Architect of the Kingdom of Dreams: The Aesthetics of Illusion and Knowledge Built by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa from the 1950s to the 1970s

Architect of the Kingdom of Dreams: The Aesthetics of Illusion and Knowledge Built by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa from the 1950s to the 1970s

Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928-1987) was a critic and translator who was unique in the postwar Japanese literary world. In the 1950s, as postwar democracy turned toward realism and rationalism, Shibusawa was at the center of a cultural movement that sought to reclaim the "unreal," the "dream," and the "mysterious, Through his translations of Baudelaire, Huysmans, Sade, and Breton, Shibusawa introduced the spirit of Western decadent literature and surrealism to Japan. This was also an act of infusing "heretical knowledge" into a burnt-out Japan.

In the 1960s, his books "The Voyage of the Prince of Takaoka," "Beyond Illusion," and "The Life of the Marquis de Sade" attracted much attention, and he developed a worldview that aesthetically integrated such conflicting concepts as reason and madness, religion and Eros, beauty and death. Combining the sharpness of logic with poetic sensitivity, Shibusawa's criticism gave readers the "pleasure of thinking. In particular, as exemplified by "The Museum of Dreams," his style emphasizes aesthetic intuition rather than academic rigor, sublimating the reading experience itself into an art form.

In the 1970s, as the fever of political movements and social reforms cooled and culture moved toward inner exploration, Shibusawa's fantasy literature was reevaluated. It had a profound influence on young artists such as Shuji Terayama and Kosuke Shibusawa, and became a spiritual pillar of avant-garde theater and underground culture. His philosophy, which emphasized the value of imagination over reality, was also a quiet resistance to the materialism of Japanese society.

Throughout his life, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa discussed "fantasy" not as an escape from reality, but as an expression of spiritual freedom. He was an adventurer of knowledge who stood between reason and dreaming, and was the most beautiful heretic in the history of the postwar Japanese psyche.