Bachelor Japanists: Japanese Aesthetics and Western Masculinities by Christopher Reed (review)

This book examines the history and context of Western conceptions of Japanese art and of Japan during the time period from roughly 1860–1960, a time far removed from the culturally aware climate of 2017, and in which questions of cultural appropriation were nearly nonexistent; the more important questions revolved around who in the West could claim patronage of Japan, and who deserved to be considered a japoniste. Christopher Reed does this by presenting three case studies: the case of the Goncourt brothers in France beginning in the 1860s, the case of the "bachelor Brahmins" of Boston beginning around 1890, and the case of Mark Tobey, whose story of japonisme starts around the 1920s.

Beginning this chronological trail of Japanism is the concern over who founded the idea of japonisme in the first place. Reed's assertion that the Goncourt brothers were the first to embody japonisme is at odds with the "crucial modernist concepts (which) were worked out in relation to Japanese aesthetics" (38) in which "who made modernism and who got 'influenced' in a system where originality is everything" (38) upped the stakes of who can lay claim to the title of "first japoniste." The Goncourts were a lively pair who lived outside the boundaries of normativity set by modernist rhetoric, which disdained the "feminine or inverted, decorative or domestic" (41). The brothers embraced the chance to stand apart from the crowd; they supported Japanese art as the equal of European art, an idea that was disdained at the time, while Western art was held up as the ideal. The Goncourts challenged this idea of Western superiority and found Japanese art as an alternative outlet for the aesthetic impulses of "alienated men" (44) such as themselves. Reed summarizes it very succinctly: "To appreciate Japanese aesthetics was to distinguish oneself from academics, from the ideology of imperial museums, and from social norms more generally" (45). This departure from established norms of Western art and fascination with Japan would be embraced when an attempt was made at creating a valorized history of modernism; however, the Goncourt's eccentric homosocial behavior was considered too strange even for modernism, and certain avant-garde artists were put forward as originators of japonisme instead. These artists then formed a group called the Jinglar, which met monthly, and its members were "no less homosocial—but their masculinity was far more normative" (56). Thus, the brothers Goncourt were written out of the story.

Reed then goes on to draw our attention to the masculine focus of japonisme origin stories. Women also are written out of the origin story, though one Madame DeSoye had perhaps "the strongest claim to expertise about Japanese art" (60) at the time in question. Further, women were discouraged from taking up an interest in Japanese aesthetics, and when they could not be deterred, bachelor Japanism turned inward, and residences became the locus of expression of japonisme and of "dissent from heteronormativity" (113).

From France, Reed then takes us to Boston, where "engagement with Japan offered upper-crust Bostonians a way to compete with both European elites and local Catholics" (122). These "upper-crust Bostonians" are the Boston Brahmins, and the Japanese aesthetic with which they most associated was the masculine aristocracy and feudal Japan, thus the implements of tea ceremony, esoteric Buddhist art, and ukiyo-e prints became central to the Brahmin's form of Japanism. The Brahmins asserted their authority and elite status by serving as curators of Japanese art, allowing the public to see certain works, and steering them toward a certain view of Japan. This view was intended to be purely masculine, and thus "required its dissociation from domesticity" (181). To this end, the Buddhist temple was appropriated as the setting for Japanese artworks, Buddhism itself serving as a "non-familial, masculine genealogy" (159).

However, though these male curators set the tone for Japanese collections in the United States, they were not the only ones collecting and displaying Japanese art...