Modern period

Japan’s modern period is, for the purposes of this article, defined as beginning with the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and continuing through to the present. In the Japanese system of dating, this period encompasses the Meiji period (1868–1912), the Taishō period (1912–26), the Shōwa period (1926–89), and the Heisei period (began 1989).

Modernity for Japan has been a process of seeking definition in its cultural and political relationships with other nations, both Asian and Western. Japan’s official intentions toward the West during the Meiji period can be described as a calculated attempt to achieve Western industrial standards and to absorb Western culture at every possible level. In the mid-1870s a wide variety of Western experts, including military strategists, railroad engineers, architects, philosophers, and artists, were invited to teach in Japanese universities or to in some other way assist in Japan’s process of growth and change. Also during this time Japan was directly involved in two international conflicts: a war with China (1894–95) and a war with Russia (1904–05). Victorious in both these conflicts, Japan proved its ability to gear its newly established industrial base to the achievement of foreign expansionist goals. In 1910 Japan officially annexed Korea, a process it had begun in 1905 when it assumed a protectorate status over the peninsular nation. Japan’s pretext was to establish a strong buffer zone against possible Western incursion, but Korea was essentially colonized as a source of labour and natural resources.

The Taishō period was characterized politically by a strengthening of popularly elected representative bodies, an interest in universal suffrage, and a comparatively liberal mood in the arts. In retrospect it was sometimes viewed as a romantic, euphoric period of cultural creativity following the more conservative Meiji era and preceding the militaristic mood of the 1930s. During this same period, as the Western powers with colonial and mercantile interests in Asia were forced to focus their attention on Europe during World War I (1914–18), Japan moved in to fill the vacuum, especially in China. The 1930s were characterized by a rise in militarism and further expansion on the Asian continent. This process culminated in World War II and in Japan’s defeat by Western powers in 1945. The postwar period began with the Allied—almost exclusively American—occupation of Japan and was characterized by rebuilding, rapid growth and development, and increasing internationalism.

The development of the visual arts since 1868 was considerably influenced by changing political climates and goals. Assuming an official posture of encyclopaedic investigation and selective assimilation of Western culture and technology in the late 19th century, the Japanese cultural mainstream was systematically infused with the classical forms of Western painting, sculpture, and architecture. In the first several decades of the Meiji period, there was an upheaval in patronage and in the status of the traditional Japanese artist. The Meiji government pursued a policy of officially separating whatever elements of Buddhism and Shintō had been joined over the centuries in Buddhism’s attempt at a syncretic relationship with the indigenous religion. Buddhism was stripped of many tax privileges. There was, as well, a sometimes violent and destructive reaction to Buddhism owing to strong nativist sentiments. The cumulative effect of this official dismantling and unofficial persecution was to release a remarkable amount of Buddhist art onto the market. Temples were forced to divest in order to support themselves, and the patronage supplied to artists who created Buddhist iconography was seriously curtailed. Japanese artists also suffered because of the general trend to idealize all aspects of Western culture. Vast amounts of Japanese art, wood-block prints being the foremost example, went to Western collections.

This trend began to be reversed in the 1880s owing in part, ironically, to the efforts of Ernest Fenollosa, a recent Harvard graduate who arrived in Japan in 1878 as a philosophy instructor at the Tokyo Imperial University (now University of Tokyo). His avocational interest in Japanese and Chinese art became his passion. The Japanese reshuffling of cultural priorities placed him in a particularly advantageous position to acquire Japanese art—especially Buddhist art—of exceptional quality for Western collections. Working with a former student, Okakura Kakuzō, also known as Tenshin, Fenollosa also moved forcefully to influence the Japanese to reclaim their cultural heritage and to adapt creatively to changing tastes.

The Japanese government sponsored the participation of Japanese artists and craftsmen in various late 19th- and early 20th-century international expositions held in Europe and America. These were of some help in advancing Western knowledge of Japanese culture. Collecting of the type endorsed by Fenollosa, as well as more popular collecting inspired by the flood of Japanese arts and crafts to Western markets, caused Westerners to take notice of a theretofore unknown visual arts tradition. This Western assessment of Japanese art was done in piecemeal fashion. Some obvious and immediate results included the influence of Japanese art on European and American painters and printmakers as well as the wider trend to Japanism. This initiation of communication between disparate visual worlds began the lengthy process of asserting the Japanese fine arts tradition within the context of world culture.

The early 20th century was not only a time of continued assimilation of Western art forms and philosophies but also a period in which traditional Japanese forms sought and achieved a new interpretive voice. With the rise of militarism, the visual arts were largely conscripted for straightforward propagandistic purposes or allowed only in thematically banal forms. Japan’s defeat in World War II produced in many Japanese intellectuals and artists a distrust of the authority of the indigenous tradition, leading them to search for meaning in artistic movements and traditions abroad. Meanwhile, the postwar Allied occupation forces (1945–52) urged structural changes to ensure that Japan’s cultural properties were properly honoured, protected, and made more widely available to general audiences. Censorship of contemporary materials, particularly for political content, continued to be imposed. In general, however, the occupation opened the way for international cross-cultural experimentation and the development of an “international style” that persists to the present.