Popular Protest in Post War Japan: The Antiwar Art of Shikoku Gorō

Yanagibashi Bridge

“Yanagibashi (Willow Bridge) is splendid whether it’s a sunny day or raining, in the morning or the evening.” (p. 51). Shikoku includes several drawings of his favorite Yanagibashi Bridge, shown in this 1977 sketch as a pathway busy with pedestrians carrying umbrellas and people on bicycles. The atmospheric reflection of the lampposts and the bridge in the calm waters of the Kyobashi River and feathery willow trees evoke the peace and prosperity of 1970s Hiroshima. In a separate passage, Shikoku uses willows to remind readers of Hiroshima's prewar prominence as the location of military headquarters and as a port from which naval ships sailed for China and the front. In the 1890s when Imperial Japan was building a strong military, Hiroshima rose in prominence. Shikoku notes, “When renowned poet Masaoka Shiki stayed in a Hiroshima inn as an embedded journalist during the First Sino-Japanese War, he composed the haiku ‘Oh Hiroshima/a place replete/with willow trees.” 

After the August 1945 atomic bombing, it was said that 70 years would pass before grasses and flowers grew again. Many hibakusha found hope in the green buds emerged from scorched trees and flowers sprung up among the ruins in the weeks after.  
 

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