A Century Of Japanese Photography

This publication shows how scholarly investigation of Japanese photography in recent years has entered an important transitional stage -- moving beyond its focus on new discoveries and descriptions of collections, to a more sophisticated investigation of photography in its historical and cultural contexts. At one time marginalized as either a practical technique or amateur art form, Japanese photography has now earned full recognition as a legitimate subject of scholarly inquiry. It is now being examined in terms of its aesthetics, technological development, and its role in the development of a national identity in Japanese art during the country's transition to modernity as well as in contemporary society.Contributors include:Himeno Junichi (on the early development of photography in Japan),Sebastian Dobson (focussing on the colourful figure of Felice Beato),Luke Gartlan (on Baron Raimond von Stillfried-Ratenicz),Allen Hockley (on photographic albums produced by commercial studios in the 1880s and 1890s),Kinoshita Naoyuki (exploring the tradition of war portraiture in Japan)Mikiko Hirayama (describing the transition from the pioneering stages of photography in Japan to the modern era).

Photography in Japan 1853-1912 is a fascinating visual record of Japanese culture during its metamorphosis from a feudal society to a modern, industrial nation at a time when the art of photography was still in its infancy. The 350 rare and antique photos in this book, most of them published here for the first time, chronicle the introduction of photography in Japan and early Japanese photography. The images are more than just a history of photography in Japan; they are vital in helping to understand the dramatic changes that occurred in Japan during the mid-nineteenth century. These rare Japanese photographs--whether sensational or everyday, intimate or panoramic--document a nation about to abandon its traditional ways and enter the modern era. Taken between 1853 and 1912 by the most important Japanese and foreign photographers working in Japan, this is the first book to document the history of early photography in Japan a comprehensive and systematic way.

In Photography and Japan, Karen Fraser argues that the diversity of styles, subjects, and functions of Japanese photography precludes easy categorization along nationalized lines. Instead, she shows that the development of photography within Japan is best understood by examining its close relationship with the country’s dramatic cultural, political, and social history. Photography and Japan covers 150 years of photography, a period in which Japan has experienced some of the most significant events in modern history and made a remarkable transformation from an isolated, feudal country into an industrialized, modern world power—a transformation that included a striking rise and fall as an imperial power during the first half of the twentieth century and a miraculous economic recovery in the decades following the devastation of World War II. The history of photography has paralleled these events, becoming inextricably linked with notions of modernity and cultural change. Through thematic chapters that focus on photography’s role in negotiating cultural identity, war, and the documentation of urban life, Photography and Japan introduces many images that will be unfamiliar to Western viewers and provides a broadened context for those photos that are better known.

"Expanding the canon of photographic history, Capturing Japan in Nineteenth Century New England Photography Collections focuses on six New Englanders, whose travel and photograph collecting influenced the flowering of Japonism in late nineteenth-century Boston. The book also explores the history of Japanese photography and its main themes. The first history of its kind, this study illuminates the ways photographs, seeming conveyors of fact, imprint mental images and suppositions on their viewers"--