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I n t r o d u c t i o n E l i z a b e t h L i l l e h o j In Japan, the seventeenth century was a time of remarkable artistic innovation developing in the midst of ineluctable social change. A protracted phase of civil strife had ended, and a triumphant military clan was inaugurating a new regime of power. This clan, the Tokugawa, installed their administration—a military government (bakufu) headed by a shogun—at Edo, launching the Edo period (1600–1868).1 Preoccupied with the challenge of establishing dominance , the Tokugawa set to work at several tasks: consolidating their military victories, solidifying political authority, encouraging commercial and agricultural growth, and constructing a new social order. Virtually all forms of cultural production were affected by the changing times, not least of which was art. And in art, it was not just the new that interested people. Perusing the cultural artifacts from early-seventeenth-century Japan, we begin to sense that many artists and patrons longed for a restoration of stability after years of uncertainty and privation. Some hoped to restore stability by creating continuity with the past; others attempted to fabricate a past that lifted them above the troubles of the present. With these and a multitude of other motivations , artists and patrons turned time and again to traditional themes and styles. And while the past they referred to was only quasi-historical, to their contemporaries they projected an identity of themselves by manipulating timehonored images. Indeed, references to the past are so common in early-seventeenth -century art that many modern historians of Japanese art—using terms that will be examined more closely in what follows—describe this phase as a classical revival (koten fukk≤), an era of classicism (kurashishizumu), or a renaissance (runesansu). The early years of the Edo period experienced great diversity in visual culture, and classicism—at least as the authors of this book define the term—was a leading concern in art, a concern that would foster surprisingly varied outcomes later in the period. Thus while this book surveys only one of the many movements in seventeenth-century Japanese art, it offers critical perspectives on a number of significant issues in the study of Edo art history. Early Edo artists and patrons shaped a variety of images of bygone eras without limiting themselves to a specific place or moment. In many cases it was court culture of the Heian period (794–1185); in other cases, warrior culture of the Kamakura period (1185–1333); in others, yet another cultural phase. Although art historians often imply that early Edo classicism is a well-defined, self-evident concept, clearly it is not. Setting aside for the moment the historical and cultural specificity of the term “classic,” it must first be emphasized that people in the seventeenth century shared no unitary understanding of a classical age for artists to resurrect. Nevertheless, the phrase “classical revival” is still widely used to describe artistic developments in Edo Japan and, for that matter, in other periods—which is to say that artists and patrons in several phases of Japanese history referred to the past thematically and stylistically to edify, to glorify, and to sanctify.2 Their purpose might have been the edification of a particular audience, the glorification of a ruler, or the sanctification of a place or event. But how did seventeenth-century artists and patrons imagine the past? Why did they so often select styles and themes from the past, especially from Heian court culture? Were references to the past something new, or were artists and patrons in previous periods equally interested in manners that came to be seen as classical? How did classical manners relate to other styles and themes found in Edo art? And what consequences have arisen from the modern designation of this development as a classical revival? In considering such questions, the contributors to this book posit that classicism is an amorphous, changing concept in Japan, just as in the West. Nettlesome in its ambiguity and its implications , it cannot be separated from the political and ideological interests of those who have employed it over the years. Central to our study is an understanding of classicism as an instrument employed consciously and consistently by various groups; that is to say, we look at classical art as it was instrumentalized for use in larger social settings.3 Ranging from...

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