Japanese History of Art

Photographic representations of the Meiji emperor began to circulate to select gov- ernment officials in 1873, but their sale in general commerce was banned in 1874. In sharp contrast, the government attempted to mandate the display of jingū taima, a Shintō amulet that bore the seal of the emperor, in every household from 1871 to 1878. This paper explores how the early photographs of the emperor and the amulets were distributed within the fluctuating context of the early Meiji years. By considering in tandem two objects that played pivotal roles in defining the public image of the little-known emperor, this article departs from previous studies in an attempt to articulate the roles of the distribution systems in construing images of the Meiji emperor.

This work analyzes the diffusion and appreciation of the Japanese dry garden, called karesansui, in the contemporary world.
Este trabajo analiza la difusión y apreciación del jardín seco japonés, llamado karesansui, en el mundo contemporáneo.

The Bokujinkai—or ‘People of the Ink’—was a group formed in Kyoto in 1952 by five calligraphers: Morita Shiryū, Inoue Yūichi, Eguchi Sōgen, Nakamura Bokushi, and Sekiya Yoshimichi. The avant-garde movement they launched aspired to raise calligraphy to the same level of international prominence as abstract painting. To this end, the Bokujinkai collaborated with artists from European Art Informel and American Abstract Expressionism, sharing exhibition spaces with them in New York, Paris, Tokyo, and beyond. The first English-language book to focus on the postwar history of Japanese calligraphy, Bokujinkai: Japanese Calligraphy and the Postwar Avant-Garde explains how the Bokujinkai rerouted the trajectory of global abstract art and attuned foreign audiences to calligraphic visualities and narratives.

https://brill.com/view/title/55005

The Bokujinkai—or ‘People of the Ink’—was a group formed in Kyoto in 1952 by five calligraphers: Morita Shiryū, Inoue Yūichi, Eguchi Sōgen, Nakamura Bokushi, and Sekiya Yoshimichi. The avant-garde movement they launched aspired to raise calligraphy to the same level of international prominence as abstract painting. To this end, the Bokujinkai collaborated with artists from European Art Informel and American Abstract Expressionism, sharing exhibition spaces with them in New York, Paris, Tokyo, and beyond. The first English-language book to focus on the postwar history of Japanese calligraphy, Bokujinkai: Japanese Calligraphy and the Postwar Avant-Garde explains how the Bokujinkai rerouted the trajectory of global abstract art and attuned foreign audiences to calligraphic visualities and narratives. https://brill.com/view/title/55005

In Japan, since the Edo period (1603-1868), the nihontō or Japanese swords, and their fittings, have occupied an important part within the Japanese art market. The great value that some of these pieces will achieve, will make their analysis also the study of the Japanese economy during each of the periods and eras of its history. The different payment systems that support the economy of the warrior classes will remain reflected in the appraisal values present in the origami or certificates of monetary appraisal and cataloging of pieces. We will use these data as indicators of the value of the Japanese sword to draw a map of Japan's economy during the Edo period, and see to what extent these objects have influenced the capital of the Japanese nation.

EDITOR
Cynthea J. Bogel (Kyushu University)
MANAGING EDITOR
Tomoyuki Kubo (Kyushu University)
CONSULTING EDITORS
Ellen Van Goethem (Kyushu University)
Ashton Lazarus (Kyushu University)

ESSAYS, REPORTS, REVIEWS:

DAVID WEISS
Slaying the Serpent: Comparative Mythological
Perspectives on Susanoo’s Dragon Fight . . . . . . . 1
TOSHIFUMI KAWAHIRA
Chinese Poetry in Hiragana: Kana-shi in Thought and
Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
YAN YANG
Yamato-e: Illuminating a Concept through Historiographical
Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
FABIO RAMBELLI
Dharma Devices, Non-Hermeneutical Libraries,
and Robot-Monks: Prayer Machines in Japanese
Buddhism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
SATOMI YAMAMOTO
Futanari, Between and Beyond: From Male Shamans
to Hermaphrodites in The Illustrated Scroll
of Illnesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
CHARI PRADEL
Illuminating the Sacred Presence of Hasedera’s Eleven-
Headed Avalokiteśvara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
D. MAX MOERMAN
Underground Buddhism: The Subterranean Landscape
of the Ise Shrines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Review
BOOK REVIEW BY JAMES ROBSON
Tansen Sen. India, China, and the World: A Connected
History. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. . . 129
Kyushu and Asia
LINDSEY E. DEWITT
Report on the 2017 Inscription of “Sacred Island of
Okinoshima and Associated Sites in the Munakata
Region” as a UNESCO World Heritage Site . . . . . 135

Visual and cultural analysis of Nihon no shiro 日本の城 (Japanese Castles, 1944), a book containing text by architectural historian Kishida Hideto and woodblock print illustrations by artist Hashimoto Okiie. The book is in the Pulverer Collection of Japanese illustrated books of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and is featured on The World of the Japanese Illustrated Book website. My commentary, along with a complete set of readable images of the book, may be found here: http://pulverer.si.edu/node/429/title/1.

This essay introduces a recently discovered painting depicting an episode from the Tale of Genji. The painting, which is now mounted as a hanging scroll, illustrates the “Sakaki” (“Sacred Tree”) chapter from the Tale. It was probably part of a larger set of images illustrating the Tale of Genji, of which six examples have been identified. Comparison with works by Iwasa Matabei (1578-1650), such as the “Funaki” Kyoto screens (rakuchū rakugai zu) and miscellaneous scenes from his “Kanaya” screens, demonstrates close stylistic affinities among these works, and sheds light on Matabei’s depictions of classical literary themes in a palette of brilliant pigments and gold. That the total of six Tale of Genji paintings by Matabei appear to borrow compositions from Genji images by painters of the Tosa school also has important implications for understanding Matabei’s painting career and training prior to ca. 1616, when he is thought to have left his home in Kyoto to embark on a career in Kitanoshō (Fukui). These early works by Matabei may further clarify the artist’s self-identification in 1640 as a late descendant of Tosa Mitsunobu (ca. 1434-ca. 1525).

With 'Appropriated Fascism', I encounter how the cultural discourse about the collective experience of being overcome by modernity took shape in a period that was characterized by financial devastation resulting from the Great Depression. Characterized by this overwhelming social, cultural and political issue, many nationalist organizations, utterly frustrated by the civilian government, were established and called to restore the emperor as the ultimate political authority. Socially divided with those who wished to modernize Japan, a large proportion of both groups found refuge in art, literature, philosophy or science. Beside modern media, the methods of exhibitions and War Campaign Record Paintings became key elements of shaping the public opinion during the rising conflict with China in the 1930s, when the military gained influence over the government. Without entirely abandoning modern science and technology, the nationalists supported a creative milieu which would subordinate oneself to the recreation of a premodern Japanese community free from the uncertainties of an alienated civil society.

God in het landschap - een zoektocht naar een horizon: Een semiotische analyse van het landschapsschilderij als religieuze heterotopie.

Met behulp van het begrip heterotopie, ontleend aan een tekst van Michel Foucault, analyseer ik het landschapschilderij als thema in de schilderkunst. Wat is een landschap en waarom werd het pas laat in de geschiedenis van de Westerse schilderkunst tot thema? Een vergelijking met andere tradities zoals Japan en China werpen nieuw licht op het landschap. De veronderstelde sacrale dimensie van het landschap is daar een soort van vanzelfsprekendheid. Vanuit de semiotiek en de filosofie duidt ik elementen uit het landschap zoals de horizon, de plek van de waarnemer, de kunstenaar zelf en het proces van perceptie. Vier schilders passeren de revue die allen op eigen wijze het landschap verbeelden: Anselm Kiefer, Armando,
Caspar David Friedrich en Kaii Higashiyama. Het feit dat wij de ervaren werkelijkheid betekenis geven via onze taal staat centraal en daarom citeer ik zoveel mogelijk de genoemde schilders. Een serie van gedichten vormt een eigen betekenisgeheel dat de tekst begeleidt.

Este artículo presenta y estudia un atril Nambán inédito del periodo Momoyama (final del siglo XVI) conservado en el Museo de la iglesia de Santa María de los Corporales de Daroca, proponiendo posibles donantes.

This article presentas and studies an unedited Namban lectern from the Momoyama period (end of the sixteenth century) kept at the Santa María de los Corporales Church Museum in Daroca (Zaragoza), proposing posible donors.

Adapted  Modernism' starts with the first non-Western compendium on Japanese art history 'Histoire de l’art du Japon', written by Kuki Ryūichi (1852-1931) and Okakura Kakuzō (1863-1913), first published for the 1900 Paris Exposition (the Japanese version Kōhon Nihon Teikoku bijutsu ryakushi was published 1901). With this first self description Japanese art history took control of this period when advocating for a ‘scientific’ approach to conduct research in the subject of aesthetics. With the inauguration of the first chair of aesthetics at University of Tokyo in the same year, the former traditional, vague concept of beauty was novated by the  objective methodology of aesthetics as a science.1 Including Neo-Kantian theory and the methodologies of history, Japanese intellectuals transformed aesthetic categories into an ethical system which stood as an alternative to Western types of morality. By adopting their own categories of cultural heritage to Western aesthetics, they not only changed the way that Japanese thinkers and readers thought of their own historical past, but also translated Japanese culture into an idiom that could be understood by an audience trained in Western hermeneutics.

Visual and cultural analysis of Shinshō Fuji  新頌富士 (1946), a book of poems on Mt. Fuji by Maeda Yugure that was designed and illustrated by artist Onchi Kōshirō. The book is part of the Pulverer Collection of Japanese Illustrated books of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, and is featured on The World of the Japanese Illustrated Book website. My commentary, along with a complete set of readable images of the book, may be found here: http://pulverer.si.edu/node/460/title/1

Visual and cultural analysis of Nihon no yūshū 日本の憂愁 (1955), a posthumous book featuring prints, poems and other texts by the artist Onchi Kōshirō. The book is part of the Pulverer Collection of Japanese illustrated books of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and is featured on The World of the Japanese Illustrated Book website. My commentary, along with a complete set of readable images of the book, may be found here: http://pulverer.si.edu/node/461/title/1.

Visual and cultural analysis of Nihon no sansui 日本の山水(1946), a book pairing pictures and poetry by diverse artists and poets on the theme of the Japanese landscape. This book is one of two copies of the title in the Pulverer Collection of Japanese illustrated books of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and is featured on The World of the Japanese Illustrated Book website. My commentary, along with a complete set of readable images of the book,  may be found here: http://pulverer.si.edu/node/456/title/1.

El objetivo de este artículo es valorar el carácter de las exposiciones artísticas como modo desta-cado de relación internacional entre gentes de distintos países. Centrarnos en realizar un análisis de la participación japonesa en las últimas cinco Bienales de Arte de Venecia nos ayudará, a través de sus planteamientos, a hilvanar un discurso que tiene mucho que ver con el ejercicio del soft power, de ahí el interés en profundizar en los planteamientos teóricos de cada una de ellas. A través del análisis, se demuestra una actitud proactiva de Japón para promover a nivel global y por medio de su experiencia, una corresponsabilidad en el repensar nuestra actitud soberbia frente a la naturaleza. El arte tiene mucho que decir en el mundo de la diplomacia.

At the beginning of the 1920s, a pervasive culture of fascism developed in Japan, which manifested itself in aesthetics and in a number of philosophical and literary works. It was linked to the growing sense of crisis that dominated the atmosphere of the time. This was accompanied by the massive urbanization that followed the transition to an industrial capitalist mode of production of Taishō liberal democracy and capitalist internationalism. In times of economic weakness, the persistence and violence of right-wing groups was able to weaken and eventually overturn the prevailing atmosphere of liberal society.
The overcoming of modernism was necessary, following the European model, to make room for a new cultural order. Japan joined the German, Italian, Spanish and other national mindsets and participated in the worldwide exchange of modernist and fascist ideas. As part of the international discourse and studies in Germany, Japanese intellectuals provided the linguistic support to stack the case for the uniqueness of the Japanese state system.
In fascism, politics was "pressed into the production of ritual values" that promoted a cultural, aesthetic experience. Aesthetic considerations were indeed central to fascism's identity, self-definition, and sense of purpose. The Mingei movement, which regularly admired the German model, such as the "Beauty of Work" project, contributed significantly to the creation of the "Research Institute of Industrial Art".  Which aim it was to promote the preservation and export of traditional local crafts and to industrialize the impoverished areas of northeastern Japan.
However, the Mingei aesthetic should not only shape the products of daily life, but also the way people spend their time. The "culture of daily life" was to be reformed. Influenced by European models such as the German KdF "Kraft durch Freude" (Strength through Joy) and the Italian OND "Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro," the effort to rationalize leisure time in factories according to established, Western models was discussed.  Foremost was the emphasis on the beauty of an everyday culture that, while authentically indigenous and not Western, was as regulated and productive as modern industrial work.
The text explains the methods, institutions and protagonists involved in creating a new culture of daily life in Japan, which, while not wanting to be Western and modern in its controlled productivity, used Western models to define a new valid value of beauty in Japan.

ファシズムの手段としての日本とドイツ,の美学。伝統と美の演出による国民統合
1920年代初頭、日本ではファシズムの文化が蔓延し、美学や多くの哲学・文学作品にその姿を現した。それは、当時の空気を支配していた危機感の高まりと結びついていた。これは、大正自由民主主義、資本主義国際主義の産業資本主義的生産様式への移行に伴う大規模な都市化に伴うものであった。 経済が弱体化した時代には、右翼団体の執念と暴力が、自由主義社会の風潮を弱め、ついには覆すことができたのである。
ヨーロッパにならって、新しい文化秩序をつくるために、モダニズムの克服が必要だった。日本はドイツ、イタリア、スペインなどの国家的な考え方に加わり、モダニズムやファシズムの思想の世界的な交流に参加した。ドイツでの国際的な言説や研究の一環として、日本の知識人は、日本の国家システムの独自性を主張するための言語的な裏付けを提供したのである。
ファシズムにおいて、政治は、文化的で美的な経験を促進する「儀式的価値の生産に押し込 まれていた」のである。美的な配慮は、ファシズムのアイデンティティ、自己定義、目的意識にとって、実に中心的なものであった。 仕事の美」プロジェクトなど、日頃からドイツに憧れていた民藝運動は、「産業美術研究所」の創設に大きく貢献した。  その目的は、伝統工芸の保存と輸出、そして東北地方の貧しい地域の工業化でした。
しかし、民藝の美学は、生活用品だけでなく、人々の時間の使い方も含めて形成されるべきものであった。生活文化」の改革が必要だったのだ。ドイツのKdF「Kraft durch Freude」（喜びによる力）やイタリアのOND「Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro」などヨーロッパのモデルに影響を受け、工場での余暇を欧米の既成のモデルに従って合理化する取り組みが論じられた。 その最たるものは、西洋的でなく正真正銘の土着文化でありながら、現代の工業労働と同じように規則的で生産的な日常文化の美しさを強調したことである。
このテキストでは、日本における新しい日常生活文化の創造に関わった方法、制度、主人公たちについて説明しています。この文化は、管理された生産性の中で西洋的・近代的であることを望まなかったものの、西洋のモデルを用いて、日本における美の新しい有効価値を定義したのです。

Fue mi primer artículo sobre la imagen de la mujer en Japón a lo largo de la historia del arte. Plantea un recorrido en torno a su aspecto, la moda y la consideración social.
It was my first article on the image of women in Japan throughout the history of art. It presents a journey around her appearance, fashion and social consideration.

Este estudo pretende investigar uma nova relação criada por meio do deslocamento, da apropriação e da hibridação decorrentes da circulação das obras de arte e da técnica da perspectiva ocidentais no Japão na Era Edo (1600-1868), por meio de algumas obras de Okumura Masanobu e Katsushika Hokusai . A técnica ocidental, ao se deslocar para o Japão e associar-se com distintos contextos históricos, sociais e culturais, tornou-se agente de criação de novos signos. É esta outra faceta da biografia da perspectiva que o texto pretende abarcar.

17. Deutschsprachigen Japanologentag, 29. - 31.8.2018, FU Berlin

Die Beziehung zwischen dem Kopieren von japanischen und chinesischen Malereien früherer Zeiten mit der historischen Aufarbeitung der eigenen Schul- und Stilgeschichte durch japanische Maler des späten neunzehnten Jahrhunderts hat bisher sehr wenig wissenschaftliche Aufmerksamkeit erfahren. In diesem Vortrag wird die Rolle des Kopierens im Schaffen des Malers Kawabata Gyokushō (1842-1913) auf seine Bedeutung für die Modernisierung und Präsenz der von Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-1795) im 18. Jahrhundert gegründeten Maruyama Schule in der Meiji-Zeit untersucht.
Gyokushō nutzte die Möglichkeiten, welche ihm durch die Patronage der Familie Mitsui offenstanden. Hierbei ging er in seinen Studienbestrebungen weiter als seine stilistischen Urgroßvater Ōkyo und eignete sich v.a. durch die Praxis des Kopierens zahlreiche japanische und chinesische Stile an. Er verwendete in seinen zahlreichen Experimenten zahlreiche in Malerkreisen bekannte Vorlagen um mit seltener technischer Versiertheit und Kreativität Hybridwerke zu schaffen. Er vermochte vor allem in Landschaftsmalereien westliche, chinesische und japanische Bildwelten geschickt miteinander zu verweben um damit die japanische Malerei ins zwanzigste Jahrhundert zu führen. Mit offensichtlichen stilistischen und ikonographische Zitate entwickelte er so einen individuellen Werkkorpus, welcher erfolgreich sino-japanische Malereikonventionen mit moderner Bildsprache verbindet.
Dieser Vortrag hinterfragt nicht nur die Zuordnung von Gyokushō zum angeblich rückwärtsgewandten Lager der zeitgenössischen Malergemeinschaft durch seine Mitgliedschaft in der Japanischen Kunst Gesellschaft (Nihon Bijutsu Kyōkai), sondern benennt die Kopierpraxis als sein unabdingbares Werkzeug zur einer studienbasierten, schrittweisen Modernisierung der japanischen Malerei.

En  el  presente  artículo  se  trata  el  impacto  de  Hokusai  en  España  a  través  de  las  publicaciones  periódicas  en  el  último  tercio  del  siglo  XIX  y  primeras  décadas  del  siglo  XX  coincidiendo  con los periodos japoneses Meiji (1868-1912) y Taishō (1912-1926), época en la que el arte japonés y el fenómeno del japonismo se encontraban en pleno auge. El impacto de Hokusai en nuestro país a través de las publicaciones periódicas no fue tan importante como el que se produjo en otras naciones occidentales que tuvieron en esta época vínculos más estrechos con Japón y donde el coleccionismo de arte japonés (en especial de grabados ukiyo-e) fue más notorio. No obstante, tanto en revistas ilustradas como en buena parte de los periódicos nacionales y locales españoles se hicieron eco de la importancia de este destacado artista japonés proporcionando noticias sobre su vida y su obra, además de brindar informaciones sobre su influencia en otros artistas y sobre el coleccionismo de sus obras. De esta forma el conocimiento tanto de Hokusai como de su obra gozó de una notable difusión alcanzando todos los estratos de la sociedad y presentando un gran calado.
This article analyzes the impact of Hokusai in Spain as reflected in periodic publications du-ring the last third of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century which coinci-ded with the Meiji (1868-1912) and Taishō (1912-1926) periods in Japan. It was the heyday of Japanese art and the phenomenon of japonism. The impact of Hokusai in Spain as seen in these periodic publications was not as major as that witnessed in other western nations which had closer ties with Japan and where the collection of Japanese art (especially of ukiyo-e prints) was more important. Nevertheless, the importance of Hokusai as a prominent Japanese artist was in fact echoed in illustrated magazines, and in a great part of national and local newspapers of Spain. These published news regarding his life and his work, in addition to offering information about his influence on other artists as well as reporting the collecting of his works. In this way the knowledge of both Hokusai and his work enjoyed a remarkable diffusion reaching all strata of Spanish society indicating the amplitude of his influence.Keywords

With the recent exceptions of Hayakawa Monta and Akiko Yano, scholars have avoided discussing the depiction of children in shunga, sexually-explicit art created in Edo Japan (1603-1868). The presence of children in shunga may cause offence and therefore such images may be omitted from books and exhibitions. I will argue that this is unnecessary as children in shunga are presented as innocent and the adults are often their parents. Furthermore, I will show how their innocence is used as a humorous counterpoint to their parents’ adult activities and how their unwanted presence brings a touch of realism to a genre that depicts fantasies.

I will contrast the innocence of children in shunga with the sexualisation of children in Utamaro’s mother and child prints. Utamaro subverts the conventions of mother and child art by eroticising the relationship, particularly in his prints of the folklore figures Yamauba and Kintaro. I will suggest that he used images of breastfeeding to bridge the two different types of depiction of children – as innocent and as sexualised.