forbidden colours

This one is based on a novel - 'Forbidden Colours' by Yukio Mishima, a most celebrated Japanese writer.

The novel is set in post-second-world-war Tokyo.
Seeking revenge on the women who betrayed him, Shunsuke, an aging misogynist, enlists the help of Yuichi, a young homosexual, whose experiences in the gay underworld vividly depict the corruption of postwar Tokyo.

The painting is my portrayal of Yuichi, his long-suffering wife [and many rejected male lovers], and a number of women whose advances Yuichi thwarts.To me, Yuichi has much in common with Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray - from their eternal youth to their utter selfish single-minded pursuit of personal hedonism to the exclusion of everything else.

Mishima stood for values I personally strongly disapprove of. He eulogised an Imperialist and militant Japan, and was a strong critique of 'dilution' of the traditional Japanese culture. At the same time, some critics detect a nihilistic agenda in his work. He was nominated 3 times for Nobel Prize.
He committed ritualistic suicide - seppuku [not hara-kiri] - at the age of 45 in 1970 in public. His suicide was also sensational.
The act was to end in his ritual decapitation by another colleague -Morita. Morita, who was rumored to have been Mishima's lover, was unable to perform the decapitation properly, and after several failed attempts, allowed another colleague - Koga, to finish the job. After Mishima was decapitated, Morita also committed seppuku and was beheaded by Koga.