Making art together in Japan

Key project information

Duration

2022–2025

Contact details

Email: bmresearch@britishmuseum.org

Partners

Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto
SOAS University of London
Kansai University, Osaka
National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto

Supported by

Economic and Social Research Council
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

Grant number

ESRC ES/W011956/1

How important was the collective creation of art in Japan at the time of Hokusai?

Cultural salons were creative spaces for people of all social levels to jointly pursue painting, poetry and other artistic endeavours. Based in public spaces including restaurants and temples as well as private homes, salons were common in late-Edo-period Japan around the 19th century. However, the identities of individual participants remain largely unacknowledged and unknown.

This project, Creative collaborations: salons and networks in Kyoto and Osaka 1780–1880, explores this culture of collaborative art creation by analysing over 5,000 objects in collections at the British Museum and in Japan. These works will be digitised and their texts transcribed into a large online database. The project will then examine who participated in these salons, what social and cultural circles they were part of and the different networks that formed between them.

About the project

The British Museum holds one of the most significant Kyoto-Osaka collections outside Japan. It features over 100 illustrated book titles, 500 paintings and 3,000 surimono, a type of privately published woodblock print with poems and images.

This project will digitise these works and transcribe the poem inscriptions, artist names and other texts into a large online database, along with other paintings and surimono from Kansai University, Osaka, and the Paul Berry private collection in Kyoto. The database will be maintained by the Art Research Center at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto.

By analysing the objects and the biographical information of their creators captured in the database, the project will reassess the contribution of these salons to the vibrancy of Japanese visual arts and culture between 1780−1880. Where previous scholarship has focused on known artists, poets and authors, the project will also examine the cultural participation of unknown 'ordinary' people. It will assess their impact on:

Art and literary production
Japanese society
Artistic styles and aesthetics
The creation of an artistic identity, such as through the use of a pen name.

Revealing and documenting information about members of cultural circles and salons and their influence will provide new insights for scholars of Edo-period social and cultural history, and will transform the contemporary interpretation and presentation of these artworks.

Aims

Using the object database, the project will assess how the extensive system of formal and informal art societies established a significant concept of 'salon culture' in Edo-period Japan. It will seek to understand the nature and extent of cultural groups involved by examining the following:

Who were the participants of the cultural groups that produced paintings, poetry or illustrated books?
What types of artistic and social salons existed?
How wide were these networks and what were the connections between members of a cultural group and other groups or societies?
How does an understanding of these participants and their social circles and networks change our interpretation and presentation of the artworks produced through such activities?

The database at the Arts Research Center at Ritsumeikan University will be published, providing a new portal for early modern Japanese culture with the capacity to absorb similar collections in the future. The outcomes of this project will also be shared in academic articles and will form an exhibition at the British Museum scheduled for 2024.