EARLY MODERN JAPAN FALL-WINTER, 2004 Introduction: Pre-Modern Japan that this lack of corresponding words and con- cepts is good reason to avoid using the Western Through the Prism of Patronage terms in our discussions of pre-modern East ©Lee Butler Asian art and society. And yet practices of pa- University of Michigan tronage are clearly not culture specific. Where art is found, there is patronage, even if the extent Though not unfamiliar to scholarship on pre- and types and meanings of that patronage differ modern Japan, the concept of patronage has been from place to place and culture to culture. The treated unevenly and unsystematically. The same is undoubtedly true of religion. In the term is most commonly found in studies by art paragraphs that follow I briefly summarize the historians, but even they have frequently dealt approach to early modern patronage in Western with it indirectly or tangentially. The same is scholarship and consider patronage’s value as an true of the study of the history of religion, despite interpretive concept for Japan, addressing spe- the fact that patronage was fundamental to the cifically its artistic and political forms. establishment and growth of most schools and Scholars of early modern Europe have focused sects. Works like Martin Collcutt’s Five Moun- primarily on political and cultural patronage.3 tains, with its detailed discussion of Hōjō and Political patronage was a system of personal ties imperial patronage of Zen, are rare. 1 Other and networks that advanced the interests of the scholarly approaches are more common. Per- system’s participants: patrons and clients. A haps this is merely a reflection of a field of study patron was an individual in a position to assist — pre-modern Japan — that is not highly devel- someone of lesser standing in his (or her) efforts oped outside of Japan. An additional factor may to acquire an office, a title, increased social be that patronage is a word of Western origins standing, or some other good. In return, the and thus potentially inappropriate as an interpre- client offered the patron loyalty, perhaps material tive idea in the Japanese context. It is true that favors, and increased social prestige. Patrons no corresponding term exists in Chinese or Japa- generally enjoyed greater wealth, political power, nese, whether as an artistic concept or a more and social influence than their clients, though in general one. For example, in classical Chinese some cases a client held one of these in large one could write of a “connoisseur” or “collector” measure but required a patron’s assistance to of the arts, but no word denoted the support of art move up in another. For example, because and artists by individuals of wealth and influence. wealth and status did not always go hand-in-hand In modern Japan, the concepts of patron and pa- in early modern Europe, a wealthy client could tronage have been adopted along with the English offer financial support to a strapped patron in words — thus one sees patoron パトロン and exchange for assistance in acquiring a coveted patoroneeji パトロネージ.2 One might argue political title or religious position. As defined by Sharon Kettering, political patronage was “an unequal vertical alliance between superiors and 1 inferiors or dependents based on an obligatory Martin Collcutt, Five Mountains: The Rin- exchange.”4 zai Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University Press, 1981). Center for Japanese Studies, University of 2 See Chu-Tsing Li, ed., Artists and Patrons: Michigan, 1993), pp. 1-2. Some Social and Economic Aspects of Chinese 3 “Patronage in Early Modern France,” in Painting (Kansas City: Kress Foundation Sharon Kettering, Patronage in Sixteenth- and Department of Art History, University of Kansas, Seventeenth-Century France (Aldershot and 1989), p. 1; and Steven Carter, Literary Pa- Burlington: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 843-844. tronage in Late Medieval Japan (Ann Arbor: 4 “Introduction,” in Kettering, p. viii. 3 EARLY MODERN JAPAN FALL-WINTER, 2004 In contrast to political patronage, cultural or been done on specific arts and artists, encompass- artistic patronage was narrow in scope. It con- ing noh, linked verse, painting, and tea, sustained cerned not individuals’ political and social ambi- discussion of patronage has been limited; many tions (at least not outwardly), but the creation of scholars mention its conspicuousness, but few art. Through the assistance of patrons, who pursue its meanings in depth. An important ex- were usually wealthy and socially influential, ception is the set of essays, Literary Patronage in artists were able to produce works that otherwise Late Medieval Japan, edited by Steven Carter would have gone unformed, uncreated. Finan- and published in 1993.8 This volume illumi- cial support, whether as stipends or commis- nates some of the significant literary and social sioned art work, was the common form of artistic ties between the period’s warriors, courtiers, cler- patronage.5 As art historians have discovered, ics, and commoners. Much more, however, re- studies of patronage can provide answers to ques- mains to be done. tions such as, “For whom was art produced?”; A relatively recent article in Japanese by Ta- “Through what means was it produced?”; “For naka Yūko, titled “Edo bunka no patoroneeji,” what purposes was it produced?” and “How were suggests that the topic of artistic patronage is artists paid for their work?” In some cases the likewise understudied in Japan; yet the article answers are hard to come by. James Cahill, for shows at the same time the promise that follows example, admitted at a 1980 workshop on patron- sustained analysis. 9 Since Tanaka’s focus is age in Chinese painting that this was a topic that geinō (a slippery term at best, sometimes ren- had received little attention, and none of the dered as the “performing arts,” and including not workshop participants “could claim more than a just noh, kabuki, tea, and ikebana, but at times fragmentary knowledge of the circumstances of painting and calligraphy), we might expect her patronage in Chinese painting.” Yet he noted, work to differ somewhat from the papers here. more sanguinely, that “collectively we knew a The extent of the differences are in fact profound, great deal more than we had thought.”6 For evidence I believe of the lack of agreement on those of us interested in the social meanings and fundamental developments in Tokugawa culture, constructions of art, an effort to understand pa- particularly but by no means exclusively as it tronage can offer important insights that should concerns patronage. For example, Tanaka as- not be ignored. serts, 1) that by the Edo period, Kyoto court cul- One evidence of how much work remains to ture and patronage had ceased to exert influence be done in Japanese art history (particularly out- and, 2) that the financial role of patronage in Edo side of Japan) is seen in the still rather rudimen- culture was of minor importance, assertions that tary discussion of patronage practices surround- do not sit well with me and that clearly are at ing the dōbōshū (“cultural attendants”) and other odds with other scholarship.10 lower class artists of the late medieval era. Paul On the other hand, Tanaka makes a number of Varley’s article — now nearly thirty years old — points about patronage that are insightful and about the shogunal patronage of Ashikaga Yo- worth serious consideration. For example, she shimitsu set a precedent that has been followed argues that patronage in the late medieval and only infrequently.7 Though important work has early modern eras was linked by the common 5 Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters: A Era,” in Japan in the Muromachi Age, edited by Study in the Relations Between Italian Art and John W. Hall and Toyoda Takeshi (Berkeley, Society in the Age of the Baroque, 2nd ed., (New University of California Press, 1977), pp. 183- Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), pp. 6-23. 204. 6 See Cahill’s comments in Chu-Tsing Li, ed., 8 Cited in note 2. p. 161. 9 In Kumakura Isao, ed., Dentō geinō no 7 H. Paul Varley, “Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and kenkyū, Nihon no kinsei (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, the World of Kitayama: Social Change and 1993), vol. 11, pp. 143-176. Shogunal Patronage in the Early Muromachi 10 Ibid., p. 147. 4 EARLY MODERN JAPAN FALL-WINTER, 2004 practice of including both patron and client as the author maintains that it was an idea that was artists. As is well known, the “cultural atten- more inclusive than the “group” or the “individ- dants” to the Ashikaga Shoguns were in no sense ual,” and that, as an early modern phenomenon, independent artists. Rather than receive from was the property of townspeople rather than their patrons stipends or payments that allowed courtiers or warriors.12 them to produce art as they desired or as they Despite these insights, Tanaka’s portrayal of were commissioned, the dōbōshū worked along- Tokugawa-period art provides limited space for side their patrons. Their duties were broad, the workings of patronage. By focusing on ranging from the dignified (serving as “officia- uniquely Japanese ways of producing art, Tanaka tors” and “experts” at cultural gatherings) to the suggests that artistic patronage was an uncharac- menial (cleaning and running errands), and the teristic phenomenon. But at least she considers artistic products of their work are rightly consid- the subject, something that many others have ered to be jointly owned by the patrons who failed to do. According to Patricia Graham, worked alongside them. In other words, the Edo-period patronage studies are rare because of patrons were participants in the arts, creators of long-standing historiographic trends and biases, them and not merely interested bystanders.