/Abstract / Rin Yamashita (1857–1939), Japan’s sole painter, spent the years 1881–1882 in St. Peters- burg. Research into the three hundred Yamashita that remain intact has revealed all of them to be copies of Russian originals. This is attributable to the Byzantine idea of anonymous icons, expressed in the second Nicean Council of 787. At a time before Kondakov and Wölfflin, who saw art as an expres- sion of an era, Yamashita borrowed two distinct styles for her icons, one academic, and the other an antiquarian, indigenous, primitive style with an affinity with the icons in Palekh and the same figure from the 1911 lithograph icon by I. E. Fesenko. According to the Nicean Council, the icon was a dead matter par excellence. This relative attitude toward matter finds parallels in the work of Kierkegaard. In modern Japan, where icons by Yamashita co-exist with portraits of emperors, viewers are expected suspend the idea of living matter and hold the idea of representation as Kierkegaard says that Christianity introduced it into the world.

/ Keywords / Siemiradzki, Peshehonov, Palekh, Dead matter, Fesenko, Animism, Kierkegaard

Michitaka Suzuki Okayama University mich-szk @ olive.plala.or.j p

58 Icons in Japan Painted by Rin Yamashita. Anonymity and Materiality Michitaka Suzuki

Yamashita Rin, the sole icon painter in nineteenth - century Japan

The study of icon painting in Imperial First, she copied the icon of the Vladimir Mother seems to have begun during the past couple of de- of God. It is of a small format (15.1 x 12.1 cm), and cades1. One can deduce the characteristic aspects of this is the only example among her icons which Russian icons before the October Revolution 2 also from material in Japan. A sufficient number of icons 1 Beside the fundamental and representative researches by V. G. Vryusova survive which were produced due to the missionary in the Communist era, Oleg Tarasov’s contribution of two books af- ter Perestroika should be mentioned here : Icon and Devotion : Sacred activity of Nikolai Kasatkin (1836 –1912) after 1861. Spaces in Imperial Russia, London 2002 and Framing Russian Art : From They are kept mainly intact and cared for by the Jap- Early Icons to Malevich, London 2011. They are translations of the fol- lowing Russian originals : Олег Ю. Тарасов, Икона и Благочестие: anese Orthodox Church; Kasatkin became Orthodox Очерки иконного дела в Императорской России, Moscow 1995; Олег Archbishop of All Japan in 1907 and was ordained a Ю. Тарасов, Рама и Образ : Риторика обрамления в Русском Искусстве, Moscow 2007. In English, there is merely one paper by Nichols in the saint in 1970. These icons are in good condition and book edited by Brumfield and Velimirovic, see Robert L. Nichols, “ The are very precious examples, because in Russia itself Icon and the Machine in Russia’s Religious Renaissance”, in Christian- many of the icons from the period were destroyed ity and the Arts in Russia, William Craft Brumfield, Miloš M. Velimirovic eds, Cambridge 1991. Cracraft devoted a small section to art in his during the Communist regime. extensive study of Peter the Great, see James Cracraft, The Petrine Revo- Nikolai Kasatkin supported one icon painter lution in Russian Imagery, Chicago, 1997, p. 138, pp. 294 – 295. During the Communist regime, the icons of the Imperial era were mentioned from among the Japanese orthodox believers, Rin in the comprehensive book by Léonide Ouspensky, Théologie de l’icône Yamashita (1857–1939), baptized as Irina. Yamashita dans l’Eglise orthodoxe, Paris 1980, p. 387 ff. 2 Тhe study of Orthodox icons in Japan began in the 1960’s by Isaburo went to St. Petersburg in 1881 and stayed there Oka (1914 – 2010) and Hideo Oda (1911– 2003) concerning the works by for two years. She returned to Japan in 1883, and Yamashita Rin. Oka, as an art historian, made research from a stylistic point of view; Oda, as grandson of Rin Yamashita’s younger brother worked as an icon painter for over thirty years, until himself, made a biographical research. Isaburo Oka,“Icons of Twelve the October Revolution in 1917 when the Japanese Feasts by Rin Yamashita in Orthodox Church in Hakodate” Bijutsu Orthodox church lost economic support from Rus- Kenkyu, 258 (1968), pp. 17– 25; Hideo Oda, Yamashita Rin, Tokyo 1977. Successive research results since 1985 are published together in sia. After the revolution she immediately returned one volume. Michitaka Suzuki, Rin Yamashita Studies, Monograph to Kasama where she had been born and where her Series 35, Okayama 2013 (text in Japanese with English, Serbian, and Russian summaries). In Western languages there are only three pa- brother still lived. pers about the icons by Rin Yamashita. Мититака Судзуки, “Право- She copied icons brought from Russia through славная икона Японии и Рин Ямасита”, in Япония, ежегодник (1993), Moscow 1994, pp. 171–179; Michail V. Uspensky, “An Orthodox Icon Manchuria and Siberia. From research conducted by Yamashita Rin- the Japanese Painter of the Meiji Period”, Japan since 1985, I can confirm that all her icons are copies Review, 6 (1995), pp. 37– 50; Михайл В. Успенский, “Православная иконопись в Японии втопой половины XX в. Икона Ямаситы Рин and thus might be thought to be faithful reflections Воскpесение Христово”, Из истории японского исскуства, Saint of contemporary Russian icons of the Imperial era. Petersburg­ 2004, pp. 125 –130. 59 bears her personal name signed by herself. It is also dated 1901 / Fig. 1 /. This icon was kept in her younger brother’s family (as Rin Yamashita never married) and was said to be an icon made particularly for her personal prayer. It is for that reason, apparently, that it was signed and dated. Although it has a precise traditional iconographi- cal identity, this icon is rendered in oil and has prominent brushstrokes. Another example of the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God in oil is kept in the Orthodox Church in Okutama ( Ichinoseki-City, Iwate Prefecture) and it cannot be anything other than a Russian icon / Fig. 2 /. Therefore, Yamashita must have been able to get to know such a Russian example in Japan. She also copied one famous miraculous icon, of the mother of God of Kozelschina (Козельщина). There are three copies in Japan, all of which were made by her. One in Yanaihara (Kurashiki-City, Okayama Prefecture) has an inscription on the back- side which states that this icon was sent from Tokyo in May 1896 / Fig. 3 /. Yamashita also left a sketch for this icon, which is kept by her family. It is of the genre of an iconographer’s model book ( podlinnik) 3 to be used by herself later and by the followers she hoped for. She also left to her family a Russian litho- graphic icon of the same composition / Fig. 4 /. It was covered by a newspaper (Choya Shinbun) dated to the 6th of June 1895. So we can deduce that this icon was made between the 6th of June 1895 (terminus post quem) and May 1896 (terminus ante quem). It seems that her icons were sent away soon after she had painted them. She covered the four borders of this lithograph in order to concentrate intensively on her work copying the icon. On the back of the printed icon is an explanation. This is a miraculous icon, and the original was purported to have performed a miracle in the village of Kozelschina in Ukraine in 1880 or 1881, that is, just before Yamashita’s arrival in St. Petersburg or during her stay there. She would have heard the story of this miracle. Many copies of this miraculous icon were generated in many places. The lithographic print was made in Moscow and was disseminated among the Orthodox world. I found during my personal research one copy in Kiev, and another exists in the Tretyakov Gallery 4; beyond Russia, I found a copy in the Russian Church 1 / Rin Yamashita, Vladimir Mother of God, of Bela Crkva (Serbia) and in the cathedral church Hakurinkyo / Kasama / Ibaraki Prefecture, 1901 of Helsinki. Thus, Yamashita Rin’s Japanese icons 2 / Russian Icon, Vladimir Mother of God, Okutama should also be seen as manifestations of a world- Orthodox Church, Iwate Prefecture, 19 th century wide dissemination of this miraculous icon. Other icons copied by Irina Yamashita show the degree to which Russian icons at that time used compositions that originated in the West, e. g. by Raphael (1483 –1520), Guido Reni (1575 –1642) and Carlo Dolci (1616 –1686) as well as by such later Ro- mantic painters such as Charles Steuben (1788 –1856), Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794 –1872) and Gus- tave Doré (1832 –1888), and the painters of Russian Academy of Art in St. Petersburg, Fedor Bruni (Фёдор Антонович Бруни 1799 –1875), Timoleon Karl von Neff ( Тимофей Андреевич Нефф, 1804 –1877 ) and Henryk Siemiradzki (1843 –1902). There is a docu- ment which reports that in the court of the Emperor Nicholai I in 1830 –1840, the Bologna school of paint- ing was particularly appreciated. Also, the most important Russian painter of Romanticism, Karl Bryullov (Карл Павлович Брюллов 1799 –1852), re- membered that the Emperor Nicholai I summoned him together with Bruni, Basin ( Пётр Васильевич Басин 1793 –1877 ) and Neff, applauded the Christ’s face painted by Italian Baroque painter Guercino (1591–1666) and expected them to take it as a model 5. Also the Slavophilic painter Shevyirev estimated Bruni’s Madonna as “the genuine Russian Madonna born beside the River Neva”6. The Chief Procura- tor of the Holy Synod, Pobednostsev (Константин Петрович Победоносцев 1827–1907 ) is said to have especially preferred the Nazarene school of painting 7. Even in the last decades of the Imperial Russia, the popular image of Christ in Gethsemane by Heinrich

3 Подлинник is a Russian word for model or pattern book for icons, made by sheets of papers with sketches by lines, sometimes with short text to indicate the title of the scene or the colors for details. For the model book of the Orthodox world from Byzantium to Russia in general, see Лилия М. Евсеева, Афонская книга образцов XV в, Moscow 1998. Concerning the concrete usage of the model book, see the best discussion about the technology of making copies in David Winfield, “Middle and Later Byzantine Wall Painting Methods”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 22 (1968), pp. 61–139. 4 The Miraculous Image : The Icons of Our Lady in the Tretyakov Gallery, Alexei Lidov, Galina Sidorenko eds, Moscow 2001, No. 43. 5 “Once I came back home very late and found on the desk a paper from the Ministry of the Court. It said I should come to the Anichkov Court on the next day. There I found Bruni, Basin, and Neff. The Emperor ( Nicholai I) called us into his office and showed us the Christ’s face painted by Guercino and applauded it without any limits and said that he did not know any better and hoped Russian painters to take it as a model (“Как -то раз я возвратился домой очень поздно и нашел на столе бумагу от министра двора, прика- зание явиться на другой день в Аничков дворец. Я нашел там Бру- ни, Басина, Неффа. Государь повел нас в свой кабинет, показал голову Христа Гверчино, без меры хвалил ее, говорил, что не видел лучшей…и хочет, чтобы русские художники приняли ее за тип”). Павел Ю. Климов, Живописное убранство Храма Хри- ста Спасителя, in Храм Христа Спасителя, Моscow 1996, p. 79. 3 / Rin Yamashita, Kozelschina Mother of God, Yanai- 6 Алексей Грищенко, Русская икона как искусство живописи, Моs­ hara Orthodox Church, Okayama Prefecture, 1896 cow 1917, p. 13. 7 Ouspensky, Théologie de l’icône (n. 1), p. 414. 4 / Russian lithograph Icon, Kozelschina Mother of God, Hakurinkyo / Kasama / Ibaraki Prefecture, after 1891 Hofmann (1824 –1911) of 1890, which was bought by John D. Rockefeller and donated in 1929 to the Riverside Church in New York was used as icon by Yamashita and this was the case also with the contem- porary Russian icon painters 8. Even the conservative Palekh icon painters used the composition from the Biblia Ectypa, published in Augsburg by Christoph Weigel (1654 –1725) in 1695, and the compositions by the Classicist Charles Le Brun (1619 –1690) as models for the compositions of icon paintings 9, and the representative icon painter in Palekh, Dmitry Korin ( Дмитрий Николаевич Корин ?—1897 ), him- self copied in 1874 the wall painting of the Vatican Loggia by Raphael / Fig. 5 /. Also the icons made by the Peshehonov ( Василий Макарович Пеше- хонов) workshop in St. Petersburg of 1880, which were transported­­ to Japan for the main of the Cathedral church in Tokyo ( Nikolai-Do) conse­ cra­ted in 1891, showed influences from academic (i. e. Western) painting with the copy of Bruni’s Christ in Gethsemane / Fig. 6 /, although his father Makar Samsonovich Peshehonov was a famous Old-Believer­ and took many vulgar separatists ( рас- кольники) into his workshop and always was kept watch by the Church dignitaries10. But this Western oriented situation gradually changed during the last decades of nineteenth cen- tury. We can see this change in Rin Yamashita’s icons.

Icon Perception around 1880 in Russia

Yamashita also should have made several copies of the Last Supper for the center of the iconostasis over the royal door / Fig. 7 /. Of the many examples of Last Supper of the same composition, some should be Russian works. But Yamashita copied the model so faithfully that it is sometimes difficult to distin- guish Yamashita’s work from the Russian originals. The original from which Yamashita copied was the iconostasis in the Orthodox Church of Kyoto, which was consecrated in 1903. There is a document which shows that she copied the icons when they arrived in Kyoto11. The whole iconostasis was made by the Mos- cow atelier of Jakov Efimovich Epanechnikov (Яков Ефимович Епанечников, years of birth and dead unknown)12. There is a Last Supper of the same com- position on the iconostasis in the Orthodox Church in Osaka, which was constructed in 1908 for the Russian prisoners’ camp in Matsuyama after the Russo -Japa- nese war. The inscription says that the iconostasis 62 was made by Vasily Pavlovich Guryanov ( Василий Павлович Гурьянов 1866 –1920) in Moscow in 1907, 5 / Dimitry Korin, Copy of the Vatican who was famous for completing the preservation Loggia, Korin Museum, Palekh, 1874 work of ’s icon in 1905 13. Its 6 / V. M. Peshehonov, Christ in Gethsemane, original composition was made by Polish Russian (not extant) Nikolai Do, Tokyo, 1880 academic painter, Henryk Siemiradzki (1843 –1902) for the Cathedral of Christ Savior in Moscow. There is a photo of the original in the apse taken during its destruction in 1931, which was published just after the return of the nostalgia for Imperial Russia after the perestroika movement / Fig. 8 / 14. The composi- tion was also disseminated widely outside Russia. I found one in Kruševac in Serbia in the church of Saint Djordje painted by Živko Jugović (1855 –1908). Živko Jugović was born in Čačak in central Serbia and learned icon painting first in Kiev from 1870 to 1873 and then in Moscow until 1875 1 5. The Church was consecrated in 1904. Another example of this composition can be found on Mt. Athos. The Russian monastery of Saint Andrei has a beautiful iconostasis completed in 1899; and Siemiradzki’s composition is used in the center over the royal door as the icon of Last Supper. Also in the Ascension Cathedral in

8 This kind of copying of popular imagery for icons was strongly criti- cized by the avant-garde theorist Vladimir Markov (1877–1914). Russian Art of the Avant Garde: Theory and Criticism, John E. Bowlt ed., London 1991, p. 33. Now after Perestroika again, many copies of the same composition by Hofmann are found in everyday Orthodox life, and Guido Reni is also popular again in icons. 9 Анатолий В. Бакушинский, Искусство Палеха, Moscow/ Leningrad, 1934, p. 57, p. 251. Bakushinsky here (p. 251) transcribes the title page of the Weigel Bible dated 1680. The Serbian icon painters Dimitrije Bačević and Dimitirje Popović copied the Weigel Bible composition for the iconostas in the Nikolajevska Church in Zemun complet­ ed in 1762. See Dejan Medaković, Putevi Srpskog Baroka, Beograd 1971, pp. 147–156; Dejan Medaković, Serbischer Barock, Vienna 1991, pp. 150 –164. Nekrasova writes about the copying of Le Brun by icon painters in Palekh. Мария А. Некрасова, Палехская миниатюра, Leningrad 1978, р. 80. See the following note (16). Also for the recent research upon Palekh and the birth of icon studies, see Ivan Foletti, Da Bisanzio alla Santa Russia : Nikodim Kondakov e la nascita della storia dell’arte in Russia, Rome 2011. 10 Герольд И. Вздорнов, История открытия и изчения русской средневековой живописи XIX век, Моscow 1986, p. 32. Also for the Peshehonov workshop : Бакушинский, Искусство Палеха (n. 9), p. 88, p. 254 (no. 73), Некрасова, Палехская миниатюра (n. 9), p. 82 . Lazarev notes that the Peshehonov workshop kept a podlinnik (model book for icons) of the Stroganov school of icons. Виктор Н. Лазарев, Андрей Рублев и иго школа, Мoscow 1966, p. 77. 11 The June issue of the magazine of Orthodox Theological School for Women in Tokyo Ura-nishiki in 1903. 12 Some information is in the book by Vzdornov, but the name is cited here as “Епанешников”. Вздорнов, История открытия (n. 10), p. 156. 13 Guryanov is mentioned also here. Ibidem, p. 325, no. 210. This restora- tion was before the discovery of the aesthetic beauty of icons by Henri Matisse when he visited Moscow in 1911. About the discovery of icons by Matisse, see Geraldine Leardi, “‘Tout est dans la mesure’ Matisse davanti alle icone russe nel 1911”, in La Russie et L’Occident : relations intellectuelles et artistiques au temps des révolutions russes, Ivan Foletti ed., Rome 2010, pp. 11– 30. 14 Нина Молева, Храм, Наше Наследие, Моscow 1988, No. 3, p. 47. 15 Enciklopedija Likovnih Umjetnosti, III, Zagreb 1964, p. 124; Dejan Medaković, Srpska umetnost u XIX veku, Beograd 1981, p. 184 –185. Unalaska Island (Alaska), which was first dedicated style. And she wrote negatively and pejoratively in 1826 by the missionary priest Innocent Veniaminov about the latter. This pejorative view of the national (1797–1879), but rebuilt in 1894, there is a copy of style can also be found in the text of the novel Sealed Siemiradzki’s Last Supper / Fig. 9/. Angel by Nikolai Leskov (1831–1895) published in Yamashita made the same Last Supper subject, 1873. Leskov uses here the word “адописный”, that but in a style different from the academic style of is “painting of Hell ”16. Yamashita’s term “Obake -E ”, Siemiradzki. I show here two examples in Su­­ga which means literally “ghost painting”, could be her and Morioka among eleven extant examples own translation of the then presumably common / Fig. 10 /. Both are presumably by Yamashita Rin, pejorative word “адописный”. as a sketch is left with her family. The style is archaic In 1882, the Emperor Alexander III charged the and primitive with flat space and intense contours. pea­sant brothers Belousov ( Белоусов) from the vil­­ It attempts to show all the protagonists clearly and lage Palekh to restore the wall painting in the Face­ distinct from one other while sacrificing the rational ted Chamber ( Грановитая Палата) in the Mos­cow composition of depth. One can see the difference Kremlin in the antiquarian style of Simon Usha- when compared to the same subject in Siemiradzki’s kov of the seventeenth century 17. The painting of composition. What does this difference mean? the murals in the Faceted Chamber reflects the Yamashita wrote about the question of style in renewed emphasis on history and shows the con- her diary in 1881 in St. Petersburg : “ Today I heard temporary state of icon painting before the process many discussions about icons. It seems that they of cleaning the ancient icons had begun18. So after [nuns in the monastery] dislike Italian painting. the Russo -Turkish War, due to the patriotic ten- It is very sad to notice that they like Greek [ Byzan- dency in the visual arts, the old traditional style, tine] painting which is ghost painting (Obake -E)”. referred to as the Greek style, had found support She mentions that there were two painting styles even among the Imperial Family. in icons. One is Italian and the other is Greek. The I found by chance a very similar work to Yama­ former style was a new Western style supported by shita’s Last Supper in an antique shop in Moscow’s the Imperial court and aristocracy. The latter style Izmailovo Park, namely a Last Supper lithograph 64 was a traditional, retrospective and nationalistic published by E . I . Fesenko (Е. И . Фесенко)19 in Odes­ 7 / Rin Yamashita, Last Supper, Kasama Nichido Museum, Ibaraki Prefecture, after 1903

8 / Henryk Siemiradzki, Last Supper, Christ - Savior Church, Moscow, consecrated in 1883

sa in 1911 / Fig. 11 /. It shows a similar primitivism ited to his art (τεχνη, ars) , whereas the disposition and the figure of Juda in the right-low corner has (διαταξις, dispositio) manifestly pertains to the Holy the same pose as the one in Yamashita’s Last Sup- Fathers who built [the churches]”21. This dictum per. But two apostles to the left of Christ have the seems to have been popular among Russian scholars, same attitude as the ones in Siemiradzki’s Last Sup- as it was used to explain the medieval idea about per. It is highly likely that primitivism was com- art by Nikodim Kondakov ( Никодим Павлович ing to the fore as a way of rejecting the influence Кондаков 1844 –1925) 22 and Pavel Florensky ( Павел of Western academ­ism. Mikhail Nesterov’s and Александрович Флоренский 1882–1937) 23. Nikolai Roerich’s horrific Holy Face of Christ are examples of this. 16 Николай С. Лесков, Полное собрание сочинение, tome III, Saint Petersburg­ 1902, p. 40. According to the icon painter Dimitry Niko- One icon of the Ascension in Obihiro, also made laevich Korin in Palekh, Leskov took the model for this novel from by Yamashita / Fig. 12 / , uses the detail of Christ from the Peshehonov icon workshop in S. Petersburg which had taken many painters from Palekh. Валентина И. Антонова, Древенерусское the composition published in 1866 by French painter искусство в собраний Павела Корина, Моscow 1966, р. 145. Gustave Doré 20. The same composition is used in the 17 Aida Nasibova, The Faceted Chamber in the Moscow Kremlin, Leningrad 1978, p. 13. icon in a rural church in Donje Dragovlje south of 18 Evgenia Kirichenko, The Russian Style, London 1991, p. 84. Niš in Serbia. The icon in Obihiro by Yamashita has 19 E. I. Fesenko ran a lithograph printing house in Odessa. His name appears in Nichols, “The Icon” (n. 1), p. 137 and Тарасов, Икона и the inscription, which gives the date of 1911 but does Благочестие (n. 1), p. 64, p. 254, p. 255. not note the name of Yamashita Rin, instead giving 20 About the reproduction of Doré in Russia, see the recent article of Nikolai Kasatkin as a painter of this icon. It is most Anna Markova, “Doré in Russia”, in Gustave Doré 1832–1883: Master of Imagination, Philippe Kaenel ed., Paris / Ottawa 2014, pp. 276 – 281. improbable to think of the missionary Kasatkin as a 21 The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453 : Sources and documents, painter. The name of Rin Yamashita has completely Cyril Mango ed., 1972, p. 172; Giovanni Domenico Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova, et Amplissima Collectio, vol. 13, col. 251– 252. disappeared. Medieval anonymity seems to have 22 Nikodim Kondakoff,Histoire de L’art Byzantin, consideré pricipalement dans governed here. This anonymity of the creator of the les miniatures, tome 1, 1886 (reprint, New York 1970), p. 33 (Никодим П. Кондаков, История византийского искусства и иконографии по icons is understandable from the idea of icon paint- миниатюрам греческих рукописей, Plovdiv 2012, p. 6); Foletti, Da ing in medieval Byzantium. The famous dictum Bisanzio alla Santa Russia (n. 9). 23 Pavel Florensky, Iconostasis, Donald Sheehan, Olga Andrejev trans., from the Second Nicaean Council of 787, translated Crestwood 2000, p. 78; Павел Флоренский, Сочинения в четырех by Cyril Mango, says “the painter ’s domain is lim- томах, tome 2, Моscow 1996, p. 454. 65 9 / Last Supper, Ascension Cathedral, Unalaska, Alaska

10 / Rin Yamashita, Last Supper, Morioka Orthodox Church, Iwate Prefecture, ca. 1890

11 / E. I. Fesenko, Last Supper, private collection, 1911

The medieval idea of artistic anonymity in gen- “Our icon painting has stayed unchanged for centuries, eral can also be understood through the texts of but because of this defect, the strict purity of church style 26 Theophilus and Dionysius of Fourna and in Rus­ has been kept …Therefore the stagnation from artistic point of view of our icon painting is not only without sia, the decision of the Stoglav ( Hundred Chap­ters) parallel, but also testifies to the spiritual excellency of Council in 1551 shows the same idea by stating icons over the Western art”27. in the forty-first Chapter : “[ You should] make icons following old models, as Greek painters did Buslaev began to concentrate his research on the and Andrei Rublev and other prominent paint- model books ( podlinnik) which Russian icon paint- ers did, not changing anything by one’s own con­ ers had been using for work upon icons. He wrote sideration” (от своего замышления ничто же that it is because Russian podlinnik preserves the претворяти) 24. ancient Byzantine tradition and thereby maintains Also the discovery of in the nine- icon painting in its pure form28. teenth century was stimulated by its anonymity. But the discipline of art history in the mo­dern In 1814, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 –1832) sense is based on the expression of the era or found the icons in the Russian chapel in Weimar the nation or the individual as Heinrich Wölfflin prepared in 1804 for the new bride of Sachsen- (1864 –1946) wrote in 1915 29. Already Kondakov -Weimar Großfürstin, Maria Pavlovna, and wanted wrote in his early work about Byzantine minia- to get some examples from Suzdal. He left a note of tures in 1876 that they have independent domain request (Wunschzettel) in 1814, describing his inter- and express the general laws of the art and its his- est in icons, mentioning icons as follows: torical changes 30. For the research of Russian Art, the contribution of Kondakov might be said to “Art form which goes back to has been interpret art from the point of view of formalism kept until now intact by the persistent copies (ein, aus as an expression of the individual artist. He can be den ältesten Zeiten von Konstantinopel her abgeleiteter Kunst- zweig, bis auf unsere Tage sich unverändert durch eine stetige a pioneer to interpret the Byzantine artifacts not Nachahmung erhalten)” 25. from the medieval point of view as something given from above, but from the modern point of view as In the same manner, the pioneer of Russian an- an expression of human beings. tiquities, Fedor Buslaev (Фёдор Иванович Буслаев Having lived in Russia from 1881 through 1883, 66 1818 –1898) wrote in 1866 : before the era of Kondakov, Rin Yamashita kept the traditional medieval idea of the anonymous icon There are very similar paintings in contemporary in her entire output until the year of the October Japan. They are portraits of the Emperors since Meiji revolution when she retired. The one icon of the era, which were called “Go-Shin-Ei ”, that is literally Vladimir Mother of God which she signed and dated “the Venerable Authentic Shadow ” / Fig. 13 /. This is an exception as it was her personal devotion- new way of adoration was in the newly constituted al icon. Shinto (the Deity Way) religion, which was made as a modern national religion to compete with the Icon as a dead matter ones in Western countries. But these portraits are treated not as representations but as represented An icon is given from above, made possible persons themselves and kept preciously and usually by the visible God. So all we can do is to copy it. hidden in a shrine of a small chapel (Ho -An-Den). Thus, all icons are copies of the icons given ear- lier. The Mandylion, that is Christ’s portrait itself, 24 Е. Б. Емченко, Стоглав: исследование и текст, Моscow 2000, p. 304. was made automatically and not by human hand 25 Goethes Werke, Weimarer Ausgabe, 1. Abteilung, Bd. 49, 2. Abt., 1900, p. 238 – 239; Arne Effenberger, Goethe und die Russischen Heiligen- (acheiropoietos). When we copy it, the mechanical bilder : Anfänge byzantinischer Kunstgeschichte in Deutschland, Mainz copy only can reproduce the original and make the 1990, pp. 8 – 9; Michitaka Suzuki, “Goethe and Russian icons and Rin Yamashita”, in Priests and Sibyls for Beauty (in honor of prof. Seiro best copy, as the human hand inevitably distorts Mayekawa), Tokyo, 1992, pp. 333 – 354 (in Japanese). the form. Therefore, the medieval idea of art is of 26 Фёдор Иванович Буслаев, Опщие понятия о русской иконописи, anonymity; no further interpretation is needed for Сочинения, tome 1, Saint Petersburg 1909, р. 41. 27 Ibidem, р. 31. the acheiropoietos. 28 Ibidem, p. 52. Rin Yamashita was faithful to this medieval idea 29 “Kunstgeschichte … die den Stil in erster Linie als Ausdruck faßt, als Ausdruck einer Zeit - und Volksstimmung wie als Ausdruck einer persönlichen Tem- of art. All of her icons are copies of the icons from peraments”. Heinrich Wölfflin,Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe, Basel Russia or of Western religious paintings, as icons in 1926, p. 23. 30 “отрасль искусства, представлая самостоятельную и по своим Russia at that time had also borrowed many com- мотивам развиващюуюся сферу, объективна и общенародна, а positions from Western religious paintings. She just в силу зтого она есть нечто целое и представляет естественное и необходимое выполнение общих законов исскуства и его worked according to the idea of medieval icons as исторического движения”. Kondakoff, Histoire de L’art Byzantin copies, without considering which kind of original (n. 22), p. 31 (Кондаков, История византийского искусства [n. 22] , p. 4). For the place of Kondakov in the research of Byzantine art, it was, whether Italian Baroque, French classical, see the recent important contribution by Foletti, Da Bisanzio alla Russian romantic or popular Bible illustrations. Santa Russia (n. 9). 67 When it becomes open for the public, people must Faces translated by Xuan-zang (玄奘 620 – 660). The bow and adore it, and to look at the image can be Japanese priest Myo-e (明恵 1173 –1232) also left the blasphemy 31. It means they were treated the same same kind of text, presumably following Huì-zhao’s as the Emperor himself as living beings 32. way of thinking. So in Buddhism, the wooden or There were also similar phenomena called “Fu­ stone sculptures of Buddha deities can be said to mi-e” in the Seclusion era after the seventeenth centu- be of dead matter and also as living. If the prayer ry. Western images of Christ and Maria were copied is strong enough or the wish is sincere enough, it on paper or in brass and used for the trial of the can make the work speak 38. then prohibited Christian people / Fig. 14 /. If they About icons, the distinction between an icon trod (“fumu”, in Japanese) upon it, they were not and its model is clearly manifested by John of acknowledged as Christians, if they refused to tread Damascus (ca. 675 / 676 –749) and Theodor Studites upon it, then they were found to be Christians. So, (ca. 759 – 826). Icon is just a matter without life and it as Thomas Da Costa Kaufmann first mentioned, can represent Christ the God and the Man because here the Christian images were used as idols 33. of the incarnation. That is because John of Damascus The way of producing copies is also the same differentiated two kinds of worships : to the icon with Buddhist icons. The originals in the Buddhist should be made proskynesis (relative worship) and case are legendary portrait sculptures of Buddha to God should be made latreia (absolute worship) 39. and the visionary appearance of deities. And in This should be the right way to interpret icons. To order to make possible the faithful copy, was to try to think icons something more than just matter is make a model book as in the Western cases. It is a mistaken path. First we must admit that matter is called “Giki”, which means “ritual rules”. The old- not living. That is to refute the animistic 40 sensibility, est extant of those sketchbooks is the one from which everyone has instinctively as a child, and still ninth century which was brought from China in 858 has in the unconsciousness. Here Sigmund Freud’s by the Japanese priest Enchin (円珍 814 – 891) in the famous dictum from his Uncanny (1919) can be Onjo-ji (Miidera) Temple in Otsu / Fig. 15/. Gobu- cited and interpreted as follows (author’s personal ‑shinkan is the illustrated iconography of deities interpretation is in brackets) : in the Diamond World of Mandala. In the inscrip- “the uncanny is something which is secretly familiar (the tion, Enchin is said to have been given this scroll idea that matter has life), which has undergone repres- by his Chinese mentor priest Fa-quan (法全) in 855 sion ( by the Old Testament) and then returned from it ”41. in Chang’an (長安) 34. For Yamashita also, this way of copying the origi- And he says also, nal for ritual images should have been familiar. There “Nowadays we no longer believe in them (ideas of life is no difference between medieval Christianity and existing in matter), we have surmounted these modes of Buddhism concerning the value of keeping the fixed thought (which come from the Old Testament); but we do iconography, but in function they differ 35. Japanese not feel quite sure of our new beliefs (that matter is dead, without life), and the old ones (that matter is living) still Buddhist images have the possibility to become exist within us ready to seize upon any confirmation”42. living beings and are very often kept hidden and secret 36. Sometimes they are given their own house So to define an idol just as a dead matter as the ( Mi-eido or Go-eido : “mi” or “go” means respect- Old Testament did in reproach, is only half true and ful prefix, “ei” means “shadow” and “do” means the one sided-view from the Old Testament. For “house”) and kept in them. They can be treated as the Gentiles, idols are living. The word “idol” has human beings still nowadays and, so to take a photo a pejorative connotation from the side of Old Testa- of them without consent is impolite. But already ment. But from the Gentiles, it is a word of admira- in the book named “Nihon-Ryo -I-Ki” ( Japanes tion and awe. The Old Testament knew that people e Strange Spirit Stories, which was compiled were thinking idols as living , so the Old Testament around 822), the author knows for sure that the refuted this notion and said there is no life in them, Buddha images are just of wood or stone 37. How- they are just stone or wood. The definition of idol can ever, these matters can become alive when the vary according to how people think of it. If people prayer or the wish is strong enough, as Chinese see it as living, then it makes the dead matter be- priest Huì-zhao (慧沼 648 – 714) wrote in his com- come an idol. If people deny life in it, then it is just 68 mentary to the Heart Sutra of the Deity of Eleven a dead matter, and can be an icon after Incarnation. 31 No English literature yet exists about Go-Shin-Ei portraits of the 12 / Rin Yamashita, Ascension, Obihiro Ortho- modern Japanese Emperors. In Japanese, Taki Koji’s works from a dox Church, Hokkaido Prefecture, 1911 semantic point of view can be mentioned. Taki Koji, Tenno no shozo (the Portraits of the Emperor), Tokyo 1985; Examples are shown in Hirase Reita, [Shozo] Bunka Ko (Considerations upon [Portrait] Culture), Tokyo 2014, pp. 23 – 64. 32 To gaze the living or conscious beings is to possess them as objects. See the treatise upon photography by Roland Barthes and Susan Son- tag , “La Photographie transformait le sujet en object”, in La chambre claire : Notes sur la photographie, Roland Barthes ed., Paris 1980, p. 29. “Photography is acquisition in several forms. In its simplest form, we have in a photograph surrogate possession of a cherished person or thing” in Susan Sontag , On Photography, New York 1977, pp. 155 –156. See Michitaka Suzuki, “Invisible Hibutsu (Hidden Buddha) and Visible Icon”, in Spacial Icons: Perfomativity in Byzantium and medieval Russia, Alexei Lidov ed., Moscow 2011, pp. 671– 672. Also “What the eye sees, it appropriates” is the word from the text written by the Coptic Saint Shenoute (348 – 465 / 466). Georgia Frank, “The Pilgrim’s Gaze in the Age before Icons”, in Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance, Robert. S. Nelson ed., Cambridge 2000, p. 107; Idem, The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity, California 2000, p. 34. 33 Thomas Da Costa Kaufmann, “Designed for Desecration : Fumi- e and European Art”, in Towards the Geography of Art, Chicago 2004, pp. 303 – 340. Mia M. Mochizuki differentiated the copied religious paintings which came to be persecuted and the copied Western maps which were permitted, see Mia M. Mochizuki, “Idolatry and Western- inspired Painting in Japan”, in The Idol in the Age of Art : Objects, Devo- tions and the Early Modern World, Michael W. Cole, Rebecca Zorach eds, Ashgate 2009, pp. 239 – 266, sp. p. 260. 34 The sole reference in English is Cynthia J. Bogel, With a Single Glance: Buddhist Icon and Early Mikkyo Vision, Seattle 2009, pp. 74 –75. The comprehensive study in Japanese upon this subject is Manabe Shunsho, Mikkyo Zuzo to Giki no Kenkyu (Study of the Iconography of Esoteric Bud- dhism and the Model Sketches), 2 vols, Tokyo 2000 – 2001. 35 For the caution not to identify things because of their outward simi- larity Origen (184 / 185 – 253 / 254) wrote in his treatise against Celsus. “What is accomplished by God’s power is nothing like what is done by sorcery”. Origenes, Contra Celsum, II, 51, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 11, col. 8 7 7. Also I might be justified in citing the following words of Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874 –1936). “ The religions on the earth do not greatly differ in rites and forms; they do greatly differ in what they teach.” Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy, in Collected Works, David Dooley ed., vol . 1, San Francisco, 1986, p. 333. 36 As for the hidden Buddha images in general, see Suzuki, “Invisible Hibutsu” (n. 32), pp. 663 – 693. About Hidden Buddha images as idols, there are important contributions by Western researchers. Bernard Faure, Visions of Power : Imagining Medieval Japanese Buddhism, Princeton 1996; Living Images : Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context, Robert H. Sharf, Elizabeth Horton Sharf eds, Stanford 2001; Fabio Rambelli, Buddhist Materiality : A Cultural History of Objects in Japanese Buddhism, Stanford 2007. The most recent reference to the hidden Buddha is Timon Screech, Obtaining Images : Art, production and Display in Edo Japan, Honolulu 2012, pp. 119 –122. 37 Nihon-Ryo-I-Ki, vol. 2, chapters 23, 26, 37. 38 For the discussion about the relation of matter and spirit in Buddhist art, see Michitaka Suzuki, “Hidden Hibutsu” (n. 32), pp. 678 – 679. 39 Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, III, Contra imaginum calumnia- tores orationes tres, Bonifatius Kotter ed., Berlin 1975, vol. III, chapters 27– 40, pp. 135 –141; St. John of Damascus, On the Divine Images, David Anderson trans., Crestwood 1980, pp. 82– 88; St. John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images, Andrew Louth trans., Crestwood 2003, pp. 104 –110. 40 The term “animism” was used by Tylor (1832–1917 ) instead of spiritual- ism, as the term “spiritualism” was at that time already being used to mean necromancy to invoke spirits of the dead people. Edward Burnett Tylor, Primitive Culture, London 1929 (1871), vol. 1, pp. 425 – 426. 41 Sigmund Freud, Gesammelte Werke, XII, Frankfurt am Main, 1989, p. 259. 42 Ibidem, p. 262.

69 To define “idol” just as matter is only possible where “Not to be in despair must signify the destroyed possi- the Old Testament’s idea against idolatry has become bility of being able to be in despair; if a person is truly not to be in despair, he must at every moment destroy a matter of fact. the possibility”46. Studies of the idol, i. e. living images, are now proliferating. It seems people in the West are reaf- We must acknowledge at every moment the er- firming that the idea of icon (i. e. representation) is ror of idolatry. Otherwise we may return to the a result of Jewish - Christian reasoning in the eighth primordial sensibility that ascribes life to matter. century on the presupposition of Mosaic Law regard- This dictum reminds us of the famous sentence by ing the prohibition of the idea of living images. To Aby Warburg : “Athens must be always retrieved see the Living God through dead matter, which itself anew from Alexandria” (“Athen will eben immer neu is not God, is the idea of representation grounded in aus Alexandrien zurückerobert sein”)x 47. Athens means God’s incarnation to become human being, i. e. dead the way of rational thinking, and Alexandria means matter. Søren Kierkegaard wrote in Either / Or that the magical and animistic sensibility. George Didi- the idea of representation was introduced into the -Huberman also uses the same way of description world by Christianity 43. Recently Clemena Antonova when he talks about the beginning of Art History : cites Kierkegaard for the first time noting the same way of thinking concerning the paradoxical unity of “Le discours historique ne “naît” jamais. Toujours, il recommence. the transcendental and the immanent in icons 44. But Constatons ceci : L’histoire de l’art – la discipline ainsi nommée – recommence à chaque fois. Chaque fois, semble -t- il, que son Kierkegaard is worth citing not only for this specific object même est éprouvé comme mort… et comme renaissant” 48. idea, but also for the idea of relative worship for this material world. In his Concluding Unscientific Ernst Gombrich wrote about the great divide Postscript he wrote using the same reasoning as John which runs through the history of art and sets off Damascene’s idea of latreia and proskynesis. the new islands of illusionist styles, of Greece, of China, and of the Renaissance, from the vast ocean “ The task is to practice the absolute relation to the abso- of “conceptual” art, and wrote : lute τελος in such a way that the individual strives to reach this maximum: to relate himself simultaneously to “As soon as it is generally understood that an image need his absolute τελος and to the relative — not by mediating not exist in its own right… no longer is there fear of the them but by relating himself absolutely to his absolute casual which dominates the archaic conception of art”49. τελος and relatively to the relative”45. Although Gombrich’s idea of “art” includes “ar- Also we must note Kierkegaard’s description of chaic art”, the concept of “archaic art” itself must the refutation of instinct concerning fear and belief be reconsidered. Only from the formalistic point of 70 in his The Sickness unto Death. He wrote: view, i. e. seeing even idols as dead matter, can there 13 / Go - Shin-Ei ( Venerable Authentic Shadow), Go - Shin-Ei of Emperor Hiro- hito and Empress Nagako, 1925 –1945

14 / Fumi- e, Pietà, Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, 17 th century

be a concept of archaic art. So here Gombrich’s text can be interpreted as follows : When matter is seen as dead and ceases to be an idol, the history of art and art itself begins. The icon as a material “door” or “gate”50 to eternity can be established only when there is an instinctive belief in life ( better to say, spirit or consciousness) in matter is denied i. e. when the despair of a human being on the animal level is destroyed and the mate- rial world is founded upon the idea of Incarnation, which is an offence to Jews and folly to Gentiles (1 Corinthians 1: 23) and which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man (1 Corinthians 2 : 9). Matter is to be sanctified (θηωσις) of which icon is the proof par excellence.

43 Søren Kierkegaard, Either / Or, part I, Howard Hong trans. , Princeton 1987, p. 64. 44 Clemena Antonova, Space, Time, and Presence in the Icon : Seeing the World with the Eyes of God, Ashgate 2010, p. 65. 45 Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, vol. I, Howard Hong trans., Princeton 1992, p. 407. 46 Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, Howard Hong trans., Princeton 1980, p. 15. 47 Aby Warburg , “Heidnisch-antike Weissagung in Work und Bild zu Luthers Zeiten”, in Werke in einem Band, Berlin 2010, p. 485. 48 Georges Didi-Huberman, L’ Image survivante : Histoire de l’art et temps des fantômes selon Aby Warburg, Lonrai 2002, p. 11. 49 Ernst Gombrich, Meditations on a Hobby Horse, London, 1963, p. 9. 50 Pavel Florensky wrote about “window” as a comparative idea of an icon. Florensky, Iconostasis (n. 23), p. 65; Павел Флоренский, Сочинения в четырех томах, vol. 2, Моscow 1996, p. 443 – 444. The idea of window should have been taken from Alberti’s idea of “finestra aperta” for the painting. Leon Battista Alberti, La pittura, Lodovico Domenichi trans., Venice 1547, p. 15. But the medieval idea for icon was “door (θυρα)” or “gates (πυλαι)” and let the people go and come through icons. “θυρα δε η εικων λεγεται.” Vita S. Stephani Junioris, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 100, 1860, col. 1113. The singular “gate (πυλη)” is used by Jacob in Gen. 28 : 17 to denote the sacred place. “ουκ εστιν τουτο αλλ’ η οικος θεου, και αυτη η πυλη του ουρανου.” 71 15 / Giki (Model sketches of iconography), So the place of Yamashita Rin’s icons in the Gobu - Shinkan ( Illustrated iconography of dei- Japanese context is now clear. It is a kind of island ties in the Diamond World Mandala, Onjo - ji (Miidera), Shiga Prefecture, before 855 of pure materialism deprived of the mystic in a vast ocean of instinctive and animistic sensibility, which feels life in everything. In Japanese picture scroll of the Tsukumo - Gami ( Deities after 99 years), it is written that everything will be infused with spirit after 100 years’ use and brings fear to human minds 51. Her icons are testimony to the introduction of the modern sense of rational materialism together with the portrait pictures of the Meiji Emperor. They are to be accepted with confidence as matter, if the paradoxical logic of the Second Nicaean Council is to be accepted.

51 One of the earliest citations of this text in contemporary literature was made by Yukio Mishima (1925 – 1970) in his novel Kinkakuji ( The Golden Temple) in 1956. Summary / Japonské ikony Rin Yamashity : anonymita a materiálnost

Článek představuje japonskou malířku ikon Rin historických změn. Ačkoli Rin Yamashita pozna- Yamashitu (1857–1939)­ a zasazuje její ikony do ja- la ikony ještě před dobou Kondakova, ve svém ponského kontextu. Malířka, v letech 1881–1882 po- ikonopisectví­ odlišila dva styly. První z nich je aka­­ bývající v Sankt-Petěrburgu, vytvářela od roku 1889 demický, zatímco druhý je starobylý, původní ve svém ateliéru v Tokiu ikony, které byly násled- a prvobytný styl. Je příznačné, že během pobytu ně rozesílány do pravoslavných kostelů po celém Yamashity v Petrohradu v roce 1881 byli venkovští Japonsku, a to až do revolučního roku 1917, kdy ikonopisci z vesnice Palech povoláni k restaurování s ikonopisectvím­ přestala, opustila Tokio a přestě- nástěnných maleb Fazetového paláce v moskev- hovala se do svého rodného města Kasama. Dnes ském Kremlu. Také kompozice jedné z jejích ikon je uchováno v kostelech v Japonsku a v Petrohradu v primitivním stylu sdílí stejné rysy se starobylým přibližně 300 jejích ikon ( jedna ikona Vzkříšení, stylem litografické ikony E. I. Fesenka z Oděsy dnes uchovaná v Ermitáži, byla věnována korun- z roku 1911. nímu princi Nikolaji při jeho návštěvě Japonska Jan z Damašku (cca 675 / 676 – 749) a Teodor Stu- v roce 1891). Na základě důkladného a dlouhotrva­ dita (cca 759 – 826) píší o materiálnosti ikony na jícího studia předloh ikon Rin Yamashity autor základě starozákonní myšlenky a definují ji pou- v článku dokazuje, že všechny její ikony byly kopi- ze jako neživý předmět zobrazující Boha. Rozli- emi ruských originálů. Kromě Vladimirské Matky šování mezi Bohem ( předmětem latrei ) a hmotou Boží své ikony Yamashita nesignovala ani neda- ( předmětem proskynesis) je možné pozorovat také tovala, což odpovídá byzantské ideji anonymity v díle dánského filozofa Sørena Kierkegaarda ikonopisce, tak jak byla ustanovena na Druhém (1813 –1855), konkrétně v jeho rozlišení mezi ab- nikajském koncilu v roce 787, podle níž je malířovo solutním a relativním životním cílem. V nežidov- pole působnosti limitováno na jeho malířské umění, ských kulturách naproti tomu neexistuje rozdíl mezi zatímco dispozice ikony náleží Svatým otcům. hmotou a životem. Z budhistických textů čínského Středověká idea anonymity má své kořeny v teo­ kněze Huì-zhǎo (慧沼 648 –714) a japonského Myo - e logii, umění je však kunsthistoriky interpretováno (明恵 1173 –1232) je jasně patrné, že hmota může jako vyjádření doby, národa nebo jednotlivce se ožít skrze úctu a modlitbu, bez zásahu shůry. Proto svou vlastní nezávislou historií, jak napsal Heinrich můžeme ikony Rin Yamashity a možná i portréty Wölflin (1844 –1946) v roce 1915. Již ruský kunst­ (Go-shin-ei) japonských císařů od moderního ob- historik Nikodim Kondakov (1844 –1925) ve své dobí Meidži považovat v japonském kontextu za rané práci o byzantských miniaturách z roku 1876 první pokusy materializovat myšlenku, popsanou napsal, že tyto malby jsou nezávislou uměleckou Kierkegaardem v Buď – anebo, která byla do světa kategorií a vyjadřují obecné zákony umění a jeho uvedena křesťanstvím.

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