Color in Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’sArtistic Visions

It is impossible to prove that everyone’s subjective experiences of colors are identical, despite a basic agreement about the existence of material qualities that cause the optical sensations discursively described as “color.” In his writings, Akutagawa employs the topic of chromatic perception to explore and challenge conceptions of subjectivity and objectivity, proposing more intersubjective modes of sensing, knowing, and feeling that parallel the dynamics of aesthetic experiences as a whole. This essay first traces how, in the 1927 essay collection Literary, All Too Literary (Bungei-teki na, amari ni bungei-teki na), Akutagawa uses color as an analogy for “poetic spirit” ( shi-teki seishin ), which he names as the key element that endows texts with their literary value. Next, I analyze his 1919 stories, “Mandarins” (Mikan) and “Quagmire” (Numachi), in which the characters’ emotional and psychological dispositions are depicted through their reactions to specific colors.I then examine Akutagawa’s later works, in particular “Dreams” (Yume, 1927), inwhich the protagonist’s references to color reveal his doubts about his own cognitiveabilities. These stories demonstrate how Akutagawa’s attraction to colors and theirbeauty is underpinned by a sustained interest in how human interiorities sense andevaluate the external world.