Dictionary: Japan   (jə-păn')

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Japan

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A country of Asia on an archipelago off the northeast coast of the mainland. Traditionally settled c. 660 B.C., Japan's written history began in the 5th century A.D. During the feudal period (12th–19th century) real power was held by the shoguns, whose dominance was finally ended by the restoration of the emperor Mutsuhito in 1868. Feudalism was abolished, and the country was opened to Western trade and industrial technology. Expansionist policies led to Japan's participation in World War II, which ended after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 1945). Today the country is highly industrialized and noted for its advanced technology. Tokyo is the capital and the largest city. Population: 127,000,000.

WORD HISTORY   Stamp collectors know that Nihon and Nippon on Japanese stamps mean “Japan”; what they probably don't know is that Nihon, Nippon, and Japan are all ultimately the same word. In the early part of the Chinese Tang dynasty—in A.D. 670, to be precise—Japanese scholars who had studied Chinese created a new name for their country using the Chinese phrase for “origin of the sun, sunrise,” because Japan is located east of China. In the Chinese of the time (called Middle Chinese), the phrase was nzyet-pwun. To this the scholars added the Chinese suffix –kwuk, “country,” yielding a compound nzyet-pwun-kwuk, “sun-origin-country, land of the rising sun.” The consonant clusters in the word were not pronounceable in Old Japanese, so the form was simplified to Nip-pon-gu or *Ni-pon-gu, the latter developing by regular sound change to Ni-hon-gu. The forms Nippon and Nihon of today are the same as these, minus the “country” suffix. Interestingly, the Chinese themselves took to calling Japan by the name that the Japanese had invented, and it is from the Chinese version of the name that English Japan is ultimately derived. In Mandarin Chinese, one of the forms of Chinese to develop from Middle Chinese, the phrase evolved to Rìběnguó, an early form of which was recorded by Marco Polo as Chipangu, which he would have pronounced as (chĭ-pän-gū) or (shĭ-pän-gū). The early Mandarin word was borrowed into Malay as Japang, which was encountered by Portuguese traders in Moluccas in the 16th century. These traders may have been the ones to bring the word to Europe; it is first recorded in English in 1577, spelled Giapan.

Island country, East Asia, western Pacific Ocean. Its four main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. It is separated from the Asian mainland by the Sea of Japan (East Sea). Area: 145,903 sq mi (377,887 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 128,085,000. Capital: Tokyo. The Japanese overwhelmingly are a single Asian ethnic group. Language: Japanese (official). Religions: Shinto, Buddhism; also Christianity. Currency: yen. Situated in one of Earth's most geologically active zones, Japan experiences volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Mountain ranges cover some four-fifths of its land surface; its highest mountain is Mount Fuji. The economy, one of the world's biggest, is based largely on manufacturing and services; exports include electronic and electrical equipment, motor vehicles, chemicals, and iron and steel products. The government's involvement in banking results in unique cooperation between the public and private sectors. Japan is one of the world's principal seagoing nations, with an important marine fishing sector. It is a constitutional monarchy with two legislative houses; its symbol of state is the emperor, and the head of government is the prime minister. Human habitation in Japan is thought to date to at least 30,000 years ago. The Yamato court established the first unified Japanese state in the 4th – 5th century AD; during that period, Buddhism arrived in Japan by way of Korea. For centuries Japan borrowed heavily from Chinese culture, but it began to sever its links with the mainland by the 9th century. The Fujiwara family was dominant through the 11th century. In 1192 Minamoto Yoritomo established Japan's first bakufu, or shogunate (see Kamakura period). The Muromachi period (1338 – 1573) was marked by warfare between powerful families. Unification was achieved in the late 16th and early 17th centuries under the leadership of Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. During the Edo (Tokugawa) period (1603 – 1867), the government imposed a policy of isolation. Under the leadership of the emperor Meiji (1867 – 1912), it adopted a constitution (1889) and began a program of modernization and Westernization. Japanese imperialism led to war with China (1894 – 95) and Russia (1904 – 05) as well as to the annexation of Korea (1910) and northeastern China (1931). During World War II, Japan attacked U.S. forces in Hawaii and the Philippines (December 1941) and occupied European colonial possessions in Southeast Asia. In 1945 the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan surrendered to the Allies. A new democratic constitution was drafted (1947) during the U.S. postwar occupation. Japan also began rebuilding its ruined industrial base, using new technology. A tremendous economic recovery followed, and Japan became one of the world's wealthiest countries. It was able to maintain a favourable balance of trade despite a long-term economic recession.

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A short-oil varnish, usually dark in color, which produces a hard glossy surface.

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To 1945

In the late 1840s, the first daguerreotype camera came to Japan through a Dutch trader in Nagasaki, and was purchased by Shunojo Ueno, a dealer in European and American goods and avid student of Western science. Arriving well before the American Commodore Perry began the process of opening Japan to the West (1853), this camera was therefore available to record feudal Japan. Unfortunately, no photographs taken with it have been found. The oldest datable photographs extant in Japan were taken after Perry's second visit in February 1854 by his acting master's mate Eliphalet Brown Jr., and by the Russian photographer Lieutenant Alexander Fyodorovich Mozhaisky, who reached Japan a month after Perry. The oldest surviving photograph by a Japanese is a daguerreotype portrait of Nariakira Shimazu taken in 1857 by Shiro Ichiki, now in the Shoko Shusei Kan (Shimazu family museum) in Kagoshima.

Photography caught on in the liberal, wealthy, and intellectually curious sections of society. The first to receive a daguerreotype from Shunojo Ueno, Lord Shimazu, head of the Satsuma clan, became an important early patron of photography. In 1854 Shimazu paid for the published translation of a two-volume book on photographic technique by Kohmin Kawamoto. In 1862 Ueno's son Hikoma set up the first Japanese-owned portrait studio in Nagasaki. The same year, Renjo Shimooka opened a photography studio in Yokohama. Both establishments earned most of their income photographing foreigners and making picturesque albums of typical Japanese scenes and kimono-dressed women.

The most significant Western photographers of this period were the Italian Felice Beato, who worked primarily in the 1860s, and the Austrian Baron Raimund von Stillfried in the 1870s and 1880s. Arriving in Japan via the Crimea and China, Beato set up a studio in Yokohama in 1863 with a painter named Charles Wirgman, and is best known for his staged scenes, using paid Japanese models, for Western tourists and landscapes. Beato published albums of his images, beautifully hand coloured with elegant Japanese covers. He also recorded the bombardment of the Shimonoseki batteries by a British-led naval squadron in 1864. After 1867-8 he photographed less, but his studio, F. Beato & Co., continued. In 1877 it was sold to Stillfried, who carried it on through the 1880s.

With the opening of Japan and the numerous foreign influences now pouring in, the over-200-year stability of the Tokugawa government began to falter in the face of pro-feudal and pro-Western factionalism. With the Meiji Revolution (1868) came bunmei kaika (civilization and enlightenment), a time of officially promoted modernization that encouraged the proliferation of photo studios; by 1880 there were over 150 in Tokyo alone. The state also began to make direct use of photography. In 1872 an edict was passed to put the Emperor Meiji's portrait, taken by Kuichi Uchida (1844-75), in every school. In 1871 a government-sponsored expedition to survey and develop land on the northern island of Hokkaido included photographers to record progress and help publicize it to prospective settlers. The principal photographer involved was Kenzo Tamoto (1832-1912). Amongst the many photographs taken were numerous images of the impoverished indigenous Ainu peoples in their desolate surroundings. In 1877 the first Japanese war photographs were made by an official group, including Hikoma Ueno, of the South-Western Rebellion initiated by the Satsuma samurai Takamori Saigo, who led 40, 000 followers against the new government. (Another early Japanese war photographer was Rihei Tomishige.) In 1894, on the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, a Japanese Army Photographic Unit was formed under Kenji Ogura, who led it again in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. With war photography came censorship, and as photographers were attached to the army they could only document approved subjects. The Russo-Japanese photographs depict the Russian enemy, desirable expanses of empty land, the sparse and backward native population, and Japanese victories; though occasionally also the horrors of war.

The number of amateur photographers expanded, and in 1889 Shashin Shinpo (New Photography) magazine and the Nihon Shashinkai (Japan Photography Club) appeared. Shashin Geppo (Monthly Photography) magazine followed in 1894 for art photography (essentially pictorialism), which was increasing its following by 1900. In 1901 the Tokyo Shayukai (Tokyo Photography Group) started. Western pictorialist photographers and European Impressionist painters were sources of influence and inspiration. In 1904 the Yutsuzu-sha dedicated to research and art photography began, from 1907 known as the Tokyo Shashin Kenkyukai (Tokyo Photography Research Group). Yasuzo Nojima (aka Kozo), though less enamoured of pictorialism's soft-focus techniques, was among the most successful fine-art photographers, and one of the first to work extensively with the nude. Active in the Tokyo Photo Study Group, which he joined in 1910, he was also influential through his portrait studio and gallery (1915-20). The celebrated Naniwa Photography Club was founded in Osaka by Kichinosuke Ishii and Shozabura Kuwata in 1904. Dedicated to pictorialism until the late 1920s, it later became identified with the Shinko Shashin (New Photography) movement.

In the late 1910s, domestic manufacturing industries for paper and chemicals developed and photo supplies became cheaper and more easily obtainable, opening photography to amateurs and the middle class. More clubs formed to promote knowledge and exchange ideas. The Taisho period, coinciding with the First World War in Europe, heralded a time of economic growth and democracy. Self-expression and modern aesthetic ideas came into vogue. From 1920 smaller and handier roll-film cameras arrived. It was in this period that the optical firms that later developed into Japan's world-famous camera makers appeared (albeit initially under different names). The oldest, Konishi Honten (later Konica) dated from 1873; but it was joined in 1917 by Nippon Kogaku (later Nikon), then Olympus (1919) and Minolta (1928); Canon, Fuji, and Ricoh followed in the 1930s.

Shinzo Fukuhara was one of the most sophisticated pictorialist photographers in Japan. He founded the magazine Shashin Geijitsu (Fine Art Photography) in 1921, which also saw the birth of the amateur photo magazine Camera by Katsumi Miyake. In 1922 Hakuyo Fuchikami (1889-1960) followed with the monthly Hakuyo, with fine collotype illustrations. The activity around the magazine led to the formation of Nihon Koga Geijitsu Kyokai (Japan Fine Art Photography Group), a Kobe-based association with a nationwide membership of amateur pictorialists. The journal Geijitsu Shashin Kenkyu (Studies in Fine Art Photography) also began in 1922, with first Minoru Minami, then Kenkichi Nakajima as editor.

In 1924 the Photo Times started for advanced amateurs. Edited by Sakae Tamura (1906-87), it introduced foreign trends, featuring photographers such as Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray. Sen-ichi Kimura figured prominently in it in the 1930s. The monthly Asahi Camera, Japan's most wide-ranging—and still extant—photo magazine, was launched in 1926, together with Fuchikami's Nihon Shashin Bijutsu Nenkan (Yearbook of Japanese Photography). Nihonkoga Kyokai (Japanese Fine Art Group), closely affiliated with Fuchikami's Nihon Koga Geijistu Kyokai, began in 1928, its members including Makihiko Yamamoto (1893-1985), Tamura, Yoshio Date, and Jiro Takao. In Osaka in 1930 Ueda Bizan founded the Tampei Shashin Club to promote the modernist photography influenced by German Neue Sachlichkeit. That year the Shinko Shashin Kenkyukai (New Photography Study Group), supported by the Photo Times, was founded by Sen-ichi Kimura to explore new aesthetic trends, and in 1932 Iwata Nakayama (1895-1949), Yasuzo Nojima, and Ihei Kimura started the modernist monthly magazine Koga (Light Picture). For the first issue, Ina Nobuo wrote a symbolic text entitled ‘Return to Photography’, influenced by the German critic Franz Roh. Nakayama introduced the movement to the Kansai area, where he settled in 1929, opening a studio in Ashiya, between Osaka and Kobe. There he started the Ashiya Camera Club with Kanbei Hanaya, Juzo Matsubara, and Kichinosuke Benitani. Their output was freer than that of the Tokyo clubs, and included photograms, photomontages, and portraiture.

Concurrently, Yonosuke Natori (1910-62), who had studied in Germany, founded the group Nippon Kobo (Japan Workshop) in 1933, and brought together Natori and Kimura, the designers Hiroshi Hara and Nobuo Ina, and other young photographers including Ken Domon. They began the foreign-language magazine Nippon featuring uplifting, patriotic imagery to promote Japanese culture overseas.

From 1935 avant-garde movements began to influence photographers nationwide. In Osaka a Surrealism-influenced photographic style was pioneered by the Avant-Garde Zoei Shudan (Avant-Garde Image Creators), established in 1937. In Tokyo, a more intellectual view of avant-garde photography was supported by the Zen'ei Shashin Kyokai (Avant-Garde Photographic Society), founded in 1938 by the art critic Shuzo Takiguchi. The trend spread to other parts of Japan such as Nagoya, where the Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde Group started in 1939, and even to Japan's Manchurian colony, Dalien. In Tottori prefecture, on Honshu's south-western coast, the young Shoji Ueda made Surrealist-influenced portraits of his family in the dunes, and photographed buildings and people in his seaside village.

The growth of nationalism in the 1930s brought curbs on freedom of expression, including domestic censorship. New laws limited foreign film and paper imports, banned cameras on aircraft, and in 1937 prohibited photography from a height of 100 m (330 ft) or more (20 m from 1940). Meanwhile, the government backed photographic developments with military potential, such as infrared film, underwater cameras, high-speed and X-ray films. While artistic expression was restricted, advertising and propaganda offered alternative creative outlets. Photographic mural montages showing inspirational nationalistic scenes—influenced by avant-garde photomontage—were installed for public viewing. In 1941 the Japanese photo world underwent reorganization. The magazines Shashin Geppo and Shashin Shinpo folded, and the number of journals fell from ten to four: Shashin Nippon (Photography Japan), Shashin Bunka (Photography Culture), Hodo Shashin (Journalistic Photography), and Asahi Camera (until April 1942).

The pre-war and wartime years were busy times for photojournalists. Nationalistic magazines like Front, launched in 1942 by Toho-sha, featured militaristic, dynamic layouts, with photomontage and two-tone colour. Photographers covered Japanese military operations, and captured images of events such as the Pearl Harbor attack for the domestic press. In 1945 powerful photographs were taken of the atomic destruction that ended the war, in particular those of Yoshito Matsushige in Hiroshima and Yosuke Yamahata in Nagasaki; and in 1946 images of reconstruction. But such work was mostly banned from publication and distribution by the American authorities and thus hardly seen before the Peace Treaty of 1952.Banta, M., and Taylor, S., A Timely Encounter: Nineteenth-Century Photographs of Japan (1988). Borhan, P., and Iizawa, K., La Photographie japonaise de l'entre deux guerres: du pictorialisme au modernisme (1990). Kaneko, R., Japanische Photographie, 1860-1929 (1993). Bennett, T., Early Japanese Images (1996).

Since 1945

Though published on poor-quality paper and with limited print runs, many short-lived magazines, frequently referred to as kasutori zasshi, exploited the new-found liberty of the post-war years. More enduring publications included the Sun Photo News of Mainichi Publishing (1946) and, with Yonosuke Natori at the helm, Weekly Sun News (1947), modelled on the American Life. The latter was premature in a post-war economy, and Natori moved on to Iwanami Publishing in 1950 where he began the Iwanami Photo Library series of photographic pocket books on Japanese cultural history, the bombing of Hiroshima (by Shigeichi Nagano (b. 1925) ), theatre, architecture, and cities. A number of ‘straight photography’ specialists found work here. Asahi Camera reappeared in 1949 after a seven-year break.

Photorealism gathered momentum under the tutelage of Ken Domon, competition judge and columnist for Camera magazine, where he pushed candid, straight images under the banner of ‘direct connection of the camera and the motif’. Many talentd amateurs and future professionals had their first images published by Camera.

While Japanese photojournalists were influenced by foreign colleagues visiting Japan between coverage of the Korean and Indo-China wars (Capa arrived in April 1954, just before his death), other photographers travelled abroad. Yasuhiro Ishimoto, born (1921) in the USA but raised in Japan, studied in Chicago with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. In 1955-6 Ihei Kimura published books on visits to Europe, and in 1958 Hiroshi Hamaya's book on his trip to China appeared. Natori also photographed abroad and published collections of this work.

The mid-and late 1950s brought a challenge to realism from more experimental and individualistic, German-influenced Subjective photography; in 1956 the Japan Subjective Photography League was formed, and a large exhibition held in Tokyo. (Earlier that year, the Family of Man exhibition had reached Tokyo, attracting thousands of visitors.) In 1957 Ikko Narahara, Eikoh Hosoe, Shomei Tomatsu, Kikuji Kawada, and six others were shown together in an exhibition entitled Junin no Me (The Eyes of Ten), organized by the critic Tatsuo Fukushima. In 1959 six of them created VIVO as a photographer-managed agency of the new photography. It became extremely influential amongst younger photographers like Daido Moriyama, who moved from Osaka to Tokyo to work with the group.

The 1950s also saw the beginning of the Japanese camera industry's rise to global dominance. The Japanese Camera Inspection Institute (JCII) started work in 1954, and the launch of the Nikon F in 1959, and a bevy of cameras by Pentax, Canon, and other manufacturers at the same time, heralded the ascendancy of the Japanese-made SLR (single-lens reflex). In terms of design, technological sophistication, and manufacturing efficiency, Japanese companies showed that they were second to none, and more than equal to the demands of both the high-end professional and mass-consumer markets.

The ratification of the Security Treaty between Japan and the USA in 1960 brought riots and organized protests. In October, a photographer on Mainichi shimbun, Yasuji Nagao, captured the dramatic assassination of the socialist leader Inejiro Asanuma by a young right-wing extremist, earning Japan's first Pulitzer Prize. Photographers who documented the violence were hindered from publishing in the domestic press, and to evade this censorship, some published small volumes of their work, including Hiroshi Hamaya's Ikari to kanashimi no kiroku (A Record of Anger and Sadness), which included a photo of the left-wing leader Michiko Kanba, beaten to death by the police. Later published by Life, the image led to Hamaya's membership of Magnum.

Social documentary work continued. Shishei Kuwabara held his first solo exhibition on Minamata disease in 1962, thirteen years before Eugene and Aileen Smith's celebrated book. Shigeichi Nagano explored the urban street scene, and the life of the Tokyo ‘salaryman’ in a period of frantic economic growth. His work was cited as exemplary by Natori in his debates with Tomatsu in Asahi Camera in 1960; while Natori insisted on story-based reportage, Tomatsu put the case for photography as an autonomous means of expression.

In general the 1960s were a time of exploration, including bold new work from VIVO photographers (even after the agency's dissolution). Amidst the political upheavals, there were dynamic changes in film and literature as well as photography. Photographers from Hosoe to Moriyama collaborated with figures in the emerging dance scene (Hosoe) and radical avant-garde theatre (Issei Suda (b. 1940) and Moriyama). Takuma Nakahira (b. 1938), photographer and editor of Gendai no me (The Modern Eye), and in 1968 co-founder of the journal and collective Provoke, held new-left views and became deeply involved with student protest movements. He also strongly influenced photographers like Moriyama, who contributed to the second and third issues of Provoke (which promptly folded). Although short-lived, the Provoke experiment remained influential, representing an individualistic, aggressively anti-conventional photography of graininess, distortion, and blur, epitomized by the disturbing Moriyama images later gathered in Stray Dog (1999).

Another influential Tokyo figure was Shoji Yamagishi, editor of Camera Mainichi from 1970 until his death in 1979. He encouraged many photographers, including Moriyama, and the VIVO members Kishin Shinoyama, Yoshihiro Tatsuki, and Noriaki Yokosuka: photographers also committed to extreme individualism. Fluent in English, Yamagishi published major New York photographers such as Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, and Garry Winogrand in his magazine and facilitated exchanges with the New York museum and gallery world. In particular, he collaborated with John Szarkowski at MoMA on the 1974 exhibition New Japanese Photography which, with its catalogue, was one of Japanese photography's first large-scale manifestations on the American scene. The participants included Domon, Tomatsu, Kawada, Masahisa Fukase, Narahara, Hosoe, Moriyama, and numerous others—but were limited by Yamagishi to those active in Tokyo. The economic background was the post-1973 recession, to which photographers reacted in various ways; some, like Issei Suda, Kazuo Kitai, and Hiromi Tsuchida, switched their attention to the countryside, where traditional ways of life were gradually being transformed.

The mid-1970s saw the creation of several galleries run by young photographers in Tokyo: Prism (Miyabi Taniguchi and Osamu Hiraki), Camp (Keizo Kitajima and Seiji Kurata), and Put (Noboru Hama et al.). The main members of the latter two were students of the small Workshop Photo School (1974-6) run by leading photographers including Tomatsu, Moriyama, Nobuyoshi Araki, Fukase, Hosoe, and Yokosuka. The gallery movement continued to spread, both in Tokyo and elsewhere. Zeit-Foto Salon, owned by Etsuro Ishihara, opened in 1978. He did much to raise the profile of Japanese photography in Europe, and showed Brassaï, Doisneau, Cartier-Bresson, and Man Ray, among others, in Tokyo. Photo Gallery International (PGI) opened in 1979 with the show Message from the West Coast, featuring Ansel Adams, Brett Weston, and Wynn Bullock, and continued to organize exchanges with American galleries. The short-lived Gallery Min (1986-90) excelled in lavish exhibitions and catalogues. The Seibu Museum of Art presented major shows of Arbus, Avedon, and others. Outside Tokyo, the Dot gallery opened in Kyoto (1980), and the Picture Photo Space Gallery in Osaka (1984). The Third Gallery Aya opened in 1995, with many exhibitions of female photographers.

Museums also proliferated, starting with the Domon Museum in Yamagata (1983). The Tsukuba Museum of Photography functioned for six months during the Tsukuba Expo in 1985, and in Paris-New York-Tokyo showed foreign and Japanese work side by side. The Kawasaki City Museum (1988) was the first general Japanese museum with a photography department, followed by the Yokohama Museum in 1989. The 1990s added no fewer than five photography museums, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, which opened fully in 1995.

The 1980s saw the rise of new photographers whose constructed and carefully thought-out work can be characterized as ‘art referential’. Among them were Michiko Kon (still lifes); Yasumasa Morimura (elaborate self-portrait re-creations of classic Western paintings); Hiroshi Sugimoto (‘portraits’ of wax-museum figures, and near-abstract seascapes and cinema screens); and Toshio Shibata (dramatic images of dams and waterways). All earned considerable acclaim both in Japan and abroad. Meanwhile, photographers such as Keiichi Tahara and Jun Shiraoka had established themselves outside Japan in the 1970s and attracted critical attention in Europe throughout the 1980s. Kenro Izu and Sugimoto later followed their example, but chose New York as their stamping ground. A new generation of ‘Nature Photo’ photographers, including Manabu Miyazaki, Michio Hoshino, and Mitsuaki Iwagou, also appeared in the 1980s. Although there was a long tradition in this field, these photographers sought subjects outside Japan.

In the 1990s, open competitions and festivals attracted young photographers and helped launch their careers: for example, the New Cosmos of Photography (1991- ), and the Hitotsubo-Ten (1992- ). They encouraged the young, often women, to express themselves through photography; laureates included Hiromix, Rika Noguchi, and Masafushi Sanai. Over the decade, traditional photo magazines gradually lost ground with the young, compared with lifestyle and fashion magazines. Talented photographers sought editorial work rather than classic photography-magazine spreads. Araki, an ultraprolific (and controversial) photographer and book producer, became highly popular both with the general public and other photographers, and in Europe, where he had numerous shows, probably Japan's best-known photographer.

In the first decade of the 21st century, Japan has one of the world's most thriving photographic cultures, and the work of both historical and contemporary Japanese photographers has become an essential component of representative collections worldwide. In 2003 the first comprehensive survey of Japanese photographic history was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Given the huge variety of photographic practice in Japan over the six decades since 1945 (and not forgetting the country's countless amateurs: by the 1990s, photography was the main hobby of Japanese pensioners), the complexities of Japanese society and culture, and the coexistence of robust traditions with a vigorous appetite for modernity, the outsider should be wary of facile generalizations about trends and influences. However, three features of the Japanese photographic scene stand out: first, the tendency since 1945 for many photographers to live and work abroad, sometimes for long periods; second, the ever-increasing participation of women, often in path-breaking ways; and, third, the growing institutionalization of the medium since the 1970s-1980s, with the proliferation of galleries, museums, festivals, prizes, and university photography courses—contrasting with the more traditional system of private associations, groups, and masters which dominated Japanese photography from the late 19th century until the Second World War.Madeleine Hill Vedel/Mariko Takeuchi/Osamu Hiraki

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Bibliography

• Banta, M., and Taylor, S., A Timely Encounter: Nineteenth-Century Photographs of Japan (1988)

Bibliography

• Spielmann, H., Die japanische Photographie: Geschichte, Themen, Strukturen (1984).
• Holborn, M., Black Sun: The Eyes of Four. Roots and Innovation in Japanese Photography (1986).
• Putzar, E., Japanese Photography 1945-1985 (1987).
• Weiermair, P., and Matt, G., Japanese Photography: Desire and Void (1997).
• Tucker, A. W., et al., The History of Japanese Photography (2003)

Traditional dance has flourished in Japan for centuries within the highly stylized forms of dance drama. Bugaku, which is a semi-religious dance, originated in the 7th century but until the latter half of the 20th century it was performed exclusively at the imperial court or in certain shrines. Kabuki, which developed at the end of the 16th century, was the first popular dance theatre for commoners. In its early days it was performed by female prostitutes and some of its manifestations were so immoral that the women were banned from performing it by the authorities. Male dancers then adopted the kabuki style, taking on the female roles themselves. Being an onnagata (female impersonator) became an honoured profession. Today kabuki is seen throughout the world. Western theatrical dance arrived in Japan in the 20th century. Visits by the Pavlova company, the Denishawn Dancers, and the Ruth Page company in the 1920s sparked public interest and by the 1930s ballet had taken hold. The first schools were established, out of which grew new classical companies, many of them based in Tokyo. Training, style, and repertoire were greatly influenced by the Soviet model. The most important of the Japanese companies was the Tokyo Ballet, founded in 1964. Today Japanese ballet audiences are among the most enthusiastic in the world. Companies like the Royal Ballet and the Kirov are regular visitors, and Western stars like Sylvie Guillem and Evelyn Hart are idolized there. In recent years Japanese-born dancers have found great success in the West. Tetsuya Kumakawa and Miyako Yoshida have led a whole new generation of fine Japanese classical dancers trained and performing abroad. Independent Japanese choreographers, such as Saburo Teshigawara, have been very active in the field of post-modern dance. Butoh, an expressionist dance form which originated in Japan in the 1950s, is seen around the world performed by Japanese companies.

The earliest official account of Buddhism in Japan states that it arrived at the imperial court in 552 (or 538 according to some authorities), when a delegation from the kingdom of Paekche on the Korean peninsula brought a Buddha image and some scriptures as gifts for the emperor. It is likely, however, that Buddhism was already known in Japan through other non-official channels. After this initial contact, the court had to decide whether allowing the practice and study of this new religion would anger the local deities or kami, whose protection the imperial family needed in consolidating their rule over the newly centralized kingdom. During this earliest period, Buddhist texts and clergy came to Japan along with a wave of Chinese cultural imports that also included writing, political thought, urban planning, and other innovative ideas. It seems clear that the court and aristocrats understood Buddhism as a variant of their native religion, and used it primarily as a way to cure illnesses and gain supernatural support for their political and military efforts. Prince Shōtoku (572-621), who ruled Japan as regent after the death of his father, is credited with being among the first to see Buddhist teachings as distinct from the native cults. He is thought to have composed commentaries to several scriptures, and he fostered a programme of rapid temple construction.

Scholars generally divide the subsequent history of Japanese Buddhism into periods defined by the location of the capital city. The Nara (710-94), Heian (794-1185), and Kamakura (1185-1392) periods are the most important, since these are the periods in which the main schools of Buddhism were established and took shape.

The Nara Period

During the Nara period, Buddhist activity went in two primary directions: the clergy were busy trying to understand the doctrines found in newly imported texts, and the government put Buddhist rituals and organizations to work for the welfare of the state. As to the first of these tasks, the so-called ‘Six Schools of Nara Buddhism’ comprised groups of clergy who concentrated on the texts and thought of six different Chinese schools. Almost all of the scholar-monks who engaged in these studies lived in the capital under government auspices and were housed in the main temple there, the Tōji. Outside of this government-sponsored establishment, a few self-ordained practitioners left society and lived in the mountains performing austeries and magical services for ordinary citizens. In addition to the scholarly activity in the capital, the primary activity of clergy was to perform rituals on behalf of a paid clientele that came almost entirely from the imperial family and the aristocracy.

The Heian Period

This saw a movement of Buddhism away from government centres and out among the people, although this movement fell far short of a full-scale popularization of the religion. During this time both Saichō (767-822) and Kūkai (774-835) journeyed to China to deepen their knowledge of Buddhism. Saichō went to Mt. T'ien-t'ai to study T'ien-t'ai doctrines, but while waiting for a ship to take him home, he encountered a monk who practised esoteric rituals. After a short period of training and the conferral of the proper initiation, he returned to Japan and settled on Mt. Hiei, where he established the Tendai school to be a successor to the Chinese T'ien-t'ai school. However, because the real patronage came from the performance of esoteric rituals (see esoteric Buddhism), he divided this new school's focus between the exoteric doctrines of T'ien-t'ai and esoteric ritual performance. In addition, he made a crucial move to establish the Tendai school independently from the government-controlled monastic establishment in Nara when he asked for permission to ordain his own monks on Mt. Hiei using only the Mahāyāna precepts of the Brahmajāla Sūtra (Japanese, Bonmōkyō). Permission was granted after his death, and the Tendai school was thus freed from the necessity of submitting its monks to the Ritsu school in the capital for ordination. Meanwhile, Kūkai went to China exclusively to receive training in esoteric texts and rituals, and the Shingon school that he established on Mt. Kōya upon his return concentrated solely on esoteric Buddhism, and for a time outshone the Tendai school in patronage and popularity.

The relationship between Buddhism and its assembly of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and the Shintō pantheon, continued to concern many in Japan, and during the Heian period the theory known as honji-suijaku, or ‘original nature and provisional manifestation’, came to dominate. According to this theory, the local kami of Shintō were manifestations of various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas that appeared in Japan to teach the people and protect the nation. Thus, for example, the Sun goddess Amaterasu was in fact a local manifestation of the great Sun Buddha Vairocana. In this way, both religions could be accommodated in a single institution that incorporated both Buddhist and Shintō personnel and practices (known as the jingūji, or ‘shrine-temple’).

The Kamakura Period

By the opening years of the Kamakura period the Tendai school was the largest and most powerful of the eight schools in existence at that time, and its broad focus on both doctrinal and esoteric study and practice, as well as its laxity, corruption, and militance (as seen in its infamous ‘monk-soldiers’, or sōhei), made it the breeding ground for subsequent reform movements and schools. Out of the Tendai matrix, the following figures emerged to establish new schools under the following broad categories: (1) Pure Land: Hōnen (1133-1212) founded the Jōdo Shū; Shinran (1173-1262) the Jōdo Shinshū; and Ippen (1239-89) the Jishū. (2) Zen: Eisai (or Yōsai, 1141-1215) founded the Rinzai school, which took its lineage of Dharma-transmission from the Chinese Lin-chi school; and Dōgen (1200-53) the Sōtō school, derived from the Chinese Ts'ao-tung lineage. (3) Nichiren (1222-82) founded the Nichiren school, which proclaimed the superiority of the Lotus Sūtra (Myōhō renge kyō) over all other scriptures and recommended the constant repetition and praise of its title as the sole means of salvation. In addition to the formal establishment of these schools and their institutions, the tradition of mountain asceticism continued under the name shugendō, or ‘the way of experiential cultivation’. Drawn primarily from the ranks of Tendai and Shingon esoteric clergy, practitioners lived in the mountains and practised by fasting, repentance, esoteric rituals, and long, arduous journeys through the mountains that covered as much as 50 miles in a single day.

Ashikaga and Tokugawa Periods (1392-1868)

By the end of the Kamakura period, Buddhism was a significant presence at all levels of Japanese society. At times, this was a source of concern for the feudal government. In the 15th century, Jōdo Shinshū adherents formed popular leagues called ikkō ikki, which rose up in rebellion against local aristocratic rule in Kaga and in 1488 took control of the province themselves. In 1571 the shōgun Oda Nobunaga, distrustful of the enormous landholdings and secular power of Buddhist monasteries, attacked and razed the Enryakuji on Mt. Hiei, dispersing its sōhei once and for all, and he suppressed many other Buddhist establishments. On the other hand, the pervasive presence of Buddhist institutions could be a source of strength for the government. For instance, after the ban on Christianity in 1612 and the subsequent expulsion of Christian missionaries, the government required all citizens to register with local Buddhist temples beginning in 1640, effectively co-opting these institutions as a census bureau. Buddhism's close cooperation with and support by the government in this way led to an inevitable decline, although a few notable figures stand out as exemplars: Takuan Sōhō (1573-1645), Bankei Eitaku (1622-93), and Hakuin Zenji (1685-1768) in the zen school, and Rennyo (1415-99) and Shimaji Mokurai (1838-1911) of the Pure Land school, to name a few. However, as the Tokugawa period drew to a close in the early 19th century, the real locus of religious vitality was in Confucianism and various intellectual and spiritual renewal movements within Shintō. In addition, the first appearance of the so-called ‘New Religions’ such as Tenrikyō offered real competition for the loyalty of the peasants and the middle classes.

The Meiji and Modern Periods

When the Meiji emperor succeeded in restoring real political and executive power to the imperial family in 1868, one of his first acts was to abrogate the honji-suijaku understanding of the relationship between Buddhism and Shintō, and declared the two put asunder in a move called shimbutsu bunri, or ‘separation of kami and Buddhas’. Buddhism itself came under persecution during the first decade or so of the Meiji period, but the attack galvanized Buddhists into action, and they successfully demanded recognition and toleration under the new constitution. At the same time, Buddhist chaplains who accompanied Japanese troops on military adventures in China, Korea, Taiwan, and south-east Asia, as well as missionaries who travelled to America and Europe to participate in the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions and to settle abroad, gave Japanese Buddhism an international presence. While all schools of Japanese Buddhism came to Hawaii and the American mainland with the large numbers of immigrants at that period, Zen had the most success in making an impression on Euro-American culture. The westward expansion of Japanese Buddhism accelerated after the Second World War. At the same time, social changes taking place in modern Japan have fostered the development of many Buddhist-derived ‘New Religions’, most of which sprang from offshoots of the Nichiren school and its devotion to the Lotus Sūtra. Prominent among these are the Nichiren Shōshū and its lay branch, the Sōka Gakkai (which broke away from its parent organization in 1992), and Risshō Kōseikai. Today, Japanese Buddhism is a combination of the old and the new: even the most ancient of the Nara schools continues to coexist alongside the newest of the ‘New Religions’. The Sōtō and Jōdo Shinshū schools are the largest of the traditional schools, and Buddhism remains completely integrated as a vital part of Japanese life and culture.