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Pictures of Social Networks: Transforming Visual Representations of the Orchid Pavilion Gathering in the Tokugawa Period (1615-1868) by Kazuko Kameda-Madar B.A., The University of Hawai„i at Mānoa, 1997 M.A., The University of Hawai„i at Mānoa, 2002 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate Studies (Art History) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) May 2011 © Kazuko Kameda-Madar, 2011 Abstract This thesis examines the cultural networks that connected people holding common ideological values in the Tokugawa period by surveying a range of visual representations of the Orchid Pavilion Gathering. It explores the Tokugawa social phenomena that gave rise to the sudden boom in the Orchid Pavilion motif and how painters of different classes, belonging to different schools, such as Kano Sansetsu, Ike Taiga, Tsukioka Settei and Kubo Shunman, came to develop variations of this theme in order to establish cultural identity and to negotiate stronger positions in the relationships of social power. Probing the social environment of artists and their patrons, I demonstrate how distinct types of Orchid Pavilion imagery were invented and reinvented to advance different political agendas. The legendary gathering at the Orchid Pavilion in China took place in 353 CE, when Wang Xizhi invited forty-one scholars to participate in an annual Spring Purification Festival. At this event, Wang Xizhi improvised a short text that has come to be known as the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering. In Japan, while the practice of the ritual gathering and the text describing it were introduced in the Nara period, its pictorial representation in the format of a stone rubbing was not imported until the early seventeenth century. The Orchid Pavilion theme belongs to the genre of “elegant gatherings” depicting idealized communities of Chinese scholars, including the “Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden” and the “Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove,” which had been frequently painted since the preceding Muromachi and Momoyama periods. During the Tokugawa period, however, the “Orchid Pavilion” became one of the most important and popular painting themes of this genre. Tokugawa society is commonly thought to have been rigidly stratified, and the Tokugawa period a time of peace. The Pax Tokugawa, however, was a peace inspired by military force, and although the lives of people under the Tokugawa regime were at times heavily and unfairly oppressed, people of all classes retained enough power to voice resentment. From the different perspectives voiced through cultural activities like the representation of the Orchid Pavilion Gathering, I demonstrate the class permeability and dynamism of Tokugawa society. ii Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................ ii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................ iii List of Tables ............................................................................................................. vii List of Figures ............................................................................................................ viii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. xxiii Introduction: Issues and Questions ............................................................................. 1 State of the Field ................................................................................................. 5 Methodological Structure and Background Theory ............................................ 6 Outline of the Thesis ........................................................................................... 8 Chapter One: The Authorship of the Orchid Pavilion Pictorial Tradition: Canon Formation and the Authentication of Power ................................... 17 From Wang Xizhi to the Ming-Dynasty Ink Rubbings .................................... 19 The Ming-Dynasty Ink Rubbing Handscrolls ................................................... 20 The Orchid Pavilion as Text ............................................................................. 22 The Orchid Pavilion Pedigree ........................................................................... 23 Wang Xizhi and His Political Background in the Eastern Jin Dynasty ............ 25 Tang Taizong and the Orchid Pavilion as Calligraphy ..................................... 27 The Orchid Pavilion Illustrations in Texts during the Song Dynasty ............... 31 Description of an Orchid Pavilion Image Recorded in the Texts ..................... 34 Engraving the Orchid Pavilion in the Ming Dynasty........................................ 45 Chapter Two: The Orchid Pavilion Painting as Aesthetic Resistance: The Kyō-Kano School and Their Network System ...................................... 70 The Orchid Pavilion Paintings by Kano Sansetsu ............................................ 74 iii The Mainstream Aesthetic: The Orchid Pavilion Paintings by the Edo-Kano 76 Kano Sansetsu: Eccentricity Reconsidered ....................................................... 86 Political Discontent Embodied in the Kyō-Kano Text ..................................... 99 The Possible Patronage of the Orchid Pavilion Painting ................................ 104 Sansetsu‟s Production Attitude Recorded in the Texts ................................... 116 Re-attributing Authorship of an Orchid Pavilion Painting ............................. 118 Comparing the Orchid Pavilion Screen by Kano Einō ................................... 122 Scrutinizing the Orchid Pavilion by Sansetsu ................................................. 124 The Landscape of the Orchid Pavilion............................................................ 125 Eccentric Rocks and a Mysterious Cave .................................................. 125 Waterfalls and the Meandering Stream.................................................... 131 Woods, Bamboo Groves and Orchids ...................................................... 133 Architectural Elements in the Orchid Pavilion ............................................... 134 Sansetsu‟s Sources of Inspiration ............................................................ 134 The Fence to Enclose the Garden Party ................................................... 138 The Representation of the Human Figures ..................................................... 142 Narrative Elements in the Orchid Pavilion .............................................. 145 Japanese Tea Ceremony ........................................................................... 148 The Orchid Pavilion and the Kan‟ei Aesthetics .............................................. 150 Chapter Three: The Orchid Pavilion as an Alternative “Classical” Theme: Performing Literati for Identity Construction........................................... 185 The Orchid Pavilion Theme as an Alternative “Classicism” .......................... 186 Chinese Wenren/ Japanese Bunjin .................................................................. 189 Diverse Sources for the Bunjin Orchid Pavilion Images ................................ 195 Conceptualizing a New Taste for the Orchid Pavilion ................................... 200 Constructing a New Canon for His Community: Ike Taiga ........................... 207 Taiga‟s Votive Panel and Its Draft ........................................................... 211 The Alternative Canon of the Orchid Pavilion ........................................ 214 Iconography of the Orchid Pavilion Gathering ........................................ 219 iv Evolution of the Orchid Pavilion Byôbu by Taiga ................................... 226 Possible Trajectories of Iconographical Combinations ........................... 229 Taiga‟s Pointillism in the Orchid Pavilion............................................... 233 Theory and Funpon of the Orchid Pavilion: Nakayama Kōyō ....................... 235 Kōyō‟s Theory: Constructing the Bunjinga Tradition ............................. 237 Kōyō‟s Anti-Kano Sentiment .................................................................. 239 Kōyō‟s Funpon Copying Practice ............................................................ 240 Copying after Wen Zhengming ............................................................... 243 Bunjin Funponism .................................................................................... 244 Re-articulation of the Orchid Pavilion: Fukuhara Gogaku ............................. 245 The Status of Fukuhara Gogaku, Yesterday and Today .......................... 246 Impression and Innovation ....................................................................... 249 Performing Chinese Literati ..................................................................... 252 Literati Irony: Nakabayashi Chikutô‟s Ideology ............................................ 258 Chikutō‟s Painting Style and his Contemporary Reception .................... 259 Chikutō‟s Painting Theory ....................................................................... 260 Chikutō‟s Orchid Pavilion Gathering ...................................................... 262 New Approaches Following Chikutō‟s Model ........................................ 264 Bakumatsu Ideology and the Shift in Chikutō‟s Aesthetic .....................