Written on 2019-05-24.
This passage introduces the history of the portrait traditionally attributed to Taira no Shigemori at Jingo-ji, which André Malraux praised as the world’s greatest portrait and called the Mona Lisa of the East, as it stood out powerfully alongside Western masterpieces at the Louvre and in southern France.
It is a reflection on the strength of Japanese art that helped make possible the visits to Japan of the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa.

2019-05-24

The Jingo-ji Trilogy, the Portrait Traditionally Attributed to Taira no Shigemori, from page 16 of the December 4 issue of the Nikkei… this was probably the finest article in all the newspapers today.

The chapter I published on 2011-12-04 under the title, “The Jingo-ji Trilogy, the Portrait Traditionally Attributed to Taira no Shigemori, from page 16 of the December 4 issue of the Nikkei… this was probably the finest article in all the newspapers today,” is now in the real-time top 10.
The French writer André Malraux praised the “Portrait Traditionally Attributed to Taira no Shigemori” at Kyoto’s Jingo-ji as the greatest portrait painting in the world.
This work, which served as a stand-in for the Venus de Milo at the Louvre and was compared to the Mona Lisa, regained its original brilliance through a major restoration in 1981.
In 1964, the Venus de Milo came to Japan from France.
A total of 1.72 million visitors came to the exhibition venues, the National Museum of Western Art and the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, creating excitement great enough to be called a social phenomenon.
Its visit to Japan was part of a project called “Franco-Japanese Art Exchange,” and the person who promoted it in France was Malraux, who was also serving as Minister of Culture.
As part of the exchange, the work that went from Japan to France and was exhibited at the Louvre was the portrait traditionally attributed to Shigemori.
In 1973, the portrait once again went to France.
The organizer at that time too was Malraux.
In order to make real the ultimate collection he had chosen from works of art of all ages and places in his essay Museum Without Walls, he gathered 180 works in Saint-Paul in southern France and held an exhibition.
The portrait traditionally attributed to Shigemori stood out with striking distinctiveness among Western paintings by Titian, Goya, Cézanne, Van Gogh, and others.
Malraux, who was deeply devoted to Japan and visited it many times, saw the essence of Japanese culture in Ise Grand Shrine, Nachi Falls, and the portrait traditionally attributed to Shigemori.
Malraux called it “the Gioconda of the East,” that is, the Mona Lisa of the East.
This second journey to France led, in 1974, to the visit to Japan of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, which drew 1.5 million visitors to the exhibition venue at the Tokyo National Museum.
Since entering the Louvre’s collection, the Venus de Milo has left France only once, when it came to Japan, and the Mona Lisa has left only twice, including its visit to Japan.
Behind Japan’s ability to bring these two masterpieces to its shores was the power of the portrait traditionally attributed to Shigemori.
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