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Recent research on the history of Japanese art reveals that a construct known as Japanese art history (Nihon bijutsu shi) began emerging at the start of Japan’s modern era, that is, during the Meiji period (1868–1912) and the Taish ≤ period (1912–1926). This construct contributed to the formation of a Japanese sense of national identity in the early twentieth century and, consequently, it can be associated with the emergence of Japan as a modern nation-state.1 It was in this context that artworks by two so-called Rimpa painters, Tawaraya S≤tatsu (d. 1643?) and Ogata K≤rin (1658–1716), came to be regarded as the “decorative” successors of a Japanese style of painting (yamato-e) that supposedly had originated in the Heian period (794–1185).2 Specifically, S≤tatsu and K≤rin were integrated into a discourse on the classical revival (koten fukk≤) in art of the early Edo period (1600–1868). But where did this revival occur and why? And who appreciated the classical elements in S≤tatsu’s and K≤rin’s work? This chapter examines social dimensions of the classical revival, which I de- fine as one of several artistic movements based on Heian yamato-e: the Japanesestyle painting actually produced under the influence of Chinese art of the Tang dynasty (618–907). Here I consider the circumstances in which works by S≤tatsu and K≤rin were viewed and appreciated in the seventeenth century, along with the strata of society to which their patrons belonged, whether warrior , aristocratic, or commoner. After investigating the function of S≤tatsu’s and K≤rin’s work in Edo society, I offer some observations on the changing concepts of S≤tatsu and K≤rin from the Edo period to the present. But first we should consider the relationship between Rimpa and modern theories of a classical revival in early Edo art. The modern images of S≤tatsu C h a p t e r T h r e e K e i k o N a k a m a c h i The Patrons of Tawaraya S≤tatsu and Ogata K≤rin and K≤rin were established in the first two decades of the twentieth century along with a sudden rise in the popularity of Rimpa—at a time when the publisher Shinbi Shoin released several large and luxuriously illustrated compendia of works by the two artists and S≤tatsu’s grave was discovered in Kanazawa.3 In 1915, moreover, an exhibition commemorating the two-hundredth anniversary of K≤rin’s death opened in Tokyo and Kyoto, accompanied by a catalog published by Uns≤d≤.4 Within a few years, the art of S≤tatsu’s contemporary and colleague, Hon’ami K≤etsu (1558–1637), was being acclaimed as well.5 Whereas late-Edo-period scholars and connoisseurs had based their evaluations of art by S≤tatsu and K≤rin on standards set in Chinese painting histories and anthologies, modern writers viewed the two Rimpa artists from a totally different perspective.6 Authors of the early-twentieth-century compendia reevaluated S≤tatsu and K≤rin in terms of art as defined in the West—that is to say, on European bases. Two points characterize the modern scholars’ treatment of art by S≤tatsu and K≤rin. First, they elaborated on features considered to be decorative in S≤tatsu’s and K≤rin’s art, following a current Western notion , and this was a positively construed sense of decorativeness (s≤shokuteki).7 Second, modern writers adopted a nationalistic tone in describing Rimpa and yamato-e as traditional styles of Japanese painting untouched by Chinese in- fluence. Such an interpretation of S≤tatsu’s and K≤rin’s art fit perfectly into the constructed fabric of modern Japanese art history and became undeniably important since “art history” was one of the many discourses being integrated into the modern project of nation-state formation in Japan. This way of thinking— problematic as it may be—endures today and provides steady support for the continuing interest in Rimpa. From the 1940s on, historians of early-Edo-period culture in Kyoto, particularly Hayashiya Tatsusabur≤ and his cohort, began to link the phrase “classical revival” with S≤tatsu.8 According to their analyses, Kyoto experienced a Kan’ei cultural phase in the first half of the seventeenth century when culture prospered under Emperor Gomizunoo (1596–1680; r. 1611–1629), his associates , and a number of influential townspeople...

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