Smithsonian's Japan After Perry Woodblock Prints Exhibition Provides Japan's 1st Impressions Of West

Set to Open Feb. 6 at Japanese American National Museum

Los Angeles-- A collection of Japanese woodblock prints created in the aftermath of Commodore Matthew C. Perry's historic visits to Japan in the 1850s provides a remarkable look at the Japanese's first impressions of Westerners in the traveling exhibition Japan After Perry: Views of Yokohama and Meiji Japan, organized by the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, and set to open at the Japanese American National Museum on Feb. 6 and running through May 1.

"We are immensely pleased to be able to present Japan After Perry," stated Irene Hirano, President and CEO of the Japanese American National Museum. "The National Museum is gratified to continue its strong relationship with the Sackler Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution. In February of 2004, we were privileged to have Sackler's landmark traveling exhibition, Isamu Noguchi and Modern Japanese Ceramics, installed here. Japan After Perry provides an important look at the earliest impressions of the West by the Japanese and insight into the cultural differences both sides would encounter for years to come."

Originally organized in 1990 under the title Yokohama: Prints from the Nineteenth Century, the current exhibition, featuring 24 prints, was displayed as part the 150th anniversary celebration of U.S.-Japan relations, dating back to Perry's first trip to Japan in 1853. The woodblock prints, all gifts of Ambassador and Mrs. William Leonhart, trace the development of Yokohama as the port through which the "Five Nations" (the United States, Britain, France, Russia and the Netherlands all signed treaties with Japan by 1858) were allowed to conduct trade. But the prints also represent Japan's first impression of the people of the Western world, who had been, with some exceptions, barred for almost two and a half centuries from visiting Japan.

"The early Yokohama prints had the important function in informing a broad segment of the Japanese public about the coming of the people of Five Nations to Japan," wrote Japan after Perry Sackler curator Ann Yonemura. "As a popular art form they expressed a widespread interest within Japan in an event of great immediate and lasting importance for the nation."

Woodblock prints were a popular source of information in Japan in the 19th century. Perry and his four steam-powered "black ships" arrived at Edo Bay (now Tokyo Bay) on July 8, 1853 and the next day, small Japanese boats filled with artists making sketches approached the foreigners. Within a week, the Japanese had made woodblock prints of the strangers and their large ships and were selling these images in Edo (now Tokyo). Since the early 18th century, woodblock prints functioned as a "mass" media vehicle for many Japanese. Earlier prints focused on landmarks such as Mount Fuji or celebrities such as famous kabuki actors. The process required the collaboration of an artist who designed the print, the carver who engraved the woodblocks, the printer who controlled the color and registration and the publisher, who financed the entire operation.

Prints of the foreign ships arriving in Yokohama harbor proved to be extremely popular as were pictures of the foreigners themselves. Between 1860 and 1862, more than 400 images of people from the Five Nations were published. The scarcity of information about the West and the fact that few Japanese artists had actually seen foreigners, their dress or even photos of their home countries created many misconceptions.

Artist Sadahide (1807-ca. 1878) created a triptych, "Picture of a Mercantile Establishment in Yokohama", which depicts an American woman playing a violin like a samisen, a Japanese stringed instrument. "Complete Enumeration of Scenic Places in Foreign Nations: City of Washington in America" by Utagawa Yoshitora looks very little like Washington D.C. It is likely the artist saw an illustration of Agra, India, but since he could not read English, mistakenly thought it was America's capital.

Though the artists tried to depict the Westerners wearing their native clothing, the faces of all depicted tended to look Japanese, even if they had different hairstyles. The Japanese were fascinated with Western technology, such as sewing machines, cameras and the locomotive, and often represented these items as part of the modernization of Japan as in "Picture of a Steam Locomotive along the Yokohama Waterfront" by Hiroshige III (1842-1894). "Dictionary" prints tried to provide rudimentary language and pronunciation lessons in English, French, Russian and Dutch.

Since the Japanese had an artistic tradition of portraying beautiful women, the woodblock prints also had a disproportionate number of Western women depicted in Yokohama. The artists were able to observe the behavior of the foreigners, including their leisure pursuits at dinner and drinking parties and render them in the woodblock prints. In Sadahide's "Picture of a Parlor in a Foreign Mercantile Firm in Yokohama", the artist, according to Yonemura, demonstrates "an interest in capturing the postures and gestures of the group, all of which contrast markedly with customary Japanese poses."

Eventually, the focus of the Japanese woodblock artists would shift largely to the modernization of Japan, representing the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The initial period of intense popularity of Yokohama woodblock prints diminished quickly, owing, Yonemura believes, to an overproduction of prints (there may have been more than 250,000) and a growing anti-foreign feeling, which abated in the late 1860s with the rapid modernization of Japan along Western models.

Japan after Perry: Views of Yokohama and Meiji Japan was organized by the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. The presentation at the Japanese American National Museum is supported by the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. The Rafu Shimpo is the media sponsor.

CATALOGUE

A full-color 198-page book entitled Yokohama: Prints from Nineteenth-Century Japan by Ann Yonemura accompanies the exhibition. Yonemura is Senior Associate Curator, Japanese Art, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. The catalogue also features a note from William Leonhart, United States Ambassador (return.), who collected the Japanese woodblock prints featured in the book with his wife Florence. Published by the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., the book is available in hard cover for $45 from the Japanese American National Museum Store.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Saturday, March 5, 11:00 a.m.
Family Day for Japan After Perry: Views of Yokohama and Meiji Japan and
Lasting Beauty: Miss Jamison and the Student Muralists
Learn how to create woodblock prints through demonstrations and an activity where participants will design and create their own simple prints using a variety of materials. Also, discover what it takes to develop a mural by lending a hand to paint out very own portable community mural.

(More public programs for the 2005 Second Quarter to be announced.)