japansociety Japan-UK Review Japan Book Review - Japan Stage, Movie, Arts and Event Review Volume 2 No. 2 April 2007 Editor: Sean Curtin Contents Managing Editor: Clare Barclay (1) Photography in Japan 1853-1912 n this colourful spring issue our main theme is photographic books (2) Old Japanese Photographs: about Japan and we review an excellent selection of new books on Collectors’ Data Guide the topic. We can only present a very limited number of photographs (3) Tokyo Love Hello I (4) Hokusai's Project: The Articulation from these books in the following pages, but if you visit our website you will find a host visual gems. As usual, we also have some great reviews of of Pictorial Space new historical works plus exciting general interest books. The featured (5) Innovation and Business Japanese courtyard gardens book also boasts an array of impressive on-line Partnering in Japan, Europe and the photographs. Finally, don't forget that our printed edition only represents United States a fraction of our new reviews, all of which can be found on the website (6) Philipp Franz von Siebold and The along with movie and stage reviews. Opening of Japan: A Re-Evaluation (7) A History of Japan, 1582-1941: Sean Curtin Internal and External Worlds (8) Courtyard Gardens of Kyoto's Merchant Houses New reviews: www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews.html Archive reviews: http://www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews_archive.html Japan Book Review Photography in Japan 1853-1912, Old Japanese Photographs: Collectors' Data Guide, Terry Bennett, Terry Bennett, 320 pages, 350 photographs (colour and black and white), Periplus Editions Tuttle Publishing, 2007, ISBN 080486337, £45 308 pages, over 200 illustrations, Bernard Quarritch, 2006, ISBN- 10: 0-9550852-4-1, and ISBN-13: 978-0-9550852-4-6, £65. Reviews by Sir Hugh Cortazzi japansociety Japan-UK Review: April 2007 entourage at Yokohama on 1 January 1872. The Japanese Terry Bennett is a world expert in the history of authorities were furious and confiscated the negative, but a photography in Japan and has done a vast amount of original print came to light at a London auction a few years ago. research. His two new books bring together a vast amount of Perhaps as result of the clandestine photo official portraits of information never collected before and cover in detail the the Emperor and Empress were taken shortly afterwards. In western and Japanese photographers who developed the art the same chapter Bennett describes the first illustrated paper of photography in Japan. Anyone with an interest in this produced in Japan The Far East which began publication in fascinating aspect of Japan in the last half of the nineteenth May 1870 in Yokohama. (There is more about this journal in century and the first years of the twentieth century will find Collector's Data Guide). these books instructive and absorbing. For collectors of old Japanese photographs they will be indispensable. Chapter 4 covers the 1880s which Bennett describes under the heading "Western Studios give way." Chapter 5 on the The reproductions in the first volume are excellent in 1890s is described as "Japanese Studios dominate" and definition and the colour in the hand-tinted photographs is Chapter 6 on the 1900s is headed "In full control." In fact faithful to the originals. throughout the period covered by this book both Japanese and western photographers competed but also cooperated. One of Early Japanese photographs are of great benefit to the the most extraordinary and eccentric of the western historian who can see through them contemporary images of photographers was Adolfo Farsari (1841-98). He trained his people and events instead of having to rely solely on written colourists so that they "accurately reflected the actual colours records. The student of Yokohama-e (prints of foreigners, their in Japanese costumes, scenery and architecture." But others buildings and their vehicles) can find the models on which the were equally successful as photographs of flowers by Ogawa prints are based. Kazumasa (reproduced on page 212) show. This is of a In his preface to Photography in Japan Bennett explains that his aims had been to provide an up-to-date picture of research into Japanese photo-history, to provide biographical details of early photographers, to stress the importance of identifying the photographer and to provide practical research tools. No doubt further research will add to what we know about the photographers and their images but those who follow will inevitably have to refer back to Bennett's pioneering work. In his introduction Bennett explains how photography came to Japan. In Chapter 1 he describes the first images and first cameras used in Japan and the complicated and bulky equipment then needed to take images and to develop and print them. He gives many examples of the stereo images which became popular. Chapter 2 is devoted to the first Japanese lily and was produced in the 1890s: western studios but he notes that, while some of the western photographers such as Felix Beato were outstanding, a number of able Japanese photographers, such as Shimooka Renjo and Ueno Hikoma entered the photographic business and produced some very good photographs. Because of the difficulties involved in outdoor photography at the time and the need for long exposures photographs of people and of Japanese at work inevitably involved poses which sometimes seem false or wooden. But the photo by Beato of a samurai on his horse in 1867 p. 94 is realistic. Ogawa was also a fine photographer of people as can be seen from this masterly portrait of an old couple (page 215): There is no doubt that early photographers in Japan were real artists as well as good technicians with the camera as the following three photos show: Chapter 3 is headed "1870s: Japanese Competition" but Woodland scene by Enami Tamotsu, includes a number of foreign photographers. Bennett 1890s, (page 234) discovered the first photograph ever taken of a Japanese Emperor. This was a secretly taken photo (page 138) by Baron Raimund von Stillfried-Ratenicz of the Emperor Meiji and his 2 japansociety Japan-UK Review: April 2007 The photographs provide a cultural reading of Japan that can be interpreted differently depending on the viewers' background knowledge of the country. Having lived in Japan during the time when the early images were taken, I instantly have a recollection of this period and the book enables me to reminisce and identify with the subjects based on my own experiences. Others coming to the book with an entirely clean slate in terms of their knowledge of Japan may read the images differently, whilst those who have been immersed in the culture to the extent that Richie has may agree that the images show the "incongruity of contemporary Japan." Spanning the period from 1997 to present, each image is presented with the month and year in which it was taken as well as a simple statement of the subject content. It is left up to Mt Fuji in snow by Elias Burton Homes, 1890s (page 357) the viewer to absorb the often multiple meanings and on several viewings their reading may change as a great deal of the images are very information rich. A few of the pictures are reminiscent of images taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson or Elliot Erwitt but ultimately Steele- Perkins brings his own creative style to the collection in a vibrant way. Stairs over road in Shinjuku. Toyko 05/1997 Walter Clutterbuck: Boats at Naha Harbour, Okinawa, 1899, (page 249) Business District of Shinjuku. Tokyo 10/1999 Tokyo Love Hello, by Chris Steele Perkins, Editions Intervalles, January 2007, 240 Pages, £29.00, ISBN 2- 916355-05-7 Review by Clare Barclay This eclectic mix of images certainly gives an insight into Emerging from the sideline images taken during his four- modern Japan and includes some personal images of the year study of Fuji-san, Chris Steele-Perkins has produced a photographer, which are quite enlightening in terms of his photographic overview of everyday life from the instantly inspiration. There are indeed some images that show the recognisable in western society to that only seen by someone sometimes-misunderstood aspect of the Japanese in terms of truly immersed in the culture of Japan. their fun loving nature, which is on occasion demonstrated in what westerners may view to be an obscure manner; but also Written in French and English this volume includes 100 a wide range of images, which give just a glimpse into a photographs as well as an introductory essay by Donald culture so different from what we experience in Britain. Richie. Covering a wide range of topics from the business world to school and social life as well as the life of a Japanese pampered japansociety Japan-UK Review: April 2007 3 pet the images don't follow any consistent theme or time scale Hokusai's mastery of drawing and his determination that "the in any particular order but rather a jumble of topics. The drawn image represented the real object in a convincing majority however feature the people of Japan in a range of manner." Chapter 2 is entitled "How Hokusai Learned his situations and could be considered a cultural study of the Trade" and shows the extent to which he absorbed the styles of country through photography in a certain time or rather the various schools of Japanese painting and western Tokyo in a certain time captured for posterity on film. perspective. Hokusai was, however, to quote Laurence Binyon, a "fiercely independent but eclectic figure, constantly changing course, in his artistic career as in his personal life, unable to resign himself to any settled mode of existence, and so completely industrious as to be quite insensible to the world about him." Bell notes that Hokusai increasingly diverged from ukiyo-e's emphasis on the hedonistic world of the theatre and the Yoshiwara, and "focussed on the humble, the everyday, the unremarkable." Chapter 3 "Hokusai, Fuji and the Articulation of Pictorial Space" is the longest in the book, although Bell points out that "Fuji pictures occupy a relatively small part of Hokusai's project." Bell draws attention to the imaginative way in which Hokusai depicted Fuji and how "by constructing a deep Children on the way to school.