Transcending the Boundaries of the ‘isms’: Pursuing Modernity through the Machine in 1920s and 1930s Japanese Avant-Garde Art

Abstract

Japanese art critics and artists viewed the machine as an important element in the development of different 'isms' in the history of avant-garde art. This chapter first examines how the machine was discussed, portrayed, and elaborated across different artistic 'isms', and how the focus and emphasis of these conceptions changed over time to adjust to contemporary social or political exigencies. It explores how the machine provided a new format, new subject matter, or new theoretical lens for refining and redirecting preexisting concepts of art and artistic genres. The machine provides a 'healthy' and 'fresh' new model for art in modern society. Moving beyond how the machine was conceptualized within the discourses of art and literary theory, the remainder of the chapter examines how images of the machine and the mechanical were actually deployed within artworks produced in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s. Keywords: avant-garde art; Japanese art critics; literary theory; modern machine