Taisho Japan Research Articles

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

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...

TRANSFORMATION OF THE JAPANESE MEMORY POLITIC IN THE II HALF OF XX-XXI CENTURIES IN THE CONTEXTS OF PAN-ASIAN AMBITIONS

The article is devoted to the analyses of the role of Pan-Asianism in the formation of the Japanese policy of memory in the period after World War II. Since the Meiji period, Japan has had a dual relationship with Asia: on the one hand, as a region of high spirituality and culture, on the other, as a region lagging behind the West or Europe in terms of economic, political and technological development. In the 1950s, when Japan was experiencing a period of economic crisis caused by the defeat of the war, the occupation regime, and the formation of military memory, we see a trend of Japanese intellectuals classifying Japan as "Asia". If during World War I Pan-Asian ideology was used to correct imperial ideology and colonialism, modern Pan-Asian concepts tend to create a union of Southeast Asian countries for support and mutual development. The further development of these sentiments depends on the implementation of existing ASEAN projects and the specifics of the adopted political and economic strategies of the Asian Commonwealth.
 The articles provide the first comprehensive analysis of the constitutional documents, editions and speeches of Japanese politicians, which show the transformations of Japanese memory politic. The main terms of development of this policy, which consist in patient orientation and gradual formation of new Asianism, are separated. Discussions around Yasukuni-jinja and Japanese history textbooks as examples of these trends in Japanese politics are analyzed.
 Provided that Japan's pacifist position is enshrined in the constitution, there are conservative and nationalist views on the Japanese war in Asia. As part of Japan's policy of remembrance, Pan-Asianism fosters an ambivalent attitude toward Japanese expansion in Asia. Subject to Japan's official admission of guilt to neighbouring countries, condemnation of expansionism and colonialism, and the transition to pacifism, there are conservative and nationalist views on the Japanese war in Asia. Within the conservative position, Japanese guilt is questioned and the need to recognize the heroic participants in the war is proclaimed, the "Great East Asian War" is interpreted as a war of self-defence, or the correctness and truth of Pan-Asian ideals of Taisho and Showa Japan are recognized.

Shimizu Ikutarō and the Precarious Coexistence of Progressivism and Conservatism

Abstract Shimizu Ikutarō (1907–1988) is one of the most controversial postwar Japanese intellectuals. His transition from the icon of the Anpo protests to an advocate of a nuclear Japan has been considered an intellectual conversion (tenkō). Instead of revisiting the notion of conversion, this study shows that his wartime thoughts—bottom-up nationalism in particular—continued to influence Shimizu’s postwar writings and activism on both conservative and liberal sides. Shimizu delineated his historical concept of how ordinary people in Meiji and Taisho Japan had contributed to the development of a modern society and called for the construction of a new system. Endorsing Japan’s wartime efforts, Shimizu strove to center nationalist energies by ordinary Japanese on his concept of a new Japan. However, Shimizu’s adherence to bottom-up movements in wartime and postwar Japan reflects his problematic interpretation of Japanese history. Neglecting Japan’s nationalistic path to colonial violence, his writings on the society and culture of wartime and postwar Japan affirm grass-root nationalism as Japan’s key to modern development. This line of thinking was later associated with anti-American nationalist movements in the 1950s. His notion of civil society movements soon encountered a highly nationalistic project of a nuclear Japan in the 1970s.

Transnational Nazism: Ideology and Culture in German-Japanese Relations, 1919–1936 by Ricky W. Law

Reviewed by: Transnational Nazism: Ideology and Culture in German-Japanese Relations, 1919–1936 by Ricky W. Law Ken Ishida (bio) Transnational Nazism: Ideology and Culture in German-Japanese Relations, 1919–1936. By Ricky W. Law. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2019. xvi, 343 pages. $120.00, cloth; $28.99, paper; $24.00, E-book. Ricky Law's new book has two unique characteristics. First, the author assumes there existed civil societies in both Japan and Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. Second, he uses a symmetrical approach as a basis for comparison and contrast. Many scholars engaged in the history of cultural intercourse often analyze processes of negotiation or points of contact between two countries. However, this author focuses on the sociopolitical and intellectual milieu of each society. The book has two parts. Part 1 contains chapters 1 to 4 which are concerned with the narratives of Germany in Japanese newspapers, lectures and pamphlets, nonfiction, and language textbooks. In part 2, chapters 5 to 8 cover the public utterances of views on Japan in German newspapers, films, nonfiction, and voluntary associations. The two parts consist of 136 pages and 128 pages, respectively. The parallel analysis of the cultural tendencies in both countries highlights their differences. As the author considers transnational Nazism to be an ideological outlook, his stated objective is to write "an ideologically and culturally contextualized history" (p. 10) instead of describing short-term power politics or relying on generalized structural history. Hence, the book deals with the rhetoric and imagery which influenced the popular views in Taisho Japan and Weimar Germany. In connection with learning from Germany in the 1920s, "admiration for Nazi Germany without necessarily advocating the Nazification of Japan" (p. 128) took place in the 1930s. In addition, the author's cultural-historical perspective emphasizes the ideological background of the German-Japanese entente, which led to the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936. In order to situate specific events such as the Sino-Japanese conflict and the Nazi seizure of power within an intellectual milieu, Law tries to pay balanced attention to the reciprocal interest or indifference of both nations. Ironically, the book suggests that the influence was quite one-sided from Germany to Japan; however, its comparative analysis putting the two countries on equal footing brings into relief the asymmetrical trend of their foreign relations more clearly (pp. 17, 301). Since the book underlines public discourse in Japan and Germany rather than diplomatic negotiations or plain propaganda, its readers can find valuable peculiarities in each country, which have been ignored in previous [End Page 220] historiography. For example, the existence of personality cults in Japanese journalism is revealed in articles reporting even trivia related to the ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II, as well as Paul von Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler (p. 35). Moreover, the Japanese papers strongly opposed prosecution of the German emperor and still considered Hitler's putsch in 1923 as a monarchist plot (p. 40). Furthermore, almost every Japanese language textbook contains the phrase "Long Live the Kaiser" in German (p. 154). In contrast to the Japanese personality-driven style, the German press amplified common stereotypes of traditional Japan. The chapters suggest that despite the progress of technology, democracy, and internationalism during the Taisho and Weimar periods, narratives in the two countries did not change their basic positions but shifted in the 1920s from political and economic topics to social and cultural ones. During the Nazi period, the image of Japan as a powerful modern state distinct from the "Asiatics" supplanted the anthropological accounts of missionaries and travelers (p. 203). From the viewpoint of social history, Transnational Nazism is also informative and interesting. The development of communication tools such as the return to the regular operation of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1927, the arrival of the airship Graf Zeppelin in Japan in 1929, and a two-way radio broadcast in 1933 accelerated the cultural exchanges between Japan and Germany. Every chapter gives us helpful facts, such as how much such infrastructure cost, how deep the influence of the media was in both countries, and what kind of prejudices were revealed in their reciprocal public images (pp. 42–47, 57, 110, 199, 212–17). The book...

<i>Beyond Monogatari : Haruo Sato and the Sensibility of Taisho Japan</i> by Tatsuya Kono (Kanae-shobo, March 2019)

<i>Beyond Monogatari : Haruo Sato and the Sensibility of Taisho Japan</i> by Tatsuya Kono (Kanae-shobo, March 2019)

<i>Beyond Monogatari : Haruo Sato and the Sensibility of Taisho Japan</i> by Tatsuya Kono (Kanae-shobo, March 2019)

<i>Beyond Monogatari : Haruo Sato and the Sensibility of Taisho Japan</i> by Tatsuya Kono (Kanae-shobo, March 2019)

Between the Field and the Classroom:The Using and Making of Geoscientific Historia in Meiji‒Taisho Japan

Between the Field and the Classroom:The Using and Making of Geoscientific <i>Historia</i> in Meiji‒Taisho Japan

Grand Demons and Little Devils: Akutagawa’s Kirishitan mono as a Mirror of Modernity

Like many Japanese intellectuals, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke had a deep interest in European traditions, including Christianity. Scholars have often looked at Akutagawa’s representations of religion to shed light on the author’s personal beliefs; in this article I focus on the writer’s portrayal of the Kirishitan of the seventeenth century as a metaphor for the ideological and cultural transformations of modern Japan. Through a close reading of three short stories, I investigate the interplay of perceptions and representations of national past and foreign culture in Taisho Japan and the role that Akutagawa’s “rediscovery” of early Kirishitan culture played within this context.

Empire and Social Science: Shinmei Masamichi and the East Asian Community in Interwar Japan

In the early 1930s, a group of Japanese social scientists began producing theories of an East Asian community as a new order for Imperial Japan. Heavily influenced by the political climate of ‘Europe in crisis’ in the aftermath of the Great Depression as well as domestic situations that drove Japan to ultra-nationalism, these Japanese intellectuals grappled with the question of incorporating China and Japan’s colonies into a new multi-ethnic empire. This article pays special attention to Shinmei Masamichi, whose social scientific thinking was first nurtured under the progressive and liberal academic atmosphere of Taisho Japan, but came at the forefront of the rationalization of the Japanese empire in the 1930s and early 1940s. Rejecting both western democracy and the capitalist economy, Shinmei strove to theorize an empire based on anti-racism and multi-ethnicity. In doing so, he provided a strong ideological foundation for Japan’s wartime mobilization efforts in Asia. The intellectual trajectories of Shinmei’s social scientific thinking clearly show how the progressive and liberal social scientific tradition in prewar Japan resulted in an endorsement of imperialism and colonial violence during the wartime period.

The Victorian Counterarchive: Mikimoto Ryuzo, John Ruskin, and Affirmative Reading

The Victorian Counterarchive: Mikimoto Ryuzo, John Ruskin, and Affirmative Reading

Children as treasures: childhood and the middle class in early twentieth century Japan

Introduction: Childhood, the Middle Class, and Modern Japan Part I: The Emergence of a Late Meiji Middle Class 1. The Moral and the Material: The Family Reformer and the Promotion of a Middle Class 2. The Public Professional and the Middle Class: The Scientific Expert's Quest for Social Influence 3. The Wise Mother and the Little Citizen: Building a Middle Class Part II: Remaking the Middle Class in Taisho Japan: Education, Play, and New Visions of Childhood 4. The Self-Made Woman and the Superior Student: Transgressive Femininity, Educational Achievement, and Meritocratic Modernity 5. The Childlike Child: Play and the Importance of Leisure Epilogue Notes Works Cited Index

Claiming Personality: Reassessing the Dangers of the "New Woman" in Early Taisho Japan

In early twentieth-century Japan, educators, journalists, and government bureaucrats debated the proper roles for women in society. They approached this as a struggle between two competing moral ideals for women: the wife/wise and the woman. Proponents of the former condemned the latter as a threat to traditional gender norms. Yet new women—few in number andwith their publications closely regulated by government authorities—did not appear to present a threat commensurate with the attacks its critics launched. How should we assess the outcry against the dangerous new woman? I approach this question by analyzing the within the context of the broader moral discourse of the time. I show that the good wife/wise mother and the new woman positions were linked, respectively, to the national morality movement and the ethics of personalism. Moreover, as both the good wife/wise mother and the new woman were moral ideals grounded in ontological claims about women, I suggest that the woman problem be approached as both an ontological and a moral problem. Whoever controlled the ontological terrain so as to speak for what a woman is possessed the greater authority to legitimize a specific moral ideal for women, for how a woman ought to be. In short, the new woman movement was perceived as not merely because it questioned the good wife/wise mother ideal, but because it drew upon the subversive potential of personalism to destabilize the ontological foundation that grounded the good wife/wise mother ideal and, ultimately, ran counter to the state-sponsored national morality movement as well.

Taisho Japan's Modern Experiences and the Image of Ideal Women ―With focus on Shufu no tomo―

Taisho Japan's Modern Experiences and the Image of Ideal Women ―With focus on Shufu no tomo―

American Occultism and Japanese Buddhism: Albert J. Edmunds, D. T. Suzuki, and Translocative History.

Transnational exchanges shaped religious life in Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926) Japan and Gilded Age (1865-1900) and Progressive Era (1900-1917) America. This essay analyzes one case of cultural exchange in thisperiod. It focuses on Albert J. Edmunds, a British-American Buddhist sympathizer, and it considers the ways that Western occult traditions, especially Swedenborgianism, moved back and forth across the Pacific and shaped the work of D. T. Suzuki. The article offers three conclusions. First, for his influence on Suzuki and others in Japan-he sparked Suzuki's personal interest in Swedenborgianism, for example-Edmunds deserves to be recognized in scholarly narratives. Second, it is important to note the influence of Western occult traditions on Suzuki's work, especially between 1903 and 1924. Third, the essay considers the implications of this case study for writing translocative histories, and it suggests that historians reconsider the periodization and spatialization of their narratives as they also reaffirm the importance of scholarly collaboration.

Before anime : animation and the Pure Film Movement in pre-war Japan

This article looks at animation in conjunction with jun'eigageki undo , the Pure Film Movement, that challenged the popularity of mainstream commercial shinpa film and period drama film to advocate the birth of 'Japanese cinema' in Taisho Japan. This means a return to an historical moment when the cinema was being discursively constructed as an object of knowledge in Japan. At that time, animation was not defined as distinct from cinema in terms of social regulations or production concerns. As a result, animation was largely treated in the same way as cinema, and was shaped together with it under similar conditions. Animation, together with cinema, came under the scrutiny of public educators, censors and national ideologues - at the same time that film reformers were arguing for effective uses of camera and narrative in cinema. The point of intersection for these diverse concerns was the construction of a national cinema for international dissemination. Cinema in Japan emerged as national cinema, formed by specific discourses on 'Japan' and on 'cinema'. Animation in Japan was inseparable from this 'Japanese cinema'. Thus, by exploring animation in conjunction with the construction of cinema in Taisho Japan, this article examines what it means to talk about something like anime or 'Japanimation' in the present.

Women writers of Meiji and Taisho Japan: their lives, works and critical reception, 1868-1926

Women writers of Meiji and Taisho Japan: their lives, works and critical reception, 1868-1926

Tokyo life, New York dreams: urban Japanese visions of America, 1890-1924

This bicultural study focuses on Japanese immigrants in New York and the ideas they had about what they would find there. It considers Japanese immigration to the East Coast, where immigrants were of a different class and social background from the labourers who came to the West Coast and Hawaii. Beginning with a portrait of immigrants' lives in New York City, the study then examines the pre-immigration experience, using popular Japanese literature to trace the origins of immigrant perceptions of the USA. Along with discussions of economics and politics in Tokyo, the book explores the prevalent images, ideologies, social myths, and attitudes of late Meiji and early Taisho Japan. The narrative draws on guide books, magazines, success literature, and popular novels to illuminate the formation of ideas about work, class, gender relations, and freedom in American society. This study analyzes the Japanese construction of a mythic America, perceived as a homomgeneous and exotic other.

Osugi Sakae, Anarchist in Taisho Japan: The Creativity of the Ego

Osugi Sakae, Anarchist in Taisho Japan: The Creativity of the Ego

The Development of Metal Arc Welding in late Taisho Japan

The Development of Metal Arc Welding in late Taisho Japan

Osugi Sakae, Anarchist in Taisho Japan: The Creativity of the Ego

Osugi Sakae, Anarchist in Taisho Japan: The Creativity of the Ego