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Paper short abstract

This paper examines the symbolic and cultural significance of tenshō karuta in early modern Japan, tracing their shift from imported playing cards to motifs of Nanban taste in painting and decorative arts, and revealing processes of adaptation and cultural syncretism.

Paper long abstract

The tenshō karuta—playing cards derived from European prototypes introduced via the Nanban trade in the late sixteenth century—offer a compelling example of cultural translation and artistic adaptation in early modern Japan. Beyond their role as imported novelties, these cards exemplify how foreign objects could be reinterpreted, aestheticized, and invested with new meanings within Japanese visual and material culture. While extant Edo-period karuta sets are rare, their presence endures through written and pictorial sources, particularly in genre painting (kinsei shoki fūzokuga). These images have long been approached as documentary evidence, valued for their perceived fidelity to historical games or social contexts. Yet such empiricist readings have overlooked the symbolic and art-historical dimensions of the karuta motif itself.

This paper reconsiders tenshō karuta not as literal representations of play but as visual signs shaped through layers of cultural meaning. In early modern painting, motifs rarely served as records of reality; rather, they functioned as gadai—thematic and symbolic subjects that mediated between lived practice and artistic convention—and often evolved into recurring decorative patterns (mon’yō). By tracing the trajectory of the karuta motif from the pictorial to the decorative realm, this study reveals its transformation from a signifier of exotic amusement to an emblem of auspiciousness and Nanban taste.

Methodologically, the paper treats these depictions as symbolic constructs, analyzed within their contexts of production and reception. Drawing on nearly the entire corpus of tenshō karuta representations in early genre painting, it situates them within broader discourses of taste, fortune, and cultural hybridity. A detailed examination of the Matsuura byōbu further illuminates the intersection of pleasure-quarter imagery and Nanban aesthetics. Finally, the study traces the motif’s migration into the applied arts—particularly lacquerware and ceramics—where karuta assumed a stable decorative identity. Through this lens, the tenshō karuta emerge as a key site of visual syncretism, marking the formation of a distinctly Japanese response to the aesthetic challenges and possibilities of cultural encounter.