A Light in The Darkness

The Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe will always be closely identified with his compatriot, the novelist Yukio Mishima. Collected in the 1963 book Ordeal by Roses , Hosoe's intimate portraits of Mishima—with their air of sadomasochism and homoeroticism—have become iconic, and sprang from an artistic interest the two men shared in the grand themes of beauty and decay, love and hatred, life and death. But while Mishima became obsessed with the latter (famously committing seppuku in 1970), Hosoe was able to tame his darker promptings and channel his creativity toward life-affirming ends. He found satisfaction in teaching—becoming a professor at the Tokyo Institute...

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