During a recent trip to Japan I visited the Tokyo National Museum
and looked at some Japanese art and historical cultural artifacts.
That’s my idea of fun. I know. I’m awesome. Anyway, Great trip. I highly recommend it. And
during the visit, I came across an interesting story that I thought to share with all of you.
In the second half of the 1800s after the Meiji Restoration,
Japan eagerly sought engagement with the West.
Art had been one of those areas of engagement. And then they realized
the West saw their art - treasured crafts produced over generations - as just furniture.
Over the span of three World Fairs, Japan sought international acceptance
of its heritage items as fine arts. It was a test of their influence
and their own internal development. That’s the subject of todays video.
## Beginnings
Europe's first major exposure to Japanese items
came in 1862 in London - only a few years after its opening up.
The exhibition showed woodworking, ivory and lacquerware and was called
"the Japanese Court in the International Exhibition".
That one however was not official. It had been set up by the British minister to Japan,
Rutherford Alcock. The exhibition was a smashing success - starting the trend of "Japonisme".
"Japonisme" is a phrase coined in the late 19th
century describing European and American popularity for Japanese art and design.
Western artists were captivated by things like
Japan's woodblock prints - Ukiyo-e or "pictures of the floating world".
This genre of "oddly flat" art includes the famous "Great Wave
off Kanagawa" print by Hokusai, which has influenced everything
from that guy Vincent Van Gogh to the ocean wave emoji 🌊 on Apple systems.
## Vienna
In 1871, the Meiji government agreed to participate in its
first world fair in Vienna - the Wiener Weltausstelling in 1873.
It was the first such exhibition held outside of the UK or France.
35 countries participated. Other non-Western participants included China, Egypt, and Persia.
Western countries like France and the UK used these exhibitions to develop
their cultural industry, and spread a message. Japan too had a story to tell.
The country's primary overarching goal was to avoid China's fate of
being carved up by foreign interests. At the time,
China was having many of its coastal areas like Hong Kong turned into foreign concessions.
A decade earlier in 1850, Japan itself had seen five of its ports
ceded to foreign governments thanks to a series of unequal treaties.
To prevent this from happening again, the Meiji Government was pushing a
massive modernization wave to transform its feudal culture,
economy, and more. But in order to fund this modernization, the Meiji needed foreign currency.
So with this exhibit, Japan wanted to do three things. First, they wanted to examine
other countries' goods for techniques that their own domestic industries might be able to adopt.
Second, they wanted to tell the world that Japan had a fertile land capable
of producing excellent goods. They wanted to kickstart an export market for Japanese
arts and crafts goods. This policy was known as "shokusan kogyo", or the promotion of industry.
And lastly, they wanted to make sure that their own historical heritage items stayed
within the country. The collapse of the Tokugawa had loosened restrictions and the new government
wanted to make sure that the only thing leaving the country were trade items, not treasures.
Many of the works collected and protected during this effort would eventually go towards
founding a national museum - the Tokyo National Museum that I visited that inspired this video.
## The Items
The preparatory work took over 2 years and was directed by the
Meiji Government's Council of State, then its highest political body. The
country allocated half a million yen out of its meager budget for the work.
The Japanese were known for hiring consultants from the West. One significant
such individual brought in specifically for the Vienna show was Dr. Gottfried Wagener.
Wagener first came to Japan in 1868 to open a soap factory. A few years later,
he - as it so often happens - found himself teaching a Western ceramics
course in what is now the University of Tokyo.
For this exhibition, Wagener - recognizing Japan's weaknesses on
mass production - selected goods that he felt exhibited the high
technical craftsmanship of the country's artisans. Precision handcrafted products.
Items shown ranged from historical treasures to artworks to manufactured
goods. They included a lager from an Osaka brewery, some Edo period armor and weapons,
and a sword said to belong to Toyotomi Hideyoshi himself.
Glorious Nippon Steel Folded Over 1,000 times!
The Meiji Government built an entire Japanese garden - the
first of its kind ever to be put in Europe - and a Shinto shrine.
They tried to exhibit the 15-meter tall Great Buddha statue from the Temple of Todaiji in
Nara. But sadly it burnt down as it was being unpacked and they could only exhibit the head.
## Fine Art
The World Fair had great expectations, but on the whole it was seen as a bit of letdown.
Mostly due to flooding and a cholera epidemic which so rudely interrupted the festivities.
That being said, many of the Japanese items sold quite well. Even the garden was sold to
a British trading company. The items sold so well that the government founded a company
solely dedicated to exporting Japanese goods to the West - called Kiritsu Kosho Kaisha.
There was one issue though. While preparing the Japanese language translations for their arts,
they came across the term "fine arts" - a term that did not exist
in Japanese and a concept they did not understand.
At this time, the West had a distinction between "fine arts" - items made solely for
their aesthetic purpose - and "decorative arts" - items meant to be both beautiful and useful.
The Japanese never considered this issue before. They never even had
a way to comprehend it. The language had one generic name for art back then which
is - and I am going to butcher this pronunciation - "gigei" 技芸.
This word was less about the item's aesthetics and more about the materials,
techniques, and accumulated skills that its creator used to create it.
This confusion - not so unusual at the time - directly led to the creation of
the word "bijutsu" 美術 びじゅつ, which includes the Chinese character
for "beautiful" and clearly indicates the aesthetic concept of "fine arts".
On the other side, in 1890 the Japanese added a
new modern term for "decorative arts" - Kogei 工芸, which literally means crafts.
## The Problem
In the aftermath of this World Fair as well as another in 1878 in Paris,
Japanese leaders started to realize that their goods were being classified as "decorative arts".
This meant that such Japanese treasures - their ceramics,
lacquerware, and folding screens - were seen as an "inferior art". Pretty trinkets meant for use.
This was particularly the case with Japan's lacquerware. For the 1878 exhibition,
the Japanese government had brought some of its finest lacquerware goods including the
"Writing Box (suzuribako) with Eight Bridges", made in 1700 and deemed a national treasure.
The items attracted praise from some of Europe's finest furniture makers like Albert Jacquemart,
who called it "bright, brilliant, and intense".
But there were haters too. Influential art critic
Ernest Chesneau on the other hand called the Japanese exhibit to be nothing more
than a pastiche of manual objects dressed up with decorated motifs.
And Ernie wasn't the only guy thinking this. This line of
criticism had been brewing since the very first exhibition all the way back in 1862.
And then in 1883, Louis Gonse published the widely read book L'Art Japon,
framing much of Japan's art in this sort of vein.
To be fair, a number of critics clapped back. The French critic Phillippe Burty,
who invented the phrase "Japonisme" called the 1878 exhibition a great victory for
objects that combined art and functionality.
## The Struggle
This criticism has to be taken into context of the Western art world's
greater debate over the merit of decorative arts versus fine arts.
Nevertheless, the Japanese were dismayed to find
that their fine arts output was seen as nothing more than just furniture.
The 1880s saw the Japonisme export trend reach its full height. And despite attempts at some quality
control in 1882, the flood of low-quality goods was starting to saturate the market.
The Meiji government wanted to show the world that Japan was a "modern"
nation with a sophisticated artistic culture - not a land of trinkets. Thus,
they sought to rapidly bring their fine arts industry in line with Western tastes.
Artistic traditions in Japan were changed to meet Western standards. They opened schools
of fine art, sent Japanese artists to Europe for learning, and encouraged participation in shows.
This allowed for the emergence of notable artists like Kuroda Seiki,
known as the "Father of Modern Western-style Painting" in Japan.
And Takamura Koun, who applied Western techniques to Japanese wooden statue-making.
Yet this rapid modernization had profound effects on the psyche. Throughout his career, Wagener
repeatedly urged Japanese industrial officials to resist copying Western products outright.
Rather, "efforts should be made to give play to unique national ways
and means". Essentially meaning that they shouldn’t lose what makes them special.
## 1893 in Chicago
When it came time for the 1893 World Exposition in Chicago,
Japan determined to take a different path.
After a series of market tests from 1885 to 1890 found the Japonisme
export industry on a downward turn, the government decided to shift its policy
focus away from decorative arts exports towards industrialized manufacturing.
Previously, institutions like the Tokyo National
Museum played their part by exhibiting these decorative objects. No more. The
museum's goals were reassigned to displaying and boosting traditional Japanese fine arts.
For the 1893 Exposition, the Japanese committee vowed to "elevate" their
decorative arts to the same level as their "fine arts". As the official policy states:
> Official recognition as works of art should be
sought for art without distinction between painting and decorative arts
It was a high-stakes flex of Japan's global influence. In 1894,
the Unequal Treaties were due to be revised by the US Congress - the Treaty of November 22,
1894 - and Japan was anxious to be seen as an equal member of the international committee.
## Conclusion
Unfortunately, on the whole the Western art community largely
continued its hard delineation between fine and decorative arts.
While a few Japanese items were exhibited as fine arts,
those items were made by Japanese artists trained in the Western style.
The country's most high profile traditional art categories - lacquerware and ceramics - did not
appear in the Fine Arts Palace. They were instead shown in the "Manufactures" section.
Regardless, the Japanese government learned a lot from the experience - including how to build their
global influence on the world stage. It was an important step towards Japan's rise in the future.