Shogun's Painted Culture: Fear and Creativity in the Japanese States, 1760-1829In this penetrating analysis of a little-explored area of Japanese cultural history, Timon Screech reassesses the career of the chief minister Matsudaira Sadanobu, who played a key role in defining what we think of as Japanese culture today. Aware of how visual representations could support or undermine regimes, Sadanobu promoted painting to advance his own political aims and improve the shogunate's image. As an antidote to the hedonistic ukiyo-e, or floating world, tradition, which he opposed, Sadanobu supported attempts to construct a new approach to painting modern life. At the same time, he sought to revive historical and literary painting, favouring such artists as the flamboyant, innovative Maruyama Okyo. After the city of Kyoto was destroyed by fire in 1788, its reconstruction provided the stage for the renewal of Japan's iconography of power, the consummation of the 'shogun's painted culture'. “Screech’s ideas are fascinating, often brilliant, and well grounded. . . . [Shogun’s Painted Culture] presents a thorough analysis of aspects of the early modern Japanese world rarely observed in such detail and never before treated to such an eloquent handling in the English language.”—CAA Reviews “[A] stylishly written and provocative cultural history.”—Monumenta Nipponica “As in his admirable Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan 1700-1820, Screech lavishes learning and scholarly precision, but remains colloquial in thought and eminently readable.”—Japan Times Timon Screech is Senior Lecturer in the history of Japanese art at SOAS, University of London, and Senior Research Associate at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. He is the author of several books on Japanese history and culture, including Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan 1700–1820 (Reaktion, 1999). |
Contents
Acknowledgements | 6 |
Sugita Genpaku and the Dismemberment of the Present | 56 |
Image Management for Royal Power III | 111 |
Ökyos New Concept | 167 |
Boundaries for a Centre | 208 |
References | 267 |
| 296 | |
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Akinari antique artists barrier Bashō Bunmei Buson called castle Chikuden Chinese colour on paper copperplate copy daimyo Dairi Denzen depicted Dutch Edo's eighteenth century Eisen-in European famous fire Floating World Fuji Fujita garden Gennai Goshun Hall hanging scroll Hiraga Gennai Hirokata Ibid Ieharu Iemoto Ienari illus illustration Jakuchu Japan Japanese culture Kairyō Kano School Kansei Keishi kenkyū kibun Kien Kinkoku Kōkei Koshōken Kyōto landscape later looked mansion Maruyama Ökyo Matsudaira Sadanobu Morishima Chūryō Moriyama Takamori Motoori Norinaga Nagasaki Nochimigusa Norinaga official Okitsugu Ökyo Ökyo's painter painting posthumously quoted revived Ritsuzan rulers samurai Sasaki and Sasaki Satake Yoshiatsu Screech Shiba Kōkan Shirakawa shogunal shujo style Sugita Genpaku Taikan zakki taisei Tan'yu Tani Bunchō Tanomura Chikuden Temple Tenka Tenmei tennō themes Thunberg tion Titsingh Tokugawa Tokugawa Ienari Tomohito took Tosa Ueda Akinari verse Western wrote Yanagisawa Kien Yuasa
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Page 297 - Illustrations of Japan; consisting of Private Memoirs and Anecdotes of the Reigning Dynasty of the Djogouns, or Sovereigns of Japan a description of the Feasts and Ceremonies observed throughout the year at their court; and of the ceremonies customary at Marriages and Funerals...