Paper short abstract:

This paper examines a specific layer of relationality in artworks, which were used as manifestations of calculated artist branding defying reality and time by consciously creating fictive relationships through style and signatures on examples of Maruyama School painting.

Paper long abstract:

Building on research about emulation and creative adaptation in modern Japanese painting, this paper examines another layer of relationality: instances, in which artworks were used as manifestations of calculated artist branding defying reality and time. Using a palimpsestic approach to unravel layers of meaning contained in reinvented or borrowed iconographies and motifs enables us to look beyond binary structures such as original and imitation. Rather, it acknowledges the complex interrelations behind genealogies, reverence and economic success that support especially those painters, who root themselves within a particular stylistic or ideological lineage.

As the consciousness for art and art history changed in the mid- to late nineteenth century, and new academic structures superseded the workshop-based system, many painters felt the need to position themselves yet again. Particularly in Tokyo, they struggled to link old and new concepts, demands for a modernization of styles and to keep up with their client’s wishes.

One case study for this paper is a set of screens showing pines in snow by painter and art school professor Kawabata Gyokushō (1842-1913), who referred in his signature to the Maruyama School’s founder, Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-1795), as his teacher. Ōkyo had lived a hundred years before him, and this was a conscious move of artist branding to strengthen the association between the image Gyokushō wanted to strengthen and this famous painter.

Signatures on Japanese paintings can be curious and utterly helpful at the same time. A few words can refer to much bigger issues, casting doors about historical relationships wide open. Keeping acts of visual borrowing in motifs and compositions in mind, this paper will also focus on signatures and the(ir) significance of fictive master disciple relationships for Meiji art production.