Since Meiji : perspectives on the Japanese visual arts, 1868-2000

530 Pages·2011·7.309 MB·English, Japanese

by  McCallum, Toshiko Miyabayashi, Rimer, J. Thomas

(cid:2)(cid:3)(cid:4)(cid:5)(cid:6)(cid:7)(cid:8)(cid:6)(cid:3)(cid:9)(cid:3)
Perspectives on the
Japanese Visual Arts,
1868–2000
.
EDITED BY J THOMAS RIMER
Since Meiji

Since Meiji
Perspectives on the Japanese Visual Arts,
1868–2000
edited by
J. Thomas Rimer
translations by
Toshiko McCallum
University of Hawai‘i Press
Honolulu
© 2012 University of Hawai‘i Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
17 16 15 14 13 12 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Since Meiji : perspectives on the Japanese visual arts, 1868–2000 / edited by
J. Thomas Rimer ; translations by Toshiko McCallum.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-8248-3441-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8248-3582-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Art, Japanese—1868– I. Rimer, J. Thomas. II. McCallum, Toshiko M.
(Toshiko Miyabayashi).
N7354.5.S56 2011
709.52’0903—dc23
2011026061
Publication of the volume was supported by a grant from the Kajima Foundation.
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free
paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Council on Library Resources.
Designed by Mardee Melton
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc.
For Alexandra Munroe
Who continues to do so much to allow the greater
public to experience modern Japanese art

Contents
Preface ................................................. ix
Introduction
J. Thomas Rimer ..................................... 1
I. Painting and the Allied Arts: From Meiji to the Present
1. Western-Style Painting: Four Stages of Acceptance
Emiko Yamanashi ....................................... 19
2. Japanese Painting from Edo to Meiji: Rhetoric and Reality
Ellen P. Conant ......................................... 34
3. The Expanding Arts of the Interwar Period
Gennifer Weisenfeld ..................................... 66
4. Sensō Sakusen Kirokuga: Seeing Japan’s War Documentary
Painting as a Public Monument
Mayu Tsuruya .......................................... 99
5. From Resplendent Signs to Heavy Hands: Japanese Painting
in War and Defeat, 1937–1952
Bert Winther-Tamaki ................................... 124
6. How Gendai Bijutsu Stole the “Museum”: An Institutional
Observation of the Vanguard 1960s
Reiko Tomii ........................................... 144
7. Fashion Altars, Performance Factors, and Pop Cells:
Transforming Contemporary Japanese Art, One Body
at a Time
Eric C. Shiner .......................................... 168
viii | Contents
II. Japanese Art of the Period in Its Cultural Context
8. The Creation of the Vocabulary of Aesthetics in Meiji Japan
Michael F. Marra ....................................... 193
9. Okakura Tenshin and Aesthetic Nationalism
John Clark ............................................ 212
10. Japanese Art Criticism: The First Fifty Years
Mikiko Hirayama ...................................... 257
III. Individual Forms of Expression
11. Sculpture
Shūji Tanaka .......................................... 283
12. Can Architecture Be Both Modern and “Japanese”?
The Expression of Japanese Cultural Identity through
Architectural Practice from 1850 to the Present
Jonathan M. Reynolds .................................. 315
13. The Modern Japanese Garden
Toshio Watanabe ....................................... 340
14. Japanese Prints 1868–2008
Lawrence Smith ........................................ 361
15. Aspects of Twentieth-Century Crafts: The New Craft
and Mingei Movements
Chiaki Ajioka .......................................... 408
16. Japanese Calligraphy since 1868
Stephen Addiss ......................................... 445
17. Adoption, Adaptation, and Innovation: The Cultural and
Aesthetic Transformations of Fashion in Modern Japan
Audrey Yoshiko Seo ..................................... 471
Contributors ........................................... 497
Index ................................................. 501
Plates follow pages 150, 326, and 470
Preface
This volume was first planned to serve as the third volume in a projected series of three on
the history of Japanese art, under the general editorship of Professor Samuel Morse, with
the assistance of Quitman Phillips and myself. It is the first to be published.
The subject of Japanese art and its shifting parameters after the beginning of the Meiji
period is an extremely complex one, and the subject can be approached from a number
of angles. In the end, seventeen authors, from both the scholarly and the museum fields,
enthusiastically agreed to make their own contributions to this volume, and the narra-
tive they present can in many ways be regarded as a mirror in which so much of Japanese
cultural, social, and even political history of the period can find reflection. Many other
points of view could theoretically be incorporated as well, and it is with regret that given
the length of the present volume, it was not possible to include the contributions originally
planned for Brenda Jordan on Kawanabe Kyōsai and his Western enthusiasts, or Ryûichi
Kaneko’s essay on the development of Japanese photography. Fortunately both of these
scholars have written eloquently on these subjects elsewhere.
It is a pleasure for me to thank so many friends and colleagues for the many efforts
they have undertaken to help bring this book about. First of all, I owe a special debt of
thanks to Mrs. Toshiko McCallum, whose translations and considerable editorial assis-
tance have done so much to make this book a reality. Ms. Maggie Assad provided expert
editorial skills in preparing the manuscript. I would like to thank as well Professors Ken-
dall Brown, Kathy Harper, and Donald McCallum for a number of cogent and thoughtful
suggestions and insights that have materially improved the manuscript.
In addition to the generous assistance from the Kajima Foundation, there have been
a number of sources helping to provide funds toward this publication. The Clark Center
for Japanese Art in Hanford, California, contributed funds to underwrite the translations
of articles originally written in Japanese, and the Paul I. and Hisako Terasaki Center for
Japanese Studies at UCLA contributed funds toward the editing of the individual essays.
Finally, I want to offer special thanks for the efforts made by our editor at the Univer-
sity of Hawai‘i Press, Patricia Crosby, who has been unstinting both in her enthusiasm and
her efforts to see this complex project through. Drew Bryan, our scrupulous copy editor,
Susan Stone, who prepared the index, Lori Paximadis, who corrected the proofs, and Cheri
Dunn and other members of the staff of the University of Hawai‘i Press have also been also
extremely helpful.