Ishii Hakutei on the future of Japanese painting - Japan 1868-1945: Art, Architecture, and National Identity

The nation's economic and military success, however, triggered further significant transitions in the contemporary sociocultural climate. Among these was a shift in focus from a sense of public duty to the pursuit of personal aspirations.(24) Shugyo, or disciplined, self-sacrificing dedication to the public good, had been the overriding sentiment during the early Meiji period, when the nation was preoccupied with a desire to emulate Western civilization and technology. Paradoxically, however, attainment of national goals during the late Meiji period led some to the disillusioning conclusion that Japan's modernization was "externally imposed" by the onslaught of Western civilization.(25) This feeling of alienation from the kudos of modernization evoked both introspection and kyoyo, or self-cultivation for the sake of personal enjoyment, especially among urban youth.(26) "The young generation today has acquired individuality," lamented one critic in 1906, "but they have lost, at least partly, their national consciousness."(27)

This transition from the public to the personal was accompanied by increasing deemphasis on Western technology in favor of indigenous culture.(28) The waning commitment to the acquisition of Western technology for the national good threw into sharper relief the potential of Western civilization to subjugate native Japanese cultural and aesthetic values. Consequently the reinstatement of Japan's cultural integrity became one of the main issues in the discussion of so-called postwar management (sengo keiei) in the press. This discourse was intended to hammer out solid policies in various fields, including politics, economics, ethics, and religion. In June 1906 the "Postwar Management" issue of the popular magazine Taiyo declared that Japan had to demonstrate, in addition to her military strength, "a high level of civilization in every aspect of life."(29)

One manifestation of this reinstatement of culture as a national goal was a new world view that Tetsuo Najita calls "cosmopolitanism," a "perception of the globe as being a cultural map with . . . easily identifiable and describable national cultures."(30) On this new cultural map, Japan and Europe were believed to be in a reciprocal relationship where they learned and benefited from each other. This reciprocity underlies the comments by Tsubouchi Shoyo, an influential contemporary of Hakutei's. Writing in the special issue of Taiyo, he noted that "as the world gets smaller thanks to the improvement in communications, both Japan and Europe hunger for a new taste (shumi) in the arts."(31) Thus the Japanese sought to elucidate the nature of their cultural contribution to the world.

For all their inconsistencies, some ideas in Hakutei's proposals for a syncretic canon were at the vanguard of the early twentieth-century reinstatement of culture outlined above. Notable among them was his symphaty for cosmopolitanism, which he believed offered the potential for Japanese painting to attain respect in the international art world: "Today's Japan is not so distanced from Europe as it was before. Therefore, neither could its art he so detached from its European counter part. Just as paintings from France, England, and Russia each have their own characteristics, Japanese painting should also explore its own innate qualities."(32) Similarly, Hakutei s allegiance to the idea of pure art overlapped the transition from shugyo to kyoyo. Particularly prominent was the anti-utilitarian tone of his praise of artistic production dedicated to the artist's quest for beauty. His preference for an individual artist's dialogue with nature over stylistic convention also corresponded closely to the spirit of kyoyo, which centered on the glorification of self-cultivation.