‘The Artist’ is a very sensitive story written by a Japanese writer ‘Shiga Naoya. In this story the writer deals with the world of a talented Japanese boy, Seibie. The story shows how the adult world often causes damage to such talents.
According to the story, Seibei is a Japanese boy, who has a peculiar hobby to collect gourds. He generally goes market and buys a gourd. He brings it, first he makes a neat hole in the top of it and extracts the seeds. After that he applies tea-leaves to get rid of the unpleasant gourd-smell. He then takes wine and carefully polishes the surface.
Seibei is a twelve years old boy. He lives in a harbour town and read in a primary school. He does not like to play with the other children. He usually wanders about the town looking for gourds. In the evening he sits in the corner of his living room and works on his newly fruit for a long time. After that he ties a string round the middle of it and hangs it in the sun to dry.
One day he goes to school with a gourd and starts polishing it in the class while the teacher has been teaching. The teacher catches him red-handed and rebukes him for such Womanish work. The teacher complains to his mother. When his father comes and hears about the teacher’s complaint, he becames angry and beats his son, Seibei. Actually, Seibie’s father does not like his hobby of collecting gours. He wants that his son should study well. Then he smashes all his gourds that Seibei has polished with great cave. When he is forced to give up collecting gourds, he begins making pictures and becomes an artist. But, his father scolds him for painting the pictures.
Thus, the story-writer, throws light over the fact that parents and adult world ofen causes damage to young talents like a talented Japanese boy, Seibei.