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DOI Artikel:Čapková, Helena: The Japanese Cubist Body - mapping modern experience in the pre-WWII Japanese artistic network
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51716#0134
to Cubism. For example, Marinetti’s manifesto was
first published and translated by Mori Ogai in the
May 1909 issue of Subaru journal.14
Rooted in European capital cities, such as Paris
and Berlin, Cubism embodied a new logic that
shattered centuries of artistic traditions. The Asian
encounter with Cubism has its spécifie narrative. In
the Japanese case Euroamarican art gained particu-
lar importance during the transition from the Meiji
(1868 - 1912) to the Taishô (1912 - 26) eras. The
exchange had its pioneers in Kuroda Seiki (1886
— 1924) and Kume Keiichirô (1866 — 1934) who
were active in 1890s Paris, and in the early 1900s, it
was Saitö Yori (1885 —1959) and Takamura Kotarö,
introducing Henry Matisse (1869 — 1954) and Paul
Gaugin (1858 — 1903). Saitö had a chance to visit
the Steins collections prior to his return to Japan in
1908. Takamura described the expérience of seeing
the Fauvists in 1908 as “residues of a bitter pleasure,
...”, translating Matisse’s “Notes of a painter” just
months after its appearance.15 Takamura was scep-
tical toward the response towards the new art by
“pigeonlike” Japanese artists. Other artists reported
on, for example, Futurist exhibitions in Paris and
London in 1912. Regardless of the vivid connections,
only a few European modem artworks appeared in
Japan until the 1920s where exhibitions were often
mounted from reproductions.
1910 was a moment of shift: it marked the more
substantial arrivai of modem art. This happened at
a time when Meiji institutions and government were
being questioned, shifting the state régime towards
democracy. The new forms of expression coming
from abroad offered a new territory for individual
self-expression to the large group of avant-garde
Japanese artists. Karatani Kôjin calls this the phe-
nomenon of Taishô discursive space which com-
bined cosmopolitan universalism with the seemingly
contradictory “emphasis on Japanese uniqueness”.16
Modernism in the Taishô period was effectively a
resuit of the cultural boomerang (coined by Kirk
Varnedoe for the quality of 19th Century ukiyo-e, that
2. Ishii Hakutei, "Lxiurencin ” sketch from the Independent exhibition
published in Asahi newspaper on 26"’ July 1911.
adopted European approaches) of Euroamerican
Japonisme returning to Japan. This phenomenon
is also labelled “reverse Japonisme”— foreign ideas
about Japanese art used in Japan for the création of a
new field of Contemporary art.17 These circumstances
paradoxically led Japanese artists to re-discover their
pre-modern arts, so much admired by the Europeans
involved in the Japonisme vogue. An example could
be Matisse in “Notes of a painter” where he talks
about adapting Japanese art, which later inspired
artists such as Kimura Shôhachi. Other modernist
artists reflected the converging tendencies, or the
meeting of Western and Eastern arts, or as the art-
ist and art critic Nakada Katsunosuke put it in 1913
“Western and Eastern are drawing together”.18
15 Ibidem, p. 35.
17 VOLK 2010 (see in note 1), p. 10.
16 KARATANI, K.: The Discursive Space of Modem Japan.
In: Japan in the World. Ed. H. D. HAROOTUNIAN. Durham
1993, pp. 301,304.
18 NAKADA, K.: Koukiinshousha no seishin. In: Waseda bun-
gaku, 88,1913, p. 73.
126
first published and translated by Mori Ogai in the
May 1909 issue of Subaru journal.14
Rooted in European capital cities, such as Paris
and Berlin, Cubism embodied a new logic that
shattered centuries of artistic traditions. The Asian
encounter with Cubism has its spécifie narrative. In
the Japanese case Euroamarican art gained particu-
lar importance during the transition from the Meiji
(1868 - 1912) to the Taishô (1912 - 26) eras. The
exchange had its pioneers in Kuroda Seiki (1886
— 1924) and Kume Keiichirô (1866 — 1934) who
were active in 1890s Paris, and in the early 1900s, it
was Saitö Yori (1885 —1959) and Takamura Kotarö,
introducing Henry Matisse (1869 — 1954) and Paul
Gaugin (1858 — 1903). Saitö had a chance to visit
the Steins collections prior to his return to Japan in
1908. Takamura described the expérience of seeing
the Fauvists in 1908 as “residues of a bitter pleasure,
...”, translating Matisse’s “Notes of a painter” just
months after its appearance.15 Takamura was scep-
tical toward the response towards the new art by
“pigeonlike” Japanese artists. Other artists reported
on, for example, Futurist exhibitions in Paris and
London in 1912. Regardless of the vivid connections,
only a few European modem artworks appeared in
Japan until the 1920s where exhibitions were often
mounted from reproductions.
1910 was a moment of shift: it marked the more
substantial arrivai of modem art. This happened at
a time when Meiji institutions and government were
being questioned, shifting the state régime towards
democracy. The new forms of expression coming
from abroad offered a new territory for individual
self-expression to the large group of avant-garde
Japanese artists. Karatani Kôjin calls this the phe-
nomenon of Taishô discursive space which com-
bined cosmopolitan universalism with the seemingly
contradictory “emphasis on Japanese uniqueness”.16
Modernism in the Taishô period was effectively a
resuit of the cultural boomerang (coined by Kirk
Varnedoe for the quality of 19th Century ukiyo-e, that
2. Ishii Hakutei, "Lxiurencin ” sketch from the Independent exhibition
published in Asahi newspaper on 26"’ July 1911.
adopted European approaches) of Euroamerican
Japonisme returning to Japan. This phenomenon
is also labelled “reverse Japonisme”— foreign ideas
about Japanese art used in Japan for the création of a
new field of Contemporary art.17 These circumstances
paradoxically led Japanese artists to re-discover their
pre-modern arts, so much admired by the Europeans
involved in the Japonisme vogue. An example could
be Matisse in “Notes of a painter” where he talks
about adapting Japanese art, which later inspired
artists such as Kimura Shôhachi. Other modernist
artists reflected the converging tendencies, or the
meeting of Western and Eastern arts, or as the art-
ist and art critic Nakada Katsunosuke put it in 1913
“Western and Eastern are drawing together”.18
15 Ibidem, p. 35.
17 VOLK 2010 (see in note 1), p. 10.
16 KARATANI, K.: The Discursive Space of Modem Japan.
In: Japan in the World. Ed. H. D. HAROOTUNIAN. Durham
1993, pp. 301,304.
18 NAKADA, K.: Koukiinshousha no seishin. In: Waseda bun-
gaku, 88,1913, p. 73.
126