Beyond Orientalism? Roland Barthes’ Imagistic Structures of Japan

Abstract

Ever since the opening of Japan’s ports to the West in the mid-nineteenth century, the artists and writers of France have been among the most enthusiastic to engage with the country’s rich cultural forms. The stylistic waves of japonisme expanded throughout Europe after the Impressionists’ creative experiments with eastern art, and since that time French cultural figures have continued to be attracted to Japan’s dynamic cultural heritage. Roland Barthes is no exception, and his specific interest in Japan unfolds in the text he devoted to the country, L’Empire des signes (1970). One engaging aspect of this book prefigures his 1980 text on photography, La Chambre Claire, as the author blends text with image (specifically photos) in the creation of a uniquely imagistic interpretation of things Japanese. From tea ceremonies to calligraphy, from sushi chefs to road signs, the iconography of the Japanese landscape is translated through Barthes’ eye to become in the end something perhaps much more Barthesian than Japanese. His book has thus been critiqued by some for its eccentric, even egocentric, western reading of this eastern land, while for others, his perspective successfully negotiates the pitfalls of a limited, Orientalist stance, offering an evocative and original semiotic analysis of Japanese sign systems.