FAH 10/110: JAPANESE ART & THE WEST Instructor: Prof. Ikumi Kaminishi Office: Department of Art & Art History, 11 Talbot Ave., 3rd floor Contact: (617) 627-2424 or [email protected] Office hours: Tuesdays 3:00-5:00 pm or by appointment

FALL 2013

Classroom: Tisch 314

Time: Mon/Wed 3:00-4:15 pm

Description of the Course: The course examines the direct and indirect artistic exchange between Japan and the West (western Europe and America) from the sixteenth century to the present. The sixteenth century Japan is often referred to as Japan’s Christian-most Century, since Japan came into direct contacts with Christianity through western European missionaries in the early first half of the sixteenth century. Although the access and mobility of the Western traders (the Dutch, mostly) were limited in Japan, the volume of trades steadily increased throughout the period. Japanese artists not only tried to learn the Western methods of painting to intrigue their domestic clients, but also to satisfy the curious Western customers. Outburst of Japonisme movement in the nineteenth century Europe and America explains this. We will also look at how art functioned as cultural symbols for the nationalists’ rebellious responses against the artistic invasion from the West. Major artists include Hokusai, Degas, Kuroda Seiki, and van Gogh. Learning Objectives: • To familiarize with visual arts and cultures of Japan • To develop an ability to analyze, interpret, and write on visual works of art • To learn to contextualize cultural and historical significance of Japanese art • To develop critical thinking ability in response to scholarly literature. • To understand the issues of cultural exchange: Views on Orientalism and Occidentalism

Requirements and policies: • The completion of all assignments: exams, papers, and group project • Mandatory class attendance • Late papers will be downgraded by a third of a full grade each day. Distribution of Grading for FAH: 10 1. Mid-term examination (25%) 2. A short paper on film (4 pages) (15%) 3. Final examination (30%) 4. Group project: research paper and debate (4-5 pages) (30%) Distribution of Grading for FAH: 110 1. Mid-term examination (25%) 2. A short paper on film (4 pages) (15%) 3. Final examination (20%) 4. Group project: debate (30%) 5. Either a research paper or a response paper on Okakura’s Ideals of the East (8-10 pages for undergraduate; 12-15 pages for graduates) (10%) Books on TISCH Library Reserve N7354 .C45 2006 Conant, Ellen, ed. DS821)V36 1984 Varley, Paul. N6447.W5313 Wichmann, Siegfried NE1322 .M44 1986 Meech-Pekarik, Julia DS896.62)E34 1994 J. McClain, ed. N7353)4 .O3513 Okamoto, Yoshotomo N7352 .J362 2007 Seattle Art Museum N7429 .L36 2005 Lambourne, Lionel N6757 .C58 2001 Clark, John N6510 .M44 1990 Julia Meech N6447 .W5313 Wichmann, Siegfried NC1766.J3 N38 2007 Napier, Susan NX584)A1 R85 2008 Ruland, Patty J. NC1766.J3 A4 2005b Murakami, Takashi ND1055 .J36 2000 I. Schaarschmidt-Richter DS822)4 .B45 2000 Elise Tipton et. al. DS835 .O4 Okakura, Kakuzo N7350 .O4c Okakura, Kakuzo DS821)B31713 Barthes, Roland DS808 .C6 Cooper, Michael

Challenging Past and Present Japanese Culture Japonisme The World of the Meiji Print Edo & Paris Namban art of Japan Japan envisions the West Japonisme: cultural crossings Japanese exchanges in art Japonisme comes to America Japonisme: the Japanese influence From Impressionism to anime From painted scrolls to anime Little boy: the arts of Japan's exploding subculture Japanese modern art Being modern in Japan The Awakening of Japan The Ideals of the East Empire of Signs They came to Japan

Online database and academic sources 1. TRUNK: Some selected images from the lectures are posted periodically. 2. Oxford Art Online: Extensive Art History encyclopedia 3. ARTSTORE: Digital image library 4. Chicago Manual of Style Online: Use it when writing an academic paper 2

SCHEDULE (Subject to change) 1.

Azuchi-Momoyama Period: Japan’s First Contact with the West

9/4

Introduction to the course • Class attendance is mandatory • Read the assigned readings before class • [JSTOR]: Available online through Tisch Catalogue, Electronic Access • [PDF]: Available on the course Trunk: “Resources” folder, “Readings” • Lecture powerpoints will be posted on Trunk: “Resources” folder, “Powerpoints”

9/9

Topic: Read:

Japan’s Azuchi-Momoyama Period 1) Mason, Penelope. History of Japanese Art, Chapter 5. [Tisch Reserve] 2) Paul Varley, selected pages from Japanese Culture [PDF] 3) Michael Sullivan, “Introduction” and “Japan: The First Phase, 15501850” Meeting of Eastern and Western Art [PDF] Recommended further reading: Guth, Christine. Art of Edo Japan, 9-87

9/11, 16

Topic:

9/18

Topic: Read:

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Nanban-jin (“Southern barbarians”) 1) Hioki, Naoko. “Visual Bilingualism and Mission Art.” Japan Review. [JSTOR] 2) Curvelo, Alexandra. “The Disruptive Presence of the Namban-jin in Early Modern Japan,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. [JSTOR] 3) Narusawa, Katsushi. “Two Streams of Namban Painting,” Japan Envisions the West: 16th-19th century Japanese Art from Kobe City Mus. [PDF]

Orientalism and Occidentalism 1) Nishimura, Daisuke. “Said, Orientalism, and Japan.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics. [JSTOR] 2) Said, Edward. “Introduction,” Orientalism. [PDF] 3) Brown, Judith. “Courtiers and Christians” Renaissance Quarterly [JSTOR] 4) Carrier, James. “World Turned Upside-down,” American Ethnologist [JSTOR] Discussion in class: Orientalism and Occidentalism; what did European missionaries notice in Japan?; What did Christianity represent in Japan?

Watch film: Tampopo, Directed by Juzo Itami [View it before the class on Sept. 23]

3

2.

Edo Period: Tokugawa Regime’s Foreign Policies and Artistic Movements

9/23

Film discussion: Tampopo  Discussion topics: Tampopo and “Orientalism”: What kind of Western paintings and techniques do we find in Edo-period Japan?  Paper assignment on Tanpopo is due on Oct. 2.  Paper draft submission (optional but recommended) by Sept. 28 (email it to me)

9/23, 25

Topic: Read:

10/2

Tampopo paper due by 6:00pm on Oct. 2 (Electronic submission permitted)

Edo Period: Tokugawa policy on religions and Western technologies 1) Mason, Penelope. History of Japanese Art, Chapter 6 [Tisch Reserve} 2) Proust, Jacques. “The Theater of Faith, Civility, and Glory,” Europe through the Prism of Japan: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, tr. by Elizabeth Bell (Notre Dame, Indiana: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 2002): 83-112. [PDF] 3) McCall, John. “Early Jesuit Art in the Far East III: The Japanese Christian Painters.” Artibus Asiae (1947). [JSTOR] 43) Screech, Timon. “‘Pictures (The Most Part Bawdy)’: the AngloJapanese Painting Trade.” The Art Bulletin. [JSTOR] 5) Toby, Ronald. “Reopening the Question of Sakoku: Diplomacy in the Legitimation of the Tokugawa Bakufu.” Journal of Japanese Studies. [JSTOR]

9/30, 10/2 Topic: Read:

Ukiyo-e Woodblock prints 1) Sarah Thompson, “The World of Japanese Prints,” Philadelphia Mus. Of Bulletin. [JSTOR] 2) Screech, Timon. “The Meaning of Western Perspective in Edo Popular Culture." Archives of Asian Art. [JSTOR] 3) Little, Stephen. “The Lure of the West: European Elements in the Art of the Floating World.” Art Institute of Chicago Mus. Studies. [JSTOR] Suggested: Tsurumi, Shunsuke. “Edo Period in Contemporary Popular Culture” Modern Asian Studies. [JSTOR] Discussion: What is “ukiyo-e”? What aspects of Western artistic techniques did Japanese woodblock printers use?

10/7

Topic: Read:

Ukiyo-e and Japonisme in the West 1) Mayor, A Hyatt, and Yasuko Betchaku. “Hokusai.” The Met. Museum of Art Bulletin. [JSTOR] 2) Standen, Edith. “English Tapestries ‘after the Indian Manner’.” Metropolitan Mueusm Journal. [JSTOR] 3) Lehmann, Jean-Pierre. “Old and New Japonisme: The Tokugawa Legacy and Modern European Images of Japan.” Modern Asian Studies. [JSTOR] 4) Bush, Christopher. “The Other of the Other?: Cultural Studies, Theory, and the Location of the Modernist Signifier.” Comparative Literature Studie. [JSTOR] 4

10/9

Discussion: Chinoiserie and Japonisme movements; their influence on European arts. No lecture, but the group meetings in class

10/14

No class (Columbus Day)

3.

Meiji Period: Making the Image of Modern Monarch

10/15, 16 Topic: Tue. Read:

Meiji Period: Japan’s Official Opening to the West 1) Mason, Penelope. History of Japanese Art, Chapter 7. [Tisch Reserve] 2) Donald Keen, “The First Emperor of Modern Japan,” Births and Rebirths in Japanese Art, ed. by Nicole Rousmaniere (Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2001): 141-161. [PDF] 3) Watanabe, Toshio. “Josiah Conder’s Rokumaikan: Architecture and National Representation in Meiji Japan.” Art Journal. [JSTOR] 4) Kitazawa, Noriaki. “The Formation of the Concept of ‘Art’ and the Displacement of Realism.” Art in Translation. [PDF] Suggested: Meech, Julia. “Collecting Japanese Art in America” and Gabriel Weisberg, “Sowing Japonisme on American Soil,” Japonisme Comes to America [TISCH RESERVE]; also Julia Meech-Pekarik, The World of the Meiji Print [TISCH RESERVE]; MIT Visualizing Cultures online site Visualizing Japan, Yokohama Boomtown, and Throwing off Asia Topics of interest: How are the nineteenth-century Westerners different or similar to the sixteenth-century Westerners?; What did the Meiji Government do to modernize Japan?

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Review for the Mid-term exam on Oct. 16

10/21

MID-TERM EXAMINATION: (From 16th to the 19th century)

4.

Japanese Imperialism and art

10/23

Topic: Read:

Awakening of Japan 1) Okakura, Kakuzo. The Ideals of the East. [TISCH RESERVE] 2) Sand, Jordan. “Was Meiji Taste in Interiors ‘Orientalist?’” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique. [JSTOR] 3) Tseng, Alice. “Kuroda Seiki’s ‘Morning Toilette’ on Exhibition in Modern Kyoto.” The Art Bulletin. [JSTOR] Recommended: 1) Tanaka, Stephan. “Imaging History: Inscribing Belief in the Nation.” Journal of Asian Studies. [JSTOR] 2) Ellen Conant, Challenging Past and Present; also Conant, Nihonga Topics of interest: Who collected Japanese arts in America?; What do the distinctions of yōga and nihonga signify?

5

10/28

4.

DEBATE (group debates with group research paper)

Taisho Democracy and World Wars

10/30,11/4 Topic: Read:

Taisho Period: Japan in the early 20th century 1) Bryson, Norman. “Westernizing Bodies: Women, Art, and Power in Meiji Yōga.” Gender and Power in the Japanese Visual Field, eds. by Joshua Mostow, Norman Bryson, and Maribeth Graybill. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003: 89-118. [PDF] 2) Rosenfield, John. “Nihonga and Its Resistance to ‘the Scorching Drought of Modern Vulgarity’,” Births and Rebirths in Japanese Art, ed. by Nicole Rousmaniere (Leiden:Hotei Publishing, 2001): 163-197. [PDF] 3) Sapin, Julia. “Merchandising Art and Identity in Meiji Japan:…,” Journal of Design History. [JSTOR] 4) MIT Visualizing Cultures online: “Asia Rising, Yellow Promise/Yellow Peril” Recommended: Sullivan, 133-149 Topics of interest: How do art and advertisement relate to each other?

11/6, 13

Topic: Read:

Showa period: Japan in the WWII 1) Winther-Tamaki, Bert. “Embodiment/Disembodiment: Japanese Painting.” Monumenta Nipponica [JSTOR] 2) Napier, Susan. “World War II as Trauma, Momory and Fantasy in Japanese Animation.” Japan Focus. [JSTOR] 3) LaMarre, Thomas. “Born of Trauma: Akira and Capitalist Modes of Destruction.” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique [JSTOR] Watch animated film: Akira [View it before class on 3/26] Suggested: John Dower, War without mercy [Available on-line via ACLS History Ebook Project]; Ruland, Patty J. From painted scrolls to anime Topic of interest: How did the Japanese portray enemies? What do war and atomic bomb symbolize?

11/18, 20 Topic: Japan after the WWII Read: 1) Barthes, Roland. The Empire of Signs 2) Aso, Noriko. “Sumptuous Re-past: the 1964 Tokyo Olympics Arts Festival.” Position: East Asia Cultures Critique. [JSTOR] 3) Croissant, Doris. “Icons of Femininity” Gender and Power in the Japanese Visual Field, eds. by J. Mostow, Norman Bryson, and Maribeth Graybill. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003: 119-139. [PDF] 3) Thomas, Julia. “Photography, National Identity, and the ‘Cataract of Times’.” The American Historical Review [JSTOR] Topic of interest: How did the Japanese gain power after the defeat in WWII? How does semiotic reading work when studying cultures? 6

5.

[Those who wish me to look at a draft, turn it in by the end of the week.] Pop Art and Japan

11/25

Postmodern: Yasumasa Morimura and Mari Mori Read: 1) Kasahara, Michiko. “Morimura Yasumasa—Portrait (Futago).” Art in Translation. [PDF] 2) Tomii, Reiko. “Historicizing ‘Contemporary Art’…,” Position: East Asia Cultures Critique [JSTOR] 3) Wallis, Jonathan. “The Paradox of Mariko Mori’s Women in Post-Bubble Japan: Office Ladies, Schoolgirls, and Video-Vixens.” Woman’s Art Journal. [JSTOR] 4) Morimura, Yasumasa, Self-portrait as Art History [Tisch Reserve] Topic of interest: What does American pop mean in contemporary Japanese art?

12/2

Research paper due Topic: Superflat: Takashi Murakami Read: 1) McGray, Douglas. “Japan’s Gross National Cool,” Foreign Policy [JSTOR] 2) Darling, Michael. “Plumbing the Depths of Superflatness,” Art Journal [JSTOR] 3) Looser, Thomas. “Superflat and the Layers of Image and History in 1990s Japan.” Mechamedia [PDF] 4) Benzon, William. “Godzilla’s Children: Murakami Takes Manhattan.” Mechademia [PDF] Suggested: Murakami, Takashi, ed. Little Boy

12/4

Review

12/9

FINAL EXAMINATION

APPENDIX: Chronology of Japan 10,500-300 B.C.E. Jōmon Period 300 B.C.E.-300 C.E. Yayoi Period 300 - 710 C.E. Kofun Period 552 - 645 Asuka Period (Imperial capital in Asuka; Buddhist introduction) 645 - 794 Nara Period (Imperial capital in Nara) 794 - 1185 Heian Period (Imperial capital in Heian, present Kyoto) 1185 - 1333 Kamakura Period (Minamoto Shogunate in Kamakura) 1333 - 1573 Muromachi Period (Ashikaga Shogunate in Muromachi) 1573 - 1615 Azuchi-Momoyama Period (Warring-states) 1615 - 1868 Edo Period (Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo, present Tokyo) 1868 - 1912 Meiji Period (Emperor Meiji’s reign; capital from Kyoto to Tokyo) 1912 - 1926 Taishō Period 1926 - 1989 Shōwa Period 1989 - present Heisei Period 7