Shirakaba and Japanese Modernism: Art Magazines, Artistic Collectives, and the Early Avant-Garde by Erin Schoneveld

Abstract

Reviewed by: Shirakaba and Japanese Modernism: Art Magazines, Artistic Collectives, and the Early Avant-Garde by Erin Schoneveld Chinghsin Wu (bio) Shirakaba and Japanese Modernism: Art Magazines, Artistic Collectives, and the Early Avant-Garde. By Erin Schoneveld. Brill, 2019. x, 262 pages. €105.00, cloth; €105.00, E-book. Art history scholarship has increasingly emphasized the global and transnational dimensions of the development of modern art. A number of scholars in diverse regions have recently published books exploring how modern art discourse and practice emerged more or less simultaneously around the world, including in regions outside Europe and the United States, and have shown that these parallel developments had mutually reinforcing interactions with each other.1 In Japan, Western art has played a crucial role in stimulating new forms of expression and art innovation since the Meiji period, even as Japanese traditional and modern art has influenced other artists around the world. Whereas most of the recent research focuses on individual Japanese artists and art groups or the activities of Japanese collectors of Western art, Erin Schoneveld's book investigates the role of an influential art magazine, Shirakaba, published from 1910 to 1923. As Schoneveld demonstrates, Shirakaba played a crucial role in allowing Japanese artists of the Taisho period to gain insight into developments in modern art occurring overseas and integrate them into then-current discourses on modernism in Japan. Placing the magazine and its associated artistic collective (the Shirakaba-ha) at the center of her analysis, Schoneveld examines how these artists and critics approached and interpreted Western art, the underlying ideologies and theoretical stances they embraced, and their interactions with Western artists. Chapter 1 discusses Shirakaba in the context of the history of the industrialized printed magazine in modern Japan. Beginning with an overview of the broader history of magazines in Japan, including the development of print technology and the "magazine boom" in late Meiji Japan, Schoneveld productively surveys a variety of early art magazines and "coterie magazines" that paved the way for the emergence of Shirakaba. By examining the funding structures and distribution costs in the magazine industry, Schoneveld is able to offer a convincing explanation for why Shirakaba [End Page 239] was able to rise to the top and reach wider audiences by keeping costs low compared to its competitors. Shirakaba was formed by an artistic and literary collective of intellectuals working in diverse fields including literature, philosophy, music, and art. The author emphasizes the collaborative nature of the enterprise, as group leader Yanagi Sōetsu drew upon his personal network of writers, artists, and graphic designers to produce a colorful and attractive magazine. Full-color illustrations in Schoneveld's own book effectively convey the handsome and appealing materiality of Shirakaba, including its high-quality color and black-and-white reproductions of paintings and the diverse styles of its cover designs. Chapter 1 also introduces the ideology that the members of the Shirakaba group shared, which valorized the self and the individual. Schoneveld situates this emphasis on individualism within the broader sociopolitical context of late Meiji and early Taisho Japan, and argues that the apolitical approach of Shirakaba-ha was essential to creating a "sense of place" within the magazine where individual subjectivities could be formed. Chapter 2 examines how Shirakaba sought to put Japanese art and artists in conversation with European modernism. In particular, this chapter focuses on how Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin were introduced and discussed in Shirakaba. Schoneveld points out a somewhat unexpected phenomenon whereby the Shirakaba coterie seemed more interested in examining the lifestyles, personalities, and biographies of these artists than in analyzing or theorizing their artworks. For Schoneveld, this approach exemplifies the ideology of Shirakaba-ha, which emphasized individualism and seeking one's true self. This chapter also details correspondence between members of the Shirakaba coterie and various European artists, including Heinrich Vogeler and Auguste Rodin. It highlights the obsession of Shirakaba-ha members with Rodin and recounts the story of Rodin's gift of three small bronzes to the Shirakaba group, as well as the group's ultimately dashed hopes of holding a large exhibition of Rodin's works in Japan. Chapter 3 focuses on the...