Parallel Modernism: Koga Harue and Avant-Garde Art in Modern JapanThis significant historical study recasts modern art in Japan as a “parallel modernism” that was visually similar to Euroamerican modernism, but developed according to its own internal logic. Using the art and thought of prominent Japanese modern artist Koga Harue (1895–1933) as a lens to understand this process, Chinghsin Wu explores how watercolor, cubism, expressionism, and surrealism emerged and developed in Japan in ways that paralleled similar trends in the west, but also rejected and diverged from them. In this first English-language book on Koga Harue, Wu provides close readings of virtually all of the artist’s major works and provides unprecedented access to the critical writing about modernism in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s through primary source documentation, including translations of period art criticism, artist statements, letters, and journals. |
Contents
Watercolor Individualism | 13 |
Cubism Remixed | 43 |
Expressionism | 77 |
Machines Bodies and Nature | 129 |
Notes | 193 |
Bibliography | 213 |
List of Illustrations | 227 |
Common terms and phrases
abstract André Lhote Aoki Shigeru argued artists and critics Artizon Museum artworks avant-garde Bijutsukan Breton's Bridgestone Buddhist COLLAGE MODERNITY color created Cubism cultural depicting El Greco ESCAPING ACADEMICISM example Expressionism female figure FORM TO CONTENT formerly Bridgestone Museum Fukuoka Fukuzawa Gakai geijutsu Greco Harue images Ishibashi Foundation Japan Japanese art Japanese artists Japanese Surrealists Japanese Watercolor kaiga Kanbara Kannon Klee's Koga Harue Koga's Koga's paintings Kuroda Kurume landscapes Lhote machine Matsuda Meiji Meštrović's Mizue motifs Murayama Murayama Tomoyoshi Museum of Art Museum of Modern National Nihon Nihonga Nika Exhibition nude oil on canvas oil painting Omuka Ōtani Pacific Art Society painters parallel Paul Klee poem realistic reality RECONCILING SUBJECTIVITY Rittaiha robot SCIENTIFIC SURREALISM Shinbun shinkō sketchbooks sketches style SUBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVITY Suisaiga Surrealism Surrealism in Japan Surrealist Manifesto Taishō Takehisa Yumeji Takenaka theory tion Tokyo Tokyo formerly Bridgestone traditional visual watercolor Western-style painting woman Yōga Yoshie Yumeji