Museum as Muse: Haniwa

HANIWA Haniwa figures, made in the 3d to 6th centuries in Japan, were surmounted on large earthen mounds to guard the tombs of the nobility. Arranged in a fence-like pattern atop tumuli, they served as a precaution against soil erosion, as well as a defense against both human and demonic invasion. The terracotta sentinels housed the souls of the dead. The great tombs some were spread over eighty acres-are still visible in the landscape, particularly in the wooded hills around Osaka. There is a story in the Nihon-shoki, a book of myths and history compiled in the 8th century, that the custom of burying a living man to the neck so as to accompany his lord in the spirit world was eventually found so terrifying that clay figures were used in substitution. The first tubular vessels (early Haniwa figures have mouth-like holes resembling a morning glory in bloom) later evolved into images of swans, fish, houses, shepherds, princesses and dogs. Statues of female shamans, carrying sunshades, possess rouged cheeks in a gesture of mourning. A gloved soldier with traces of red polychrome on his chest bends his knee in condolence. A dog not unlike a fox terrier sniffs the air in curiosity. This Haniwa figure, made in the basic slab and coil method known to all kindergarten artists, is a hollow cylinder, pierced with a hole on each side. It is the torso of a man wearing a tunic cinched with a belt, its rounded arms stretched forward-the small hands may once have held an offering cup, or a bowl of sake. It is wearing a hat with two horn-like handles. There is a trace of a smile on its small, open mouth. The clay discs at the neck may represent a necklace, or perhaps the appliqué of the tunic. The figure wears large earrings. The face is a mask. The figure has an abject melancholy. The simple, enigmatic expression and the round body give it a ghostlike, cartoonish quality. Its abstractness, its blankness provokes pathos. If its shape and expression, as well as the naf quality of the modeling, suggests the whimsical clay figure made by a child, it also evinces sensitivity, wit, and perception. This early mud sculpture-- humble, rough, dignified-- evokes without a hint of awareness that later, highly self-conscious aesthetic, mono no aware: the very pity of things. In his intense silence, the Haniwa is poignant and beseeching, mysterious and tender.