In their ambition to capture “real life,” Japanese painters, poets, novelists and photographers of the nineteenth century collaborated in ways seldom explored by their European contemporaries. This course offers learners the chance to encounter and appreciate behavior, moral standards and some of the material conditions surrounding Japanese artists in the nineteenth century, in order to renew our assumptions about what artistic “realism” is and what it meant. Learners will walk away with a clear understanding of how society and the individual were conceived of and represented in early modern Japan. Unlike contemporary western art forms, which acknowledge their common debt as “sister arts” but remain divided by genre and discourse, Japanese visual and literary culture tended to combine, producing literary texts inspired by visual images, and visual images which would then be inscribed with poems and prose. Noticing and being able to interpret this indivisibility of visual/literary cultures is essential in understanding the social and psychological values embedded within the beauty of Japanese art.
3-5 Inscribed Photographs I
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来自 The University of Tokyo 的课程
Words Spun Out of Images: Visual and Literary Culture in Nineteenth Century Japan
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The University of Tokyo
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从本节课中
The Literary Photograph I
What methods did early modern Japanese artists and writers have at hand to “capture the moment,” and how did these methods influence the introduction and adaption of western photography in the mid-nineteenth century? In this module we will see how photographic modes of representation were assimilated into the literary tradition of portraiture, which was covered in modules 1 and 2.
与讲师见面
Robert CampbellEmeritus Professor, The University of Tokyo
Director-General, National Institute of Japanese Literature
We've already seen this image,
this photograph that I've put up right here,
in our earlier module.
It's the photographic portrait of President James Buchanan's niece, Harriet Lane.
A black and white photograph,
a sort of carte de visite,
or a calling card,
that she presented to one of the young samurai who had visited on
the official emissary from the Tokugawa bakufu in 1860,
as we noted in our earlier module,
The young man, Morita Okatarō,
took this photograph home, this very,
very important, rare, memento of his trip,
and cut out a piece of paper on top of it.
And on top of that piece of paper,
wrote out a Chinese quatrain,
just as we've seen so often,
in the other texts themselves.
In other words, he's sort of localizing it.
He's bringing this foreign woman,
but also this foreign technology of a photograph,
closer to home, and turning into something which is legible.
And something to which he can,
in his own words,
in the discourse that he is able to use himself,
address and write on and contribute to and perhaps,
we might say, complete as a work, a so-called work of art.
Just to review what's actually written,
on- above the photograph.
We can look at my translation here: "An American Beauty:
they call her Lane."
Lane is a transcription of two characters for cool and voluptuous.
"Her arms are draped with jewels,
pearls pierce her ears.
Complexion fresh, no need for any rouge.
Skin white as the snow
is exposed on both of her shoulders."
There's a sort of similarity, isn't there?
Between the painting from the early 19th century of an event: lots and lots
of people being portrayed at a painting gallery.
The way that it was textualized or contextualized, given a context,
a description in words,
and the way that Morita Okatarō, the young samurai,
writes on top of the photograph here of Harriet Lane—his poem which he dedicates to her,
to her image, is not something that's lyrical, imaginative at all.
He's actually describing, quite literally,
what's going on in the photograph.
This is an interesting aspect,
an interesting connection I believe.
The early photographs that we see in Japan in the 1850s, 1860s especially,
which have these inscriptions on them or on the back of them as we'll see next,
often rather carefully, we could almost say slavishly,
describe what's going on in the illustration itself.
In other words: to to complete it,
to contextualize it, and so forth.
He tells us what her name is,
for example, within the poem itself.
We'll take a look next at what's going on in Japan itself.
Photography in the 1860s,
before the Meiji Restoration after the opening up to the West,
we have lots of photographers coming who had already begun to work as photographers,
commercial photographers, in Singapore, Shanghai,
and other places around the Pacific Rim, came to Japan,
to Yokohama or Nagasaki,
then to Kobe as well
and set up studios to take photographs of local Japanese people or scenes,
old temples and shrines and so forth,
to sell to tourists or merchant people who had come to Japan already.
This is something that's occurring in the 1850s, 1860s,
all throughout the Pacific Rim,
specifically in Japan in the 1860s,
after the opening up to the west.
We see a number of very important, very, very, talented,
Western photographers who come and then teach young Japanese men,
sometimes women, how to take photographs and develop them so forth.
And almost simultaneously, the photograph,
as a viable means of representing,
of capturing the moment so to speak,
catches on in Japan.
And even before the Meiji Restoration,
we find commercial enterprises—Japanese photographers who are
taking photographs of the local terrain and of themselves,
people just like themselves, in sort of mock-up situations for tourists,
but also portrait photographs.
And the earliest photographs that we have are of samurai,
in the provinces often,
but often in Edo and Osaka as well.
The photograph that I have up for us right here is a very early one.
It's was taken in 1865.
It's of a samurai,
who is a retainer of the Fukui domain, in western Japan.
His name is Nakane Sekkō and he was
a very important activist politician within the domain,
but he also assisted his lord,
the great activist Matsudaira Shungaku,
in strategizing in how to,
especially to resist the bakufu,
and he was one of the the forces behind his domain
in fighting against the bakufu—towards the new regime,
which would become the Meiji.
Anyway, we see his photograph here.
He's sitting down.
He's rather on,
he's rather advanced in age, we can see.
He's got a sword with him.
It's kind of hard to tell because the photograph is old and yellowed,
but he's written words here right upon the photograph,
as we see right here.
He also, together, with this photograph, has been transmitted
a piece of paper which he kept with it which,
again, in his own writing has a poem and a date on it.
Let's take a look at what he's actually scribbling on—I shouldn't say scribbling—what
he's writing onto his portrait of himself.
Obviously, the first time that he's ever had one done.
First of all, the Japanese-style,
or waka, 31-syllable poem,
which he wrote directly onto his photograph,
I've translated: "Should trouble occur,
Though I may be on in years
My heart is set on rushing in before His Lordship:
This image is one of that very heart."
He described his image of himself as being his heart, kokoro, or mind.
We all say it.
It's: kokoro no utsushi e—the image of his mind or heart itself.
And that heart, he describes,
as being one which is extremely,
ultimately, loyal to his lordship whom I just mentioned.
Mastudaira Shungaku, who was a very,
very, important, very activist,
sort of political leader fighting against the the bakufu in these years.
He's already, at this rather early date, predicting, foreseeing,
that there's going to be deeper troubles leading to the battles and
the conflicts which end
the Tokugawa bakufu in a few years—in a couple of years, actually.
Should trouble occur, though I may be on in years, he admits that.
And we can see from the photograph that he's advanced in age.
He's a samurai but he still has the spirit to rush in to battle before his Lord,
to show his commitment and his passion and his loyalty to his Lord as well.
This is written out. This is a very short poem—31 syllables again—but he's
written this above his head in the photograph.
Now let's take a look at the piece of paper that was next to that,
on which he has written a Chinese-style quatrain.
He titles it: "A poem On My Photograph Portrait."
Over 59 years, I've never broken my word.
Through the bustle of life,
my whiskers have gotten streaked with frost.
My only regret is that I haven't repaid my debts of Grace,
so I shall record my shame in this photograph in order to show my descendants.
12th month, 28th day, 1865.
Again we're two, two and a half years before the end of the Edo period,
before the great Meiji Restoration.
He's looking back over the course of his life—59 years,
he's 60 at this time,
60 being a very important sort of year
to sort to mark and to commemorate by Japanese custom.
He's looking back over his life and he's proud that he's never broken a promise.
But, all through this sort of,
the hustle and bustle of life,
through hell and high water, all kinds of things that he's gone through,
he's a bureaucrat, a samurai; his hair,
his whiskers, his sideburns,
he says actually, have become white with age.
We can see this in the photograph.
So, again, this is a description of what we're seeing.
A very, very, close,
word-on-word description of the image that we're seeing.
Then he moves from there on to his spirit,
what he's actually thinking—his his mind or his heart.
The only thing that he regrets,
he's looking at his figure and he's watching himself,
and he's saying well,
I've had good times, I've been taking very,
very good care of by my Lord,
by my colleagues, and my family.
I've been able never to break a promise to people,
but I have regrets.
He's using the image,
or the opportunity to write about and on his image,
to reflect and to sum up his life for us—and he has one regret.
And that regret is that he hasn't been able to concretely
demonstrate his gratitude—his gratitude especially to his Lord,
Matsudaira Shungaku, and to the structure of the domain which has supported him and
his family throughout the decades and before he was actually born, his family itself.
So, he's writing this poem,
but he's also having his photograph taken as a portrait to record this regret.
Here he used the word, I translated his word the word as 'shame' here.
His sense of regret, of unfulfillment,
of being slightly embarrassed by the fact that he hasn't been able
to be helpful and to show in deeds,
not just in words,
his gratitude for a full life.
And also to show this as a document for his descendants.
The earliest Japanese photographs that we have and have words
on them are almost uniformly described within the poems or the writings,
often on the back of the photo,
as being memento mori—something for the children and the grandchildren,
the generations which will follow them to
demonstrate what was going on in the mind and in the heart of the person,
the forefather in the future,
who is being photographed in that particular portrait.
