Globetrotters' Japan: People, Foreigners on the Tourist Circuit in Meiji Japan

1) Globetrotters seemed to view Japanese people as they viewed Japanese places, as things to view or for tourists. The people were more like props than actual people, as evidenced in the advertisements offering "views and costumes." Commercial photography used this idea to create albums detailing the "attractive" parts of Japanese life. These images of people are staged, and therefore lend themselves to all sorts of stereotyped images and misrepresentations of this culture. The exploitation occurred even by Japanese photographers, because in some cases it's better to play into what the Globetrotters want than to try and be politically correct.

2) Many photographs depicted long-died-out Japanese icons, such as Samurai and post men. Creating an album with these images would be a little different to an album with architecture because there is no way a Globetrotter would see a samurai, save for in a play. These images would serve as a reminder to the primitive and barbaric ways of Japanese life, which the GTs would take back home and show their families. The images exclude any instances of modernization, such as Japanese people in Western attire or factory workers, preferring to contain images of men in loincloths (like the postman) or other traditional Japanese clothing. The GTs did not want to show that Japan was exactly like the land they came from, so they highlighted images which do not look like the West, and those were the images which sold.

3) A Large majority (~65%) of Kimbei's images depicted women in man situations, starting from childhood and following through maturation and adulthood. These would be important to show how different Japanese life for women was than for Western women. There are very rarely photographs of men in any domestic setting, instead men are shown in traditional (and sometimes extinct) occupations. There was also a huge difference in the freedoms allowed to Japanese women than any other culture's women on the GTs trip, so they were privy to more aspects of domestic life than they would be in India or China. It's also interesting to note that Japan was ahead of the times on childhood and child rearing, while many Western cultures did not believe in childhood, and instead treated children as though they were adults. This could be interesting to GTs to have images of children at play or mothers caring for young children, because that was not a common occurrence in Europe.

This image is actually one of my favorites from the unit. We see a fisherman holding up a very primitive looking knife about to stab an octopus. The octopus has it's tentacles around the fisherman and is fighting back. The man is very muscled and is only wearing a loincloth. I first want to focus on the knife:

The knife looks like one you'd see in a museum for pre-historic tools. The knife is very rough, not smooth, and seems pretty brittle. Where the knife is positioned in reference to the octopus, the fisherman is most likely going to miss hitting him. The loincloth does not offer much protection against the octopus's suction cups, so an experienced fisherman would most likely be wearing a little more covering. This image is staged in a studio, so this man in not getting attacked for real. However, the danger of this barbarian stabbing his food to death would be very appealing to people. 

GTs would buy this image because it shows a side of fishing they probably have no experience with. Unless the GTs came from Greece, they most likely would have never eaten/caught octopi for food, so this image would be jarring for them. This image would be especially appealing to fishermen who came to visit because it's a very dangerous image of their lively hood. 

This image is funny because of what I talked about earlier. This child is crying and the caption is "Alone in a cold world." In Japan, this child would be well taken care of by its mother, and treated like it is a child. However, in Europe this sort of thing of letting your child "cry it out" would happen often. Having children as the focus for a lot of these images would be shocking to the Europeans who didn't really view children as any different than or more special than adults. The Japanese however realized early on how childhood is a separate entity from adulthood, and acted accordingly. This image could be an attempt to show something similar to the Europeans, since they already had the idea that the Japanese were pretty barbaric. Or, it could be an interesting image simply because the focus is solely on this child crying. 

Globetrotters' Japan: Places, Foreigners on the Tourist Circuit in Meiji Japan.

The globetrotter emergence in Japan and other Eastern countries was due in part to the Meiji Restoration. Japan wanted to modernize, and in order to do so needed to have good contact with the Western countries. The Westerners who helped "modernize" parts of Japan- building the railroads, helping construct hotels, and building steam engine ships- eventually gave way to the massive tourist boom brought about by Cook and his copy-cats. This also lead to travel guides for foreigners, with what to eat at restaurants, hotel etiquette, and how to pronounce some common phrases. Japan was soon completely Tourist-ready. Passports could be obtained to allow foreigners to travel anywhere, and there were hotels and onsen at every tourist destination to allow the foreigners a place to stay.

Photography during this time period was a very important trade. In the guidebooks, like would be seen in todays world, businesses could take out ads to promote their merchandise. The bigger the ad usually meant the more money spent on the ad. The biggest ads in the guidebooks found were full page photography advertisements. Photography was one of the biggest trades during this time for the traveling foreigners, as they could create their own albums based on the sight-seeing they had done in Japan. Photography was a highly competitive field, with many studios in Yokohama right around the corner from each other. The studios were mainly exactly like all of the others, but each tried to promote their studio as something with more to offer the travelers. The biggest new attempt to draw in tourists was the studio sessions where the globetrotters could wear traditional clothing and be photographed. Despite the rise of photography, the Japanese natives main source of documenting events remained in ukiyo-e. Photographers abandoned Beato's method of captioning photographs, instead preferring to title the pictures on the same page.

This image screams orientalist Japan. We see cherry blossoms, a tea house made in typical Japanese architecture, and a few women dressed in kimono seated outside. The only weird thing about this image is the guy in western clothing with a bike standing off the right side. This image would be valuable to globetrotters because it's possible they visited this tea house in Ueno Park. If they had visited, they'd want a photograph to remember the tea house and all of it's pink blossoms. If they had not visited the tea house, but still chose this image, they may have wanted it for how Japanese it seemed, but then for the mystery of the man with the bike hanging out in the corner. It's an interesting image of "traditional" Japan mixed with the modernization and tourism happening during this time that someone may have wanted a record of. It's also possible that a buyer would have wanted it simply for how scenic and picturesque the image is. 

One of the most important points of the essay which help understand Beato's album is that the captions were printed with a lot of errors, which the writer of the captions (James W. Murray) did not realize were errors. A lot of the images are "westernized" without actually being western. The image of the "fencers" for one, is obvious to viewers now that there is a difference between fencing and iaido/kendo. But back when the image was taken, the westerners probably wouldn't know that there were other sword arts. I'm sure they would notice that the sword work carried out by the Japanese did not look like traditional fencing, but there's something in the view of Westerners/Imperialists that makes anything that looks sort of like something they created automatically theirs. I think this is important to note because this sort of thing happened in Beato's Places also. Referring to a tea house as a "B & B" or as the "Richmond, Virginia of Japan" shows that it was hard for people of this age to see and understand something they had no prior experience with.
Another important point is read between the lines in the Photographic Terms section of the essay. The techniques Beato used to create these photographs were so advanced and made up of all different chemical solutions. Ultimately, this work for Beato was work. I think with today's technology we take for granted how difficult it was back then to get the perfect shot. With today'd digital cameras (and even some current film cameras) you can be immediately assured after the shot that your photograph is exactly the right color, light/dark balance, and composition. There were quite a few different cameras circulating during this time, the most common being the wet plate camera (the Wet Collodion process describes the workings of a wet plate camera.) Beato had limited chances to get the perfect image, which makes all of his images that much more spectacular. I also think even more interesting is that at this time they were attempting to color images. The technique used was actually still used during World War I to color soldier portraits (We have one of my Great Grandfather colored this way.) And this just adds a layer to the work Beato (and probably some assistants.) The essay details how specific the process of mixing the watercolors had to be in order to work correctly with the photographs, in the same way that the chemical mixtures also had to be in the correct proportions to develop photographs. The essay really details the science behind all of these processes.
Unlike some of the photographs in Places, the photographs in this album are posed, with Beato dictating how each subject should be arranged. The photos are of very "Japanese" activities and posing. The image that strikes me the most is the image of the "Two Beauties Sleeping." Right off the bat, the women are "sleeping" with all of their hair pins in, which (I don't know much about Edo/Meiji period hairstyles but I think i can safely say:) seems wildly unlikely/uncomfortable. They also look as though they are sleeping in full kimono rather than in any bedclothes, which also seems unlikely. Furthermore, I don't believe many women would let a strange man into their rooms to watch them sleep, so this picture immediately comes off as staged. However, Beato is photographing for his audience, as he did in the last album we looked at. I think if he took a photograph of women actually ready for bed, the image would not scream "THIS IS A JAPANESE IMAGE," besides the setting. As the image is now, as well as all of the other images, it's very obvious that these images were made for people who wanted to see something that punched them in the face with Japan-ness.

This image looks as though Beato tried to pack in as many signs of Japan as possible while still making it believable that it's a bedroom. The lamp, the cup, the pattern on the blankets, and the two women all look "oriental." People of this time period would want this image because it provides a setting (especially with the caption) and it humanizes the Japanese women, in a vulnerable and domineering way. When you're sleeping you're the most vulnerable, so it makes sense that someone would subconsciously want to have "other" women in this vulnerable position. The caption describes how the women would sleep, even describing that they would most likely have a night light, like the one in the picture. However, I don't think if this were a real image of women sleeping that the night light would be so close to them, as this seems kind of fire-hazard-y.

I chose this image more to discuss the caption that accompanied it. The image itself seems generally tame, although it's weird to me to have images of doctors helping patients if it were in the West. With the caption, however, it makes sense. The caption describe the work of the doctor as "backwards" two separate times, and also makes the point that they have no "academic" medical training a few times also. This image obviously is made in the same way today we would circulate a photograph of a third world hospital, to show how primitive and underdeveloped it is. Despite the fact that "pre-modern Japan" (a term I found in the article Fertility, Mortality, and Life Expectancy in Pre-modern Japan by Susan Hanely) had very high rates of mortality, this image's only purpose is to mock the practice of Eastern medicine. And I'll be the first to admit, I have given Eastern medicine a laugh every once in a while (not while in Japan with a bladder infection though, thank you herbs and spices.) but this image, like the one above, exists to show dominance over a "lesser" not-as-developed culture. 

Felice Beato's Japan

The main take away from this essay is that the subject matter and composition of the photographs, and really of any art at the time, is completely different depending on the origin of the creator. The photographs in this album were by Felice Beato, an Italian photographer, and really one of the first foreign people to take photographs of Japan and other East Asian countries. From Beato's previous work as both a military photographer and having photographed in India, China, and Crimea, he was knowledgeable in what exactly foreigners liked about these Eastern countries. He also demonstrates through his captions a working knowledge of many internal Japanese events, such as the Treaty of Kanagawa. His images show that the things Westerners were most interested in were the living conditions of the Japanese, and their religious centers such as shrines and temples. The images of Kamakura are the most telling of this. Kamakura is home to many temples and the ~50 foot tall Daibutsu, and even today is a tourist destination for many Westerners. However, a lot of Beato's images contain Westerners, rather than any native Japanese people. This is interesting because back when these images were taken, some of the areas Beato visited would not quite be overrun by tourists yet. He obviously chose to include the Westerners as a stylistic choice, most likely to give the viewers of the album back home a sense of "these people look like you and are here! You can be here too!"

Images for this album were selected carefully by Beato based on their appeal and if they were considered picturesque. Some of the images evoke nostalgia for pre-Industrial revolution America, such as the images of The Tōkaidō. The images also included a practices and customs in the captions, showing that the images could be used for more than aesthetic purposes. The images from Kamakura talk about how horses are not allowed up the paths and how it is routine to donate money or buy food from venders. There is also some discussion of any "bad events" to fall any traveler in the area, because this would be more enticing to visitors. People enjoy visiting spots where bad things occurred, and Beato capitalized on this when he photographed and described a certain route in Kamakura where two westerners were murdered. This album was explicitly created for a certain audience, and despite the time difference between then and now, I don't think the audience has actually changed all that much. I think people are just as interested in visiting Buddhist Temples and Shinto shrines, and walking down old back roads in rural Japan.  The three important take away-s from this essay were that there is a noticeable difference in what an artist focuses on depending on their country of origin, Beato catered specifically to his foreign audience as tourists, and the most important things to westerners at this time were shrines, temples, and older, beaten paths.

The first image i selected is a photograph of the stairs leading to the Hachiman shrine in Kamakura. The image is relatively empty of people, and has at least 4 "buildings" featured in it. Kamakura was chosen by a daimyo in 1333. The story is that the daimyo chose the water-covered area, prayed to the god of the ocean, and threw his sword into the water. The water then receded and opened up an area of land. The ocean is actually visible from the Hasedera (Hase Kannon) Temple about 2 hours away. The caption for this image contains more myth than information, but it's important to know the myths surrounding an area based on religious faith such as this space is. The shrine is dedicated to a deity of war, which makes sense, following the legend. The Shrine today stands as one of the most important areas in Kamakura, and is constantly flooded with tourists. Including this image in the album, along with the caption, was a good way to incorporate some Japanese lore into the album while still showing off something beautiful and tangible. 

This image is interesting because it shows off the fishing town aesthetic of Yokohama, but the caption describes all of the construction and work that went into connecting this area to the The Tōkaidō and building ports. The image doesn't seem to be of the new construction, but rather of the area pre-western influence. This image almost strikes me as an image of pre-post-gentrification images. If someone had taken a picture of these humble houses on the water, and then an image of all of the trading ships and new piers, i think the images would read much more negatively. Instead, Beato decided to either use an older image, or take an image from a different angle, while discussing the work going into bringing this area up to trading standards. 

Yokohama Boomtown MIT

Shinhatsumei: Doitsukoku gunkan naikaku kikai no zu

I selected this image because i find triptychs to be the most interesting form of 2D art. There is also a multitude of detail in this work that is amazing, considering the fact of how this was made. The "stamp" must have taken days to carve, and since it is a triptych the artist Unsen must have had to have carved 3 of them. This also means that they had to be carved and placed with great care to make sure all of the details lined up exactly through each individual print. The artist was known to have the most knowledge on depicting Western ships, and it shows through all of the details he placed inside the ship. The rooms are in the right place (as explained by the MIT article) and each different room is labeled with its purpose in the ship. This image played off of the Japanese interest in Western battle ships, since they had not seen coal and steam driven paddle ships before. This image would be purchased because it gives us a glimpse on how the Japanese viewed the Western (can i call them invaders?) It shows them as a strong, unified power that was prepared for anything. The ammo room is stocked, all of the crew is working hard, and the ship reads like a war ship. People may read the image as pro-Western, so especially Western art lovers would be into this piece. I think it's more pro-Western ships, but it's still an interesting and well thought out print.

Gokakoku ijin Yokohama jōriku no zu

This image is another triptych, which i feel is a common way to produce prints during this time period. The triptych, in general, originated in early Eastern Europe and was usually seen in Churches as altar decoration. While it's not certain how the triptych came over to Japan (the "first" popular triptych maker was active in the mid-1700s,) these ways of depicting Westerners became popular after Perry opened a trading system with Japan. This particular image is interesting because you can see how Yoshikazu viewed the Five Nations. Yoshikazu did not have as good of a grasp on depicting ships as Unsen did, and this can be especially seen on the ship closest to the foreground. Each military group is carrying their country's flag, and there are two Chinese figures in the center portion, who would have been there to help with trade. This image is interesting because a scene like this would have most likely never occurred in Yokohama, so it's largely made up by the artist himself. This piece would probably be purchased because, like the above painting, it shows the view the artist had of the Westerners. It shows all of the people as peaceful, put together groups that are reasonably talking everything out, despite the guns in the army's hands. The guns look as though they're just in formation, rather than ready to attack.

Bankoku jinbutsu no uchi: Amerikajin

This final image is my favorite, mainly because it's of an American couple who only half look American. The woman has a face like many of the bijin-ga we have looked at, and only the man's face looks slightly different than the typical ukiyo-e male face. The clothing is also interesting, because the woman's top looks like it could be chinese,The dress is pretty standard for a woman of this time period, but the male's outfit is a little strange. He is wearing a military jacket and carrying a sword, but wearing a hat and shoes that would not be part of a military uniform. He is also smoking a cigarette, which was not common during this time in Japan. This all shows that the artist had little interaction with Western clothing, and filled in the blanks that he didn't know with other forms of clothing. I think this piece is very novel and would be bought for the fact that it is novel. I think many art junkies, especially American ones, would love to have a piece depicting their county from this time period.

Portrait of Utagawa Kunisada by his student, Kunisada II

Utagawa Toyokuni III (豊国) (Utagawa Kunisada) was a student of Toyokuni I of the Utagawa school. Toyokuni III was the last of two successors who used the name 豊国 to sign his work. Toyokuni III's rise to fame came from his work on e-hon (books illustrated with ukiyo-e,) and he was said to be on the same level, or have surpassed, his teacher Toyokuni II. He eventually became so masterful at ukiyo-e that Toyokuni II eventually returned to signing his own name (Toyshige), rather than the name of his teacher. Kunisada referred to himself as Toyokuni II, although the real Toyokuni II (Toyoshige) was still alive and active at this point. Kunisada intentionally ignored his predecessor, despite Toyoshige having been named the head of the school after Toyokuni I's death. Because of this confusion, he is usually referred to as Toyokuni III.
Toyokuni III followed in his teacher's footsteps and created many actor prints during his active years. He began his early work creating images of bijin-ga, and some of his most famous ukiyo-e came from these early bijin-ga, such is this:

The Hours of the Yoshiwara

The piece I chose to focus on was one of his actor prints of Nakamura Utaemon, a kabuki actor who Kunisada depicted many times during his years. The image I chose was this image of Nakamura Utaemon playing a female character:

The image itself is of a female figure dressed up and standing under the cherry blossoms. She is standing near a set of baskets with a rod through them. Her one foot is visible under her Kimono, but her hands cannot be seen. The cherry blossoms over her head indicate it's most likely Spring, around later April/May. There is a hat on her head to protect from the sun, and she's wearing many layers of clothing. The hat contains two ties in order to keep the hat from falling off in the wind, and is tied under the chin. She is also using part of her un-belted kimono to cover her head under the hat, which was very common for this time period. The outer black kimono was common during this time period for mourning, and would be decorated with kamon (symbols) as is seen in the print. However, the other articles of clothing would also be black, and the undergarments white. The dress contrasted with the fact she is doing yard work is very confusing, since she is dressed better than someone from a working class would usually be dressed, especially to do yard work, but she is still outdoors with her baskets. The hat shows that she's concerned about keeping her skin pale, something common women would not generally be concerned about. She also is half wearing traditional mourning clothes, and half wearing spring clothes. Since, however, this is an artist print, it's much more likely that the clothing would contrast the actions. Nakamura Utaemon, a man, is dressed up as this woman, who is quite possibly a peasant woman. Since it's for a stage show, the actor may have worn more elaborate coverings than what would usually be worn in a typical situation. 

It's actually impossible to find this image anywhere online, or to find out which actor of the Nakamura line is depicted in this piece. The Japanese characters around the image may give some clues, however I am not able to read what the print says.It is interesting, however, that the piece is very similar to Kunisada's bijin-ga pieces, and without knowing the piece is a male kabuki actor, would be impossible to distinguish from any other bijin-ga piece (without knowing what exactly the writing on the piece says.)

Minazuki and Toyokuni I

This particular print, titled Minazuki, was created by artist Utagawa Toyokuni (alias Toyokuni I.) Toyokuni I studied under Utagawa Toyoharu, and eventually took on his family name. Toyokuni I was not interested in forming a distinct, out-of-nowhere art style, as his fellow pupil Toyohiro had done. Instead, he synthesized the masters who came before him, including the work of his own sensei, and created an art style out of a mixture of what he believed worked in the other pieces. He began his career creating art based around bijin-ga, but his fame came from his yakusha-e. His father was a doll carver, mainly based on kabuki actors, so it seems fitting that that would become Toykuni I's subject of choice also. He's particularly known for his work on yakusha-e (actor prints,) an art which he sophisticated through his lifetime. His prints give more life to the actor themselves, making them the most important part of the piece, rather than making the kabuki part of the actor the most important. The prints were a form of souvenirs for the fans and advertisements for the theaters, so these pieces were important to depict the specific actors involved in the stage shows. When he died he gave way to two successors, Toyokuni II, who married his daughter, and Toyokuni III, who took over the Utagawa school when Toyokuni II died in 1835.

(this is the closest i could find to the image in color)

The above image features a woman in an open and loose Kimono, checking something on the back of her neck with a mirror. She could be checking that her hairline is even, or that her wig is on correctly. She's in front of another mirror, in order to see the mirror held behind herself. There is a makeup brush and a pot of makeup sitting on the mirror in front of her, indicating she is currently in a getting ready routine. We discussed in class the difference in hairstyles between a wealthy courtesan and a lower courtesan in this image by Utamaro:

The woman in Toyokuni I's print looks as though her wig style and decoration is closer to the woman on the right, indicating she is of a much lower class and customer class. Her Kimono is very plain compared to ones we've seen in other prints, which means it may just be a yukata for sitting around and getting ready/bathing. This image was painted closer to the end of his life, but due to the fact that men played both male and female roles in kabuki, this is most likely a revisit to bijin-ga. There is actually not much information on this particular print, however a print by his successor, Toyokuni III can help discern some hidden meaning behind his teacher's painting.

This image is titled Applying Makeup to the Neck. The image seems to be the same scene as done by Toyokuni I, but from a different angle. The woman is putting makeup onto the back of her neck, underneath the hairline. This area is apparently considered a very sensual area in Japanese art, especially when coupled with her exposed breasts in Toyokuni I's original print. This piece now takes on a more voyeur-esque feel, as though we are peeping in on her doing something most of her customer's would not be privy to see. She is also smiling, which shows she's enjoying the task of getting ready for her job, not just seeing this as another task to do. Men would probably enjoy seeing that this woman enjoyed getting ready for their "dates," and didn't just see it as work. The purpose of this piece, from what I have researched into, was a sort of soft-core pornographic image, similar to someone having a poster of a woman in a bikini on their wall. 

Introduction

1. Your name: Alexandria (but errybody calls me Alex!)

2. Your hometown: Morrisville, pa

3. Your major(s) and minor(s): Psychology and Studio Art

4. Class of: 2017

5. Why are you taking this class?  What do you hope to get out of it?
For that G requirement...  I want to learn some background behind the themes and images of Japan that we are exposed to so often, especially since I have not previously taken any Japanese classes

6. What aspects of Japanese culture are of interest to you?
I'm really big into the people, I've met so many amazing people there and they're some of my favorites. I also am one of those traditional-fetishists. I love shrines, temples, etc. 

7. What, if any, direct experience of Japan or its culture have you had? 
I teach a Japanese martial art to Campus, and because of that I've been able to take 2 trips to Japan in the past few years.

8. Add any other comments you might wish to make, including descriptions of image-making activities you may have been involved with (such as drawing, painting, making sculpture, drawing manga, taking photographs beyond casual pictures, etc.).  
As a studio major I've pretty much been around the image-making spectrum. I've been making art for about 15-16 years now, and it's my favorite way to pass time. 

This is an image of Japan that appeals to me because it's really my favorite part of Japan. The Kamakura Daibutsu is a 13 meter tall bronze statue (the 2nd largest Buddha in Japan!) Located in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture. I had the opportunity to see this is person, as well as go inside of the statue. It's so interesting because America has no history, comparatively. Having a culture that extends back thousands of years is, for lack of a better word, super cool. This image also is very appealing because it looks like Japan. The super blue sky, the green heavy-top trees, and the building around the Daibutsu are all indicative of how Japanese it is.

These doors painted by Kanō Sanraku (狩野 山楽) has always been one of my favorite pieces. It' simultaneously wispy and solid, but also has a great deal of shadow and detail work.. I'm a big fan of trees in art, and the lack of background brings the focus to the trees. I have never seen decorative doors like these installed, but I'm sure they were for wealthy customers.

This is just an example of my drawing. I've been doing art for many years at this point, and have been an art major since my freshman year. I took on the art major just for fun, so I'm not planning on making a career out of it. Drawing and doodling is a part of me mainly because it's a tool to combat anxiety and ADHD. If I'm in class doodling, I can assure you I'm paying complete attention, it just doesn't look like it. I draw constantly in and out of my art classes, and am currently working towards the student exhibition in March.