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- Convenor:
-
Shoji Yamada
(NICHIBUNKEN)
Send message to Convenor
- Discussant:
-
Jieling Li
(Hainan Normal University)
- Section:
- Pre-modern Literature
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 25 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
How did illustrated books connect information from the West, China, and Japan? Referencing historical works, encyclopedias, and Christian readers from early modern to modern Japan, this panel will discuss the roles of illustrations that have conveyed knowledge across time, age, and social strata.
Long Abstract:
This panel will discuss the roles that illustrated books have served in cultural exchange between Japan, China, and the West, and how such books conveyed knowledge and information across time, age, and social strata.
Illustrated books are generally practical in nature, playing an important part in understanding and establishing knowledge and information, and also benefiting children and the people in general—who recognize but may not be aware of the names of things. The images in such books also contribute to understanding things of other countries. Focusing on such illustrations allows a new perspective on Japan's culture of books created in the early modern and modern times.
In the early modern period illustrations provided a way for the general populace to supplement and understand information that they could not obtain from texts alone. Today, the illustrations in old books help us learn about the intentions of the editors and publishers as well as the interests of readers. The novelty of Kinmōzui [1666], the early modern illustrated encyclopedia, was in integrating illustrations into the Chinese educational book format; the work is cited even in Engelbert Kämpfer's Geschichte und Beschreibung von Japan [1779]. We can also observe the interesting cultural misunderstandings that crop up in these illustrated books. Children's books on Christianity published in the Meiji era featured many reproductions of different kinds of pictures. These illustrations provide insights into how Christians of the time perceived their religion as well as about the fusion of Eastern and Western civilizations that was going on at the time.
So how did illustrated books broaden the foundations of knowledge from early modern to modern Japan, and in what way did they connect information from the West, China, and Japan? Referencing historical works, illustrated encyclopedias, and Christian readers, in this panel scholars of Japanese early modern cultural history, Heian and medieval literature, comparative literature, monogatari literature, and information science gather to discuss the exchange of knowledge that took place through illustrations.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 25 August, 2021, -Takatoshi Kiba (Kyoto University of Advanced Science)
Paper short abstract:
This report will discuss how did the people of the Edo period learn their own history through publications. From the standpoints of the transmitter and producer as well as the reader and consumer of history text, this report considers the acquisition of historical knowledge meant for people.
Paper long abstract:
How did the people—especially ordinary people—of the Edo period (1603-1868) learn about the history of their own country? There are two possibilities: One was through oral accounts, and the other is through publications. The latter is the focus of this report.
Chronological tables and chronicles are examples of publications compiled to present the history of Japan. Appendices to setsuyōshū (Japanese-language dictionaries) and other dictionaries and encyclopedias feature similar apparatus, and illustrations were added to them as supplementary visual aids to present historical incidents that might be difficult for readers to comprehend solely from the texts.
Also significant is the design of the editors and publishers in selecting which items will be illustrated from among the array of historical incidents. In other words, what they chose is likely to have been based on what would help the book to sell well as a commodity and what kind of articles consumers enjoy. By looking at illustrated history books, this report seeks to examine the nature of interest in history among people of those times.
Another point for consideration is how readers (consumers) applied the historical knowledge they obtained. Writers, for instance, incorporated such knowledge into their works. Kawachiya Kashō, a wealthy farmer of Kawachi province (now eastern part of Osaka prefecture), recorded his lineage alongside the history of Japan in an attempt to demonstrate the prestige of his lineage.
This report aims to consider—from the standpoints of the transmitter and producer as well as the reader and consumer of history text—what the acquisition of historical knowledge meant for people in the Edo era.
Mitsuru Aida (National Institute of Japanese Literature)
Paper short abstract:
This report will primarily discuss Kinmōzui (1666), Japan's first illustrated encyclopedia, to highlight and analyze the humorous but "unfortunate" realities of cultural adoption resulting from cultural exchange, as observed in both Germany and China despite differences in time and location.
Paper long abstract:
Geschichte und Beschreibung von Japan [1779], written by Engelbert Kämpfers (1651-1726), is known as the first book to introduce Japan to Europe in a well-structured fashion and as a work featuring many translated citations from Kinmōzui [1666; enlarged edition 1695]: Japan's first illustrated encyclopedia compiled by Nakamura Tekisai (1629-1702). Alongside Itō Jinsai (1627-1705), Nakamura was a prominent Neo-Confucian scholar who, among other fields, mastered astronomy, geography, metrology, and rhythmics almost entirely on his own. Behind his prolific achievement was a constant drive to promote Neo-Confucianist thought.
Compilation of Kinmōzui was part of Nakamura's passion for propagating Neo-Confucianism. He modeled his encyclopedia not only after Qianzi wen (Thousand Character Classic) [sixth century] and Meng-qiu (Elementary Textbook for Teaching the Chinese Tradition to Beginners) [eighth century]—both notable Chinese general educational books—but also by incorporating the style of the illustrated encyclopedia that was then considered novel even in China.
With Kinmōzui serving as a window on the fine points of Japanese culture, such newly developed encyclopedias spread to Europe during the Age of Discovery (fifteenth to seventeenth centuries). Sometimes these works introduced Japan in somewhat "unfortunate" ways. They mention lions, which did not exist in Japan, and imaginary creatures such as the kylin (qilin), and unreadable, poorly written hiragana and kanji characters.
Such "unfortunate" representations of Japanese culture were not limited to the West. Examples are the well-known strange uses of Japanese characters found in the Wezhi worenzhuan (Accounts of the Wa people, Records of Wei) [third century], Southern Song China's Helin yulu (Jade Dew from Crane Forest) [written between 1248-52], and Shushi huiyao (Book on Calligraphy) [1376] compiled at the end of the Yuan dynasty.
This report primarily uses Kinmōzui to highlight and analyze the humorous but "unfortunate" realities of cultural adoption resulting from cultural exchange—as observed in both Germany and China despite differences in time and location.
kayoko yamasaki (Filoloski fakultet u Beogradu)
Paper short abstract:
This report will focus on the Kyōkai shogaku tokuhon (1903), published by a member of the Orthodox Church in Japan. Through clarifying sources of illustrations by foreign artists, this report will analyze how foreign culture was understood through images, which were likely drawn by Japanese.
Paper long abstract:
The teachings of the Eastern Orthodox Church (Orthodox Church) came into Japan in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Nikolai Kasatkin (1836-1912)—the first Orthodox archbishop of Japan who originally came from Russia as a missionary—studied Japan's language, classics, history, Buddhism, and Shinto and decided on a policy of spreading the Orthodox faith based in the environment and culture of the country. Around 1876, he also established theological seminaries for men and women, marking the full-fledged start of Orthodox Church-sponsored education in Japan. In addition to his translation of the New Testament, prayer books, and hymns, Archbishop Nikolai also devoted himself to publication activities, which are essential to missionary work.
This report considers the topic of illustrations, focusing on the Kyōkai shogaku tokuhon [published in 1903; six volumes in total], edited by Mizushima Kōyō—an active publication department member of the Orthodox Church in Japan. Intended to communicate Christian teachings to children, the books feature many illustrations and are valuable sources for showing what images were used to convey the content of the Bible and Christian doctrine.
The illustrations consist of the following types:
a. Works of Western Christian (Western Church) artists such as Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794-1872), as well as Eastern Orthodox Church artists including Viktor Vaznetsov (1848-1926), Vasily Kriukov (1805-1880), and Yamashita Rin (1857-1939), who were influenced by Western Church artwork.
b. Illustrations of how to conduct prayers featuring families and children within the context of life in Japan of the time, as well as illustrations reminiscent of Nihonga painting that depict scenes of ancient life in Japan.
The report focuses on the following points:
1. Clarifying sources of original illustrations by foreign artists (a) on which copies were based, and, in turn, examining the merging of Eastern Orthodox and Western Christian art formats seen between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
2. Analyzing how foreign culture was understood and conveyed through illustrations of the Kyōkai shogaku tokuhon (b), which were likely drawn by Japanese artists.