Innovations and Continuities: Case studies of Japanese Art and Modernity 

Summer Term

Choose how you’d like to attend:
On Campus: Tuesdays, 27 April to 25 May 2027 (£120)
Online: Wednesdays 5 May to 2 June 2027 (£120)

In Japan, the period from the mid-19^th century to the outbreak of WWI was marked by revolutionary change in almost every aspect of life.   After two centuries of strictly limited contact with foreign powers, Meiji-era Japan responded to a series of unequal treaties imposed by the West with rapid industrialisation and political reconfiguration.  To safeguard national autonomy and compete with the West on the world stage the Meiji government sought a fundamental transformation of Japan’s economy, institutions, and education.

The many ways in which the arts were implicated in this convulsive period of change, and what the divergent stylistic directions Nihonga and Yōga (respectively painting in the Japanese and the Western styles) reveal about the tension between tradition and innovation will be explored in our first three lectures.  Our fourth lecture will critically examine Japonisme, the intense appeal of all things Japanese in the West around the fin-de-siècle and the fascination of Japanese woodblock prints – some of which themselves in fact revealed Western influences – for avant-garde European artists.  Our series will conclude with a talk by the artist and President of the Royal Academy, Rebecca Salter, on her own practice which is deeply informed by a lengthy period of studying traditional Japanese woodblock printing in Kyoto.