The Artist as Professional in Japan (review)

The Artist as Professional in Japan is an important addition to the small number of works in English that examine Japanese artistic practice. Langdon Warner initiated this type of investigation in 1936 with the publication of The Craft of the Japanese Sculptor, but since that time the topic has only infrequently received attention in Western-language studies of the art of Japan. In the past few decades, the most noteworthy work has been done on the activities of early Kano school painters by Yoshiaki Shimizu and the late Carolyn Wheelright, to whom this book is dedicated. Another important precedent for the present volume is a collection of essays, "Competition and Collaboration: Hereditary Schools in Japanese Culture," in the 1992 edition of Fenway Court. Using this type of work as a foundation, the authors of the seven chapters in this book address complex issues of the formation of art historical tradition and its reception.

The impetus for the volume was a session on artistic production in Japan organized by Melinda Takeuchi of Stanford University for the annual meeting of the College Art Association in 1990. Three of the original papers (those by Donald McCallum, Christine Guth, and Jonathan Reynolds) appear in the book in altered and expanded forms, and they along with the contribution by Takeuchi were specifically written to answer questions the volume is intended to address: "How did artists go about their business? What degree of control did they exercise over their métier? How were they viewed by society? What were some of the dynamics operating in the production, consumption, and evaluation of art and artist? How was the image of the artist 'fashioned' during various periods?" (p. 2). The other chapters (by Karen Brock, Louise Cort, and Julie Davis), while significant contributions to the topic, are less fully integrated with the questions the book sets out to investigate.

One of the most intriguing issues the volume raises is that of terminology. As Takeuchi tells readers in the introduction, Western concepts of art and artist did not exist in premodern Japan. Most often, makers of material objects were referred to as kō, a term that can be rendered in English in a variety of ways—artist, artisan, fabricator, craftsman—and master artisans were referred to as shi. Takeuchi suggests that it was not until the nineteenth century that this situation changed as a result of exposure to Western ideas about the roles of art and the artist in society. She also points out that it was only painters and calligraphers who could "move between the worlds of artist and artisan in both China and Japan" (p. 6), but, unfortunately, none of the essays addresses this issue.

Also absent from the discourse on the nature of artistic activity in Japan at least until the start of the Meiji era are extensive comments by artists themselves. Prior to the Edo period, few painters and calligraphers produced texts that discussed their activities in conceptual terms, in contrast with many of their counterparts in China. Moreover, for the artists and artisans in the broad category of kō, practically no sources record their activities in their own words. The essays in the book reflect this phenomenon in the type of sources the authors have available to them. Both Guth and Reynolds are able to take advantage of comments made during the Meiji era by artists themselves. Davis relies on texts that directly describe Kitagawa Utamaro's works and refers to other passages on his prints that very well may have been written by Utamaro himself. Cort has a diary in the hand of Morita Kyōemon, but it consists mostly of notes and contains few reflective observations. In contrast, Takeuchi and Brock are obliged to sift through family histories, temple records, and monastic diaries to learn about the activities of Tosa Mitsunobu and E'nichibō Jōnin. McCallum's task is more daunting because the relationship between his sources—inscriptions on statues and early historical records with clear...