Imagine that a scholar discovered that the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington, which graces the dollar bill, turned out to be actually Alexander Hamilton, or that the iconic image of William Shakespeare was in fact Charles I of England. Implausible as it may seem, this happened in Japan. Twenty years ago, Yonekura Michio discovered that the famous portrait of Minamoto no Yoritomo, the founder of Japan's first warrior government was in fact that of Ashikaga Tadayoshi, the brother of the first shogun of Japan's second warrior government.Footnote ¹

The history of Yonekura's discovery, its reception, and indeed, how these portraits came to be misunderstood constitutes the core of Kuroda Hideo's monograph. Kuroda Hideo shows how this set of three impressive images does not depict Minamoto Yoritomo, and two lesser-known figures. Instead, they are of the first shogun of the Ashikaga regime, Ashikaga Takauji, his brother Tadayoshi, and the second shogun Ashikaga Yoshiakira. Kuroda also explains how these images, which were created in the fourteenth century, came to be misidentified in the seventeenth century, when they were used to curry support for the reconstruction of Jingoji.

Jingoji, located near Mt. Atago, in northwestern Kyoto, has frequently required repair. As this temple features prominently in the Tale of the Heike, its monks used these nearly three-hundred-year-old images to show patrons important figures of Jingoji's past who had appeared in this epic. Nineteenth-century scholars such as Okakura Teishin correctly revealed the mistaken attribution of two images, but continued to assume that the remaining one was that of Minamoto no Yoritomo, and relied on a temple chronicle, the Jingoji ryakki, to determine the provenance of all three portraits. This attribution remained unquestioned for decades. In 1942, Tani Shinichi discovered a prayer from Ashikaga Tadayoshi, which had been originally written in 1345, and later copied in 1571. This document reveals that Tadayoshi donated two portraits, of himself and of his brother, to Jingoji.Footnote ² So strong was the notion that one of these images was Minamoto Yoritomo that Tani did not appreciate the significance of his discovery. Nevertheless, later scholarship by Miyajima Shinichi and Yonekura Michio effectively revealed that these portraits had no connection to Yoritomo or any of the figures described in the Jingoji ryakki (pp. 77–80). This allowed Yonekura to turn to the Tadayoshi prayer and link these images to the Ashikaga brothers.

Yonekura's provocative theory generated a boisterous argument – Kuroda himself recounts five historians and art historians writing nine articles attacking the Yonekura argument, and likewise nine articles by six scholars (pp. 86–88) supporting the thesis. Aware that academic debates in small fields can devolve into overly impassioned arguments (p. 56), Kuroda eagerly, and unfortunately, relies on overly emotional arguments or criticisms (p. 91), and unfairly insinuates that a rival scholar used his position to advance a counter argument (p. 81). This is unnecessary, as dispassionate analysis of the evidence reveals that, even after two decades of debate, Yonekura's thesis still stands.

The adage “less is more” should apply to this book, as it is bloated and unwieldy, replete with overly long biographies of individuals, long-winded overviews of institutions, and extended quotations from scholars. Kuroda's book is a testament to the utility of footnotes by omission. Furthermore, of its ten chapters, the prologue and the first two chapters could be condensed and Chapter 8, “Ashikaga Tadayoshi to Musō Soseki — Muchū mondo shū,” which merely summarizes one text at great length, could be profitably distilled to a few pages.

Kuroda's work is more than merely an attempt to bludgeon countervailing arguments, although he does that; instead he provides important insights into the images themselves. Chapter 3 effectively shows how Jingoji monks relied on these three images to finance a seventeenth-century reconstruction of their temple. Chapters 4 and 5 analyze the materials and size of the images, and show that the silk used and the size of the portraits reveals that they date from the fourteenth century. In Chapter 6, Kuroda confirms that the portraits of Ashikaga Takauji and Tadayoshi were drawn by the same artist, while the third image of Ashikaga Yoshiakira was crafted sometime – years, or perhaps decades – later than the first two. Kuroda's careful analysis of the 1345 prayer by Tadayoshi constitutes the seventh chapter. Here Kuroda reveals that the portraits of Takauji and Tadayoshi were created and displayed during the lifetime of these two brothers, which was unusual, as most portraits tended to be posthumous.

In Chapter 9, Kuroda suggests that the portraits were not merely images of the two brothers, but concurrently asserted that Tadayoshi was an incarnation of Prince Shōtoku and Takauji was a manifestation of the Hachiman avatar. Kuroda also shows how the creation of these portraits was linked to Uesugi Kiyoko, the mother of both brothers. One missed opportunity is that Jingoji, on the border with the province of Tanba, was not that far from a place called Uesugi, where Uesugi Kiyoko lived, and where, according to lore, Takauji was born. This region was important to the Ashikaga brothers, as it was where Takauji raised the flag of rebellion against Kamakura, and retreated at moments of great need.

Finally, Chapter 10 takes up the question of the third portrait, that of the second shogun Yoshiakira, which has, in comparison to the others, attracted relatively little attention. In what is groundbreaking scholarship, Kuroda presciently reveals that the Yoshiakira portrait was meant to replace the image of Takauji, and would have been displayed in tandem with Tadayoshi's image. This is surprising, because Yoshiakira was known to be an enemy of Tadayoshi, and their period of shared authority proved brief and fleeting, as the outbreak of the Kannō Anomaly (Kannō no jōran). Kuroda's assertion that these portraits were meant to be viewed as a pair of images is convincing, but his chronology is slightly off.

According to Kuroda, the image of Yoshiakira was created during a three-month span between the third and seventh months of 1351 (p. 307), but this is implausible for several reasons. Already by that time, Takauji and Tadayoshi had come to blows, and Tadayoshi's supporters had killed Takauji's chief of staff. Likewise, Tadayoshi had already renounced the world, and a portrait of him in court robes would not resonate after he had become a monk. Finally, the third through seventh months of 1351 represent a temporary rapprochement between the Ashikaga, but at this time Takauji and Yoshiakira were actively plotting Tadayoshi's ouster and destruction, and so such visual symbols of unity would not have been favored at that time.

A more compelling chronology for the Yoshiakira portrait would be that it was drawn sometime between the eighth month of 1349 (Jōwa 5), when Yoshiakira was selected to serve as Takauji's heir, and the final rupture in the tenth month of 1350. Although Tadayoshi had initially been removed from governance, by 8.21.1349, he was able to once again exercise authority “as before.”Footnote ³ Symbolizing this cooperation between Tadayoshi and the new Ashikaga heir, Yoshiakira moved into Tadayoshi's old mansion on 10.22.1349.Footnote ⁴ Politically, then, the idea that Yoshiakira and Tadayoshi would rule together was conceivable from late in the eighth month of 1349 through at least 12.8.1349, when Tadayoshi renounced the world,Footnote ⁵ although the last possible moment for this cooperation would extend through 10.27.1350 (Kannō 1) when Tadayoshi fled the capital, and took up arms against Yoshiakira and Takauji.Footnote ⁶

To conclude, Kuroda's book represents both an end and a beginning. The debate about the identity the images depict should be over; the image thought to represent Yoritomo in fact is that of Ashikaga Tadayoshi, a figure worthy of being remembered in his own right, but further research is required regarding these portraits. Equally importantly, the Yonekura findings need to be disseminated more widely. In the English-speaking world, Jeffrey Mass used an accepted image of Yoritomo in his Yoritomo and the Founding of the First Bakufu (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), and I have long too used the portraits to describe the Ashikaga in my work, but common encyclopedias, popular histories, and of course Wikipedia still identify the image as being that of Yoritomo. In order to understand the debates regarding these images, Kuroda's work is invaluable. But if one were to read only a single book on this topic, then select Yonekura Michio's masterful Minamoto Yoritomo zō: Chinmoku no shōzōga, republished by Heibonsha in 2006, instead.