ABSTRACT
The study of the representational material indicated that the notion of (traveling) space developed from a narrative entity, entwined with historical and mythological notions towards visual configurations that were based (or sometimes pretended to be based) on observation and measurability. The cultural landscape of the Edo period was gradually transformed by the emerging monetary economy that introduced processes of exchange value. Thus the Edo-period landscape was consumed, on one hand, through legendary notions that were spread from the confines of an artistic elite to wider populations and, on the other, through corporeal pleasures enjoyed on the spot. At the same time, educated travelers, with combined interests in philosophy and naturalism, saw in traveling an opportunity to comprehend the relation between nature and humans, and to discern through it unified practices and morals. In the Meiji era and during Japan's modernization process, ‘national land’ denoted not only historical and cultural notions, but also, and to an even greater extent, held a productive potential that could lead to prosperity and progress. Thus scientific ideals and analytical tools found wide applications expanding from sciences and technology to the arts. Meiji arts do indeed mirror their contemporary scientific methodologies and the obsession with increasing national productivity; Meiji arts also ‘discovered’ natural beauty in images of nature worked upon by the applications of modern technology, as well as in exploratory views of still unknown topographies. Such tendencies, having developed from the late Edo period found institutional foundation in the Meiji era and became crucial to the formation of the Japanese national identity. I identified as causes of these transformations Japan's exposure to western scientific methodologies as a means of equalizing itself with the west and, even more, Japan's growing awareness of the new international setting and its codification. This codification was based on the economic principles of modern capitalism and the modern categories of specialized, scientific disciplines and institutions.
