Please join us for the next Modern Japan History Workshop on Friday, November 29th from 18:00 at KIBER 110. The presenter of this month will be Yue Yu, University of Lille and École du Louvre.

Title: “Failure or Success? Modern Japanese Painting Shows in Paris During the 1920s”

Speaker: Yue Yu (University of Lille and École du Louvre)

Date: Friday November 29th, 2019 at 6pm

Locations: Komaba Campus, University of Tokyo, Komaba International Building for Education and Research (KIBER), Room 110

With the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan was opened up to a veritable flood of influence from the West. In the field of art, this period was marked by the bifurcation of styles into Western and traditional indigenous, which accordingly engendered the terms yōga and nihonga. In the rush to westernize, the yōga style was officially promoted by the government.

However, under the influence of Ernest Fenollosa and Okakura Tenshin, Meiji Japan gradually realized the importance of valuing its traditional culture, which led to a revival of the traditional Japanese style of painting. The term nihonga itself evokes a sense of national consciousness – a consciousness of a particular mode of nationhood.

This paper explores the diffusion and reception of nihonga and yōga in France through three major public shows in Paris: at the Salon de la Société National des Beaux-Arts in 1922, the Salon d’automne in 1923 and the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in 1929. Examining the selection criteria adopted by the Japanese, how the three exhibitions were perceived by the French, and whether modern Japanese painting contributed to the construction of Japan’s national image, this paper offers insight into these questions.