DOI issue:
Obsah
DOI article:Čapková, Helena: The Japanese Cubist Body - mapping modern experience in the pre-WWII Japanese artistic network
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51716#0139
year, the abridged translation of the catalogue into
Japanese was published. A slightly different reac-
tion towards the re-entry of Cubism to Japan was
produced by a prolific advocate of Surrealism in
Japanese, Takiguchi Shüzö (1903 — 1979), who in-
terpreted the post-WWI Synthetic cubism negatively,
in Apollinaire’s männer as “fugue of Cubism”, and
this was all in 1938.
The significant impact of MOMA’s catalogue
could be, according to Omuka, rooted in the rising
importance of the American art scene for Japanese
artists who had chosen Paris as a place of training
and inspiration in the years before. In the thirties,
the situation changes and established artists become
active in America, such as Fujita Tsuguji (or Tsugu-
haru) (1886 — 1968) who held his first solo show
there in 1930.
Conclusion
From the 1910s the artistic expression coming
from abroad gained a new currency or image in
Japanese artists’ view. It began to be understood as
capturing life experience and the task of an artist
was to produce the individual visual interprétation of
this experience. Cubism appeared in Asia as part of
a broad category of Western art or Western painting.
Although Japan noticed and translated the key Cubist
texts immediately and Yorozu Tetsugorö produced
work with some Cubist elements already in the 1910s;
the response of other Asian countries was much
delayed.25 Upon examining Japanese perceptions of
avant-garde movements from abroad we can conclude
that the Japanese avant-garde movements’ network
was as an extension of an international activity and
not some kind of a derivative tendency. The lack of
prominence of Japanese artists within the main art
historical narrative may be interpreted as resuit of
imposed cultural différences rather than a fruit of
the mediocrity of the Japanese artists’ production.
According to Partha Mitter — the flexible language
of Cubism, with its broken surfaces, released a new
energy in artists in Asia that enable them to decon-
textualize and create a new modernist project.26
Acknowledgements
Hepburn/ English transcription (shi, yo, etc.) is
used to transcribe Japanese words. Japanese names
are noted in Japanese fashion, surname and name.
25 MASHADI, A.: Negotiating Modernities Encounters with
Cubism in Asian Art. In: Modern Art in Africa, Asia, and Gatin
America: An Introduction to GlobalModernisms. Eds. E. O’BRIAN
et al. Oxford 2012, p. 121.
26 MITTER, P: The Formalist Přelude. In: E. O’BRIAN 2012
(see in note 25), p. 146.
131
Japanese was published. A slightly different reac-
tion towards the re-entry of Cubism to Japan was
produced by a prolific advocate of Surrealism in
Japanese, Takiguchi Shüzö (1903 — 1979), who in-
terpreted the post-WWI Synthetic cubism negatively,
in Apollinaire’s männer as “fugue of Cubism”, and
this was all in 1938.
The significant impact of MOMA’s catalogue
could be, according to Omuka, rooted in the rising
importance of the American art scene for Japanese
artists who had chosen Paris as a place of training
and inspiration in the years before. In the thirties,
the situation changes and established artists become
active in America, such as Fujita Tsuguji (or Tsugu-
haru) (1886 — 1968) who held his first solo show
there in 1930.
Conclusion
From the 1910s the artistic expression coming
from abroad gained a new currency or image in
Japanese artists’ view. It began to be understood as
capturing life experience and the task of an artist
was to produce the individual visual interprétation of
this experience. Cubism appeared in Asia as part of
a broad category of Western art or Western painting.
Although Japan noticed and translated the key Cubist
texts immediately and Yorozu Tetsugorö produced
work with some Cubist elements already in the 1910s;
the response of other Asian countries was much
delayed.25 Upon examining Japanese perceptions of
avant-garde movements from abroad we can conclude
that the Japanese avant-garde movements’ network
was as an extension of an international activity and
not some kind of a derivative tendency. The lack of
prominence of Japanese artists within the main art
historical narrative may be interpreted as resuit of
imposed cultural différences rather than a fruit of
the mediocrity of the Japanese artists’ production.
According to Partha Mitter — the flexible language
of Cubism, with its broken surfaces, released a new
energy in artists in Asia that enable them to decon-
textualize and create a new modernist project.26
Acknowledgements
Hepburn/ English transcription (shi, yo, etc.) is
used to transcribe Japanese words. Japanese names
are noted in Japanese fashion, surname and name.
25 MASHADI, A.: Negotiating Modernities Encounters with
Cubism in Asian Art. In: Modern Art in Africa, Asia, and Gatin
America: An Introduction to GlobalModernisms. Eds. E. O’BRIAN
et al. Oxford 2012, p. 121.
26 MITTER, P: The Formalist Přelude. In: E. O’BRIAN 2012
(see in note 25), p. 146.
131