In Japan, there is a famous folk tale of an old man who made cherry trees blossom.
This story features a good old man and a bad old man.
The bad old man cruelly kills the pet dog that
has brought good fortune to the good old man.
When the good old man scatters the ashes of this dog,
a withered tree comes into bloom.
These flowers were probably cherry blossoms.
We Japanese see a special type of beauty in cherry blossoms,
and are enchanted by them.
On the black branches of leafless trees that seemed almost dead,
light pink flowers suddenly bloom in a glorious fashion,
and then scatter again as suddenly as they appeared.
It is after this that the more worldly green leaves appear.
A life and death that are not of this world: blossoms followed by flurries of falling petals.
The “ashen princess” in the fairy story which formed the basis
for the Cinderella story was always covered in ashes.
In East and West alike, it may be that these ashes are the ashes of her dead dog.
Helped by a bird to pick up beans one by one from the deathly ashes, this heroine will
one day be united with her prince thanks to a secret ceremony involving a glass slipper.
The heroine in my picture “The Power of Dreams” is putting forth a youthful leg
from the hem of her kimono, and putting on a glass slipper.
She is Cinderella, as she is the “ashen princess.
” The old man who made the flowers bloom is scattering ashes on her head,
and a great cherry tree is about to come into full bloom.
The little black and white dog at the princess’s feet is Sabu,
the beloved pet dog of my childhood. Sabu had an uncurable illness,
and he was sent to be put to sleep at a veterinary institution,
and was unable to live out the end of his days.
What a sad event! The gray colour of Sabu’s ashes covers the whole canvass,
and the heroine in the midst of this gray,
herself a pink colour, makes herself visible at the same time as the cherry blossoms.
Things that are held in common by a people; things that a culture has absorbed;
one’s personal experiences: these things all become yarn for weaving.
We weave this yarn into dreams as we sleep, and, in my case,
I weave it into my pictures on waking.
For me, this power of dreams is none other than the power to paint pictures.
But both of these types of power may, in fact,
be one with the power that has sprung up from the ashes of my dead dog.