Abstract
Buddhist art became the focus of discussion when Japanese scholars began to construct Korean art history as an academic discipline. This paper presents a case study of how a particular Buddhist site, Mount Nam in Kyŏngju, was recognized, researched, and represented during the colonial period (1910–1945). By analyzing representative Japanese publications on the subject, I argue that there existed disconnection between the colonial government and the site-researchers. I re-evaluate the conventional narrative that the colonizers regarded Buddhist statues as “art” removed from their original religious setting. This paper reveals a more layered picture of the early years of historical discourse on the so-called Buddha Mountain and Buddhist sculptures of Korea.
Highlights
How a Silla king’s tomb was approached by a Tokyo Universitytrained archaeologist in the 1910s was radically different from how a Buddha statue was represented by a Kyŏngju-based Japanese emigrant in the 1930s despite the commonality that they were colonizers researching Silla heritage following the Government-General’s command
I will discuss how they differed and how they contributed to the changing image of Mount Nam over a decade during the colonial period
Through a preliminary observation of the colonial-period discussion on Mount Nam, one can see a facet of the Japanese approach to Silla history, the ruins of Kyŏngju, and Buddhist monuments
Summary
Recent scholarship on Japan’s colonial cultural policy elucidates the overall process by focusing primarily on the colonizer’s view and intention This included instilling the Korean audience with an inferiority complex; positioning Japan as the legitimate caretaker of ancient monuments hitherto abandoned; situating Japan as a gateway to modernity; promoting tourism using images of the exotic past; and forcefully unifying two countries into one based on cultural assimilation. How a Silla king’s tomb was approached by a Tokyo Universitytrained archaeologist in the 1910s was radically different from how a Buddha statue was represented by a Kyŏngju-based Japanese emigrant in the 1930s despite the commonality that they were colonizers researching Silla heritage following the Government-General’s command.. Owing a great debt to the previous literature in the field, I attempt to tease out some of the distinct discourse and images regarding this peculiar mountain.
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