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Paper short abstract

This paper traces the transformation of modern Japanese imaginings of the “Sai-iki” from a focus on Gandharan art in India in the late nineteenth century to Dunhuang art by the 1950s, examining Japanese art historical discourse, the activities of the Ōtani expeditions, and postwar reflections.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines the relationship between modern Japanese imaginings of “Sai-iki Art” and Dunhuang. From the late nineteenth century, Japanese art history gradually developed modern scholarly frameworks, including Nihon bijutsushi (Japanese art history), Western art history, and Tōyō bijutsushi (Oriental art history), defined in opposition to Western art history. Within the framework of Tōyō bijutsushi, the historically charged category of “Sai-iki Art” embodied modern Japanese conceptions of the “Orient,” referring primarily to Gandharan art as an expression of Greek influence in India. Dunhuang, by contrast, was regarded as a frontier of the Central Plains and was not conventionally included within the category of “Sai-iki.” Through expeditions, archaeological investigations, and scholarly debates in the first half of the twentieth century, however, Dunhuang gradually became an important component of “Sai-iki Art.” After the Second World War, the Western conception of the “Silk Road,” which had emerged in the late nineteenth century, displaced “Sai-iki Art” as a primary framework for imagining connections across Eurasia, once again transforming how Dunhuang art was understood and evaluated.