Public Properties
In the immediate years after the Meiji Restoration, when urgent considerations for policymakers included propelling Japan’s commerce and industry onto the world stage and modernizing and strengthening its military capabilities, the promotion and preservation of art objects was far from a top priority. But before long the utility of formalizing and enshrining an artistic and cultural heritage as a way to cement a newly- created sense of Japanese national identity became increasingly clear to those pulling the strings behind the new Meiji state.
But the nature and scope of such a heritage was far from self-evident. In her new book, Noriko Aso succinctly deals with the various motivations and practicalities involved in consciously establishing such a canon of Japanese art and cultural artifacts. Early in Public Properties: Museums in Imperial Japan Aso outlines how the government of the 1870s, picking up on warnings from intellectuals that Japan was tossing out the old as it scrambled to adopt the new, began raising awareness of the status of private and temple cultural properties as also part of a national heritage, and began introducing restrictions on the free movement of such items. While the government stopped short of outright appropriation, Aso shows how its policies included persuading private or institutional owners of antiquities to give the state the right of first refusal before offering items for private sale.
The author continues to elucidate how Meiji political leaders aligned this newly-formed national canon of art and culture not only with a national identity but with a necessarily Imperial heritage, in order to bolster the position of the Imperial family, recently re-installed as a symbol of the nation. In doing so, Public Properties shows how those who took it upon themselves to forge this canon created a ‘tradition’ of Japanese culture that privileged the art and artifacts of the country’s elite few over those of the common folk.
Aso gives as an example how Hina Dolls were the kind of toys that functioned as idealized “cultural representations” as they were “decorative, anthropomorphic, and often replicated in miniature the imperial court and its hierarchy”, whereas the likes of spinning tops and kites did not, even though they were more indicative of everyday Japanese life. In this respect she argues it was items of artistic and historical rather than ethnographic interest that were deemed suitable for official recognition. But at the same time, the evidence the author puts forward also suggests that what are considered purely artistic concerns in Japan have long been determined by political and class-inflected considerations.
Aso unpacks how this recently-formulated cultural identity was not only instilled in Japanese citizens through the country’s rapidly developing museum complex, but also impressed upon the outside world through Japan’s participation in, and staging of, national and international expositions. One fascinating example the author gives of the complexities involved in this process of identity formation is the fact that while authorities attempted, at home, to enshrine Japan’s native Shinto heritage (over the Chinese import of Buddhism) as authentically Japanese, they found themselves doing the exact opposite as they participated in various international world fairs. With the artifacts of Shinto, such as food offerings, being largely ephemeral in nature, they found it expedient to promote the country’s Buddhist sculptures - physically durable and congruent with Western conceptions and categories of artistic practice - as fine examples of Japan’s cultural heritage. In this way, Aso highlights how the creation of modern Japanese cultural identity has long been at least doubly inflected, forged by both a view of Japan (or, rather, a number of often conflicting views) from within the country and an acute self-awareness of its image as observed from outside.
This instability of cultural and national identity is further highlighted when the book tackles the role of museums and other forms of display as tools for enhancing Japan’s colonial ambitions. While the 19th century invention of nihon-ga painting was promoted, within Japan, as a new form of Japanese art (albeit one that in many ways was a culmination of various Asian artistic developments, blended with Western-techniques), Public Properties illustrates how, when this was exported to Taiwan, it was re-invented as Tōyōga, or Eastern-style painting “to make the category more open and inviting in a colonial context.”
One of the strengths of the book is its examination of how state-led attempts to define Japanese cultural identity were supplemented, and sometimes challenged, by commercial and philanthropic enterprise.
Aso describes how the new department stores in the late Meiji period, although their roots were often in Tokugawa–era dry goods stores, took many of their strategies from, and were soon eclipsing, kankoba product display centers (which had been introduced by the government to boost sales of Japanese manufactures). In contrast to the more traditional approach of store clerks bringing out of storage select items for customer perusal, department stores introduced a culture of public display that encouraged customers to compare and evaluate competing items. Often, they also voluntarily took on the charge of social responsibility through staging art exhibitions for the edification of the public - a practice, Aso could have added, that still continues today.
From available options, the author has chosen to structure her book thematically rather than chronologically. While this has the benefit of allowing developments within each of her selected topics to be followed across a wide temporal arc from the Meiji through to the Showa period, this can make it tricky to zoom in on a specific period of time and explore it in more depth.
It could also be noted that while the Meiji and Taisho periods are well attended to here, there are numerous events of import and interest in the Showa period that could have been explored further. The book barely touches on the post-war boom in national museum building, leaving various questions unanswered, such as why, for example it took until the 1950s for Japan to build a national museum of modern art, despite the Japanese state's tireless claims to modernity and modern. While the Olympics of 1964 are given prominence, especially the arts festivals that accompanied them, the equally momentous occasion for highlighting Japan's by-now highly developed display culture - Expo 70 in Osaka - is omitted and within a few paragraphs, the book is looking at the role of art and culture in post-bubble 1990s Japan.
This somewhat hurried ending to the book is a little perplexing but such minor, and perhaps unavoidable, glitches do not distract from the achievements of the book. By and large Public Properties: Museums in Imperial Japan provides a thoughtful analysis of the role of art and visual display in the creation not only of Japanese national and cultural identity, but also in that of a viewing, and consuming, public.
Jeff Hammond (jeff.hammond@courtauld.ac.uk)