I PICTURING RICE AGRICULTURE and SILK PRODUCTION: APPROPRIATION and IDEOLOGY in EARLY MODERN JAPANESE PAINTING by Shalmit Bejar
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PICTURING RICE AGRICULTURE AND SILK PRODUCTION: APPROPRIATION AND IDEOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN JAPANESE PAINTING by Shalmit Bejarano BA, Hebrew University, 1994 MA, Dōshisha University, 2001 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2010 i UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ARTS AND SCIENCE This dissertation was presented by Shalmit Bejarano It was defended on April, 2nd 2010 and approved by Kathryn Linduff, Professor, History of Art and Architecture Evelyn Rawski, Professor, History Ann Weis, Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture Dissertation Advisor: Karen Gerhart, Professor, History of Art and Architecture ii Copyright © by Shalmit Bejarano 2010 iii PICTURING RICE AGRICULTURE AND SILK PRODUCTION: APPROPRIATION AND IDEOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN JAPANESE PAINTING Shalmit Bejarano, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2010 Abstract: The canonic Chinese theme Pictures of Agriculture and Sericulture 耕織圖 (Chinese: gengzhitu, Japanese: kōshokuzu) was transmitted to Japanese painting circles from the fifteenth- through the nineteenth- centuries. Paintings with agrarian motifs decorated the palaces of the Ashikaga shoguns and the abbot’s quarters in the Daisen’in temple, and were reproduced many times by masters and disciples of the Kano school throughout the Edo period (1603-1868). From the eighteenth century on, agrarian vignettes also appeared in woodblock prints of various types: from the encyclopedic guidebook to the erotic color print. My dissertation focuses on this theme as a case study of painterly transmission. The first chapter compares the wall-paintings in the Daisen’in with earlier Chinese paintings, and demonstrates that Japanese painters consciously altered the original figures in order to change their Confucian messages. Thus, I propose that the transmission of kōshokuzu exemplifies that painters and patrons consciously appropriated this theme to convey varied messages in changing ideological discourses. In the second chapter I argue that the Japanization of Chinese farming figures and motifs reveals that Kano painters used printed painting manuals imported from China to a much greater extent than has hitherto been suggested. Additionally, I link the rise of proto-nationalistic schools of thought to the Japanization of the portrayed landscape. In the third chapter, I concentrate on the print artist Tachibana Morikuni (1679-1749) and argue that his popular painting manuals cannot be the source through which Kano secret models were leaked to ukiyo-e artists. Rather, his work was part of a growing trend in the Japanese iv market of using printed books as painting manuals. Later print artists, such as Harunobu (fl. 1765-1770), acknowledged their transmission of Morikuni’s models by parodying his books. The fourth chapter surveys the history of Pictures of Sericulture. I link the lack of sericultural images and the inattention to their study to their association with a female audience. I also detail how weaving women in ukiyo-e served as parodies of Neo-Confucianism and – in later Meiji-period prints – as propaganda for imperial technology. v TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 THE MODEL-BOOK PRACTICE AND ART REPRODUCTION ...................... 4 1.1.1 Previous scholarship ........................................................................................ 8 1.2 RICE CULTIVATION AND JAPANESE IDENTITY ......................................... 12 1.3 DISSERTATION SUMMARY................................................................................. 16 2.0 CHAPTER 1: PICTURES OF AGRICULTURE AND SERICULTURE: CHINESE ORIGIN AND EARLY RECEPTION IN JAPAN .................................................................. 23 2.1 INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER 1....................................................................... 23 2.2 CHINA: PICTURES OF AGRICULTURE AND SERICULTURE AND IMPERIAL RULE.............................................................................................................. 24 2.2.1 Images of Agriculture and Sericulture: Precedents.................................... 24 2.2.2 Political representations of agriculture........................................................ 24 2.2.2.1 Heavenly Mandate and Early Agrarian Images at Court .............. 24 2.2.3 Poetic representations of agriculture ........................................................... 27 2.2.3.1 “The Seventh Month”......................................................................... 28 2.2.3.2 Elegiac Poems in China...................................................................... 29 2.2.3.3 Images of Agriculture in Japanese Poems........................................ 30 2.2.3.4 Imperial Rituals and Rice Harvesting .............................................. 32 2.2.3.5 Agrarian Treatises.............................................................................. 34 2.2.3.6 Technical Diagrams............................................................................ 34 2.3 THE FIRST PICTURES OF AGRICULTURE AND SERICULTURE.............. 36 2.3.1 Lou Shu ........................................................................................................... 36 vi 2.3.1.1 The Images of Lou Shu....................................................................... 37 2.3.1.2 The Poems of Lou Shu........................................................................ 40 2.3.1.3 Reception and Analysis ...................................................................... 41 2.3.1.4 Is Lou Shu’s story relevant to the Japanese Pictures of Agriculture and Sericulture?................................................................................................. 44 2.4 PICTURES OF AGRICULTURE AND SERICULTURE IN MUROMACHI JAPAN................................................................................................................................. 46 2.4.1 When the first Pictures of Agriculture and Sericulture arrived in Japan? 46 2.4.2 Song and Yuan paintings............................................................................... 47 2.4.2.1 The Scrolls Attributed to Liang Kai ................................................. 48 2.4.3 The Scrolls attributed to Liang Kai in Fifteenth-century Records ........... 51 2.4.3.1 Record of the Muromachi Palace Décor for the Imperial Visit ..... 51 2.4.3.2 The Temple Diary Inryōken Nichiroku............................................. 55 2.4.3.3 The Art Inventory Kundaikan ........................................................... 59 2.5 DAISEN’IN. ............................................................................................................... 63 2.5.1 History of the Daisen’in................................................................................. 64 2.5.1.1 The Rokkaku Family.......................................................................... 66 2.5.2 The Abbot’s Quarters at the Daisen’in ........................................................ 68 2.5.2.1 Some Architectural Notes on the Abbot’s Quarters........................ 69 2.5.2.2 The Rei-no-ma: Functions and Décor ............................................... 70 2.5.2.3 Comparison of the Daisen’in to Chinese Models............................. 72 2.5.3 Ideal Space and Ideological Space................................................................ 75 2.5.3.1 China as Ideal Space........................................................................... 76 2.5.3.2 Four Seasons as an Ideal Space ......................................................... 77 2.5.3.3 Ideal Space as Dissent......................................................................... 79 3.0 CHAPTER 2: KANO SCHOOL PRODUCTION THROUGH THE PRISM OF PICTURES OF AGRICULTURE AND SERICULTURE......................................................... 81 3.1.1 Preface............................................................................................................. 81 3.1.2 Model Books: Copy and Change .................................................................. 82 3.1.3 Japanization.................................................................................................... 84 3.2 PICTURES OF AGRICULTURE BY KANO SCHOOL ARTISTS...................... 86 vii 3.2.1 The Hori Family Scroll .................................................................................. 86 3.2.2 The Chinese-style Pictures that Inspired the Hori Family Scroll.............. 89 3.2.2.1 Illustrated Almanac for Popular Use (便民圖纂)............................. 91 3.2.2.2 Collection of Painting (後素集, Jp: Kōsoshū).................................. 92 3.2.2.3 Agricultural Manuals and Artistic Reception.................................. 96 3.2.3 Yamato-e and the Hori Family Scroll .......................................................... 98 3.2.3.1 Agricultural Scenes and Yamato-e .................................................... 99 3.2.4 Scrolls of Abundant Harvest (Tawarakasane Emaki) ............................... 104 3.2.4.1 Tawarakasane: The Historiographical Institute of Tokyo University ..............................................................................................................106 3.2.4.2 Tawarakasane: The Machida Municipal Museum Scroll.............. 110 3.2.4.3 Economic Criticism .......................................................................... 111 3.2.4.4