ABSTRACT
They don’t speak foreign languages, they do not mingle with the students from other departments, they adhere to what they believe are the traditional Japanese subjects for study and, if possible, to the traditional way of life. They are admired as ‘very Japanese’ by some, and are laughed at as too dentôteki (‘traditional’ or ‘traditionalist’) by the others. They are the teachers and the students of nihonga – Japanese-style painting. If you belong, as I have at one time, to the group of nihonga practitioners
in one way or another, it is impossible, to avoid a question like ‘What is nihonga?’ or ‘Is nihonga something like ukiyoe (“wood-block prints”)’? These are questions posed not only by unenlightened foreigners but also by the Japanese themselves. The impression is that this tradition of art with a history of more than a century, dating back to the early Meiji period and with thousands of paintings to its name, still has to explain itself even on its native soil. Authoritative information on the subject of nihonga in sourcebooks such as The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Japan describes this trend of art as emerging in opposition to yôga, ‘Western-style painting’ and in the face of a threat to national identity posed by the influx of Western art in the second half of the nineteenth century. From its very beginning in 1888, when the Tokyo School of Fine Arts was founded, the institutional and practical frameworks for instruction in painting in Japan were plagued by a basic paradox. In the West, the ‘traditionalist school’ of painting was regarded as an exemplar of the emerging avant-garde, while in Japan the ‘Western school’, itself derided at home as simple imitations of no value, was itself revered as avant-garde and anti-traditionalist (Karatani, in Marra 2001: 44-5). Japanese traditional art was ‘discovered’ and readily accepted by Western educators, such as Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1908) who claimed that ‘values in Japanese art transcended those of the modern West’ (ibid.: 43). As a result of this cross-fertilisation, the art of nihonga, especially its iconography, gradually came to be led and regulated by canons so similar to those that regulated Western painting that today their differences are mostly in terms of institutional arrangements. This is not however, to agree with Samuel C. Morse, that ‘it cannot be long before the old, artificially maintained division between “Western” and “Japanese” [painting] will either wither away or be bypassed by younger generations’
(in Bowring and Kornicki 1993: 196). Rather, it points towards the deliberate support required by nihonga departments in Japanese art universities and the nihonga groups of artists to perpetuate an idea that their work distils the essence of Japanese art. This is a concept which is in itself artificial or at least a construction, as Karatani has argued (Karatani 2001: 44). Notwithstanding these deconstructive critiques, it is interesting to examine whether or not there is something substantially different in the practice of nihonga artists and whether the ‘Japanese-picture’ construct is actually capable of generating productive cultural phenomena and not only ‘transplants of the surface’ (Makino 1995: 117). The aim of this chapter is to show how the school of nihonga is produced
institutionally by superimposing features of the traditional paradigm of artmaking onto a modern art form in order to ‘naturalise’ it into the Japanese context. It is based on my personal experience as a researcher at the nihonga department of the Tôkyô Geijutsu Daigaku (Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music or Geidai) in 1995-97 and has in part been motivated by the conviction that the problem of assigning a distinctive ‘feel’ to Japanese culture (Bocking, in Carr and Mahalingham 2001: 711) is one worth returning to in thinking through the role of painting in the manufacturing of national identity and the incompatibility of imported styles and domestic sensibility (Makino 1995: 118). This conviction is vividly reflected by the public statements of practising artists on what is and what is not ‘Japanesestyle painting’, by the exhibitions focusing on the indigenous elements in Japanese art and by the many hours of discussion I have had with nihonga artists and students, especially with the well-known Japanese-style painter Okamura Keizaburô whose own creative work is a good testimony to the meaningfulness of these problems. As my own position has oscillated between the critical gaze of an outside observer to empathic participation as a painter who is nearly an insider, I will treat my experience as a sort of fieldwork, though I was not at the time conscious of my activity as a specific kind of anthropology. This attempt to examine the domestic sensibilities of the Japanese art world is not therefore sympathetic to claims made for its impenetrable and unique character. Rather this chapter is intended as a contribution to critiques of the ‘West’ and of ‘tradition’ as they have been construed in Japanese modernity. Therefore, I shall attempt to analyse nihonga not from the formal stand-
point of its iconography, but will engage in phenomenological description. That is, instead of letting the images of nihonga ‘speak for themselves’ which takes for granted that what is available to be read constitutes meaning, I will try to treat nihonga as a social practice and a specific form of symbolic action. For this purpose it will be necessary to see it not only as a set of objects offered for the national or international art markets, but also as a set of practical processes with a rich variety of cultural elements that an objectcentred and essentialising strategy leaves unexamined. The questions that direct this descriptive analysis are about the differences in the practice of
nihonga and oil painting and in what way – if any – can these be recognised by the outsider? This will lead to a more fundamental question: how are the challenges of Western modernity met by tradition-oriented contemporary Japanese artists? Let me start with a comparative description of the creative process that
characterise nihonga and yôga styles of painting. There are essential differences in tools and their usage, the stages of their learning processes, the resulting means of social performances, and the perceptive qualities required to appreciate the finished works of art. A normative Western method of comparison between the two would
probably ignore the stage of technical execution as merely a technical matter. An influential if not authoritative contemporary definition of technique in art can be found in a recent statement by well-known English artist Grayson Perry, a Turner Prize winner in 2003, who states that ‘the essential distinction between art and craft is that art has an emphasis on feelings and ideas and the crafts have an emphasis on technique’ and that ‘the craft world has become a refuge for the less challenging artists’ (Perry, 2005). In the terms of this perspective, meaningful comparisons are made solely between the objects already made, that is, between the pictures presented by the artist for the judgment of the viewer. By one measure such an approach appears fully justified, for sometimes it is only the ‘final dot’ of the artist which decides the quality of the piece and makes it ‘art’. It would seem meaningless to attempt to compare something less than a finished object, for it is taken for granted that iconographical analysis relies upon a determination of meaning that can reach out towards a network of cultural and social meanings. My experience and argument are that this is not the case with nihonga. Practitioners agree that it is precisely around technique that the multilayered value of this art is structured. For them, it is not ‘just a technique’ and such a sharp division between the ‘art’ of nihonga and the process of creating nihonga is, in fact, very Western. In this respect it is interesting to note here that the Japanese word for ‘art’, bijutsu, was coined only in the beginning of Meiji when the concept of art was transplanted from the West. In this process, the handicrafts that used to play a very important role in Japanese traditional culture, were separated from ‘high art’ and delegated a lower position in the new hierarchy of value (Yamawaki 1995: 106). Two elements in the creative process without which nihonga is virtually
unrecognisable are iwa enogu and washi. The first term refers to the mineral pigment paint or simply various kinds of rock ground into powder and the second term refers to Japanese hand-made paper. The skilled combining of these is the technical core of nihonga. It is the rough character of the mineral pigment that creates the difference in the surface qualities between Japanesestyle painting and oil painting. In contrast to oil painting, the surface of nihonga painting is always matte finish and comprises a more or less clearly discernible texture comparable to that of sandpaper. In some cases the grain is deliberately made very rough by the artist, and then it comes to look a lot
like the surface of a real rock. At the other extreme it bears a close resemblance to the surface texture of watercolours. Moving now from surface to means, how are tools applied in the hands of nihonga practitioners? The first method which is usually ignored by the ‘insiders’, the professionals, is to go and buy these tools in the big art-goods stores. The second and most widespread method is to buy these goods in small family-run stores specialising in nihonga tools only. The third method is to make them yourself. This latter method is the archetypal procedure and is part of the education of every nihonga painter. Therefore, I would like to start the description of the processual and social character of nihonga from this point. It was called the iwa enogu tsuki ken – ‘a trip for making a mineral pigment
paint’. The group was formed by the professors, the assistants and the students of the nihonga department of the university. The destination was an artstudio in Fukushima prefecture affiliated to Geidai. It was there that the mineral pigment was to be produced from the various kinds of rocks gathered in the mountains around the area. Before we left, I was given a notice that the only and fundamental requirement was to cooperate with the other members of the group, as the success of the trip depended essentially on smooth teamwork. The work had to proceed in several pre-determined stages: from forming small subgroups, through composing the schedule of activities, to planning the most important part – the selection of rocks with regard to their color and softness, the methods of grinding them into powder, and, finally, the sifting of the powder through different sieves to sort out pigments of various coarseness. Everything was planned down to the minutest detail while still in Tokyo, and began as soon as we had arrived and deposited our backpacks in the rooms of the studio-house. Each team of three to five persons had a walkie-talkie so as not to lose contact during the ‘expedition’, and they spread into different directions as the character of surrounding rocks differed, allowing for a greater variety of pigments. Enjoying the scenery and expressing the amazement with it in a very emotional manner was as inseparable a part of the project as the careful selection of the stones themselves. My Japanese counterparts knew the names of each kind of rock we discovered and could immediately appreciate the quality of the pigment it was going to make and the natural beauty of the form of each stone, which they often found ‘cute’ (kawaii). When we returned at the appointed time, each team brought back an abundance of rocks of different colours. In the studio, big metal pestles were prepared for crushing and grinding the stones. Hard physical work began, and we took turns since it was not easy to keep on grinding for a long time. All the powder produced was filtered through sieves of different density by the female members of our group. Female students also prepared food for the tired gatherers and grinders in the kitchen of the studio-house. After all the stones had been crushed into powder of various colors and shades of colours and the pigment had been sorted out into small plastic bags indicating the name of the mineral and the number of the coarseness of the powder, we had our meals and sake. This was also the
time for remembering the successes and the failures of the day and making jokes about them and for listening to the stories told by the older professors concerning their similar experiences, the nuances of the selection of the rocks and making of the mineral pigments. The day ended with the bath, which in that house was designed with an exceptional view: the bath itself was made of wood and the room had sliding windows opening onto a panorama of the surrounding garden. The next morning began with all of us assembling in the biggest Japanese-style room of the house to summarise the accomplishments of our visit. Afterwards we shared soba noodles from a big bowl in the centre of the room, the professor and the teaching assistants expressed their delight with the trip and their gratitude to all participants. It is instructive to examine the structure of the trip that emerges from the
description, against the background of yôga (‘Western oil-painting’). In oil painting paint normally comes in tubes or in cans but this does not mean that one cannot find factory-produced paint of an indisputably high quality. So why should artists apparently waste time in trying to produce it themselves? Is it not much better instead to concentrate on the artistic creation itself, which is the real work and cannot be reduced to technique? The abstraction and reification of the materials stress the discontinuity between ‘a work of art’ and its materiality, the stuff it is made of. This is related to a more general problem of Western individualism and the habits of abstract thinking that are intimately connected with it – first of all, the strong emphasis on the abstract concept of time. Its effect is to avoid trying to articulate meaningfully the entire network of people and processes that participate in nihonga and rather to ascribe value to the individual creator. There is also a tendency to pass over the entire path of dialectical emergence of the piece of art, sticking to its ‘meaning’ instead and thus transcending the passage of real time. This not to deny the recognition and status of the author in Japan, but along with this we find a much wider context and a sensitivity to the realm of social interaction. In summary, the pivotal points of the university visit are: the stress on the group rather than on the individual in the ‘guild’ formed of such individualistically oriented members, otherwise encouraged to orientate themselves individually as artists; the importance of (collective) physical work; the readiness to conduct every stage of the work slowly and meticulously; the meaningful structuring of the relationship between man and nature (mineral pigment being both a part of nature and a part of art); the procedures that saturate the hierarchically structured relationships and patterns of cooperation between different generations and sexes with meaning. Iwa enogu tsuki ken is not the only, though perhaps it is the most
impressive, example of how art materials can become a ‘binding element’ in the social practices of artists in contemporary Japan. Workshops on making pigments or paper are quite widespread among the various communities of nihonga artists and students. Moreover, every stage of preparation for painting with mineral pigments – constructing the board for mounting the paper, mounting and sizing the paper, applying mineral pigments and ginpaku or
kinpaku (‘silver leaves’ or ‘gold leaves’) – is carried out by the nihonga artist with a speed, mastery, and enjoyment difficult to imagine in the workshop of an oil painter. I would suggest that such technical attitudes and performances reveal something very essential in the ‘nihonga as Japan’ paradigm of the practice and position of ‘art’ in a whole network of social activities. The positive values and personal enjoyment with which the nihonga artist is involved in the ‘craft’ part of the work are not something determined by pressures of modernisation or by pressures of any kind but emerge from historically constituted tendencies in Japanese culture. In considering the importance of this ‘processual’ character of nihonga art
production, there are clear implications for the kind of analysis required. If finished works lend themselves to reproduction and can be included in travelling exhibitions and thus directly appreciated, processes of their production remain important in their native Japanese context only and can hardly be replaced by description. Without direct participation and active involvement in them, it is impossible to understand the dialectical character of the works that result from them. Pointing to something that remains uncovered, ‘behind’ the work of art, may seem to be a device for mystification, but it is precisely this ‘participation element’ and the immersion in lived time that make sense in training and performance practices of Japanese arts. A useful parallel here with traditional genres of Japanese music can be drawn here, as David W. Hughes puts it:
The overwhelming influence of Western music has created a dilemma for would-be composers in traditional genres: the ‘natural’ evolution of these genres has been pre-empted. It no longer seems possible, for example, to write a convincing new nô play without sounding either super-conservative or Westernized.
