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• 1 2020-05-26T15:13:25+00:00 Drawing and Viewing 3 plain 2020-07-28T22:43:06+00:00 In his 1949 journal about his youth in militarist Japan, conscription, internment in Siberia, and repatriation to Japan, Shikoku does recall taking a live drawing class and being praised by his teacher. Otherwise, Shikoku taught himself painting and drawing by copying many different art works, from Hiroshige’s woodblock prints to contemporary painters, because his family was low-income and the disruption of the war. 
  
  Shikoku proposes that the reader use Hiroshima Sketches as a guide to “explore the meanings of Hiroshima and the allure of this city” (p. 158). Shikoku designs the book in a manner that explores not only the physical surroundings, but also layers of memory and history that contribute to the complexity of a city ambitious in its commitment to peace and social justice, even as it is burdened with a past deeply enmeshed in global currents of modern war and empire. Some pages represent sites with deeply personal meanings: the bridge Shikoku passed over as a repatriated imperial soldier after the war; the school where his brother was injured in the bombing; beneath the prosperous city, the bones of the dead. Although Shikoku aims to provide readers with a deeper understanding of Hiroshima as a living community and vital place beyond the Genbaku Dome, his method also works as a means of advocating for collective action in opposition to nuclear weapons, war, and injustice.