岸田吟香
Ginko KISHIDA
今、岡山県立美術館で「岸田吟香・劉生・麗子展」が開催されています。岸田親子3代のなかで特に吟香に興味があり、寄り道をしてきました。1833年に現在の岡山・美咲町に生まれた吟香は実に多彩な人だったようです。日本初の本格的な辞書『和英語林集成』の編纂に携わったり、東京日日新聞の記者をしたり、日本初の液体目薬「精綺水（せいきすい）」の販売を手がけたりしました。展示品の中に吟香の直筆の手紙がありました。送った相手は林源十郎。ん？どこかで聞いたような名前だと思ったら、倉敷にあるお店でした。吟香が活躍した頃の倉敷唯一の薬屋だったと知ってびっくりです。今は、民藝作品やおしゃれな雑貨などが販売されている素敵なお店です。ちなみにお店の向かいにあるパン屋さんもお食事系のパンが好きな人にはおススメです。パン屋さんの2階にはカフェもありますよ。
An exhibition is held at Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art now. It is about the three generations of the KISHIDA family, Ginko, Ryusei and Reiko. I'm interested in Ginko especially, so I dropped by the museum to see the exhibition. He seems to have had different talents. He was born in Okayama prefecture and joined the compilation of the first Japanese-English dictionary, worked as a journalist and made a sale of the first liquid eye lotion in Japan. Of the displays about him, I found a letter written by Ginko. It was addressed to Genjuro HAYASHI. I wondered I had heard of this name before... It is the shop in Kurashiki! It is amazing to know that the shop was the only pharmacy in Kurashiki at that time. It is a nice shop dealing with folk art works and fine sundry goods at present. And across from the shop, there is a bakery. If you like bread for meals, you will like the bakery. You can also enjoy food at the café on the second floor there.
