforts*1a1. The defeat liberated artists from state control, and on the other hand it then turned their war efforts from virtue into embarrassing faults in the past.

In general, any occupation can be the liberation as any aggressive war claims itself to be the holy war*1a2. While most of the Japanese people took part in the "holy war" as the Japanese military intended, they readily accepted the defeat and the following occupation as "liberation," in turn, as the USA intended. Artists were no exception. Almost all painters of middle to high status had produced war paintings during wartime*1a3, nevertheless they tried to justify their actions, excusing that they were coerced to submit their skills.

Still, those painters needed a scapegoat to which they can attribute their wartime faults for completing their innocence. Thus, an art circle NIHON BIJUTSU KAI that proclaimed democratic art as its slogan, consisting of a lot of painters at that time, labeled the star-painter FUJITA Tsuguharu (藤田嗣治) [Leonard Foujita] to be "the war criminal painter" for his popularity as a war painting artist and close relationship with the military. As the result FUJITA Tsuguharu (藤田嗣治) left Japan in 1949 with leaving a sarcastic remark "Painters are just to paint, please don't make quarrels. May the Japanese art circles soon grow up to the world standard."*1a4 Having expelled him, Japanese painters left behind the scapegoat could superficially escape their war responsibility at the expense of core independence, ability to take charge of themselves to the public. This also meant that the Japanese art world accepted to follow policies of the USA: Just as execution of wartime leaders as war criminals suspended responsibilities of the emperor and his subjects forever, the same logic repeated in the art world as well.

Anticipating the Cold War, the USA was willing to keep Japan within its alliance and to prioritize aiding Japan's recovery from post-war chaos, which resulted in remarkably swift reconstruction of the Japanese art world. In September 1945, the government passed a resolution to resume SHIN BUNTEN Exhibition as succeeding to the age-old government-run exhibition BUNTEN, the Art Exhibition of the Ministry of Education, which began in 1907 but had been discontinued since 1943*1a5. Non-governmental organizations (contest-organization) such as NIKA Association and DOKURITSU BIJUTU KYOKAI had also suspended holding art contests during wartime, but they restored their activities one after another. In other words, the conflict between governmental/non-governmental organizations too returned as it used to be before the war.

Incidentally, SHIN BUNTEN Exhibition was renamed into the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition and called NITTEN Exhibition for short, whose first exhibition was held in 1946. The organization was reformed in 1958 to be a corporate juridical person as the heir to the government-created salon-style academism, the peculiar Japanese system being upheld even to the 21st century while declining its authority. The following sections will outline the processes that have disassembled the prewar system reconstructed just after the defeat.