Background
Yamashita was born in Asakusa, Tokyo.
山下 清
Yamashita was born in Asakusa, Tokyo.
He is famous for his wanderings throughout Japan, during which he wore only a vest, garnering the nickname "The Naked General". At the age of three, he suffered an acute abdominal disorder which, although not life-threatening, left him with a mild speech impediment and some neurological damage. At elementary school, Yamashita was the victim of bullying and on one occasion wounded a classmate with a knife.
His intelligence quotient was measured at 68.
lieutenant was here he started to experiment using torn pieces of paper to create pictures. His talent was recognised by mental health expert Ryuzaburo Shikiba, who organised an exhibition of Yamashita"s work in Osaka which received wide praise.
Tiring of life at the institution, and in order to avoid the mandatory physical examination for recruitment into the Imperial Japanese Army, Yamashita ran away in 1940 to start his wandering around Japan, which would last until 1954. At the age of 21, staff from the institution found him helping in a restaurant and forced him to take the recruitment examination
Eventually he was considered exempt from service.
The events from this time were recorded in his “Wandering Diary” of 1956, and the most popular image of Yamashita travelling alone through the country with his rucksack comes from this period. Yamashita died from a cerebral hemorrhage aged 49. His work is still highly regarded throughout Japan, and is the subject of frequent exhibitions.
His life was portrayed in a long-running Japanese television drama, Hadaka no Taishō Hōrōki (裸の大将放浪記, The Wandering Record of The Naked General), which ran from 1980 to 1997.