Inoue was born into a family of physicians in
Asahikawa, Hokkaido in 1907, and later raised in Yugashima,
Izu,
Shizuoka Prefecture. He was born in Hokkaido but is from Shizuoka Prefecture. In his essay "Hometown Izu", he wrote, "I was born in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, but in the yearbooks and directories, most of my birthplace is Shizuoka Prefecture. When I write it myself, I write it separately from Asahikawa as my place of birth and Shizuoka Prefecture as my birthplace...". In My History of Self-Formation, he wrote, "It seems safe to assume that Izu, where I spent my childhood, was my true hometown, and that everything that would form the basis of my person was created here." During his high school years, he was an active practitioner of
judo. He first studied law and literature at
Kyushu University and later changed to philosophy at
Kyoto University, where he graduated in 1936 with a degree in aesthetics and a thesis on
Paul Valéry. After winning the Chiba Kameo Prize for his early work
Ryūten, Inoue started working for the
Mainichi Shimbun. In 1937, he was drafted into the
Sino-Japanese War, but soon returned due to illness and resumed his occupation at the
Mainichi Shimbun. like the 1957
The Roof Tile of Tempyō and the 1959
Tun-huang (
Tonkō), and works with an autobiographical background like the 1975
Chronicle of My Mother (
Waga haha no ki), Inoue was elected a member of the
Japan Art Academy in 1964 and received the
Order of Culture in 1976. He died in Tokyo in 1991 at the age of 83. He had a deep knowledge of shrines, temples, and Japanese history, and served as a supervisor and editorial committee member at several publishing companies. ==Selected works==