Okakura's Way of Tea: Representing Chanoyu in Early Twentieth-Century America (original) (raw)
Related papers
Review of Japanese culture and society, 2002
not know if Okakura ever saw this painting, or if DeCamp read The Book of Tea, but if they knew of each other's work, they might have been mutually amused. Okakura's juxtaposition of the male Japanese tea master and the Dutch/American housewife illustrates how a contrasting imagery based on gender is drawn to heighten the sense of cultural contrast. This paper examines the relationship between cultural and sexual differences in Okakura's representation of chanoyu (literally "hot water for tea," but usually translated as "the Japanese tea ceremony") in early twentieth-century America. Originally written in English and first published in New York, The Book of Tea projected an image of Japan that was at once artistic and masculine. I italicize the "and" in order to call attention to the tenuous link between the two terms since Japanese art was frequently characterized as feminine in the United States at the time. Whether it was the cult of Kannon (the bodhisattva of compassion) as the eternal feminine or the allure of the Yoshiwara courtesan as femme fatale, the nineteenth-century American imagination of Japan time and again replayed the fantasy of the Orient as the modern West's exotic feminine other. 4 The common perception of Japan as an artistic nation was also consistent with the prevailing worldview that bifurcated the realm of human achievement into "masculine" science and "feminine" art and culture. 5 By the end of the nineteenth century, the vision of a synthesis of the masculine and scientific West and the feminine and aesthetic East to create a higher universal civilization had become popular among American Japanophiles such as Ernest Fenollosa, who was Okakura's mentor in Japan during the 1880s. 6 Okakura's proposed encounter between East and West over tea introduced an element of tension to this prevalent gender assignment. On the one hand, it is true that The Book of Tea reinforced the feminine image of the East due to tea's association with genteel sociality and aestheticism in turn-of-the-century Anglo-America. Okakura moreover anticipated affluent New England women, whom he entertained by performing chanoyu and ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement), to be among 6.1
The cross-cultural view toward the West in Okakura's The Book of Tea
This article examines Okakura Kakuzo’s perception of the relationship between Asia and the West and Japan and the West in his The Book of Tea (茶の本). Okakura Kakuzo (岡倉覚三, 1862-1913) is one of the most important and international scholars in modern Japan and The Book of Tea is not only his masterpiece but also became a classic of modern English literature. In the first chapter of this book Okakura compares the cultures of Asia to that of the West and examines their relationships. According to Okakura, the East and the West should not stand in opposition, but cooperate in order to deal with their own shortcomings. In other word, escaping from situations such as where the existence of another continent is denied, all countries reach a stage where harmony is maintained through the necessity of mutual respect for the other. Such a kind of view is an almost multicultural one in our present age and it is quite characteristic of Okakura’s cross-cultural understanding. To clear this point we used the concept of “the ethnographic triad” by Kuwayama Takami (桑山敬己, 1955- ) and compared The book of Tea and The Bushidō, The Soul of Japan (武士道, 1899) written by Nitobe Inazō (新渡戸稲造, 1862-1933). As a result what was cleared is that Nitobe presents western countries as absolutely advanced in contrast with Japan which he sees as absolutely inferior in The Bushidō. On the other hand Okakura wanted to his concept to Westerners that Japanese culture is equal, not just compatible with Western civilisation. And it is also suggested that a view such as this one by Okakura is adequate for our present age, when antagonisms between the East and the West are covered up, and the gap between North and South or between South and South in economic strength and power continues to assume serious proportions.
Quaint, Exquisite: Victorian Aesthetics and the Idea of Japan by Grace Elizabeth Lavery
Nineteenth-century art worldwide, 2022
All three books reconsider the role gender and sexuality play in the formulation of late nineteenth-century Japanism, adding necessary nuance to a topic often plagued by essentialist concerns with the Western male 'discovery' of Japanese genius. Lavery looks to the trappings of Orientalism as both the focus and foil for her argument: the artists and authors she considers all conjure a vision of Japan that is civilized, though marginalized, both exquisite and eccentric, and, within the British context, also consistently queer. Building on Reed's contention that sexual nonconformity can illuminate and inform an understanding of racial and cultural alterity, [2] Lavery positions Japan as a signifier of broader notions of queerness within the Victorian context. In this expansive contemplation of otherness, Quaint, Exquisite looks to reorient the discourse on Japanism, to consider how overlooked objects, interstitial identities, and various forms of marginalia participated in the Victorian manufacture of Japan. Lavery is deliberate in her queering of the archive, which encompasses bonsais, paper, torture porn cinema, haikus, and swords, a wide range of Japanese signifiers that construct an extensive, though at times seemingly scattershot, understanding of Japan in the West.
Around the world with a book: Okakura Kakuzo's The book of the tea and its transformations
2013
This paper investigates a work that still circulates widely, both as a bilingual primer for the study of English, and as an introduction to “the heart of Japan”, and has been translated into over thirty languages. The paper first looks at how Okakura Kakuzō’s The Book of Tea reshaped and reinterpreted a piece of Japan for the Englishspeaking world in 1906, discussing the author’s choice and methods. Next, it considers the rendering of The Book of Tea back into Japanese (1929, 1938, 1956), analyzing the challenges and timeliness of each translation. Lastly, it looks at the Romanian versions (1925, 2008), in order to raise the question of the world translating Okakura’s Japan into languages other than English.
Painting in Between: Gender and Modernity in the Japanese Literati Art of Okuhara Seiko (1837-1913)
This dissertation investigates the aesthetic and conceptual transformations of literati art—a dominant mode of both being and representing in the East Asian cultural sphere that experienced unprecedented popularity in early Meiji-period (1868-1912) Japan. Although literati culture had predominantly been seen as a male prerogative since its genesis in medieval China, in early Meiji Japan, the female painter Okuhara Seiko capitalized on this mode of picture-making and self-fashioning. Producing dynamic ink landscapes and deliberately idiosyncratic calligraphy while simultaneously embodying literati ideals through her manner of living, Seiko inhabited the persona of a literatus and crafted an alternative social world. Seiko’s work thus provides a compelling lens through which to reconsider socially constructed dichotomies in the modern era—specifically, conceptions of premodernity and modernity, masculinity and femininity, and China and Japan—as she negotiated the boundaries of these ostensibly dichotomous categories to create a space in which to assert her agency. Chapter 1 reconstructs the sociocultural circumstances within which literati art thrived in the 1870s. It demonstrates that Seiko deployed literati art as a means of pursuing her autonomy, embodying eremitic ideals both in painting and in actual life and blurring the boundaries between the real world and the ideal world of litterateurs. Chapter 2 examines Seiko’s and contemporary artists’ attempts to “modernize” literati art. These efforts were formulated in response to the reconceptualization of Sinitic culture from the 1880s onward, when the newly defined category of bunjinga (literati painting), as well as Sinitic prose and poetry, came to be deemed incompatible with modernity. Focusing on Seiko’s engagement with literati art in her place of retirement, chapter 3 analyzes the ways in which works of literati art could accommodate multiple subject positions and enable an imaginative transgression of gender and cultural boundaries. Chapter 4 and the epilogue investigate discursive constructions of female artists by contemporary critics in relation to shifting conceptions of art, gender, and sexuality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Examining the complex interactions between changing perceptions of Sinitic culture and women’s place therein, this study ultimately seeks to reconceptualize the relationship between gender and literati art.
How Was "Eastern Aesthetics" Made Possible? The Case of Kakuzo Okakura (2023)
JTLA, 2023
Eastern aesthetics seems to be a well-established discipline today. Seigo Kimbara (1888–1958), Hiroshi Mizuo (1932–2022), and Tomonobu Imamichi (1922–2012) each authored a book entitled Eastern Aesthetics, published in Japanese in 1932, 1963, and 1980, respectively. When the term "Eastern aesthetics" is broken down into its components “Eastern” and “aesthetics,” however, it becomes clear that this concept is by no means self-evident. The academic discipline of Eastern aesthetics has been created by modern Eastern scholars, especially since the late nineteenth century, as they grappled with Western aesthetics and the notion of the East. In this paper, we will examine this process of the establishment of Eastern aesthetics in Japan, particularly by exploring Kakuzō Okakura’s (1863–1913) three master pieces written in English: The Ideals of the East with Special Reference to the Art of Japan (1903), The Awakening of Japan (1904), and The Book of Tea (1906), all of which attempt to justify Eastern (especially Japanese) art and views of art to Western readers. Okakura’s justification of the Eastern view of art and aesthetics against that of the West can be divided into four major types. The first three are mainly discussed in The Ideals of the East and The Awakening of Japan, while the fourth is particularly emphasized in The Book of Tea. My focus will be on the fourth type.
The Ideologies of Japanese Tea: Subjectivity, Transience and National Identity
The Ideologies of Japanese Tea: Subjectivity, Transience and National Identity, 2009
From the Brill website: This provoking new study of the Japanese tea ceremony (chanoyu) examines the ideological foundation of its place in history and the broader context of Japanese cultural values where it has emerged as a so called ‘quintessential’ component of the culture. It was in fact, Sen Soshitsu Xl, grandmaster of Urasenke, today the most globally prominent tea school, who argued in 1872 that tea should be viewed as the expression of the moral universe of the nation. A tea teacher himself, the author argues, however, that tea was many other things: it was privilege, politics, power and the lever for passion and commitment in the theatre of war. Through a methodological framework rooted in current approaches, he demonstrates how the iconic images as supposedly timeless examples of Japanese tradition have been the subject of manipulation as ideological tools and speaks to presentations of cultural identity in Japanese society today. E - ISBN : 9789004212985 From me: photographs that were not included in the book are available in the following paper. Japanese Harmony as Nationalism: Grand Master Tea for War and Peace This paper is a slight reworking of a chapter from my _The Ideologies of Japanese Tea: Subjectivity, Transience and National Identity_, with the notable addition of photographs that were not included in that monograph. These photographs should be of interest to tea practitioners curious about daisu serving procedures performed by grand masters in the interwar years. There is also a photograph of the radio broadcast of the sacramental tea serving procedure from Daitokuji on the occasion of the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the death of Sen no Rikyu. The source for the photographs is 「利休居士三百五十年忌余香録」 著者, 利休居士三百五十年忌法要協賛会. 出版地, 京都. 出版社, 利休居士三百五 十年忌法要協賛会出版部. 出版年, 1940.