Utopia/Dystopia: Japan’s Image of the Manchurian Ideal by Kari Leanne Shepherdson-Scott Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Gennifer Weisenfeld, Supervisor ___________________________ David Ambaras ___________________________ Mark Antliff ___________________________ Stanley Abe Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2012 i v ABSTRACT Utopia/Dystopia: Japan’s Image of the Manchurian Ideal by Kari Leanne Shepherdson-Scott Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Gennifer Weisenfeld, Supervisor ___________________________ David Ambaras ___________________________ Mark Antliff ___________________________ Stanley Abe An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2012 Copyright by Kari Leanne Shepherdson-Scott 2012 Abstract This project focuses on the visual culture that emerged from Japan’s relationship with Manchuria during the Manchukuo period (1932-1945). It was during this time that Japanese official and popular interest in the region reached its peak. Fueling the Japanese attraction and investment in this region were numerous romanticized images of Manchuria’s bounty and space, issued to bolster enthusiasm for Japanese occupation and development of the region. I examine the Japanese visual production of a utopian Manchuria during the 1930s and early 1940s through a variety of interrelated media and spatial constructions: graphic magazines, photography, exhibition spaces, and urban planning. Through this analysis, I address how Japanese political, military, and economic state institutions cultivated the image of Manchukuo as an ideal, multiethnic state and a “paradise” (rakudo) for settlement in order to generate domestic support and to legitimize occupation on the world stage. As there were many different colonial offices with different goals, there was no homogenous vision of the Manchurian ideal. In fact, tensions often emerged between offices as each attempted to garner support for its own respective mission on the continent. I examine these tensions and critique the strategic intersection of propaganda campaigns, artistic goals and personal fantasies of a distant, exotic frontier. In the process, this project explores how the idea of Manchuria became a panacea for a variety of economic and social problems plaguing Japan at both a national and individual level. iv Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...iv List of Illustrations……………………………………………………………………..…vi Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………...….xv 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………..……1 The Development of the Japanese-Manchurian Relationship……….….…….…..…10 Japan’s Growing Empire……………………………………………..…….….….….17 The Shift from Subjugation to Sovereignty…………………………...…….……….24 Outline of the Project…………………………………………………..………….....32 2. A Japanese Place in the Land of Abundance and the Land of Harmony……………...41 Manshū Graph and the Middle-Class Continental Fantasy………………………….46 Patriotism and the Promise of the Frontier in Hirake Manmō………..………..…….68 Gozoku Kyōwa: The Myth of Racial Harmony………………….…………………...82 Japanese Dominance in the Gozoku Kyōwa Paradigm…………..……..………..…100 Racial Containment and the Chinese Walled Cities……………….....….…..……..103 3. Fuchikami Hakuyō, Corporate Image, and Art Photography in Manchuria………....118 Fuchikami in Kōbe: The Cultivation of Nostalgic Modernism…………………….123 Artistic Identity and the Ambiguous Politics of Representation …………….….…132 Forging Cultural Capital on the Continent………………………………………....152 4. Exhibiting Japanese Manchuria in Chicago, 1933-34…………………………….…172 Trends in Japanese Exhibitions Before and After World War I……………………177 Negotiating Space and Politics: Japan in Chicago, 1933-34………..….………….187 v Constructing Japanese Manchuria in Chicago…………………….…...…………...193 Inside the Manchuria Pavilion……………………………………………………...203 Comparing Exhibition Methods: Japan and France.................................................215 Comparing Exhibition Methods: Japanese Fairs at Home, in Manchuria, and in Chicago…………………………………………………………………………..…223 Contested Boundaries: The Golden Temple of Jehol………………………………228 5. War, Manchuria and the Fiction of Peace…………………………………………....246 Distancing Manchuria from War: Trends in Representation………….……...…….251 Responding to Disaster: Building the Unburnable City……………..…..….…...…261 Conflating Disaster with the Trauma of War……………………………………….272 Sanctuary in the Unburnable City…………………………………………………..280 Manchuria, Memory, and the Abstraction of War………………………………….292 The Red Setting Sun and Memorialization………………….……………………...304 6. Epilogue: Remembering Manchukuo………………………………………………..319 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………333 Biography……………………………………………………………………………….354 Illustrations……………………………………………………………………………..356 vi List of Illustrations Figure 1.1: Asai Chu, Battle of Torayama, the First Army at Koryokukohan River, (1894)…………………………………………………………………………………...356 Figure 1.2: Taguchi Beisaku, Strange Looking Manchurian Horsemen on an Expedition to Survey the Japanese Camp in the Distance near Sauhoku, (1894)……………….…356 Figure 2.1: “New Capital Hsinking in the Making,” Manshū Graph 1, no. 1, (September 1933)…………………………………………………………………………………....357 Figure 2.2: Cover, Manshū Graph 4, no. 3, (March 1936)……………………………..357 Figure 2.3: “General Aspect of the Capital,” Manshū Graph 4, no. 3 (March 1936)….358 Figure 2.4: South Manchuria Railway Company “Asia Express” silver cigarette case (Image courtesy of the Mavis J. Hall Collection)……………………………………....358 Figure 2.5: “From the Train Window through Manchuria,” Manshū Graph 7, no. 7 (July 1939)………………………………………………………………………..…………..359 Figure 2.6: “Through the ‘Little Karoo’ known as the Aangenaam Valley. In the background are the Teniquota Mountains of Zwarkops range,” South African Railways and Harbours Magazine, (c. 1920)……………………………………………………..359 Figure 2.7: Manshū Graph 1, no. 1 (September 1933)………………………………....360 Figure 2.8: Manshū Graph 1, no.1 (September 1933)………………………………....360 Figure 2.9: “Manchuria Beckons” [Manshū wa maneku], Manshū Graph 4, no. 12 (December 1936)…………………………………………………………………….…361 Figure 2.10: “The newly established Senburi Station,” Hirake Manmō 1, no. 3 (October 1936)………………………………………………………………………………...….361 Figure 2.11: Cover, Hirake Manmō 1, no. 1 (October 1936)…………………...……...362 Figure 2.12: Cover, Hirake Manmō 3, no. 8 (August 1938)…………………………....362 Figure 2.13: Back cover, Hirake Manmō 3, no. 4 (April 1938)………………………..363 vii Figure 2.14: “Settore della Produzione,” Mostra Triennale delle Terre Italiane d’Oltremare, (1940)…………………………………………………………………….363 Figure 2.15: Hirake Manmō 3, no. 7 (July 1938)………………………………………364 Figure 2.16: “The Mutual Prosperity of the Five Races,” Manchukuo Ministry of Police, (1933)……………………………………………………………………………….…..364 Figure 2.17: “Manchoukuo” special issue, FRONT 5-6, (1943)…………………….….365 Figure 2.18: “Manchoukuo” special issue, FRONT 5-6, (1943)………………………..365 Figure 2.19: “Manchoukuo” special issue, FRONT 5-6, (1943)………………………..366 Figure 2.20: “Special number Manchoukuo,” NIPPON, no. 19, (October 1939)……...366 Figure 2.21: “Let the five peoples living under the five radiant colors of the Manchurian flag live in togetherness and glory,” Concordia Association, (undated)……………….367 Figure 2.22: “Manchoukuo, The Land of Racial Harmony,” Manshū Graph 8, no. 1 (January 1940)………………………………………………………………………….367 Figure 2.23: City wall at Chinchou, An Overview of Manchuria, 1937 [Manshū Gaikan, 2597]……………………………………………………………………………………368 Figure 2.24: Historic walled city of Mukden, An Overview of Manchuria, 1938 [Manshū Gaikan, 2598]…………………………………………………………………………...368 Figure 2.25: Gate at Liaoyang (on bottom), An Overview of Manchuria, 1937 [Manshū Gaikan, 2597]…………………………………………………………………………...369 Figure 2.26: Exterior view of the city wall in Mukden, An Overview of Manchuria, 1939 [Manshū Gaikan, 2599]………………………………………………………………...369 Figure 2.27: “The Walled City of Mukden,” Manshū Graph 3, no. 3 (June 1935)……370 Figure 2.28: “Open markets,” Manshū Graph 4, no. 5 (May 1936)…………………...370 Figure 3.1: Sakakibara Seiyō, Afternoon at Koromoga Bay [Koromogaura no gogo], Hakuyō, (1922)………………………………………………………………………....371 Figure 3.2: Fuchikami Hakuyō, Portrait of a Mavoist [Ma-boisuto no shōzō], (1925)..371 viii Figure 3.3: Fuchikami, Hakuyō, Composition with Circle and Body [En to jintai no kōsei], (1926)………………………………………………………………………..….372 Figure 3.4: Fuchikami Hakuyō, Still Life [Seibutsu], (1925)…………………………..372 Figure 3.5: Fuchikami Hakuyō, Dynamic Description [Dōteki Byōsha], (1925)……..373 Figure 3.6: Gino Severini, Suburban Train Arriving in Paris, [Train de banlieue arrivant à Paris], (1915)………………………………………………………………………….373 Figure 3.7: “Sheep-raising, Agricultural Experiment Station, Kunchuling” from Manshūkoku Shashinchō, (Dalian: Minami Manshū Kabushikikaisha, 1931)…………374 Figure 3.8: Sakakibara Masakazu, Old Citadel-Wall [Jōheki fūkei], Manshū shashinchō, (Dalian: Minami Manshū Kabushikikaisha, 1930)………………………………….….374 Figure 3.9: Shiwa Yoson, Daybreak [Tokai no asa], Manshū shashinchō, (Dalian: Minami