ART INTO EVERYDAY LIFE:

DEPARTMENT STORES AS PURVEYORS OF CULTURE IN MODERN JAPAN

by
Younjung Oh

A Dissertation Presented to the

FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ART HISTORY)
May 2012

Copyright 2012

Younjung Oh

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This dissertation could never have been completed without the guidance and
assistance of many people. Words cannot adequately express my appreciation for the
enormous support of my advisor, Jonathan M. Reynolds. I have appreciated his patience
and balanced guidance throughout the course of my graduate studies. I was extremely
fortunate to work with an advisor whom I can genuinely respect, both as a scholar and as
a person. Sonya Lee has offered her solid support at critical stages in my graduate career
and has been an insightful reader, particularly with regard to methodological issues,
through every step of the writing of this thesis. Both Miya Mizuta Lippits work and her
generous spirit have been a true inspiration to me since I first knocked on the door of her
office with my topic, which I had just formulated. I thank David Bialock for his
thoughtful comments and invaluable suggestions that enriched my work in the broader
cultural context of modern Japan. I am also grateful to Anne McKnight, Karen Lang, and
Thomas Crow for their intellectual stimulation and encouragement during various stages
of this project.
My profound gratitude must also go to three teachers at Seoul National University
in Korea. I greatly appreciate Kim Youngna for her unflagging support and advice over
the last fifteen years. Her conscientious scholarship became a model for my own
academic endeavors. Similarly, I would like to express my gratitude to Ahn Hwi-joon
and Rhi Juyung, whose guidance has been foundational for my growth as an art historian.
During a year of research in Japan, I relied on the support of numerous
institutions and individuals. My deepest gratitude goes to Kinoshita Naoyuki, who

ii

graciously adopted me as his student in Cultural Resources Studies at the University of

Tokyo. His openness toward unusual research topics and his genuine enthusiasm for his
own research taught me how to make a challenging academic life enjoyable. Sat! D!shin
generously allowed me to sit in on his classes. My knowledge of modern Japanese art
history has greatly benefited from his lectures. Omuka Toshiharu kindly welcomed me to
his office and shared his extensive knowledge of Japanese avant-garde art. I learned a
great deal from my animated discussions with him. Also, I would like to thank
Nakamura Reiko, Misao Bojo, Ezaki Ruriko, Sat! Yoshihiro, Kato Hiroko, Adachi Gen,
Yuko Itatsu, Maika Nakao, and, last but not least, colleagues in Cultural Resource
Studies. Their friendship, their advice, and the contacts that they made on my behalf
facilitated my year of research in Japan. I cherish the time that I have been able to spend
with them.
This study would not have been possible without the extraordinary support that I
received from Chigusa Hideaki at the Mitsukoshi archive, and Nakai Yoshihiro and
Hirota Hajime at the Takashimaya Historical Museum. They allowed me access to their
archives, which hold difficult-to-find materials that were critical to my research. I also
owe a huge debt of gratitude to "shima Sonia and Julia E. Sapin, who have unstintingly
shared their knowledge, connections, and enthusiasm for research on Japanese
department stores. They also kindly introduced me to the archivists of Mitsukoshi and
Matsuzakaya, respectively.
My year of research in Japan was generously supported by the Japan Foundation
Fellowship. I am also grateful to the Art History Department, the East Asian Studies

iii

Center and the Visual Studies Graduate Certificate at the University of Southern
California for financial assistance along the way.
Fortunately, I had opportunities to present parts of this project at ASCJ and AAS
conferences and to build an intellectual community with my fellow panelists: Chinghsin
Wu, Kari Shepherdson-Scott, Olivier Krischer, Nancy Lin, Gyewon Kim, Tom OLeary,
Daigo Shima, and Okubo Ry!. Fruitful discussions with these young scholars who are
working on modern Japanese art and culture were stimulating in various ways, and their
feedback on my work helped to improve it immeasurably. I also appreciate the
willingness of Sara Schaffzin to help me to polish my writing, usually on short notice.
I benefited tremendously from my fellow graduate students at the University of
Southern California. I wish to thank Lisa Merighi, Anca Lasc, Leta Ming, Rika Hiro, Jia
Tan, Benjamin Uchiyama, Nate Heneghan, Heeyoung Ahn, and Yunji Park for
intellectual exchange and emotional support. While scholarly work is often a solitary
endeavor, the warm encouragement of my dear friends, who shared my intellectual
interests and commiserated over the frustrations of the research process, made all the
difference as this dissertation assumed its shape. My special thanks go to Kim Bokyung,
Woo Jung-Ah, Kim Dong-hoon, Ok HyeRyong, Virginia Moon, Choi Jae-hyuk, Park
Hyunjung, Noh Jooeun, Mok Soohyun, Oh Yookyung, Kim Minku, Choi Seokwon, Kim
Hong-ki, and Shin Chunghoon. It is with great joy that I acknowledge my best friend,
Cho Hyunjung, here, just as she acknowledged me exactly one year ago in her
dissertation. Thanks to her, my life at USC was tolerable and even enjoyable, too!

iv

I could not have come this far without my loving and supportive family: my uncle
Soogeun and my aunt Eunjin, who have been a source of love, inspiration, and
encouragement; and my younger brother Sungwhan, who has been taking care of all sorts
of my needs like a bigger brother. I dedicate this dissertation with love and respect to my
parents, who are extremely excited to finally have me back home.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments

ii

List of Figures

viii

Abstract

xv

Introduction

Chapter One: From Gofukuten to Department Stores: the Creation of Spectacle

and Consumption
Introduction
Display and the Birth of Consumer-Spectators
Fashion and the Establishment of Design Sections
Advertising and the Proliferation of Images of Beauty
Conclusion

22
25
43
56
70

Chapter Two: Art Sections of Department Stores: New Middle Classs Art
Consumption for Distinction
Introduction
The Opening of Art Sections
Yamanote People: A Core Clientele of Art Sections
The New Middle Class and Taste for Tokonoma Decorating
Growing Popular Interest in Chanoyu and Art Collecting
The Promotion of Hansetsuga for Display in Tokonoma
Conclusion

113
117
122
136
147
154
162

Chapter Three: Art Exhibitions in Department Stores: Marketing the Image

of Cultural Institutions
Introduction
The Advent of Art Groups
Alternative Exhibition Venues for Art Groups
Supporters of High Culture
Deploying the Relationship with the Intellectual World
Conclusion

181
184
195
210
217
230

Chapter Four: Incongruous Alliance: Avant-garde and Department Stores

in the 1920s
Introduction
Table 1: Avant-garde art groups and their exhibitions
The Emergence of the Avant-garde amid Social, Political, and
Material Transformations
Beyond Subjective Individualism toward the Masses Everyday Life
!

258
261
263
276
vi

Recuperating the Use-value of Art

Taish!ka of Department Stores and Desire for Sentan
The Ambivalence of the Period
Conclusion

288
298
307
341

Bibliography

348

vii

ABSTRACT
This study examines the artistic practices of Japanese department stores, which
have been obscured in the discursive realm of modern Japanese art history despite their
pronounced and lasting manifestations in the praxis of modern Japanese art history.
Since the turn of the twentieth century, when department stores first emerged in Japan,
prominent artists of the day have engaged in various artistic projects of the stores,
ranging from window displays to advertising to building design. The department stores
also have constituted primary venues for displaying works of art since Mitsukoshi
department store established its art section in 1907, motivated by the inauguration of the
official annual salon Monbush! Bijutsu Tenrankai (Ministry of Education Art Exhibition)
in the same year. From established artists to fledging ones, from central figures of the art
establishment to avant-gardists challenging it, a diverse range of artists showcased their
works at the department stores. Indeed, by stimulating public interest in art, the
department stores contributed significantly to cultivating an audience for art in modern
Japan.
Nonetheless, the critical role that the department stores have played in the
production, circulation, and consumption of art has not been a focus of research in the
literature of modern Japanese art history. The main reason for this disregard is neither
that the caliber of the artists and works that department stores sponsored was not high
enough, nor is it that department stores were not valued enough as cultural institutions,
but rather that the official inclusion of department store artistic practices in art history
would undermine the concept of fine art which the modern institution of art has been

xv

predicated upon. The discipline of modern Japanese art history, under the sway of the
notion of aesthetic autonomy, has been reluctant to look at artistic realities in which art
was extensively involved in commercial interests, works of art became objects of
conspicuous consumption, and the aesthetic autonomy of art itself was commodified.
The artistic practices of the department stores epitomized the very aspects of art that the
modern institution of art has attempted to efface in its history, exposing the meanings and
functions that were assigned to art by bourgeois capitalist society but that were cloaked in
the discourse of fine art.
The goal of this dissertation is not to recuperate the department stores as pivotal
agents within the history of modern Japanese art, but to dismantle the false topos of fine
art, which constructed and manipulated the language, categories, and values that still
structure our understanding of art, through a close examination of department store art
practices that have been virtually ignored in the course of the formation of modern
Japanese art history.

xvi

INTRODUCTION
Department stores had a pronounced and lasting impact on art and visual culture
in modern Japan. Since the turn of the twentieth century, when department stores first
emerged in Japan, prominent artists of the day have engaged in various artistic projects of
the stores, ranging from window displays to advertising to building design. The
department stores also have constituted primary venues for displaying works of art since
Mitsukoshi department store established its art section in 1907, motivated by the
inauguration of the official annual salon Monbush! Bijutsu Tenrankai (Ministry of
Education Art Exhibition, abbreviated as Bunten) in the same year. From established
artists to fledging ones, from central figures of the art establishment to avant-gardists
challenging it, a diverse range of artists showcased their works at the department stores.
Among the works first presented to the public by department stores, included are quite a
number of works that are regarded as canons in modern Japanese art history and are now
housed in major art museums. Not only painting and sculpture exhibitions, but also crafts,
calligraphy, photography, architecture, and stage set exhibitions were held in the stores.
Indeed, by stimulating public interest in art, the department stores contributed
significantly to cultivating an audience for art in modern Japan.
Nonetheless, the critical role that the department stores have played in the
production, circulation, and consumption of art has not been a focus of research in the
literature of modern Japanese art history except for a few limited studies and brief
references in articles or book chapters. The main reason for this disregard is neither that
the caliber of the artists and works that department stores sponsored was not high enough,

nor is it that department stores were not valued enough as cultural institutions, but rather
that the official inclusion of department store artistic practices in art history would
undermine the concept of fine art which the modern institution of art has been
predicated upon. The discipline of modern Japanese art history, under the sway of the
notion of aesthetic autonomy, has been reluctant to look at artistic realities such as the
participation of fine artists in the production of commercial art, the commodification of
works of fine art for bourgeois home dcor, and the transformation of fine art exhibitions
into cultural commodities. The department stores epitomized the very aspects of art that
the modern institution of art has attempted to efface in its history. As a result, the artistic
practices of the department stores have been obscured in the discourse of modern
Japanese art history despite their profound influence on the praxis of modern Japanese art
history. In a sense, this erasure is a testament to the fact that fine art is not a given but
a historically constructed institution. This study argues that fine art constructed itself
through the conscious strategy of exclusion of its others such as mass culture,
commercial art, craft, and urie (paintings produced for sale) and the creation of an
exclusive hierarchy between itself and its others. The goal of this dissertation is not to
recuperate the department stores as pivotal agents within the history of modern Japanese
art, but to expose the politics of fine art, which constructed and manipulated the
language, categories, and values that still structure our understanding of art, through a
close examination of department store art practices that have been virtually ignored in the
course of the formation of modern Japanese art history.

Kitazawa Noriakis Me no shinden: bijutsu juy!shi n!to (The temple of the

eyes: notes on the history of the reception of art) (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansa, 1989)
marked a major paradigm shift in the discipline of modern Japanese art history, which, up
until then, had focused on sakkaron (the biographical study of artists) and
sakuhinron (the formalistic study of works).1 By introducing a new methodology of
seidoron (the study of institutions), Kitazawa rigorously brought to the fore the idea
that there is nothing inherently natural in the concept of what is now called bijutsu (fine
art); rather, it is an institution that was historically and culturally constructed during the
Meiji period (1868-1912). Indeed, in Japan prior to the Meiji period, there had been no
concept that referred to fine art, nor had been there the notion of genres such as
painting, sculpture, and crafts. A new term, bijutsu, was coined by the Meiji
government as a means of preparing for its participation in the Vienna Worlds Fair in
1873. By tracing the development of the concept of bijutsu throughout the course of
the history of modern Japanese art, Kitazawa relativized bijutsu, which had been
regarded as a transhistorical given in the study of modern Japanese art history. Kitazawa
argued that the entire present system of art, from its production and appreciation to the
organizations represented by art schools and art museums, was established based on

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1

About the discipline of art history in Japan and the place of modern Japanese art within it, see
Sat! D!shin, Kindai Nihon bijutsushi no keisei to sono kenky" d!k!, Misulsa nondan10
(2000): 211-245; Sat! D!shin, The Present State of Research on Modern Art History and
Related Issues, Acta Asiatica 85 (2003): 82-103; Adachi Gen, Rasen no avangyarudo:
bijutsu juy!shi no juy!shi, in Kitazawa Noriaki, Me no shinden (reprint, Tokyo: Buryukke,
2010), 361-89: Kitazawa Noriaki The Paradigms of Japanese Art History, The Present, and the
Discipline of Art History in Japan (Tokyo: Tokyo National Research Institute of Cultural
Properties, 1999), 11.

Western models as a part of a broad program of modernization of Japan under the

auspices of the Meiji government.
Kitazawas research that revealed the ideological foundation of bijutsus own
institutional structure should be contextualized in relation to socio-cultural contingencies
in Japan in the late 1980s. Its emergence was inseparable from the so-called postmodern
deconstruction and poststructualism boom in 1980s Japan.2 Kitazawa himself indicated
that he was influenced by the writings of Karatani Kojin (Nihon kindai bungaku no kigen
[The origins of modern Japanese literature][Tokyo: K!dansha, 1980] and Inyu toshite no
kenchiku [Architecture as metaphor][Tokyo: K!dansha, 1983]).3 The theory of
postmodernism inspired Kitazawa to embark on a search for the origin of bijutsu and to
ultimately deconstruct the conception of bijutsu as something given and essential. The
year 1989, when Kitazawas Me no shinden was first published, became the end of a
chapter in modern Japanese history with the death of the Sh!wa emperor in January. The
end of the Showa period (1927-89) brought about the need for a thorough reconsideration
of the paradigm of the modern period, including the modern emperor system and
nationalism. The study of Kitazawa spurred other parallel studies including Takagi
Hiroshis Kindai tenn!sei no bunkashiteki kenky" (A study of the modern emperor
system from the perspective of cultural history) (Tokyo: Azekura Shob!, 1997), Sat!
D!shins Nihon bijutsu tanj!: kindai nihon no kotoba to senryaku (The birth of
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2

A book about poststructuralism, K!z! to chikara (Structure and Power) (Tokyo: Keis! Shob!,
1983), by a young scholar Asada Akira, gained sudden and unprecedented popularity when it was
first published in Japan. In several weeks, nearly eight thousand copies were sold and the media
announced the advent of the new academism.
3

Kitazawa Noriaki, Teihon no kank! ni atatte, in Me no shinden (2010), 351.!!

Japanese art: the language and strategy of modern Japan) (Tokyo: K!dansha, 1996)
and another book by Sat!, Meiji kokka to kindai bijutsu: bi no seijigaku (Modern
Japanese art and the Meiji state: the politics of beauty) (Tokyo: Yoshikawa K!bunkan,
1999). These studies explored how art was conscripted as an institution to aid the
formulation of the modern nation-state and the homogenized cultural space of the unified
national community.
Sat!, in particular, closely investigated the formation of neologisms such as
kaiga (painting), ch!koku (sculpture), k!gei (craft) and, of course, bijutsu, and
correlated it with the construction of the modern institution of art in Japan. Further, Sat!
focused on the selection and elimination of historical facts in the course of the
historicization of Japanese art. For example, he explored the reason why ukiyo-e and
crafts were eliminated in the grand narratives of Japanese art history written during the
Meiji period, a time when the country was engrossed in nation building, and why the art
affiliated with the earlier Imperial Household Agency and the art related to the export
industries were erased in modern Japanese art history written during the postwar period, a
time imbued with the ideology of democracy. According to Sat!, the discipline of
Japanese art history had as its rationale supporting the establishment of Japan as modern
nation-state.
My research, which focuses on the social and institutional coordinates of artistic
practices and productions rather than the analysis of individual artists or works, benefited
a great deal from this recent scholarship, which opened up discussions about the
institutional structures of art in modern Japan. However, examining the emergence of the

modern institution of art, including the concept of fine art, only through the art policies
implemented by the state in relation to the question of nation building poses the danger of
reproducing the perspective put forth in the Meiji states program of modernization,
which equated successful modernization with Westernization.
Indeed, Kitazawa positioned bijutsu among the institutions transplanted from
the West in order to accomplish the Meiji states goal of catching up with the West.
Satos studies also concentrated on the importation of the concept of bijutsu from the
West and its eventual extension to native artistic practices and productions.
Although Kitazawa criticized the birth of bijutsu as being the result of Western-centric
thinking that considered the concept of fine art produced in the Western cultural
context to be a universal one, he could not avoid the cartographic imagery of the West
upon which the modernization theory invariably depends.4 As a result, the formation of
the concept of bijutsu in modern Japan was reduced solely to a matter of
transplantation and reception of the Western system of the arts.
However, as many scholars have insisted in recent studies, what we have
customarily comprehended as the West must be called into question. The West is an
imagined cartographic category that was invented to establish and maintain its superiority
over the non-West through the arbitrary identification between modernity and a
specific place; the unity and substantiality of the West never existed. Accordingly, the
Western system of the arts has never existed as a singular, unified entity. The illusion of
the unity of the Western system of arts was well manifested in the birth of the term
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4

Me no shinden (1989), 241-242.

bijutsu itself. The term of bijutsu, which was coined as a translation of the German
word kunstgewerbe, appeared in a list of entries that the office of Vienna Worlds Fair
sent to the Meiji government in 1872. The official Japanese translator annotated the new
term, bijutsu, as follows: In the West, music, painting, sculpture and poetry are called
bijutsu. Given the fact that kunstgewerbe, a compound word of kunst (art) and
gewerbe (industry), did not include music and poetry, this note was not precisely accurate.
Yet the translators mistake, as Kitazawa points out, can be attributed to the English and
French translations of kunstgewerbe, fine arts and beaux-arts, which were written
together also in the list of entries. 5 The translator might have arrived at his inclusive
definition of bijutsu because both fine arts and beaux-arts were used at the time to
indicate music and poetry in certain contexts. In short, although kunstgewebe, fine
arts, and beaux-arts were used interchangeably in late nineteenth century Europe,
what each word connoted was not identical. In addition, the connotation of each term
was not transhistorical, but consistently evolving. Nonetheless, although the concept of
bijutsu was denaturalized as a historical product of Japans modernization program by
Kitazawas and Sat!s groundbreaking studies, the concept of fine art, which bijutsu
was translated from, has never been questioned, even in their studies.
Fine art, which was regarded as an intrinsic concept of Western art, was not a
normative, standard notion even in the European context, but a historically contingent
construct that was produced in a particular social and cultural circumstance. The rise of
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5

Kitazawa Noriaki, Ky!kai no bijutsushi: bijutsu keiseishi n!to (Tokyo: Buryukke, 2000), 810.

the concept of fine art was ideologically linked to the emergence of the nineteenthcentury nation-state, which demanded an art policy that engendered a homogeneous
national identity by forging art as a sign of cultural accomplishment equally available to
all subjects of the nation. Emerging nation-states propagated the autonomy of the arts
because it helped to conceal the uneven distribution of wealth and power, which had been
inscribed within the arts, liberating artistic practices and productions from the auspices of
feudal or religious patronage and positioning them in a purely self-sufficient and selfreflexive aesthetic realm. Nineteenth century nation-building was a mutually constitutive
project on the part of the state and the bourgeoisie. The notion of autonomous art was
also linked to the emergence of bourgeois societies. The concept of aesthetic autonomy
served to emancipate bourgeois subjectivity from aristocratic and religious hegemony.
The subjects capacity to experience the autonomous fine art solely for aesthetic
appreciation transcending personal interest or instrumentalized activities was integral to
the construction of bourgeois individuality. The romantic myth of the artist as creator
also reached its culmination at the time, conceiving works of art as a pure product of
creative, personal expression. In short, the concept of fine art was not what was
inherent in the Western system of the arts and yet was lacking in the Japanese as the
Meiji government conceived it.
Roughly between the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 and the Japanese
invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Japan experienced a process of modernity comparable to
that seen in other parts of the world wherever bourgeois nation-states took root, and
similarly possessed the economic, political, and ideological conditions that both

necessitated and enabled the development of aesthetic autonomy. In common with other
modernizing countries, the concept of fine art was fostered in Japan by state ideology
and capitalist culture. As mentioned above, the term bijutsu was coined in 1872, but it
is not that bijutsu was used exclusively to indicate the fine arts of painting, sculpture,
and architecture from its inception. Rather, bijutsu referred to either Western
techniques that Japan had to master in order to develop its engineering and military
strategies or export industries that accounted for a considerable part of the total national
exports. It was not until the 1890s that the term bijutsu started to take on the
connotation of fine art. Kitazawa and Sat! considered the formation of fine art as a
modern institution to have been completed with the establishment of the T!ky! Bijutsu
Gakk! (Tokyo School of Fine Art) and the Teikoku Hakubutsukan (Imperial Museum) in
1889 and 1890, respectively, along with the promulgation of the Dai Nippon Teikoku
Kenpo (Japanese Imperial Constitution) in 1889 and the inauguration of parliament, the
Teikoku Gikai (Imperial Diet) in 1890. Inasmuch as fine art was a historically
constructed institution, however, all artistic practices and productions did not naturally
conform with it. In the discursive formation of fine art, it is not possible to speak of an
overarching entity in the guise of the state. There was a consistent and evident conflict
between the discursive ideal and the artistic reality. While Kitazawas and Sat!s studies
focused on the official art policies that propagated the concept of fine art from top to
bottom under the direct supervision of the state, my study approaches the
institutionalization of fine art from below by looking at what art meant and how art
functioned in daily practices after it was established as an official institution by the state.

By the 1920s, the institution of fine art, which maintained and reinforced itself by
consciously and continuously suppressing or obscuring what was discrepant from the
concept of fine art, was dismantled from within itself. With the deconstruction of the
concept of fine art by the avant-garde artists of the 1920s, a life cycle of fine art
ended in the history of modern Japanese art. This dissertation focuses on artistic
practices and productions between the mid-1890s and the late 1920s, during which fine
art emerged as an official institution, sought itself in the midst of interaction with the
others, and finally became negated by artists themselves.
The department stores amply demonstrate the contradictions and paradoxes of the
modern paradigm within which fine art was created. Chapter One investigates how the
arts contributed to the creation of spectacle by department stores as the stores both
responded to and contributed to the emergence of consumer culture. In the course of
their transformation from traditional dry-goods store (gofukuten) to modern department
stores, the stores sought to create and increase consumer desire through visual appeal and
offer shopping as an aesthetic experience. Some of the most distinguished artists in
modern Japan, from Takeuchi Seih! (1864-1942) to Okada Saburosuke (1869-1939),
participated in the production of designs for textiles, show windows, advertising, and
architecture. Although the literature of modern Japanese art history has focused on their
works of fine art and dismissed their involvement in the commercial realm, works
commissioned to sell products or appeal to customers constituted an important part of
their artistic productions and even made aesthetic impact on the production of their fine
art works. It was not until the advent of design (zuan) as an independent profession in the

10

1910s that the fields of fine art and commercial art became mutually exclusive and
fine artists were supposed to separate themselves from the commercial ventures and
marketing. Fine art was an antidote to capitalist excess, underscoring the growing
anxiety about the capitalist reality, in which all values were converted into capital. The
discourse of aesthetic autonomy divorced artistic practices and productions from the
commercial realm and made commercial art come to occupy a marginal place in the
discipline of modern art history, if not in artistic reality.
While the idea of aesthetic autonomy was inculcated in the consciousness of the
public and artists themselves, ironically works of art emerged as one of the most
desirable commodities among new middle class. In Chapter Two, I examine department
stores art sections, which displayed and sold the fine art works of prominent
contemporary artists including Yokoyama Taikan (1868-1958), Shimomura Kanzan
(1873-1930), Takeuchi Seih!, Imao Keinen (1845-1924), Okada Saburosuke and Wada
Eisaku (1874-1959). The most immediate and significant impetus for department stores
to decide to deal in the art trade was the establishment of the Bunten, which reinforced
privileged status of fine art by limiting its entries to painting and sculpture and
excluding craft or decorative art. In contrast to the professed goal of providing expanded
opportunities for all Japanese subjects to collect and appreciate art, department store art
sections primarily targeted customers from the rising urban middle to upper-middle class,
who purchased art for the interior decoration of their new houses. Whereas the cultural
literacy needed to appreciate fine art became considered a prerequisite for being a
citizen of a civilized modern nation, only a small segment of Japanese society could

11

actually afford to enjoy a cultured modern life with works of fine art. The new middle
classs pursuit of interior decorating revolved around the decoration of the tokonoma
(alcove), which had been an essential part of social elite intercourse in feudal Japan. By
being involved in cultural practices associated with high-class samurai, the new middle
class attempted to claim and maintain its social legitimacy. As a consequence,
department store art sections concentrated on the sale of nihonga (Japanese-style
painting) and craft rather than y!ga (Western-style painting), which was not appropriate
to hang in a tokonoma. Chapter Two examines how the new middle class achieved
mastery of the tasteful consumption of art crucial to the generation of social distinctions
and class identity through the art sections of department stores, and how department
stores in turn capitalized on the cultural aspirations of their upwardly mobile customers.
While in reality even the top artists who served as jury members at the Bunten
earned a living by selling works they produced as decorative items for private residential
spaces, the modern art world was dominated by the discourse of aesthetic autonomy,
which insisted that art should be free from social and economic utility. Artists
themselves rigorously separated works for salon (kaij! geijutsu) from works for sale
(urie). Chapter Three explores how department stores gained sufficient prominence as a
primary venue for artists to exhibit their works for salon. As the influence of the
Bunten on the Japanese art world increased, the competition among art groups to seize
the aesthetic and professional hegemony of the Bunten intensified. Institutionally
distanced from the official art establishment, department stores provided the artists with
an alternative exhibition venue that was relatively autonomous from both the states

12

control and the political tension among the art groups. As a result, the department stores
became crucial venues for the exhibition of art groups such as Nihon Bijutsu-in (Japan
Art Institute) and Nika-kai (Second Section Association) until the Tokyo Metropolitan
Art Museum (T!ky!-fu Bijutsukan) was built in 1926. Although the department stores
did not earn immediate financial profits by sponsoring the exhibitions of art groups, the
exhibitions ultimately provided lucrative returns to the stores. Through art exhibitions,
the department stores drew diverse visitors into their stores and made them their new
customers. Most of all, department stores enhanced their reputations as cultural
institutions. The cultural capital that the stores accumulated by holding art exhibitions
was indispensable to the success of their business, which rested on their cultural or
aesthetic authority to create new fashion.
Works of fine art became a free-floating commodity in the bourgeois market of
objects and luxury goods, generating and legitimating social differences. The autonomy
of fine art and its exhibitions was fetishized and appropriated by the department stores,
which attempted to raise their prestige through the association with high culture.
Nonetheless, the discourse of aesthetic autonomy concealed its internal contradiction that
the autonomy of fine art could be guaranteed only in the commodity structure of the
work of art. It was the avant-garde art movement of the 1920s that first challenged the
autonomous institution of fine art in the history of modern Japanese art. Avant-garde
artists attacked the privileged status of works of fine art for bourgeois aesthetic
appreciation and sought to reintegrate art, which had been severed from social relevance,
into the praxis of daily life. Despite the seeming contradiction between the capitalist

13

nature of department stores and the leftist character of avant-garde artists, the stores
became the primary venues for showcasing the artistic activities of avant-garde art groups
including Mavo, Action, Sanka, Z!kei, and Tani Sanka. Avant-garde artists held exhibits
within department stores and participated in design projects for the stores. Department
stores provided a means by which avant-garde artists made art more practical and integral
to daily life. The last chapter looks at how avant-garde artists attempt to explode the
fine art versus commercial art or high art versus mass culture distinction converged with
the department stores in the 1920s. It examines the relationship between department
stores and avant-garde art not only from the perspective of avant-garde artists but also
from that of the stores. I would suggest that department stores had a common desire with
the avant-garde artists to stand on the sentan (cutting edge) of the latest cultural trends
and to lead the masses. In addition, the ambivalence of the period gave rise to avantgarde artists and its audiences, who were ideologically inclined toward leftist political
thought but at the same time enjoyed a bourgeois lifestyle in their everyday life.
My approach to the history of modern Japanese art from below is informed by
Kinoshita Naoyukis and Omuka Toshiharus studies. Kinoshitas Bijutsu to iu
misemono: aburae chaya no jidai (The spectacle called art: the age of oil painting
teahouse) (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1993) focused on the period when the arts were produced
and consumed as a form of entertainment, like other spectacles. This was not a story of
the remote past. According to Kinoshita, until the early Meiji period, oil paintings and
photography were consumed as a spectacle for their realistic representations of the world.
As the concept of fine art was established as an institution, however, those art forms of

14

spectacle were soon removed from the official category of art. Kinoshitas critical
investigation of the artistic practices and productions excluded from the discourse of
modern art succinctly articulated the artificial nature of the boundary between art and
non-art, a boundary that the modern institution of art has assumed to be axiomatic.
Kinoshita relativized and historicized not only the concept of fine art but also the
modern way to appreciate the arts, within a silent environment without food and drink.
Kinoshitas methodology, which first made itself free from the doctrine of fine art and
included popular culture in the study of art history, inspired me to study what has been
ignored, excluded, and forgotten in the discipline of modern art history. Just as Kinoshita
insisted that the disparagement of spectacle and the formation of modern art were two
sides of the same coin, I argue that the artistic practices of department stores, the
alienated other of modern art history, contributed to the construction of the institution
of modern art.6
Omuka Toshiharus Kansh" no seiritsu: bijutsuten, bijutsu zasshi, bijutsushi (The
formation of an audience: art exhibitions, art magazines, art history) (Tokyo: T!ky!
Daigaku Shuppankai, 2008) called attention to the actual reception of the arts by
audiences. The issue of audiences and their reception of the arts was outside the interest
of modern Japanese art history, which had revolved around the analysis of masters and
canonical works. Not only the elitism of the discipline but also the paucity of primary
sources about audiences had been obstacles for the study of audiences. Omuka explored
how the subjectivity of modern audiences for art was created by closely examining
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6

Kinoshita Naoyuki, Bijuto iu misemono, (1993), 17.

15

materials, which had never been seriously considered in the study of art history, such as
art journals columns with correspondence from readers. From Omukas study I learned
the importance of pursuing the questions Who consumed the art, why and how did they
consume the art, and within what socio-historical context was the art consumed? and
also learned which materials I should access in order to answer these questions. Indeed, I
obtained a great deal of valuable information about the audiences or customers who
appreciated and consumed the arts at department stores from department stores house
magazines.
This dissertation is also informed by recent English-language studies on modern
Japanese art history. In particular, Alice Y. Tsengs The Imperial Museums of Meiji
Japan: Architecture and the Art of the Nation (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
2008) explores how the new modern construct of fine art and exhibition culture was
materialized through the construction of the imperial museums and how these physical
museum spaces helped shape the public notion of the nations art. Her work has been
useful to my reading of department stores as an alternative space to popularize new
exhibition culture and to cultivate public interest in fine art. Kim Brandts analysis of
the relationship between the urban middle classs collection of folk arts and the mingei
movement in Kingdom of Beauty: Mingei and the Politics of Folk Art in Imperial Japan
(Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007) begs the question How and why
did the new middle class consume works of art at department stores? which becomes a
crucial topic of this dissertation. The studies of Christine Guth (Ch. 2); Jordan Sand (Ch.

16

2); Morishita Masaaki (Ch. 3); Gennifer S. Weisenfeld (Ch. 4), upon which my study is
more directly based, will be discussed in each chapter.
Although this dissertation could be primarily conceived of as a study of modern
Japanese art history, it may be also situated in the study of the cultural history of
Japanese department stores. Two authors of seminal works about the department store in
Japan are Hatusda T!ru and Jinno Yuki, who situate the development of the stores within
the scope of cultural studies. In Hyakkaten no tanj! (The birth of department stores)
(Tokyo: Sanseid!, 1993) Hatsuda T!ru traced the emergence of department stores from
kank!ba (emporium), which flourished in the 1880s and 1890s, to terminal department
stores, which emerged in the late 1920s, using the perspective of an architectural
historian.7 Hatsudas interest, however, is not limited to the subject of architecture. The
idea of shopping as a leisure activity is central to Hatsudas view of the role of the
department store. He noted that the department stores transformed ideas about shopping
not only through grand architecture, fantastic window displays, and polished glass cases
displaying goods in sophisticated arrangements, but also through the free entertainment
and multiple services the stores offered, including art exhibitions, classical music
concerts, and public lectures. Hatsuda started his research on the Japanese department
store to demonstrate how the form and content of Japanese stores expanded beyond the
scope of their Western counterparts. He contrasted department stores in Europe and
America, which, he claimed, served as places for mere shopping, with the Japanese
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
7

Terminal department stores refer to a type of department stores built by railway companies at
the urban terminuses of their commuter lines.

17

department stores, which offered dining halls, amusement park-like rooftop gardens,
theaters, and galleries that could be enjoyed by the whole family. Contrary to Hatsudas
argument, however, when they were initially founded, European and American
department stores also performed multiple functions as places for leisure activities other
than buying products. Non-commercial activities disappeared from the department stores
in Europe and America as soon as the stores became an accepted part of modern
consumer society. Rather than overemphasizing the uniqueness of the Japanese
department store, there needs to be a more critical analysis of how and why, until recently,
it retained the original form even as that strategy was abandoned by its counterparts
abroad. My study examines the historical and sociocultural conditions that led to the
continuation of department stores as cultural institutions in Japan.
The role of the Japanese department store as a modern cultural center was well
documented in Jinno Yukis Shumi no tanj!: hyakkaten ga tsukuda teisuto (The birth of
taste: taste created by department stores) (Tokyo: Keis! Shob!, 1994). Jinno examined
how Mitsukoshi department store cultivated a certain type of lifestyle called in those days
Mitsukoshi shumi (Mitsukoshi taste). Since the fortunes of the department store rested
on the successful production of fashion, Mitsukoshi invited prominent artists, scholars,
writers, and journalists to a meeting, called Ry"k! Kenkyu-kai (Fashion Research Group,
as known as Ry"k!kai), each month where they proffered ideas and advice about fashion.
Based on the results of these meetings, Mitsukoshi taste was created and disseminated
through the stores lavishly illustrated house magazine. The Mitsukoshi house magazine
not only advertised the stores goods but also included academic articles and novels by

18

the most noted writers of the day, such as Mori #gai (1862-1922), K!da Rohan (18671947), and Ozaki K!y! (1868-1903). The term Mitsukoshi taste came to sum up the
discourse of cultured life, a key marketing concept of department stores targeting the
new middle class. My study extends Jinnos analysis to the artistic practices the
department stores sponsored. I propose that art was one of the most powerful factors in
the representation of the modern cultured life promoted by the stores. For example, the
first art exhibition held by Mitsukoshi in 1904 featured a famous Edo painter, Ogata
K!rin (1658-1716), in order to promote the phenomenon, Genroku boom, which was
one of the most popular examples of Mitsukoshi taste, based on designs from the
Genroku era (1688-1704).
Many scholars have explored the department store in terms of consumer culture
and gender. Either as a catalyst for liberation of women from the confinements of the
home or as a form of entrapment to manipulate the desires of women, the department
store has attracted great attention from the field of gender studies. Indeed, the Japanese
department stores of the postwar era functioned as cultivators of womens taste by
providing classes of calligraphy, tea ceremonies, and flower arrangements for mainly, but
not exclusively, female customers. However, this dissertation explores how the practices
of collecting works of art and attending art exhibitions contributed to the formation of the
new middle class identity through the artistic practices that the department stores offered
in modern Japan. Therefore, I will not be addressing specifically the relationship

19

between female consumer behavior and department stores in this dissertation, which
focuses primarily on the issue of class rather than on gender.8
Although there is a relative absence of primary literature investigating the artistic
practices of department stores within the discipline of modern Japanese art history, there
is a pioneering work in English. Julia E. Sapins dissertation Liaisons Between Painters
and Department Stores: Merchandising Art and Identity in Meiji Japan, 1868-1912
(2003) examined the relationships between Japanese painters and department stores
during the Meiji period through a study of the institutional history of department stores
and the biographies of representative painters. She categorized department stores as a
new venue where Japanese painters practiced and marketed their works. Her study
specifically focused on the collaboration of nihonga painters in the Kyoto area with the
department stores that actively submitted entries to international expositions. Sapin
argued that the painters designs for export textiles not only helped to promote the stores
products but also contributed to the formation of Japans national identity. While Sapin
investigated how the old relationship of nihonga painters with gofukuten, the institutional
predecessors of Japanese department stores, evolved into the modern department-store
patronage of painters, my study starts from where Sapins study ended. Building on her
study, I explore the issue of merchandising art beyond the painters participation in
design projects for the stores goods and advertising to the establishment of department
store art sections that displayed and sold works of art and to the commodification of art
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8

For the discussion of the relationship between Japanese department stores and women, see
Tomoko Tamari, Women and Consumption: the Rise of the Department Store and the New
Woman in Japan 1900-1930 (Ph.D. diss., the Nottingham Trent University, 2002).!!!

20

exhibitions by the stores. The range of my study is widened to include not only Meiji
painters but also artists active in various genres in the Taish! and early Sh!wa period.

21

CHAPTER ONE
From Gofukuten to Department Stores: the Creation of Spectacle and Consumption
Introduction
In December 1904, the first department store came into being in Japan with
Mitsukoshis formal transformation from an Edo period dry-goods store, or gofukuten, to
a modern department store.1 On January 2, 1905, Mitsukoshi placed a full-page
advertisement in newspapers, announcing that it would henceforth carry out the
following:
1. The main Tokyo branch will renovate its appearance, upgrade its product
designs, and add improvements in every quarter in order to enhance the aesthetic
experience of the visitor, and to provide every possible facility for making the act
of purchasing pleasant.
2. Our design section will provide a pattern reference room. For customers who
wish to special order, this room will offer various old and new textile samples for
viewing in order to facilitate selection.
3. We will increase the variety of products sold at our store; we are now equipped
to supply most items related to clothing and adornment all under one roof. In
short, we shall constitute a department store of the kind operating in America.2
4. In the spring and fall, we will hold special exhibits of new patterns, promoting
new products from makers all over Japan. At the same time, we will hold artistic
exhibits, which, in addition to demonstrating advances made in design, will
present an unparalleled display of goods for our visitors to choose from.
5. The Kyoto purchasing branch will expand its dying and weaving facilities and
manufacture the very latest elegant fashionable goods, undertaking further
improvements to stand at the forefront of fashion.
1

On December 6, 1904, Mitsukoshi had an inaugural meeting and became a stock company
(kabushiki kaisha) independent from the Mitsui family.
2

Mitsukoshi used the English loan word (dep!tomento sutoa) in the

katakana syllabary to signify department store. The term department store was first coined
in America and does not appear to have been used in Britain until the late 1930s and 1940s. In
Japan, the term hyakkaten (stores with one-hundred items), which first appeared around 1911, has
also been used to refer to department stores, emphasizing the variety of goods available under a
single roof.

22

6. The regional sales section will, with care and skill, endeavor to meet the needs
of customers living far away, filling orders and sending patterns for metropolitan
fashion goods as depicted in our monthly journal Jik!.3
Along with expanding the range of merchandise, the stores effort to create and increase
consumer desire through visual appeal and to offer shopping as an aesthetic experience to
customers played a central role in the shift from gofukuten to department store. In the
course of its transformation, Mitsukoshi concentrated, first and foremost, on the
development of new designs to create fashion and the adoption of display techniques to
exhibit goods. The reforms undertaken by Mitsukoshi provided a model for other
gofukuten to follow.4 The arts rapidly became appropriated by the stores as a tool of
commercial communication to advertise and market their merchandise. Enhancing the
appearance of goods through the use of artistic design was not entirely new; what was
new was that the way people saw and understood goods, daily life, and even the urban
environment as having been changed through the aestheticization of commodities and
their manner of presentation.

The quotation is Noriko Asos translation in New Illusions: The Emergence of a Discourse on
Traditional Japanese Arts and Crafts, 1868-1945 (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1997), 161162. Minor changes are mine. Throughout this dissertation, including the notes and bibliography,
all Japanese names (except those who have published in English) appear in the East Asian order
of family name first. All translations from Japanese materials are my own, unless otherwise
indicated.
4

Matsuzakaya in 1910, Shirokiya, Takashimaya, and Matsuya in 1919, Daimaru in 1920, and
Isetan in 1922 also incorporated and transformed themselves into department stores.

23

The department stores employment of artistic strategies was inextricably linked

to the production of spectacle by the emergence of consumer society.5 The advent of
industrialization brought about an explosive growth in production, which inevitably
necessitated and enabled mass consumption. A host of new marketing strategies were
invented to foster a radical expansion of consumption. Within modern capitalist society,
characterized by incessant creation of new desires for commodities, consumption was no
longer a matter of basic items bought for definite needs.6 Objects were not defined by
their function but by what the German sociologist Georg Simmel, in a review of the
Berlin Trade Exhibition in 1896, called the shop-window quality of things.7 In their
search for a growing mass market, department stores needed the skillful manipulation of
aesthetics to attract the consumers eye and make the product stand out, effects that
would further commercial interests. The stores established internal design sections and
employed artists of various backgrounds in order to use effectively the persuasive force
of visual enticement. Department stores transformed everyday life into spectacle through
5

The concept of spectacle is borrowed from what Guy Debord criticized as the key feature of
consumer capitalist societies in La Socit du spectacle (Paris: Buchet/Chastel, 1967). Although
he was writing of mid-1960s France, his concept, which theorizes the implications of the shift
from production to consumption and the accompanying commodification of everyday life by
spectacle, could be applied to the Japanese department stores, which emerged at the turn of the
twentieth century.
6

Rachel Bowlby, Just Looking: Consumer Culture in Dreiser, Gissing and Zola (London:
Methuen, 1985), 1.
7

Georg Simmel, The Berlin Trade Exhibition, in Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings, eds.
David Frisby and Mike Featherstone (London; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1997),
257. Walter Benjamin also stated that exchange value no less than use value lost practical
meaning, and purely representational value came to the fore in commodities on display. See
Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989), 81-82.

24

the sophisticated display of fashionable merchandise and glamorous advertising as well

as monumental architecture and dazzling interior decorations.
The transition from gofukuten to department store accompanied the creation of
spectacle, transforming ideas about merchandise and consumption. Although artists
involvement in the enhancement of capitalist profitability has been mostly ignored in
modern Japanese art history, artists and their artistic skills were engaged in a multitude of
ways to attract new consumption, from merchandise display techniques to graphic
advertising. This chapter investigates how the arts were extensively used to stimulate
consumer desire within Japans burgeoning consumer culture.

Display and the Birth of Consumer-Spectators

As a part of the Mitsui group of business concerns, Mitsukoshi traces its origins
back to Echigoya, a gofukuten founded in both Kyoto and Edo (Tokyo) by Mitsui
Takatoshi in 1673.8 To survive the transition from Edo to Meiji, which witnessed an
unprecedented level of political, economic and social change, Mitsukoshi had already
taken a step in revolutionizing its traditional retailing methods ten years before it
announced its Department Store Declaration in 1905. It was Takahashi Yoshio (18611937) who carried out a series of modernizing reforms, including corporate
reorganization and the adoption of new accounting, managerial, and employee training
practices. Born in 1861 as a son of a low-ranking samurai family in the castle town of
8

During the period of transition from Edo to Meiji, Echigoya went through a number of name
changes and different management policies. To avoid confusion, I shall refer to the store as
Mitsukoshi.

25

Mito, Takahashi moved to Tokyo in 1881 to study at Kei" Gijuku (the present Keio
University), founded by one of the most influential Meiji philosopher-educators,
Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901). Following his graduation from Kei" Gijuku, Takahashi
worked as a journalist for five years at Jiji Shinp", a newspaper company Fukuzawa
started. In 1887, Takahashi departed for America to study business.9 Upon his return, he
joined Mitsui Bank in 1891. In August 1895, he was appointed to the new post of
managing director of what was then called Mitsui gofukuten, which was in need of
reforms in its management. Takahashi incorporated many of the marketing techniques he
observed during his investigative trips to Wanamaker in Philadelphia in 1888 and to the
Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. At the time, both the department store and the
worlds fair were new, modern institutions that were having a significant impact on urban
visual culture in Europe and America.10
One of the most conspicuous reforms Takahashi made was the elimination of the
zauriba (seated selling area) and its replacement with a display area exhibiting
commodities. In November 1895, Takahashi installed glass display cases in the second
floor of Mitsukoshis old Nihonbashi store, which had heretofore been used to serve
meals to special guests. Images of the second floors conversion into a sales floor with
display cases were preserved in two places. The first one is an illustration by Okada
Gekk" (1859-1920) published in the December 1895 issue of F"zokugah!. (Fig.1.1) The
9

Takahashi studied at Eastman Business College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

10

Department stores became a central fixture in the capitalist cities of Europe and America in the
mid-nineteenth century. In Paris, the Bon March opened in 1852, Macys opened in New York
in 1857, and others followed.

26

other one is a handbill featuring a color woodblock print designed by Shimazaki Ry#u
(1865-1937) in September 1896. (Fig. 1.2) Both pictures emphasized the contradiction
between the upper floors rows of glass cabinets displaying the stores wares and the
lower floors zauriba. While old style transactions between individual customers and
their designated clerks continue on the ground floor, shoppers upstairs freely browse the
merchandise displayed in glass cases.
Like other Edo period retail establishments, gofukuten conducted their business
on the tatami floor of the store. The following description in John Roberts Mitsui: Three
Centuries of Japanese Business well demonstrates gofukutens way of selling:
The customers, ducking in under the noren, the short curtains hung in doorways,
found themselves in a great hall. A raised platform covered with sweet-smelling
tatami was its only fixture. Greeted politely by one of the chief clerks, customers
would remove their wooden clogs or their sandals and take seats on the matting or
upon silk cushions. The clerk would engage them in light conversation as tea was
served. According to the status or interests of the customers, the chatter would
turn to art, literature, poetry, some titillating scandal involving a popular geisha,
or a new play at the Kabuki-za. Only after such niceties had been observed would
the customer be expected to turn his attention to bolts of material brought from
the warehouse by apprentices.11
The relationship between customers and clerks appears very intimate. As Edward
Seidensticker states about the Edo period gofukuten, People knew their stores, and stores
knew their people.12 The clerk, who fully grasped the taste and capacity of his customer,
fetched sample goods that he judged appropriate to the customers needs. There were no
11

John G. Roberts, Mitsui: Three Centuries of Japanese Business (New York: Weatherhill,
1973), 21-22.
12

Edward Seidensticker, Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake (New York:
Knopf, 1983), 109.

27

wares on display. The merchandise was kept out of sight in the storehouse behind the
shop. The fewer the bolts of cloth that were brought out in order to satisfy the customer,
the better trader the clerk was considered to be.13 There was even a famous expression
Great shops keep the goods deep inside and never display them in front.14
However, the old style of merchandising was not efficacious in the new society,
in which larger urban concentrations of people created anonymity, one of the essential
characteristics of modern urban life. The fall of the feudal system caused the exodus of
daimy! (feudal lord) from Tokyo.15 The samurai exodus and the civil war that followed
the Meiji Restoration (1868) caused a decline in the population of commoners as well.
As a result, the total population of Tokyo decreased by almost 500,000, a figure nearly
half of Edos peak population. However, the rapid industrialization of Meiji Japan
resulted in a great influx of rural dwellers into the cities. After the Sino-Japanese War
(1894-1895), Tokyo passed the peak population of Edo and began to metamorphose into
a modern metropolis. The size of the immigrant population surpassed that of the native
born in about 1909.16 The old marketing techniques that involved a coded but personal

13

Takahashi Yoshio, H!ki no ato (Tokyo: Sh#h"en, 1932), 253.

14

(Ry"ko wa fukaku z"shite munashiki ga gotoshi) in

Japanese.
15

During the Tokugawa period (1603-1868), the shogunate enforced a policy called sankin
k!tai (alternative attendance) to control daimy!. According to the policy, the daimy! of every
han had to reside in Edo on alternate years and his wife and heir were required to remain in Edo
as hostages. Sankin K!tai remained in force until 1862.
16

For changes in the population in Tokyo during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth
century, see Henry D. Smith, The Edo-Tokyo Transition: In Search of Common Ground, in
Japan in Transition: From Tokugawa to Meiji, eds. Marius Jansen and Gilbert Rozman
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 347-374; Henry D. Smith, Tokyo as an Idea: An

28

interaction between a customer and a clerk could not be applied to unfamiliar customers
from broader regions. Increasing urbanization and the development of public
transportation led to the development of a diverse clientele that necessitated new forms of
marketing, through which customers could readily see the goods for sale instead of
individually requiring a salesperson to bring them out from a storage area. To attract the
interest and the purchasing power of the expanded consumer public, the department
stores encouraged people to enter the stores freely and just browse the goods on display.
Unlike the traditional shop where proprietors expected a sale, new urbanites, who were
not familiar with the stores and their clerks, could also feel free to enter the stores without
sensing an obligation to make a purchase. The introduction of display cases contributed
to the establishment of a new customer base that reflected the anonymity of urban life.
In October 1900 Takahashi proceeded to transform Mitsukoshis entire store into
a new exhibition-style shopping space. Newspapers extensively covered the great
success of Mitsukoshis renovation:
The day before yesterday, Mitsui gofukuten opened its store the whole sales floor
of which had been converted into a display floor. On the day of its opening the
front of its entrance was crowded with customers even before sunrise. People
flooded into the store from 7 am, as soon as it opened the door. At around 10 am
over 8500 people packed the upstairs and downstairs floors, an area totaling 760
tatami in size. The store controlled the number of people who entered by
temporarily closing the door, but it was still as crowded in the afternoon as in the
morning. On Muromachi-t"ri, horse-drawn trams traffic was restricted to make
way for the crowd that flocked to the front of the store, and a number of
policemen were busy making a path for carriages. By the time it closed the
Exploration of Japanese Urban Thought until 1945, Journal of Japanese Studies 4, no.1 (1978):
45-80; Shunichi J. Watanabe, Metropolitanism as a Way of Life: The Case of Tokyo, 18681930, Metropolis 1890-1940, ed. Anthony Sutcliffe (London: Mansell Publishing, 1984), 403429.

29

entrance door at 3pm, the total number of customers on the day had reached
sixteen thousand and the days sales reached fifty-two thousand yen, the highest
in its history.17
On the 15th, Mitsui gofukuten opened the whole upstairs and downstairs, which
had been transformed into display floors, and met with great success. As already
covered, it could not help but turn away customers on the day of its opening.
Yesterday it invited reporters from each newspaper and introduced its new display
floors. I also accepted the invitation and looked around the display floors. On the
left side of the entrance, textiles were displayed to look over and upstairs a Mt.
Fuji replica made of habutae silk was displayed. To make it more convenient for
customers to shop, the display floors were divided into sections according to the
type of textile; for example, a section for solid color or one for stripes. Also, the
store provided two or three lounges and served refreshments. Even if a customer
plans to buy just one item, he or she can make the decision to purchase it after
going through multiple items, which were developed by its design section.18
Mitsukoshis success had an immediate effect on other gofukuten, which rushed to install
glass display cases as well. By the 1900s, the traditional method of zauri sales was
replaced with chinretsu hanbai (display sales) within most leading gofukuten.19
The installation of shop windows further encouraged passersby to enter the stores
and multiplied the opportunities for consumption. Large glass windows crammed full of
alluring merchandise adorned the building on the street level, catching the eye of the
17

Jiji shinp!, October 17, 1910.

18

Yomiuri shinbun, October 19, 1910.

19

In fact, Takashimaya is the first store that began to use glass display cases. When it founded a
trade department in 1887 solely to merchandise products for the foreign market, it placed samples
of various products in glass display cases. Julia E. Sapin, Merchandising Art and Identity in
Meiji Japan: Kyoto Nihonga Artists Designs for Takashimaya Department Store, 1868-1912,
Journal of Design History 17, no. 4 (2004): 319. For its main store, Takashimaya installed
display cases in 1896. Matsuya put in display cases on the second floor of its renovated building
in 1901 and then completely redesigned its building to include display floors when it remodeled
the building as a three-story Western-style structure in 1907. Shirokiya adopted new method of
display sales in its new building in 1903. Matsuzakaya and Daimaru also transformed their sales
floors into display floors when they remodeled their stores in 1907 and 1908 respectively.

30

causal passerby. The first gofukuten to install a plate glass show window was
Takashimaya. (Fig. 1.3) In 1896, Kyoto Takashimaya began using show windows and in
1898, Osaka Takashimaya did the same. Since then, display windows were added to the
street side faade of the stores one after another; Shirokiya and Mitsukoshi in 1903,
Nagoya Matsuzakaya in 1906, Ueno Matsuzakaya and Matsuya in 1907, Kobe Daimaru
in 1908 and Osaka Daimaru in 1914. (Fig. 1.4-1.6) The stores usually took the
opportunity to install show windows when they remodeled their buildings.
The competition between the stores was a catalyst for the construction of up-todate and magnificent architecture and a major contributor to the changing Meiji urban
visual environment. The stores doz!-zukuri buildings (storehouse buildings fireproofed
by applying earth or mortar to the exterior) were replaced with Western style, mainly
Renaissance style, buildings with a high-rise tower or lavish architectural
ornamentations.20 (Fig. 1.7-1.11) The stores commissioned the leading architects of the
20

In 1907 Matsuya first built a three-story wooden structure with a stone outer wall, which was
designed by K"da Minoru (1876-1965), who graduated from Tokyo Imperial University and
traveled to India, Britain, Italy, France and America to study architecture. Mitsukoshis
reconstruction in 1908 was undertaken by Yokogawa Tamisukes (1864-1945) architecture firm.
In 1896, as a Mitsui architect, Yokogawa went to America to do research for the construction of
the new Mitsui building and Takahashi Yoshio asked him to study the architecture of American
department stores as well. As one of the Japanese architecture firms most knowledgeable about
up-to-date department store architecture at that time, the Yokogawa firm designed Mitsukoshi as
a three-story Renaissance-style wooden structure. In 1914, Mitsukoshi constructed a
ferroconcrete building with six stories above ground and one below. The building was also
designed by the Yokogawa firm in Renaissance style with a taste of the Baroque. Takashimaya
rebuilt its Osaka and Kyoto stores in 1907 and 1912 as Western-style modern structures. In 1911,
Shirokiya was rebuilt in way!setchu (eastern and western hybrid) style with four stories and a
tower. The architect of this eclectic-style building was It" Kichitaro (1851-1932). Six years later,
Shirokiya was finally transformed into a four-story Renaissance-style building designed by Kida
Yasuz" (1885-1940). In 1916, Ueno Matsuzakaya built a wooden four-storied building with a
tower in the center corner. This Renaissance-style building was designed by Suzuki Teiji (18701941), who studied in France and Britain after graduating from Tokyo Imperial University.

31

day to design their new buildings. Most of the commissioned architects received modern
architectural education at universities and some of them had studied in Europe. Although
Renaissance style was not new in the history of European architecture, it had an exotic
quality in the eyes of the Japanese public at the time.21 The highly visible and distinct
alteration of the stores architecture had a significant impact on the urban landscape,
signifying the transformation of gofukuten into modern department stores. The alluring
architecture was itself a major means of attracting attention towards the stores.
The theatricality of the stylized interplay or obligatory performance between
seller and buyer was displaced by the spectacular display and architecture of the store.22
The splendid display of luxury items and sumptuously decorated buildings delighted and
overwhelmed customers through a visible embodiment of abundance. In a space for
anonymous mass movement and transactions, a successful business depended on the
visual stimulation of the shop display rather than the verbal persuasion of skillful clerks.
Customers were manipulated by the ostentatious show windows to believe that they
needed the merchandise on display and to purchase superfluous items. The use of

21

Even in Europe and America, Renaissance style reappeared in modern public buildings that
needed an air of authority. In the nineteenth century, architectural taste was dominated by
neoclassical aesthetics. On the other hand, the interior space of department stores with a grand
staircase, an immense open-spaced main hall and a huge stained-glass roof was all basically
modeled on the Crystal Palace in London, in which the first Universal Exposition took place in
1851. The Crystal Palace utilized new inventions in glass and iron technology, which made it
possible to construct a grand open space, creating an effect of light and spaciousness.
22

The theatricality of show windows has been discussed by many scholars; see Kristin Ross,
Introduction, in Emile Zola, The Ladies Paradise (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1992), ix-x; Erika Rappaport, Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of Londons West
End (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 158; Gen Doy, Picturing the Self:
Changing Views of the Subject in Visual Culture (London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 162.

32

theatrical displays helped the stores invest ordinary goods with cultural and social
meanings, which contributed to creating false need.
With the installation of show windows, most stores except Mitsukoshi began to
employ mannequins for a more convincing presentation of goods.23 The mannequins
used in the stores show windows were manufactured mainly by iki-ningy! (living doll)
makers.24 (Fig. 1.12) Iki-ningy! refers to a life-size, non-mechanical doll made of wood,
with glass eyes and ivory teeth and individually inset human hairs. From the late Edo to
early Meiji period, lifelike replicas of scenes from legends or history with iki-ningy! were
among the most popular forms of street entertainment, known as misemono (literally,
shows or exhibits). As the stores began displaying iki-ningy! mannequins as if they
were performing a play or a dance on stage, misemono moved from the street into the
show windows of the stores. Yasumoto Kamehachi III (1868-1946), who made dolls that
would decorate the show windows of Shirokiya and Matsuya, was born into a family of
busshi who had produced Buddhist statues for generations.25 (Fig. 1.13) Indeed, a
considerable number of iki-ningy! makers were former busshi who had lost their
principal patrons due to a severe decline in the demand for Buddhist objects as a result of
the anti-Buddhist outburst, haibutsu kishaku (abolish Buddhism and destroy
Shakyamuni), of the first years of the Meiji era. In order to attract new clients, busshi

23

Takashimaya 100 nenshi (Kyoto: Takashimaya Honten, 1941), 167; Shirokiya 300 nenshi
(Tokyo: Shirokiya, 1957), 286; Matsuya 100 nenshi, (Tokyo: Matsuya, 1969), 103.
24

Apart from expensive imported mannequins, it was not until 1928 that mannequins made of
fiber began to be manufactured in Japan.
25

Shirokiya 300 nenshi, 286; Matsuya 100 nenshi, 103, 126 and 184-185.

33

participated in production of iki-ningy!, making use of their expertise in dealing with

three-dimensional figures.26 While among the traditional Japanese art forms Buddhist
statues were considered the most suitable equivalent to the European category of
sculpture, iki-ningy! was not recognized as fine art since its excessive verisimilitude
did not fit into the concept of sculpture. Given this distinction and hierarchy within art
history, it is worth noting that busshi with the artistic skill to produce Buddhist statues
made dolls for the misemono of street entertainment, and department stores then adopted
the dolls for the decoration of show windows to attract customers. Across boundaries, a
single artist had the potential to contribute to the production of the fine art of Buddhist
statues, the popular culture of iki-ningy!, and the marketing tool of mannequins. It is
fair to say, then, that artificial boundaries between these visual practices may not have
been established yet at the time.
The use of mannequins was not indispensable for the creation of spectacle within
show windows. Dissatisfied with iki-ningy!s association with lowbrow street
entertainment, Mitsukoshi opposed the use of mannequins, which, it argued, might
damage its highbrow image. Instead, Mitsukoshi invested its show windows with
theatricality by setting up a number of columns reminiscent of Western palaces as
props and hanging oil paintings as backdrops.27 Among the paintings hung in
Mitsukoshis show windows, a painting by Yamamoto H"sui (1850-1906) was described
in an article in a newspaper Ch"gaish!gy! shinp!. Although no photograph of the
26

Tajima Natsuko, Uind" disupure, in Hyakkaten no bunkashi: Nihon no sh!hi kakumei, ed.
Nishizawa Tamotsu and Yamamoto Taketoshi (Tokyo: Sekaishis"shi, 1999), 263.
27

Ch"gaish!gy! shinp!, October 14, 1903.

34

installation survives, according to the description, Yamamotos work was a huge painting
in which, on a fine autumn day, a girl and her older sister were listening to the chirping of
insects in the grass.28 Given the time of year, October, when this painting was displayed
in the show window, the scene of mushikiki (literally, hearing insects) is one of the most
suitable subjects for that season.29 The change of seasons was a very important
consideration when the stores designed their show windows. Every season the stores
created new trends and the fortunes of the stores relied on the successful production of
fashion. To signal that it was time to shop for the new season, the stores consciously
deployed seasonal motifs within their show window designs. As a consequence, people
came to experience the sense that a new season was coming through the seasonal display
of the show window rather than the change in weather they actually felt.
According to Ch"gaish!gy! shinp!, the mushikiki painting was one of six new
paintings produced for Mitsukoshi, but it was not said whether all six were hung
simultaneously in the show window or one at a time. Whether Yamamoto produced all
six paintings or other painters participated is not clarified, either. Yamamoto first trained
in the nanga style, but after seeing Goseda H"ry#s (1827-1892) paintings he was
prompted to study Western-style painting (y!f"ga) and became Gosedas student. With
the opening of the K"bu Bijutsu Gakk" (Technical Art School) in 1876, Yamamoto

28

Ibid.

29

In traditional Japanese literature and art, each of the four seasons is associated with specific
weather, traditional rites, and particular plants and animals. For further discussion of seasonal
references and iconography, see Yamada Nanako, Anthology of Bijin-ga Kuchi-e, Bijinga
kuchie seijiki (Tokyo: Bunsei Sh"in, 2008), 301 and Haruo Shirane, Japan and the Culture of the
Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).

35

learned y!ga under an Italian painter, Antonio Fontanesi (1818-1882), and a year later
went to Paris, where he had been accepted as a student of Jean-Lon Grome (18241904). In the ten years he spent abroad from 1878 to 1887, he learned to master such
important techniques as mixing oil colors, perspective, modeling, chiaroscuro and other
fundamentals that had never been part of traditional Japanese art training.30 After his
return to Tokyo, Yamamoto, along with G"da Kiyoshi (1862-1038), opened a painting
academy called the Seik"-kan.31 In his later years, Yamamoto worked on the production
of Western-style stage setting.32 Yamamoto never fails to appear in the literature of
modern Japanese art history as one of the representative y!ga painters who learned the art
of oil painting from a successful academic painter in Europe at a very early stage. Yet his
painting practices could not be reduced solely to the realm of fine art. Indeed, this
individual artists resume reflects the fluctuations that existed in the early history of y!ga.
Goseda, from whom Yamada first learned Western-style painting, produced y!ga as
misemono and K"bu Bijutsu Gakk", Japans first official art school he attended, taught

30

J. Thomas Rimer, Tokyo in Paris/Paris in Tokyo, in Paris in Japan: the Japanese Encounter
with European Painting, eds. Takashina Shuji, J. Thomas Rimer, and Gerald D. Bolas (Tokyo:
Japan Foundation; St. Louis: Washington University, 1987), 38.
31

The Seik"-kan was later turned over to Kuroda Seiki (1866-1924), who renamed it Tenshin
D"j" and made it the center of the plein-air school. It was Yamamoto who recognized Kurodas
gift for painting while Kuroda was still studying law in Paris and encouraged him to pursue a
career in art.
32

In fact, besides easel paintings, Yamamoto studied mural decoration under Paul Baudry (18281886), who was famous for the decorations in the foyer of the Opera Garnier, during his stay in
Paris. Erika Takashina, Un dcor japonais en Bretagne, Revue de lart 109, no.1 (1995): 60-62.

36

y!ga as a technique.33 After returning from his study in France, Yamada painted y!ga for
Japanese first diorama as his colleagues, major Meiji y!ga painters, such as Koyama
Sh"tar" (1857-1916) and Asai Ch# (1856-1907), drew paintings for panoramas.34
Eventually, he worked on window displays. At least until around the late Meiji period,
the artistic field seemed not to be exclusively divided into fine art (junsui bijutsu) and
applied art (!y! bijutsu) or commercial art (sh!gy! bijutsu) and, of course, the hierarchy
between them did not yet seem to be solidified.
Although Yamamoto had experience in painting dioramas, his career in stage sets
started with katsujinga (living picture or tableau vivant) produced for the Kibo festival
held on April 25 and 26, 1903.35 Katsujinga refers to a show that is presented on stage by
costumed actors who remain silent and motionless as if in a picture throughout the
duration of the display. Yamamoto suggested katsujinga to the festivals organizer, who
was searching for an ingenious event to draw a large audience, and Yamamoto himself
33

At a time when the general public in Japan was not still familiar with the art of oil painting,
G"seda H"ry# and his son Yoshimitsu ran Seiy"gak", which showed oil paintings as misemono
and charged admission. The store opened in 1874 in Asakusa. For further discussion of G"sedas
Seiy"gak", see Kinoshita Naoyuki, Aburae Chaya, in Bijutsu to iu misemono (Tokyo:
Tsukuma Shob", 1999), 174-183. The establishment of the Technical Art School in 1876 was
closely related to the governments plan to fukoku-ky!hei (enrich the country, strengthen the
military). The curriculum of the school, affiliated with the Imperial College of Technology under
the K"bush" (Ministry of Industry and Technology), concentrated on the mastery of Western
painting techniques such as linear perspective and chiaroscuro for realistic representation, which
aided the development of engineering and military strategies.
34

Asai Ch# participated in the production of Ganda Panoramakan. In 1896, Koyama Sh"tar"
drew battle scenes of the Sino-Japanese War for Nihon Panoramakan. According to Kinoshita,
panoramas provided Japanese painters with opportunities to draw history paintings, which were
considered as the most superior genre in the tradition of Western painting. Kinoshita,
Panorama, in Bijutsu to iu misemono, 216-261.
35

Yamamoto participated in the production of the first diorama produced in Japan in July 1889. It
was built in Asakusa Hayashiki and depicted four episodes from history.

37

participated in the production of it.36 Not only did he direct the show, but he also painted
its backdrops and supervised its stage lighting.37 The Kibo festivals katsujinga revolved
around twelve historical female figures from Nara and Heian to the Edo period. Each
figures story was performed as a separate scene. Using perspective and life-size scale,
Yamamoto represented spaces from the interior of a samurais mansion to the outdoors in
two-dimensional paintings as realistically as in trompe loeil. (Fig. 1.14) Artificial
lighting helped to create the illusion. Yamamoto continued to make stage sets for the
first Japanese-made opera Orpheus and plays of many theaters including Kabukiza,
Hong"za, and Meijiza.38 Yamamotos engagement with Mitsukoshis window display
makes more sense when located in his stage works. Both required the artistic skill
needed to control large expanses of canvas beyond the dimensions of regular easel
paintings and called upon the design consider the effect of artificial lighting. (Fig. 1.15)
In terms of time as well, his first background paintings for katsujinga were produced in

36

Shimoda Utako, the principal of Jissenjogaku (Jissen Womens school), was the organizer of
the Kibo festival, which was a gala event to raise funds for a new womens school.
37

Yamamotos students also participated in the production of this katsujinga. Among them,
Wada Sanz" (1883-1967) was included. Kyotani Yoshinori, Meiji 36 nen no katsujinga: Kibo
eny#kai$ Kabukiza rekishi katsujinga k"gy"$ T"ky" bijutsugakko kinen bijutsusai,
Bunkashigengaku 5, (2006): 23. Footnote 6.
38

Kojima Kaoru and Hara Maiko, Kibo eny#kai kanren shiry" sh"kai to Yamamoto H"sui
katsujinga ni tsuite, Bigakubijutsushigaku 23 (March 2009): 6. For further discussion of
Yamamoto H"suis works for stage settings, see Sakamoto Mai, Yamamoto H"sui to y"gahaikei
no ry#k", Waseda daigaku daigakuin bungaku kenky"ka kiy! (2000): 79-88.

38

late April of 1903 and only about five months later he produced one or more paintings for
Mitsukoshis show window.39
In contrast to iki-ningy!, katsujinga presented an image of high culture because it
was derived from Europe.40 Nonetheless, katsujinga was analogous to iki-ningy! in that
both of them entertained people with a combination of verisimilitude in representation
and the theatrical display of narrative. The department stores employed a similar
aesthetic strategy with these entertainments in their show window displays.
Within show windows, images set apart from the everyday lives of most customers were
presented as if they were available realities. Like iki-ningy! and katsujinga, show
window displays created an illusion by rendering unrealities in a realistic manner.41
For many customers enchanted with the realistic spectacle of the show window, the new
consumer culture was not a reality but a dream, available to the eyes but unattainable.
According to Walter Benjamin, capitalism endowed objects with the means to express
collective dreams; he referred to department stores in nineteenth century Paris as dream
houses of the collective along with arcades, railway stations, and wax museums.42

39

In July 1903, Yamamoto produced background paintings for another katsujinga held in
Kabukiza. For further discussion of Kabukiza katsujinga, see Kyotani, Meiji 36 nen no
katsujinga, 17-19.
40

On March 12, 1887, katsujinga was for the first time performed in Japan by Germans living in
Japan to raise funds to support Hakuaisha (the predecessor of the Japanese Red Cross). From that
time, katsujinga became popular, but most of them were organized and produced by foreigners.
The Kibo festivals katsujinga was the first one produced by Japanese.
41

I borrowed this phrase from the flyer of Sapins lecture Advertising Women: Department
Stores and Gender Construction in Meiji Japan held in June 2011 at Kyoto University.
42

Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing, 271-272.

39

The introduction of display cases and show windows changed the concept of
shopping. Shopping, which had been defined as the purposeful acquisition of goods,
became a leisure activity, which involved the pleasure of looking at an array of
merchandise on display. The stores offered a kind of amusement that had not been part
of the shopping experience in Edo-period gofukuten. The new inventions of large plate
glass and electric lighting made possible a momentous change in the stores display
techniques. Increases in window area and better forms of artificial lighting served to
bring more light into the dark interior selling space of the store. The goods on display
were more visible to the customer, who was invited to wander freely inside the store, as if
in an exhibition. The development of new technologies also contributed to making the
window display more spectacular. According to Toyoizumi Masuz", whom Mitsukoshi
sent to New York to study the technique of window display in 1903 and 1905, passersby
stared in wonder at the huge plate glass window when it was first installed at Mitsukoshi
in 1903. At the time, 4 by 6 shaku size plate glass could not be manufactured using
domestic technology and thus was a very rare item.43 In the same year, Shirokiya also
installed two show windows, one on each side of its main entrance, with large plate glass
imported from Belgium.44 Equipped with the latest technology, the show window
highlighted its spectacular quality, offering a new vista of urban space.

43

1 shaku is approximately 1 foot.

44

Plate glass was difficult to manufacture, and only panes of minimal size could be produced
with the old technology. There had been many attempts throughout the late nineteenth century to
produce high-quality plate glass, but none were successful until Osaka manufacturer Shimada
Magoichi successfully produced thin plate glass suitable for show windows in 1903. Takayanagi
Mika, Sh!uind! monogatari (Tokyo: Keis" Shob", 1994), 100.

40

When day turned to night, a flood of electric light turned the show window into an
even more dramatic theatrical stage. (Fig. 1.16-1.18) Passersby were compelled to gaze
at the illuminated show windows with rapt attention:
Night view of the Mitsui gofukuten: As a project to renovate the decoration of the
store front, the Mitsui gofukuten installed a show window in Western style on the
walls facing a grand avenue and Tsuruga-cho and decorated the show window
beautifully with merchandise such as wide obi, ornaments, bags, and kimono
collars. From yesterday the store has been lit up every night with hundreds of
lights installed both inside the show window and at the end of the eaves. It looks
as if all kinds of flowers are blossoming. To see the great spectacle with their
own eyes, people came from all quarters.45
An article in the October 2, 1903, issue of Ch"gaish!gy! shinp! called a crowd of people
who flocked to see Mitsukoshis show window and its illuminations kenbutsunin
(spectators).46 As the show window became a stage, the street turned into a theater and
passersby became spectators. (Fig. 1.19 and 1.20)
The practice of shopping was transformed from the verbal and gestural
interchange between a customer and a clerk to the customers one-way looking at things
on display with a voyeuristic gaze. The shift in shopping practice emerged from, and
also ran parallel to a transformation in the social relations associated with the rise of
metropolitan urban culture. George Simmel notes the predominance of the gaze in the
modern metropolis as follows:
Someone who sees without hearing is much more uneasy than someone who hears
without seeing. In this there is something characteristic of the sociology of the
big city. Interpersonal relationships in big cities are distinguished by a
45

T!ky! nichinichi shinbun, October 3, 1903.

46

Ch"gaish!gy! shinp!, October 2, 1903.

41

marked preponderance of the activity of the eye over the activity of the ear. The
main reason for this is the public means of transportation. Before the
development of buses, railroads, and trams in the nineteenth century, people had
never been in a position of having to look at one another for long minutes or even
hours without speaking to one another.47
Within public spaces including public transportation conveyances, people became
subjects as well as objects of a desiring gaze. The desire to look but not to be looked at
was inextricably related to the explosion of new institutions of visual display such as
museums and worlds fairs, and also entertainment venues such as dioramas, panoramas,
zoos and films. During the shows or within the exhibitions, the audiences could enjoy
the pleasure of looking without the expectation of ones gaze being returned.48 This
explains why these new institutions gained popularity among the urban crowd. In
Window Shopping, Ann Friedberg asserts that a wide variety of apparatuses extended the
field of the visible and turned the pleasure of looking into a commodity form.49
Department stores also invited people to look at goods and associated that looking with
pleasure. While not commercial in themselves in that viewing was free, displays of
goods in the stores were indisputably tied to the construction of new desires, turning
spectators into consumers.

47

Georg Simmel, Sociologie, 4th ed. (Berlin: 1958), 486. Cited in Walter Benjamin, Charles
Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism (London; New York: Verso, 1997), 3738.
48

In a discussion of cinematic spectation, Anne Friedberg compares the film spectator to the
unseen seer in the position of omnipotent voyeurism. Anne Friedberg, Window Shopping:
Cinema and the Postmodern (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 20.
49

Friedberg, Window Shopping, 15

42

Fashion and the Establishment of Design Sections

Following the adoption of chinretsu hanbai (display sales), Takahashi Yoshio
devoted himself to promoting the idea that there could be fashion in kimono patterns.
During his visit to Paris, Takahashi observed that new cloth designs were being
introduced every year by Parisian tailor shops and spread to other European cities and
even as far afield as America. On the other hand, it was hard to imagine that such a
phenomenon of fashion could take place in Japan, where kimono worn by a grandmother
had been handed down to her granddaughter.50 In addition, regardless of the season, old
and young ladies alike wore almost the same pattern of kimono without distinctions.
Since not only were plain and simple patterns preferred but also since the pattern was
placed at the very lower edge of kimono, it was hard to give an impression even if a new
pattern was created.51 Inspired by his own observation of fashion in Paris, Takahashi
attempted to adopt into the kimono market a modern system of fashion, which increased
the amount of consumption by a rapid turnover of stock. In order to enable the store to
promote particular motifs and colors for particular seasons and social contexts, it was
necessary to diversify the kinds of patterns beyond the limited selection of pattern books
(hinagatabon) passed down from the Edo period.
In 1895, Mitsukoshi opened an ish!ge (design section) and began to employ
nihonga painters as in-house designers to create and draw new patterns for kimono
textiles. Painters who worked under the sections chief, Momiyama T"sh# (1858-?)
50

Takahashi, H!ki no ato, 415-416.

51

Ibid., 259-260.

43

included the Sumiyoshi schools senior painter Katayama Kand" (1830?-1905); the
renowned Kyoto nihonga painter Kawabata Gyokush"s (1842-1913) students Fukui
K"tei (1866-1937), Shimazaki Ry#u (1865-1937), Takahashi Gyokuen (1858-1938), and
Toda Gyokush" (1873-1933); and Sawaga Hyakuga, a student of Araki Kanpo (18311912), who was famous for his bird-and-flower paintings.52 Mitsukoshi ish!ge was
composed of nihonga painters from both the Sumiyoshi school, which continued the
yamatoe tradition in the Edo area, and the Maruyama school, which emerged in the late
eighteenth century in the Kyoto area.53
In order to expand the design repertoire of the store, Mitsukoshi ish!ge not only
developed new patterns but also collected excellent patterns of kimono that appeared in
paintings by old masters from T"sa and Sumiyoshi through S"tasu and K"rin to
Moronobu, Shunsh", Utamaro, Settei, and Sakayuki. If there were interesting patterns to
be found, Takahashi copied them regardless of their source, from emaki (picture scrolls),
kosode (short-sleeved kimono), folding screens, and even shunga (erotic prints), and
bound them into a moy" sh#ch" (pattern album) for future reference.54
Before Mitsukoshi established ish!ge, the idea of having painters work in textile
design first began with Takashimaya, which had early on responded to the burgeoning
52

Ibid., 417-418. Kawabata Gyokush" had been invited by Okakura Kakuz" to teach Maruyama
school style at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts and taught there from 1888 to 1912. When he
established his own art school in 1909, his students worked for the school as teachers. Araki
Kanpo also taught at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts.
53

For further information about each artists work at Mitsukoshi ish!ge, see K"go Eriko, Mitsui
gofukuten ni okeru Takahashi Yoshio to ish"ge, Waseda daigeku daigakuin bungaku kenky"ka
kiy! (2005), 161-174.
54

Takahashi, H!ki no ato, 416-418.

44

demand for Japanese textiles among foreigners.55 Capitalizing on the vogue of

Japonisme, the fascination with Japanese art and craft in Europe and America,
Takashimaya expanded its merchandise to include items for the foreign market such as
embroidered folding screens, wall hangings, framed textiles, and tablecloths.56 In 1882,
Takashimaya began to hire a number of leading Kyoto nihonga painters including Kishi
Chikud" (1826-1897) and Imao Keinen (1845-1924) as regular employees to create
underdrawings for decorative textiles made with y"zen (paste resist-dyed) or
embroidery.57 In 1885, Takashimaya set up a gak!shitsu (painting studio) and, in 1889,
hired another group of painters, including Tanaka Ikka (1864-1924) and Takeuchi Seih"
(1864-1942). Beginning with the sixth Kyoto Exposition in 1877, Takashimaya regularly

55

Although there is a general lack of academic interest in the artistic practices of department
stores, the collaboration of nihonga artists with Takashimaya, especially for its textiles destined
for the foreign market, has attracted the interest of scholars. Julia E. Sapin, Liaisons between
Painters and Department Stores: Merchandising Art and Identity in Meiji Japan, 1868-1912
(PhD diss., University of Washington, 2003); Julia E. Sapin, Merchandising Art and Identity in
Meiji Japan: Kyoto Nihonga Artists Design for Takashimaya Department Store, 1868-1912;
Hirota Takashi, Meijiki Ky"to no senshoku to Nihonga: Takashimaya shiry" o ch#shin ni,
Dezain riron, 41 (2000), 47-60; Hirota Takashi, Meijiki gohankara Taish" shoki no
Takashimaya ni okeru Takeuchi Seih" no tachiba, Dezain riron, 44 (2004), 79-88; Hirota
Takashi, Takashimaya b!ekibu bijutsu senshoku sakuhin no kiroku shashinsh", (Kyoto: Ky"to
Joshi Daigaku, 2009); Hiroko T. McDermott, Meiji Kyoto Textile Art and Takashimaya,
Monumenta Nipponica 65, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 37-88.
56

Japanese art and crafts had been included in the London Exhibition of 1862 (not an official
government entry, the works displayed belonged to Sir Rutherford Alcock, the first British
consul-general to Japan) and in the Paris International Exposition of 1867 (the Tokugawa
government and the Satsuma and Saga clans sent materials separately from Japan). The Japanese
present at these two pre-Meiji period expositions exposed the West to the exotic and previously
little known art and crafts of Japan, resulting in a sudden and rapid increase in Western interest in
Japanese culture. The term Japonisme was coined in 1872. Japonisme hit its peak around the
time of the 1878 Paris Exposition. Art and decorative art objects accounted for approximately ten
percent of the total national exports from the late 1870s until the early 1890s.
57

Takashimaya 150 nenshi (Osaka: Takashimaya Honsha, 1982), 60.

45

participated in domestic and international expositions with decorative textiles designed

by its nihonga painters.58
As Julia E. Sapin notes, the connection between painters and textile design has a
long history.59 Improving design by hiring painters began in the late seventeenth century,
when kimono design was becoming increasingly painterly with the development of a new
paste-resist dyeing technique (y"zen). Granted, the formats that Takashimaya
gak!shitsus painters produced designs for had expanded beyond kimono to include
textiles for the interior furnishings of Western houses, but Takashimayas gak!shitsu
operated for the same purpose that the traditional collaboration between painters and
gofukuten had. In other words, Takashimaya gak!shitsus painters worked toward
improving the aesthetic quality of the product.
On the other hand, the rasion detre of Mitsukoshis ish!ge was different from
that of Takashimayas gak!shitsu. Mitsukoshis ish!ge was organized to foster new
trends and to encourage customers pursuit of fashion. If Takashimayas gak!shitsu was
established for the aestheticization of commodities, Mitsukoshis ish!ge was created for
the commodification of the aesthetic. Mitsukoshis ish!ge secured its nihonga painters
skills to generate fashion, which relentlessly strives for novelty. One thing to be noted
is that here the novelty does not necessarily require aesthetic originality, but needs to be
aesthetically distinct from what came immediately before. This explains why the notion
of retro exists in fashion. For the continual creation of consumer desire, the distinctive
58

From 1868 until the end of World War I, fifty percent of Japans exports were textile-related.
Sapin, Liaisons between Painters and Department Stores, 73.
59

Ibid., 35-47.

46

features of a new trend should be visually registered. What cultivates false need and
what legitimates superfluous consumption is the visually evident difference between a
new commodity and older ones that the customer already owns. Ceaselessly offering
new designs with a short life cycle is crucial in the production of fashion. Aware of this
mechanism of fashion, Takahashi endeavored to augment ish!ges pattern bank.
Takahashi had ish!ges painters not only create new patterns but also gather various
patterns from as many old sources as possible. These collected patterns from the past
served as models and inspiration for the development of new patterns.
Developing the means by which the store could publicize new kimono patterns
was the domain of ish!ge as well. In addition to permanent displays on sales floors,
every spring and fall Mitsukoshi held special exhibitions called Shinmoy" Chinretsukai
(Exhibition of New Patterns) inside the store, displaying new textiles and textile designs
and stimulating customers interest.60 Mitsukoshis exhibitions were soon followed by
those in the other stores.61 The stores actively sought to introduce an exposition
atmosphere within their walls and furthered the hakurankaika (expositionization) of the

60

Mitsukoshis first recorded exhibition that focused on new patterns occurred in April 1901.

61

Matsuya held its first in-house textile exhibition in 1904 and Daimaru did so in 1910. Even
before holding regular exhibitions of new patterns, the stores had sponsored competitions for new
patterns to gather ideas for new designs: Takashimaya since 1891, Mitsukoshi since 1899,
Matsuzakaya since 1906, Daimaru since 1908, and Shirokiya since 1910. The stores also began to
hold exhibitions to display the prizewinners. Sapin, Liaisons between Painters and Department
Stores, 90.

47

stores.62 The stores thus became the permanent offspring of the ephemeral industrial
exposition.
In addition to in-house exhibitions, in order to spread new patterns over the whole
city, Mitsukoshi ish!ge presented kimono made with new patterns to popular geisha and
ensured that they wore new Mitsukoshi kimono when dancing at parties they attended.
(Fig. 1.21) In the Edo period, geisha in the pleasure quarters such as Yoshiwara attracted
a great deal of public attention as stylish women (iki na onna).63 This phenomenon
somehow managed to survive until the early twentieth century. Geisha were still
considered to be fashion leaders and celebrities, setting the standards for beauty.
Mitsukoshi magazine surveyed geisha across the city about what they were wearing the
coming season and published the results of the survey in its pages as a kind of guide for
the next seasons fashion trend.64 In addition, geishas reviews of their shopping

62

The term hakurankaika was coined by Hatsuda T"ru. See Hyakkaten no tanj! (Tokyo:
Sanseid", 1993), 129-31. The practice of displaying and browsing goods was first introduced to
the Japanese public by various expositions (hakurankai) sponsored by central and local
governments beginning in the early Meiji era. There is an institution called kank!ba, which
preceded the department stores in adopting display techniques from expositions. Kank!ba is a
type of public market like an emporium, gathering a variety of small shops under one roof and
selling off products left over from the expositions. The first one was established by the Ministry
of Finance in 1878, one year after the First National Exposition. Hatsuda T"ru drew a genealogy
of browsing goods that extended from the industrial exposition through kank!ba to the
department store. See Hatsuda for a full discussion of kank!ba.
63

Tomoko Tamari, Women and Consumption: The Rise of the Department Store and the New
Woman in Japan 1900-1930, (PhD diss., Nottingham Trent University, 2002), 93.
64

Kary#kai no haregi, Jik! (January 1906), 39-41

48

experiences at Mitsukoshi were published in the magazine as indirect advertisements for

the store.65
Probably the most successful fashion trend generated by Mitsukoshi during this
period was the Genroku boom. In his autobiography, Takahashi Yoshio quoted an
unnamed source to recall the times:
Genroku-style clothing was first worn by the top geisha of Shinbashi including
Matsuju, Kiyoka, Gor", Eiry#, Hisa, and Jitsuko. The geisha, who were
coordinated in the Genroku style from obi to hair style and hair ornaments,
performed to the new song for Genroku dance that Takahashi wrote the lyrics for,
Kineya Kangor" composed, and Fujima Kanemon choreographed for. In the
spring of Meiji 38 [1905] when Mitsui gofukuten changed its name to Mitsukoshi,
in the field of social life the Genroku style emerged and looked just like it had
been depicted in ukiyoe. Newspapers and magazines ardently covered this
fashion and picture postcards, in vogue since the beginning of the war [RussoJapanese war], widely distributed images of the fashion. The kyogen (comic
drama) performed at Kabukiza in March included the Genroku dance. The
fashion was instantly conveyed to the Osaka area as well. With the rise of the
flamboyant mood of the nation following its victory in the war, the Genroku style
became prevalent not just in clothing but also in everyday objects. Capitalizing
on this fashion, innumerable goods named Genroku came into being including
Genroku combs, Genroku sandals, Genroku socks, Genroku pipes, Geroku fans,
Genroku handkerchiefs, Genroku neckties and Genroku y"zen. In addition, even
Genroku dishes began to be served and old books from the Genroku era rapidly
escalated in value. Meanwhile, Genroku research flourished and related writings
were published. Indeed, the Genroku style was booming at the time.66
Of course, the Genroku boom was not created overnight. From the research on the
65

For example, an Akasaka geisha named Hayashiya, discussed the leading items in
contemporary fashion and how she bought them at Mitsukoshi (in Jik!, August 1908, 8); another
Akasaka geisha, Harumoto, reminded readers that she preferred to buy kimono at Mitsukoshi,
which had a large selection of designs enabling a wide choice (in Jik!, May 1908, 9); Masuya in
Asakusa said that she was happy to shop at Mitsukoshi since nobody was negative about her
sense of taste when she wore the kimono she bought at Mitsukoshi. She was sure that Mitsukoshi
was the best kimono shop (in Jik!, May 1908, 10). Cited in Tamari, Women and Consumption,
280-281.
66

Takahashi, H!ki no ato, 417-418.

49

Genroku period (1688-1703) to the promotion of its fashion, the Genroku boom was
carefully orchestrated by Takahashi, who had learned from the failure of another fashion
project he had developed ten years before. In 1896, Takahashi envisaged commercial
opportunities coming amidst the favorable economic climate following Japans victory in
the Sino-Japanese war (1894-5) and ordered ish!ge to create new patterns that would
appeal to the flamboyant taste of the general public in a festive mood. As a result, a new
pattern with willow, cherry blossoms and butterflies on a yellow background was made
and named date moy" (dandy pattern). Kimono made with this pattern were given to
famous Shinbashi geisha, who wore the kimono as they performed the date moy" song
and dance created by Takahashi for the occasion.67 Date moy" was briefly in vogue in
the pleasure quarters, but failed to spread widely.68 Nonetheless, Takahashi never gave
up on the creation of fashion and waited for another opportunity to come along.
While Takahashi was researching ish!ges pattern album to create a new fashion
trend that would celebrate the transformation from Mitsui gofukuten to Mitsukoshi
department store, he found fascinating patterns made in the Genroku period. The years
of Genroku were the Golden Age of the Tokugawa era. With political and economic
stability and the growth of cities, art and culture flourished in urban areas. In terms of
fashion, kimono of large and showy patterns using sumptuous fabrics were popular
during this period.69 Realizing the tendency that lavish and splendid patterns were in
67

Ibid., 267.

68

Ibid., 416.

69

The y"zen technique was first developed in the Genroku period.

50

demand during times of prosperity, Takahashi decided to develop a design project with
the theme of the Genroku period. Mitsukoshi ish!ge designed textile patterns, kimono
accessories, hair ornaments, and even makeup in Genroku style. (Fig. 1.22 and 1.23) In
order to garner publicity for the new fashion the store recently created, Mitsukoshi
sponsored a design competition for Genroku-style patterns in May 1905, awarding one
hundred yen to the winner.70 This competition drew attention from all over Japan and
served as momentum to initiate the Genroku boom. The end of the Russo-Japanese war
in June with Japans victory fueled the proliferation of the Genroku boom.
The reason why Geroku moy" was able to achieve fashion success, unlike date
moy", was, as Jinno Yuki pinpointed, that the economic situation of Japan had changed
between the Sino-Japanese war and Russo-Japanese war. During that period, capitalism
was established in Japan and not only the limited upper class but also the mass middle
class entered consumer society as consuming subjects.71 Yet, despite this economic
change, if Genroku style had been developed only as kimono pattern like date moy", it
might not have been possible to inspire such a tremendous response from the public and
that lasted as long as it did. Genroku boom did not fade until the end of Meiji period.
The unprecedented success of the Genroku boom was attributed to Mitsukoshis attempt
to revive the Genroku, a glorious historical period, encompassing its culture and customs.

70

The advertisement for the competition was published in Jik! (May 1905). It announced that
selected works would be exhibited at Mitsukoshis Shinmoy" Chinretsukai held in October.
The second prize-winning work was used as the cover of the October issue of Jik!.
71

Jinno Yuki, Shumi no tanj!: Hyakkaten ga tsukudda teisuto (Tokyo: Keis" Shob", 1994), 144.

51

As Noriko Aso aptly points out, Mitsukoshis Genroku campaign evoked nostalgia for
the Genroku period and transformed it into a commodity.72
The Genroku boom developed into a cultural phenomenon. The Genroku style
went beyond the realm of kimono and its accessories to architecture, interior decoration,
publications, and music. In the April 1905 issue of its house magazine Jik!, Mitsukoshi
published an article by Kubota Beisen (1852-1906), which introduced art and literature of
the Genroku period.73 Mitsukoshi conducted comprehensive research on the period with
the help of an advisory group called Genroku Kenky#-kai (Genroku research group).
The group was organized in July 1905 and comprised about fifty intellectuals including
the educator Tokawa Zanka (1855-1924), the journalist Fukuchi %chi (1841-1906), the
poet Tsunota Chikurei (?-1919), the novelist and critic Noguchi Yonejir" (1875-1947),
the critic Sasakawa Taneo (1870-1949), the literary scholar Sassa Seiichi (1896-1917),
the historian Okabe Seiji (1868-1920), the critic Yokoyama Tatsuz" (1872-1943), the art
administrator Masaki Naohiko (1862-1940), and ish!ges chief, Momiyama T"sh#.74 (Fig.
1.24) The members studied the culture and customs of the Genroku period from various
perspectives and presented their findings at the meetings.75 Scholarly works on
Genrokus culture and customs repeatedly appeared in Mitsukoshi magazines. In
October 1905, Mitsukoshi held Exhibition of Specimens of Genroku Period (Genroku
72

Aso, New Illusions, 172.

73

Kubota Beisen, Genroku Zatsuwa, Jik! (April 1905): 19-21.

74

Jik! (August 1905).

75

Reports of two meetings held on July 25 and November 15 were published in the August and
December issues of Jik! respectively.

52

jidai sank"hin chinretsukai), exhibiting art and everyday objects that reflected the culture
and customs of the period. (Fig. 1.25) These historical objects from the Genroku period
were displayed alongside Mitsukoshis new Genroku goods. Mitsukoshi allowed
customers to satisfy their nostalgia for the Genroku period by consuming Genroku
goods.
Among the cultural productions and customs of the Genroku period, Mitsukoshi
drew on Ogata K"rins (1658-1716) art in particular when it cultivated the Genroku style.
In October 1904, Mitsukoshi held K"rins Posthumous Works Exhibition (K"rin Ihin
tenrankai), which was recorded as the first art exhibition held at Mitsukoshi.76 The
exhibition featured K"rins figure paintings, flower-and-bird paintings, and landscape
paintings from the Mitsui family collection. The exhibition met with great success; on
the first day alone, more than 17,500 people visited it.77 On October 29, prominent
nihonga painters of the day such as Hashimoto Gah", Kawabata Gyokush", and Araki
Kanpo came to the store to see the K"rin show. In conjunction with this exhibition of
K"rins paintings, the store also exhibited the winning works of that seasons design
competition, which had focused on reviving the style of K"rin.78
Ogata K"rin is the representative artist of the Genroku period as well as an
originator of the Rinpa painting lineage, whose art is characterized by its highly
76

Kubota Beisen published an article titled K"rin no shuk", in Jik! (September 1903): 6.

77

K"rin Ihin tenrankai ry#k" to bijutsubunka no hasshinji: hyakaten no tanj", Getsukan

bijutsu (January 2007): 94. The store, which opened at 7 a.m., was already full at 8 a.m. and
closed at 3:30 p.m., earlier than usual.
78

In conjunction with the exhibition, the October issue of Jik! was published as a special issue
devoted to K"rin. Jik! 2 no.10 (October 1924).

53

decorative style. Rinpa paintings, including K"rins, rendered the themes of literary
classics and seasonal flowers in stylized forms using bright colors, with the background
filled in with gold or silver leaf. Rinpa artists worked in various formats including
folding screens, hanging scrolls, sliding doors, fans, lacquerware, ceramics, and
kimono textiles. In other words, Rinpa artists were not only painters but also designers,
straddling the modern divide between fine art and applied art. In particular, born as a son
of Kyoto gofukuten Kariganeya, K"rin had intimate knowledge of kimono design and
painted for kimono textiles himself. From 1710 to 1730, a style called K"rin moy",
which stylized familiar flower and traditional patterns, was in fashion for kosode. For
Mitsukoshi, which was searching in traditional arts for models and inspiration to create
new kimono patterns, nothing was more attractive than Rinpa, particularly K"rins art.
Following its first K"rin exhibition in 1904, Mitsukoshi utilized K"rin a few times more
as the theme of its seasonal competitions for new pattern designs.79 Mitsukoshi got
people to experience K"rins art in the form of cultural goods inseparably linked with
Mitsukoshis Genroku fashion.
Mitsukoshis appropriation of K"rins art did not stop at the point of borrowing
the style and motifs of his works. The persona of K"rin, the school he belonged to, and
the cultural environment he and his patrons lived in were made the objects of public
curiosity by Mitsukoshi. According to an article titled Ogata K"rin ni tsuite (About
79

The K"rinshiki Meiji Moy" (K"rin-Style Meiji Pattern) competition was held in October
1908. Among the 1211 submissions, 92 works were selected and the selected works were
exhibited at the Shinmoy" Chinretsukai. In conjunction with the competition, K"rinsai
(K"rin Festival) was held on October 12. In the following year, Mitsukoshi held the K"rin-Style
Meiji Pattern competition once more. In 1932, Rinpafu K"geihin Tenrankai (Exhibition of
Rinpa Style Crafts) was held in Mitsukoshi again in conjunction with the K"rin Festival.

54

Ogata K"rin) published in Mitsukoshi magazine, on the anniversary of K"rins death in

June 1909, Mitsukoshi held a memorial service for K"rin and even repaired K"rins tomb
in Kyoto with a pledge of permanent care.80 (Fig. 1.26) More than 150 people, including
writers, artists, and entrepreneurs, were invited to this event. Mitsukoshi anointed itself
as the official supporter of K"rin and his art, attempting to monopolize the profits from
its association with this great Genroku period artist. Not only did Mitsukoshi enhance its
reputation by summoning K"rin from the past, but also the artists status in history was
reinforced by the stores promotion.81 Contingently or not, Yokoyama Taikan (18681958) and Hishida Shuns" (1874-1911), who had produced m!r!tai (hazy style) paintings
dominated by color masses and devoid of contour lines, began a serious study of Rinpa
and called K"rin a color impressionist in a pamphlet titled Kaiga ni tsuite (About
Painting) that they published in 1905, when Mitsukoshis Genroku boom peaked.82
According to a study on the Kyoto areas acceptance of K"rins art during the Meiji and
Taish" period, the number of articles about K"rin and his art published in Kyoto Bijutsu
Ky"kais (Kyoto Art Association) magazines increased noticeably in the years when

80

Okamoto Kissen, Ogata K"rin ni tsuite, Mitsukoshi taimusu 7, no. 13 (November 1909).
Since Mitsukoshi held its first K"rin Festival in October 1908, the store continued to hold the
festival annually every June 2, the anniversary of K"rins death. Especially in 1915, the 200th
such anniversary, Mitsukoshi held both a K"rin-Style Pattern Competition and a K"rins
Posthumous Works Exhibition.
81

For further discussion of the revival of K"rin by Mitsukoshi, see Tamamushi Satoko, Iki
tsudukeru K!rin: Im#gi to gensetsu o hakobu norimono to sono kiseki (Tokyo:
Yoshikawak"bunkan, 2004), 73-117.
82

Kitazawa Noriaki, Nihonga no teni (Tokyo: Buryukke, 2003), 11. Sat" D"shin, Meiji kokka
to kindai bijutsu: Bi no seijigaku (Tokyo: Yoshikawk"bunkan, 1999), 201.

55

Mitsukoshi held K"rin-related exhibitions or events.83 For example, in 1915, when

Mitsukoshi mounted an exhibition in commemoration of the bicentennial of K"rins
death by borrowing K"rins art and objects from collectors, almost forty articles in the
magazine covered K"rin and his art. The revival of K"rins art sparked by Mitsukoshi to
create a new fashion trend ultimately contributed to making Ogata K"rin among the most
popular artists in Japanese art history. Interestingly enough, Charles L. Freer (18541919) also began to collect Rinpa arts around the turn of the century.84 Whether
Mitsukoshis promotion of K"rin and Freers collection of Rinpa art were related to each
other is unknown, but, in any cases, interest in K"rin and Rinpa art exploded
simultaneously as a result of domestic and foreign market forces. The rise of K"rin in the
late Meiji period shows that market forces and popular consumption can play a major role
in determining who can come to be elevated to the status of master in the discourse of art
history.

Advertising and the Proliferation of Images of Beauty

Within the new visual culture of advertising, which was burgeoning at the turn of
the twentieth century, advertisements for department stores had a prominent place. The
stores pioneered the development of graphic advertising including billboards, posters,
handbills, flyers, picture postcards, and illustrated magazines. In 1899 Mitsukoshi
launched mail-order marketing, which needed to advertise new trends being created by
83

Sakaguchi Satoko, Ky"to bijutsu zasshi ni miru Meijiki Taish"ki no Ky"to ni okeru K"rinha
ni tsuite, Dezain riron 46 (Spring 2005): 37-50.
84

Freer visited Japan in 1907.

56

the store as well as the name of Mitsukoshi itself to customers in remote areas.85 First of
all, Mitsukoshi published its first house organ, Hanagoromo, in January 1899 and
distributed it throughout the nation.86 (Fig. 1.27) Although inaugurated for mail-order
marketing, the magazine was more than a mail-order catalogue, which merely provides a
list of objects in tables with small drawings. Along with its abundant and elegant
illustrations, Hanagoromo also featured articles that detailed store operations and new
design and fashion trends, as well as a novel by a renowned writer of the day, Ozaki
K"y" (1868-1903). Mitsukoshi ish!ges painter Shimazaki Ry#u drew an illustration for
K"y"s novel in the format of a contemporary literary magazine kuchie (color
woodblock-printed frontispiece). (Fig. 1.28) The lavishly illustrated magazine attracted
interest from a broad segment of the population. In August 1900, in the readers column
of the fashion magazine Ry"k!, the question Where can I get Mitsukoshis magazine?
was asked, and the editor answered the question as follows: Mitsukoshi magazine was
distributed to the stores customers. Thus, if you make a purchase at the store or become
a regular customer, it will be easy to get it. If not, however, I am not sure how to get

85

Kabushiki kaisha Mitsukoshi 85 nen no kioku (Tokyo: Mitsukoshi, 1990). 34.

86

Mitsukoshis publication of house magazines began with Hanagoromo (Flower Garments) in

1889. Natsugoromo (Summer Garments) followed the same year, and Haru moy! (Spring
Patterns) and Natsu moy! (Summer Patterns) were issued in 1900 on a biannual basis. After the
last such seasonal issue of Miyakoburi (The Metropolitan Way) in November 1903, Mitsukoshi
published the monthly magazine Jik! (Vogue) from 1903 to 1908. Jik! was replaced by
Mitsukoshi taimusu (Mitsukoshi Times) in 1908. Mitsukoshi was published alongside the
Mitsukoshi taimusu from 1911 to 1923 and on its own until 1932, after which it was issued on a
periodic basis until 1938. Following the end of the Russo-Japanese War, other department stores
also started to publish their own house magazines. For further information about department
stores house magazines, see Tsuchiya Reiko, Hyakkaten hakk" no kikan zasshi, in Hyakkaten
no bunkashi, 223-252.

57

it.87 This conversation on Ry"k!s pages demonstrates how much people craved
Mitsukoshi magazine, but also that its distribution was still limited.
While the magazine had a finite number of readers, billboards and posters
displayed in public spaces were able to communicate with anybody who moved through
the space in which they were displayed. Takahashi decided to produce a painted
billboard modeled on what he saw in London. Based on Takahashis idea that a billboard
sponsored by Mitsukoshi, a gofukuten, should feature a beauty wearing a stylish kimono,
the billboards illustration depicted a famous Shinbashi geisha, Kofumi, who dressed in
the latest fashion.88 (Fig.1.29) This life-size billboard was also painted by Shimazaki
Ry#u. Advertising was another important domain of ish!ge, which had to ensure the
success of the fashions the store created. As the forms of advertising expanded, so too
did ish!ges painters range of work. Shimazakis productions, for example, ranged from
woodblock print handbills to illustrations for house magazines to billboards. Staring in
June 1899, Mitsukoshi put up its painted billboard in the waiting room of Shinbashi
station, Ueno station and Osaka Umeda station in turn. It was the first Japanese billboard
placed in a public space for commercial purposes.89 Following its display in the major
cities listed above, this billboard traveled to the local stations of Niigata and Nagaoka
when Mitsukoshi launched its mail-order marketing in those areas. Ish!ges chief,

87

Ry"k! (August 1900), 29. Cited in Tsuchiya Reiko, Hyakkaten hakk" no kikan zasshi, in
Hyakkaten no bunkashi, 244.
88

Takahashi, H!ki no ato, 265.

89

Ibid., 265.

58

Momiyama T"sh#, was responsible for displaying the billboard.90 Mitsukoshi produced
several more billboards and displayed them in rotation each season.91
If a painted billboard was unable to be displayed simultaneously in multiple
places, innovations in printing technologies during the late 1890s enabled the production
of a cheap and easily reproducible poster, which overcame the limitations of a painted
billboard. Mitsukoshi began to produce posters using lithography and distributed them
throughout the country. In 1900 Mitsukoshi posters were displayed at thirty-nine stations
in T"kaid", Ch#koku, Shikoku, and Ky#sh#. The development of mechanical
reproduction technologies gave rise to a geographical extension of the customer base
through ever wider distribution of advertising.
In 1907, Mitsukoshi conducted a publicity campaign on an unprecedented scale.
To attract into its store people who had came from all over Japan to see the Tokyo
Kangy" Hakurankai (Tokyo Industrial Exposition) held in Ueno, Mitsukoshi made up a
catchphrase associated with the exposition: Anyone who comes to Tokyo must go to see
the exposition. Anyone who go to see the exposition must come to Mitsukoshi. Along
with this catchphrase, Mitsukoshi covered cities with posters advertising its exhibition of
new spring pattern designs, which would be held in the store during the same period as
the exposition.92 (Fig. 1.30) A poster painted by Hohokabe Kinsh# (1862-1930), another
ish!ge painter, featured a beautiful woman who was dressed up in the Genroku style with
90

K"go, Mitsui gofukuten ni okeru Takahashi Yoshio to ish"ge, 170.

91

Ibid., 171.

92

Mitsukoshi supplied its kimono geisha to perform a show at the entertainment hall of the
exposition in 1907.

59

stylized hair. The model for this poster was again the famous geisha Kiyoharu in
Shinbashi.93 Besides this poster, in 1907 Mitsukoshi produced at least two more posters
featuring an elegantly dressed young woman in a brightly decorated kimono and fine
brocade obi. (Fig.1.31 and 1.32) Mitsukoshi posters saturated the print media and public
and private spaces. The unprecedented circulation of images of beautiful women affected
the visual experience of the public.
In the novel Sanshir! by Natsume S"seki (1867-1916), serialized in Asahi
shinbun in 1908, there is a scene in which the protagonist Sanshir" gazes upon a
Mitsukoshi poster:
Next day, as expected, the weather was fine. It had been an unusually mild year,
and today was especially warm. Sanshiro went to the public bath in the morning.
It was nearly empty, there being few men of leisure left in the world. In the
changing room, he noticed a large advertisement for the Mitsukoshi fabric store,
which featured a drawing of a pretty woman who somehow looked like Mineko.
On closer inspection he saw that the eyes were different, and he could not tell how
straight the teeth were. Of Minekos features, it had been her eyes and her teeth
that had most startled Sanshiro. Yojiro was of the opinion that she was slightly
buck-toothed, which explained why her teeth were always showing, but Sanshiro
did not believe it.94
This scene revealed the ubiquity of Mitsukoshi posters in the late Meiji period and was
suggestive of their significance in the everyday life of the general public. Writing in
1908, S"seki was apparently confident that his readers would know of Mitsukoshi and its
posters. Thus, he could deploy the poster within a scene that required the involvement of
the readers visual imagination. By referring to a beautiful woman in a Mitsukoshi poster,
93

Sapin, Liaisons between Painters and Department Stores, 201.

94

Natsume S"seki, Sanshir!, trans. Jay Rubin (London; New York: Penguin, 2009), 117.

60

Sanshir" recalls and re-perceives features of Mineko, whom Sanshir" has affection for.
In other words, a representation of a beautiful woman became the standard by which to
judge the beauty of a real woman (although Mineko is a fictitious character in a novel,
she is real to Sanshir" within frame of the novel). Sanshir"s perception of Minekos
features is constructed or manipulated through the comparison with the imaginary woman
in the Mitsukoshi poster. This scene epitomizes the society of the spectacle, in which
representations proliferated to such an extent that they superseded reality. As Guy
Debord asserts, The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among
people, mediated by images.95 Spectacle invades and restructures the sphere of the
personal, private and everyday.
At the time, department stores posters most commonly took beauty as their sole
focus. Posters with a young lady in the latest fashion often employed geisha, prescriptive
icons of beauty, as models. Yet the posters were not portraits of an individual geisha.
Rather, they were close to bijinga (paintings of beauties), which, in a broad sense, refers
to paintings that depict a womans appearance and her attire as objects of aesthetic
appreciation without showing her personality. The term bijinga came into use in the
late 1890s and the narrow definition of bijinga denotes a particular genre conspicuous at
the Bunten and other nihonga exhibitions. However, many scholars have addressed the
difficulty in identifying bijingas parameters.96 Indeed, paintings that depicted a
95

Aphorism 4 in Society of the Spectacle, trans. Fredy Perlman and John Supak (Detroit: Black &
Red, 1967).
96

Miya Mizuta Lippit, Figures of Beauty: Aesthetics and the Beautiful Woman in Meiji Japan,
(PhD diss., Yale University, 2000), 72.

61

beautiful woman existed well before the Meiji period, and ukiyoe print series featuring
courtesans and the Maruyama schools paintings of beauties are retroactively called
bijinga. If the term is applied loosely, then department store posters can be called bijinga
as well in that they also depicted a beautiful woman not as a portrait but as an aesthetic
object that needed only be viewed. Within bijinga, the beauty is manifested not only in
the bijin (beautiful woman) herself her face, body and gesturebut also in the clothes
and ornaments she wears. As Miya Mitzuta Lippit argues, in contrast to the Western
nude painting, in which ideal beauty was represented as natural or eternal beauty, bijinga
represented bijin as unnatural or artificial beauty.97 According to Lippit, bijin in bijinga
was constituted as finite and historical, a subject to be decorated with Meiji ry"k!
(fashion and trend) and f"zoku (manner and custom).98 Within bijinga, the bijins
clothing, hairstyle, and make-up were elaborately depicted not just to provide a
decorative surface, but as signifiers of ry"k! and f"zoku of the time. The seasons were
often denoted by depictions of natural surroundings, the weather, plants, animals and
traditional yearly events. Bijinga, which featured beautiful women attired in high fashion,
participating in various seasonal events, perfectly fitted the advertising of department
stores, the business of which was closely associated with the commodification of
contemporary ry"k! and f"zoku. Bijinga posters were generally not pictorially intended
to represent a particular product the stores sold. Rather, the stores sought to invest their
trade with the refined image of bijin, thereby manipulating customers to believe that they
97

Ibid., 11.

98

Ibid., 9-10.

62

could achieve the stylish life that the bijin in the posters seemed to enjoy by shopping at
their stores. The good life and the proper self-image as imagined by growing numbers of
Japanese increasingly relied on the representation of advertisings. Although a bijin in
bijinga posters may seem to be consumed as an aesthetic object, ultimately that
imaginary bijin, who was mobilized in the service of consumption, influenced peoples
perception of the self and others and even their social relations, as in Sanshir!.
Hamanaka Shinji states in the catalogue of the exhibition The Birth of Bijinga
(Bijinga no Tanj") that even a nihonga genre bijinga as narrowly defined was not created
solely by the field of exhibitions, but was supported by the image of bijin that appeared in
various media such as book and magazine covers, kuchie, sashie (illustrations), postcards
and posters.99 From the 1890s onward, prior to the advent of bijinga in Bunten, the
figure of the bijin appeared with unprecedented frequency in popular visual
representation.100 The proliferation of the image of bijin in mass culture gave rise to the
birth of bijinga in high art. The increasing popularity of bijinga even led to the
establishment of bijinga-shitsu, a special room dedicated to the display of bijinga, at
the ninth Bunten in 1915. Many of the artists who had formerly drawn images of bijin
for illustrations or posters exhibited bijinga at the Bunten. The Mitsukoshi ish!ge painter
Shimazaki Ry#u also presented a bijinga hanging scroll titled Onaidoshi (The Same Age)
at the second Bunten in 1908 and won the third prize. Onaidoshi, which is now housed
99

Hamanaka Shinji, Bijinga no tanj", soshite genei, Bijinga no tanj! (Tokyo: Yamatane
bijutsukan, 1997), 14-15.
100

The publishing company Hakubunkan included kuchie in its literary magazine Bungei Kurabu
from 1895 for almost twenty years. Its kuchie, especially bijinga kuchie, were very popular. Thus
the company published only bijinga kuchie from 1902.

63

in Tokyo National Museum (T"ky" Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan), depicts two women

dressed in the finest kimono and elegantly decorated obi. (Fig. 1.33) Interestingly enough,
this painting was very similar to Mitsukoshis first painted billboard that Shimazaki
himself had produced in 1899 in terms of composition, the figures postures and their
clothing and hairstyle. (Fig. 1.29)

In both paintings, one woman is standing with her

back toward the viewer, displaying her ornate obi and the other woman is facing her
companion, showing her face to the viewer. All of the four women in the billboard and
painting are wearing furisode (long-sleeved kimono worn by young women before
marriage) and have their hair in nihon gami (traditional womens hairstyle).101 Since the
billboard is left only in a black-and-white image, it is hard to tell the color of the clothing,
but the obi and the kimonos hemlines are all elaborately decorated with patterns. Given
such parallels in the two works, it is fair to say that Shimazaki referred to the Mitsukoshi
billboard he had produced about ten years earlier when he painted Onaidoshi to submit to
the Bunten. Here, a conventional hierarchy between high art as original and mass
culture as copy collapses. It is not the case that high art was appropriated into mass
culture, but rather that mass culture served as an original that high art was modeled on.
As mentioned above, many of the artists who earned their reputations as bijinga
painters at the Bunten had been already famous for their bijinga illustrations. After they
began to exhibit their bijinga at the Bunten and other nihonga exhibitions, they continued
101

According to an article in the April 1908 issue of Jik!, the majority of Japanese women had
changed their hairstyle from nihon gami (Japanese hairstyle) to sokuhatsu (bun). Ninety percent
of Japanese women of the time preferred sokuhatsu, which was a much simpler style than nihon
gami and similar to Victorian womens hairstyle. When Shimazaki painted Onaidoshi to submit
to the Bunten, nihon gami was not the most common hairstyle for women. This means that he
intentionally chose this style for his paintings.

64

to produce bijinga in various media. Among them, department store posters were
included. Renowned bijinga painters such as Kaburaki Kiyokata (1878-1972), Kitano
Tsunetomi (1880-1947), and Ikeda Sh"en (1886-1917) were often commissioned by
department stores to produce their posters. Kiyokatas Matsuya poster in 1916, Kitano
Tsunetomis Takashimaya poster in 1916, and Ikeda Sh"ens Daimaru poster in 1915
captured the essence of each artists bijinga to the extent that they could be exhibited at
the Bunten directly if the discreetly placed store logos and text were erased. (Fig. 1.341.36)
Pioneers of modern bijinga also participated in the production of picture
postcards.102 Starting with the Russo-Japanese war, the popularity of picture postcards
grew dramatically during the late Meiji period with the development of the postal service
and printing technologies. Not only were postcards sold through specialty shops, which
sprang up across the country, they were often included in popular magazines.103
Department stores also issued picture postcards and distributed them in their house
magazines as a means of advertising. Although postcards circulated in a private and
personal way between close acquaintances in contrast to posters, they had another
potential for promotional purposes. Their mobility allowed the geographical expansion
of advertising beyond the stores restricted distribution and the fact that they could be
collected as small personal items drew interest from members of all social status groups.
102

Kaburaki Kiyokata, Terasaki K"gy" (1866-1919), Ikeada Sh"en, and Uemura Sh"en (18751949) began to work on postcards. Hamanaka, Bijinga no tanj", soshite genei, 15.
103

Kendall Brown, Postcards, Commerce, and Creativity in Japan, 1904-1940, Art of the
Japanese Postcard (Boston: MFA Publications, 2004), 51.

65

Of all the themes of picture postcards issued by department stores, one of the
most pervasive was, again, bijin. Among Mitsukoshi bijinga postcards issued in 1906,
there was one made by reproducing Okada Sabur"sukes (1869-1939) painting Genroku
no omokage (Genrokus Remnant). (Fig. 1.37) In 1904 Mitsukoshi commissioned Wada
Eisaku (1874-1959) and Okada Sabur"suke, the two most prominent artists in the world
of y!ga, to paint a work that would then be used for advertising the new fashions of the
store.104 For the costume of their model, Mitsukoshi supplied the two y!ga painters with
a Genroku-style kimono that was being developed by its ish!ge. Genroku no omokage,
which features a standing bijin in Genroku style, is the very painting Okada painted for
that commission. In order to revive the f"zoku of the Genroku period, from kimono to
hairstyles and even to a carpet Okada endeavored to depict all of the details as
historically correct.105 Although Okada had the model wear a kimono made in the
Genroku period by borrowing one from a collector, the kimono supplied by Mitsukoshi
was also depicted in his painting, hanging in back of the model. Before its completion,
Okada presented a study of this painting, a close-up of the bijins face, at the ninth
Hakuba-kai (White Horse Society) exhibition in 1904. (Fig. 1.38) The completed work
was first exhibited the following year in the Hakuba-kai exhibition and later hung at the
ticket office of Shinbashi station and then reproduced as a postcard in 1906. When fine
artists works for commercial use are discussed in art history, the most common
104

For further information about Mitsukoshis commission of these two paintings, see Kojima
Kaoru, Bunten kaisetsu no zengo ni okeru bijin no hy"gen no heny" ni tsuite, Kindai gasetsu
16, (2007): 35-41 and Kojima Kaoru, Kimono no joseiz" ni miru kindai Nihon no aidentiti, in
K!sasuru shisen: Bijutsu to jenda, eds. Suzuki Tokiko (Tokyo: Buryukke, 2005), 119-123.
105

Kojima, Bunten kaisetsu no zengo ni okeru bijin no hy"gen no heny" ni tsuite, 38.

66

interpretation is that the artists themselves did not consider those commercial works as
their principal artistic contribution and emphasized their fine art work as being of greater
aesthetic importance. Yet such an interpretation probably cannot be applied to Okadas
artistic practices. If Okada did not consider the painting produced for Mitsukoshis
advertising purposes as one of his principal artistic contributions, how could he have
exhibited it at the most prominent y!ga exhibition of the day, where he was supposed to
present his fine art works of greater aesthetic importance? Again, as in Shimazakis case
mentioned above, the hierarchical and exclusive relationship between high art and mass
culture or between fine art and commercial art was not manifested in Okadas practice.
Okadas bijinga fluidly crossed the boundary between high art and mass culture.
As widely known, the poster entitled Murasaki shirabe, one of the most famous
Mitsukoshi posters, was produced based on Okadas painting B!fujin no shoz! (Portrait
of a lady). (Fig.1.39) By just adding the store logo and name, Mitsukoshi transformed
Okadas oil painting into a lithography poster in 1909. The woman in the original
painting was modeled after Takahashi Yoshios wife, Chiyoko, in 1907 and the painting
received the first class prize at the Tokyo Industrial Exhibition of the year. Two years
later, this painting was adapted into Mitsukoshis poster advertising the exhibition of its
new spring kimono designs.
In 1908, Mitsukoshi commissioned Okada to produce a pair of oil paintings in the
size of 3 by 2 meters to hang at Umeda Station in Osaka. (Fig.1.40) When Mitsukoshi
ordered the paintings, it also asked Okada to display prominently the latest fashion, from
kimono to rings to umbrellas, in his paintings, with the expectation that their depiction

67

would help to augment their sales at the store. Responding to Mitsukoshis request,
Okada depicted contemporary stylish young ladies and children dressed in their finest
kimono against a backdrop of cherry blossoms and scarlet maple leaves, respectively.106
The presence of relatively somberly dressed matrons taking care of children and a
jauntily clad gentleman in spats and a necktie standing with his female companion
deviates from the typical composition of bijinga. Nonetheless, they are derivative of
bijinga in that beautiful women and their elaborate attire were visually emphasized and a
sense of the season was effectively marked through the natural setting.
When Okada began to collaborate with Mitsukoshi, he was already well
established as a y!ga painter. He was a founding member of the Hakuba-kai in 1896 and
from 1897 to 1902 studied under a prominent academic painter, Raphael Collin (18501916), in France on a fellowship from the Ministry of Education. In the year he returned
from France, Okada became a teacher at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts and regularly
contributed to exhibitions including government sponsored ones. In other words, Okada
was not technically considered a bijinga painter, who would usually have been trained in
nihonga or ukiyoe. Nonetheless, the reason why Mitsukoshi commissioned him was that
the store not only appropriated his reputation as a leading y!ga painter but also wanted
the more realistic depictions of kimono pattern and texture that he would produce in his

106

Two paintings were hung accompanied by the following advertising copy: Spring means
Arishiyamas cherry blossoms, autumn means Takaos red leaves; if you want to buy attire for
visiting scenic spots in the mountains, you must order it from us! Cited and translated in Sapin,
Liaisons between Painters and Department Stores, 166.

68

painting.107 Okada successfully developed his own style of bijinga, which gave a precise
description of kimono, ornamentations and accessories while representing the woman as
an idealized or abstract beauty. Even when he produced a portrait of Chiyoko, Takahashi
Yoshios wife, he represented her as an ideal Genroku bijin rather than as a particular
individual. In contrast to detailed depictions of her kimono, obi and a drum she is holding,
her expressionless face offers no clue about her personality. This painting was able to be
adapted directly into a Mitsukoshi poster because it seemed to represent not Chiyoko but
Genroku bijin. Okada produced bijinga for department stores advertising intermittently
throughout his career.108
Through his collaboration with department stores, Okadas interest in kimono, obi,
hair ornaments, and accessories certainly increased. This interest came to be reflected in
his other paintings as well. When there was no request from the stores to emphasize
clothing, Okada paid attention to the depiction of its pattern, color, and even texture.
Within his numerous paintings featuring beautiful women, clothing and accessories are as
important as the woman herself. (Fig.1.41) The aesthetic of Okadas paintings is often

107

In Bunten kaisetsu no zengo ni okeru bijin no hy"gen no heny" ni tsuite, Kojima asserts
that Okadas realistic depiction of kimono influenced other nihonga bijinga painters so that they
came to pay more attention to the depiction of the texture and patterns of kimono. However, given
the fact that the detailed depiction of kimono was one of the essential characteristics of bijinga,
nihonga painters interest in it was not new.
108

In 1910, Okada produced a bijinga poster for Matsuya, which was the first poster sponsored
by Matsuya. Although no copies of this poster are left, it is said to feature a bijing after a bath.
Matsuya 100 nenshi (Tokyo: Kabushiki kaisha Matsuya, 1969), 125.

69

manifested in the decorativeness of kimono textiles.109 In short, Okadas experience in

working for department stores contributed to the development of his artistic style.

Conclusion
In 1910 Mitsukoshi established the zuanbu (graphic design section) separately
from the ish!ge. The store appointed as its first zuanbu chief Sugiura Hisui (1876-1965),
who had been put in charge of cover designs and illustrations for the house magazine
Mitsukoshi taimusu when he joined Mitsukoshi in 1908. Thenceforth, zuanbu took
charge of the stores graphic design projects in general, including advertising and public
relations, while ish!ge concentrated on textile design.
Within modern Japanese art history or design history, Sugiura Hisui has been
considered the one who established the profession of zuanka (graphic designer).
Although the Tokyo School of Fine Arts established a department to teach zuan in 1896,
the term zuan still referred to pattern design related to crafts or architecture.
Consequently, zuanka had not yet been established as an independent profession, and
designs for advertisements like billboards and posters were often produced by either
nihonga or y!ga painters. It was Hisui and the Mitsukoshi zuanbu that brought about
change in the field of graphic design. From 1910 until 1934 while Hisui was the head of
Mitsukoshi zuanbu, the popularity of his art nouveau and art deco-inspired designs
cultivated public recognition of the field of graphic design as well as Mitsukoshi
109

In his later years, Okada became a collector and researcher of old textiles (gogire) that came
from China and other foreign countries before the Edo period. Kojima, Kimono no joseiz" ni
miru kindai nihon no aidentiti, 136.

70

advertising. (Fig1.42) Following Mitsukoshis lead, other stores installed a section in

charge of graphic design and hired those who studied design professionally in the design
department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, Tokyo Higher Industrial School (T"ky"
K"t" K"gy" Gakk"), and Kyoto School for Industrial Arts (Ky"to K"t" K"gei Gakk").110
By the mid-1910s, the era of the bijinga poster drawn by painters came to an end.111
Now the field of advertising became separate from the world of fine art and occupied by
professional designers.
It is commonly believed that the establishment of design as an independent sphere
gave rise to the elevation of its status from a marginalized field to a legitimate one in its
own right. Strictly speaking, however, if the artistic practice that corresponded to
design was still undifferentiated, it was not possible to marginalize it. Rather, as
design was distinguished as an independent artistic sphere, the previously fluid boundary
between fine art and design rigidified. To be more exact, the boundary itself came to be
recognized by the establishment of the field of design within modern art institutions. As
discussed above, when the new visual field of displays and advertising emerged,
prominent painters of the day, from Yamamoto H"sui to Okada Sabur"suke, participated
in their production. Although modern Japanese art history remembers these painters for
their works of fine art and has discounted their relevance to mass culture, they were
involved in the design of displays or advertising for department stores in tandem with
producing paintings for fine art exhibitions. Before a fault line lay between fine art and
110

Mitsukoshi, Shirokiya, Matsuya, Matsuzakaya Zuanbu, Gendai no zuan k!gei 4, no.9 (June
1918) cited in Tajima, Uind" disupure, 269.
111

Jinno, Shumi no tanj!, 96.

71

commercial art with the advent of zuan and zuanka, in the consciousness of the public
and artists themselves, the two artistic fields were not mutually exclusive; it was the split
between fine art and commercial art that generated the hierarchy between them. When
the exhibition of Sugiura Hisuis designs for Mitsukoshi magazines covers was held at
the Hibiya Art Museum in 1912, many reviews of this exhibition praised Hisuis cover
designs for being so great as to be considered paintings. Yet, ironically, such comments
could be praise only if they were premised on the idea that paintings for magazine covers
could never be paintings in the sense of fine art, and on the idea that painting was
superior to graphic design.
The rapid growth of mass consumerism and the greater mass media penetration
throughout the population launched a new professional field of artistic practice that
explicitly and unapologetically put aesthetics in the service of commerce.112 The
independence of the design field ultimately contributed to the construction of fine art
discourse. As with all definitions, fine art is also defined in relation to what it is not,
that is, design or commercial art. A sharp distinction between fine art and commercial art
reinforced the belief or illusion in modern art that fine art is completely separate from any
involvement in commercial ventures and marketing. The next two chapters examine how
the purported autonomy of fine art would be appropriated and finally commodified by the
department stores. And the last chapter explores how avant-garde artists attempt to

112

Gennifer Weisenfeld, Japanese Modernism and Consumerism: Forging the New Artistic
Field of Sh"gy" Bijutsu (Commercial Art), in Being Modern in Japan: Culture and Society
from the 1910s to the 1930s, eds. Elise K. Tipton and John Clark (Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 2000), 76.

72

explode the fine art versus commercial art or high art versus mass culture distinction
converged with the department stores in the 1920s.

73

Fig. 1.1: Okada Gekk!, Mitsui gofukuten from F!zoku gah" (December 1895)

74

Fig.1.2: Shimazaki Ry"u, Mitsukoshi Handbill, September 1896

75

Fig.1.3: Takashimaya Show Window around 1896

76

Fig. 1.4: Shirokiya Show Window from Ry!k" (February 1906)

77

Fig. 1.5: Mitsukoshi Show Window around 1903

78

Fig. 1.6: Matsuzakaya Show Window around 1907

79

Fig.1.7: Matsuya, 1907

80

Fig. 1.8: Mitsukoshi, 1908

81

Fig. 1.9: Shirokiya, 1911 (up) and 1917 (down)

82

Fig. 1.10: Nagoya Matsuzakaya, 1910

Fig. 1.11: Ueno Matsuzakaya, 1916

83

Fig.1.12: Iki-ningy" (living doll) mannequins in Takashimaya Show Window

84

Fig.1.13: Yasumoto Kamehachi III, Iki-ningy" mannequins

in Shirokiya Show Window, 1907

85

Fig. 1.14: Yamamoto H!sui, Kibo Festivals katsujinga, 1903

!

86

Fig. 1.15: Yamamoto H!sui and His Students Working

for Kibo Festivals katsujinga, 1903

87

Fig. 1.16: Illumination of Takashimaya Show Window

!

88

Fig. 1.17: Illumination of Tokyo Mitsukoshi Show Window

Fig. 1.18: Illumination of Nagoya Matsuzakaya Show Window, 1910

!

89

Fig. 1.19: Spectators of Mitsukoshi Show Window, Tokyo, 1908

Fig. 1.20: Spectators of Takashimaya Show Window, Osaka, 1906

90

Fig. 1.21: Shinbashi geisha clad in Mitsukoshi kimono

91

Fig. 1.22: Genroku Goods from Jik" (December 1905)

92

Fig. 1.23: Genroku Goods from Jik" (December 1905)

!

93

Fig. 1.24: Mitsukoshi Genroku Research Group, 1905

94

Fig. 1.25: Genroku Exhibition, Mitsukoshi, 1905

95

Fig. 1.26: K!rin Event from Mitsukoshi taimusu (July 1909)

96

Fig. 1.27: Mitsukoshi House Magazines

97

Fig. 1.28: Shimazaki Ry"u, Frontispiece for Ozaki K!y!s novel Musaura from
Hanagoromo (January 1899)

98

Fig.1.29: Shimazaki Ry"u, Mitsukoshis Painted Billboard, 1896

99

Fig. 1.30: Hohokabe Kinsh", Mitsukoshi Poster, 1907

100

Fig. 1.31: Mitsukoshi Poster, 1907

101

Fig. 1.32: Mitsukoshi Poster, 1907

!

102

Fig.1.33: Shimazaki Ry"u, Onaidoshi (The Same Age), 1908

!

103

Fig. 1.34: Kaburaki Kiyokata, Matsuya Poster, 1916

104

Fig. 1.35: Kitano Tsunetomi, Takashimaya Poster, 1916

105

Fig. 1.36: Ikeda Sh!en, Daimaru Poster, 1915

106

Fig. 1.37: Okada Sabur!suke, Genroku no omokage, Mitsukoshi Postcard, 1906

107

Fig. 1.38: Okada Sabur!suke, Genroku no omokage, 1904

108

Fig. 1.39: Okada Sabur!suke, Murasaki no shirabe, Mitsukoshi poster, 1909

109

Fig. 1.40: Okada Sabur!suke, Sakurakai (up) and Momijikai (bottom), 1908

110

Fig. 1.41: Okada Sabur!suke, Kimono with Iris Patterns, 1927

111

Fig. 1.42: Sugiura Hisui, Mitsukoshi Poster, 1914

!

112

CHAPTER TWO
Art Sections of Department Stores: New Middle Classs Art Consumption for
Distinction
Introduction
In April 1910, the Mitsukoshi department store built a room in Japanese style for
The First Contemporary Masters Half-size Hanging-scroll Exhibition (Dai ikkai
gendai taika hansetsuga kai) on the third floor of its Tokyo Nihonbashi branch. As the
title indicates, this exhibition showcased 80 hanging scrolls painted by 33 prominent
nihonga artists of the day such as Yokoyama Taikan, Imao Keinen (1845-1924), and
Takeuchi Seih!.1 The scrolls were displayed in a room with tatami (thick rice straw
mats), tokonoma (decorative alcoves), and chigaidana (staggered shelves). (Fig. 2.1) The
Japanese-style (waf!) room temporarily built for this exhibition contrasted dramatically
with Mitsukoshis thoroughly Western-style (y"f!) setting. The Mitsukoshi building,
completed in 1908, was a Renaissance-style, three-story wooden structure modeled on
Harrods department store in London.2 (Fig. 1.8) Not only the exterior of the building but
also its interior was designed ostentatiously in Western style, including features such as a
second-floor lounge decorated in Louis XV style and a first-floor lounge in Gothic style.

Nihonga literally means Japanese painting and it came into use in the mid-Meiji period
contemporaneously with, and in direct opposition to, y"ga (Western style painting). Nihonga is a
relational term used to distinguish contemporary traditional practices from Western-influenced
Japanese painting, that is, y"ga.
2

Hatsuda T!ru, Ushinawareta teito T"ky": Taish" Showa no machi to sumai (Tokyo: Kashiwa
Shob!, 1991), 136. The interior of this Mitsukoshi building with a grand staircase, an immense
open-spaced main hall and a huge stained-glass roof was also reminiscent of the Bon March in
Paris.

113

(Fig. 2.2) There are no photographs left showing the previous status of the third floor
before the establishment of the Japanese-style room for the exhibition. Instead, there is a
statement about the drastic transformation of the space found in a Mitsukoshi house
magazine that notes, A haikara (high-collar) powder room in Adam style was
transformed into a pure Japanese-style room overnight.3 The term haikara was first
coined by a journalist in 1898 and referred to the high collars of Western shirts in order to
mock the excessively Westernized tastes of government leaders.4 However, the nuance
of the term haikara was transformed into describing anything that was modern and
stylish in late Meiji discourse.5 Although the Japanese-style room decorated with
nihonga hanging scrolls did not seem to fit Mitsukoshis haikara image, the exhibition
was a big success, recorded as the first full-fledged exhibition held at Tokyo Mitsukoshi.
Among the 80 paintings, more than 50 were sold on the first day.6 During the period of
the exhibition, Mitsukoshi invited the artists who submitted the paintings and journalists
who wrote about art exhibitions for newspapers and magazines to a party that celebrated
the exhibitions success. Among the guests, the newspaper Jiji shinp"s reporter

The original text is as follows: !"#$%&'()*+,-"./0123"4567

89"05(:;<=>?0"4@1AB9CDE"F"G>HIJKL5MN-"
F1OPPQ=R:;S. Hansetsugakai, Mitsukoshi taimusu 8, no.5 (May 1910): 2-3.
4

The journalist, Ishikawa Yasujir!, wrote, in the Mainichi shinbun, Those pretentious fellows
who go overseas return having learned more about the way to wear neckties and high collars than
they have about their area of study. They are creatures of neckties and high collars. Cited and
translated in Jason G. Karlin, The Gender of Nationalism: Competing Masculinities in Meiji
Japan, Journal of Japanese Studies 28, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 61-62.
5

Ibid., 61-68.

Hansetsugakai, 2-3.

114

Furuhashi Taneomi remarked:

Old art works (kobijutsuhin) are antiques made by old masters and dealt with by
antique dealers. The works by the masters of this generation are decorations that
Japanese homes should not do without. In truth, they are practical necessities
(jitsuy"hin). Works of this sort should be in the hands of practical merchants. I
can do no more than agree that Mitsukoshi has taken the initiative in dealing with
works of art as practical necessities through this kind of Half-size Hanging-scroll
Exhibition.7
Other newspapers reported as well that Mitsukoshi had taken the lead in the diffusion of
art into Japanese homes.8
In 1907, the Mitsukoshi department store established its art section, called shin
bijutsu bu (New Art Section), to display and sell the art of prominent contemporary
artists in both its Osaka and Tokyo branches, in September and December, respectively.
The establishment of the official annual salon Monbush" Bijutsu Tenrankai (Ministry of
Education Art Exhibition, abbreviated as Bunten) in that same year was likely the most
immediate and significant impetus for department stores to decide to deal in the art
trade.9 Following Mitsukoshis lead, a number of other Japanese department stores

Bijutsukai no my!j! ichid! ni atsumaru, Mitsukoshi taimusu 8, no.5 (May 1910): 11-12. The
quotation is my translation based on Jordan Sands translation in Jordan Sand, House and Home
in Modern Japan: Architecture, Domestic Space, and Bourgeois Culture, 1880-1930 (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 123.
8

Mitsukoshi bijutsubu 100 nenshi (Tokyo: Mitsukoshi, 2009), 24.

The Mitsukoshi art section in the Osaka branch opened one month earlier than the Bunten. Yet
the Imperial ordinance that proclaimed the founding of the screening committee system was
announced on June 5, 1907 and the nomination and selection of jury members was completed in
August. Thus, in September 1907 when Mitsukoshi opened its art section, the inauguration of the
Bunten had already been authorized.

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opened art sections one after another.10 The stores refined their image as institutions of
high culture by dealing in the works of Bunten artists. Department store art sections
displayed works of art in their standing showrooms and frequently held special
exhibitions of art for sale and, for customers in remote areas, they also offered mail-order
sales of art. The stores placed an emphasis on providing expanded opportunities for all
Japanese to collect and appreciate high art, which had previously been monopolized by
the educated male elite. Despite open access to their art sections, however, the
department stores primarily targeted customers from the rising urban middle class, who
purchased art for the interior decoration of their new homes. After education and
profession, cultural sophistication played a significant role in the negotiation of an
individuals social position in Japan during the transitional period between the
dismantling of the feudal status system and the establishment of a modern industrial class
10

Takashimayas first art exhibition, called One Hundred Paintings of Famous Contemporary
Artists (Gendai meika 100 huku gakai), was held in 1909 in Kyoto (November 27-30) and Osaka
(December 5-8). Although the works exhibited in this exhibition were not intended for sale and
all works belonged to the Iida family, which was the owner of Takashimaya, the customers
response to them was so positive that Takashimaya decided to inaugurate an art section.
Takashimaya opened an art section in its Osaka branch in 1911 and another in its Tokyo branch
in 1916. According to Hatsuda T!ru, Shirokiya established its art section in 1924. See Hatsuda
T!ru, Hyakkaten no tanj": Meiji Taish" Sh"wa no toshi bunka o enshutsushita hyakkaten to
kank"ba no kindaishi (Tokyo: Sanseid!, 1993), 149. Yet Shirokiyas house magazine Ry!k" ran
photographs of nihonga for sale with the price in 1917. Thus, it seems that Shirokiya had already
begun selling art by then. It is unclear when Matsuzakaya and Matsuya first began to hold art
exhibitions. According to Taish"ki bijutsu tenrankai shuppin mokuroku, Nagoya Matsuzakaya
held an Exhibition of Famous Contemporary Artists New Y"ga Paintings (Gendai meika
shinsaku y!ga ten) in 1912; Ueno Matsuzakaya held The First Sangokai Exhibition (Daiikkai
Sangokai ten) in April 1915; and Tokyo Matsuya held Exhibition of Ten Kyoto Painters
Masterpieces (Ky!to 10dai gahaku kessaku ten) in 1915. See Taish"ki bijutsu tenrankai shuppin
mokuroku, ed. T!ky! Bunkazai Kenkyujo Bijutsubu (Tokyo: Ch"!k!ron bijutsu shuppan, 2002).
In the case of Osaka S!g!, its art section was established in 1919 and held an Exhibition of
nihonga great masters (Nihonga taika no taitenkan), which showcased new works of 80 famous
artists. See Hatsuda T!ru, Hankagai no kindai: Toshi T"ky" no sh"hi k!kan (Tokyo: T!ky!
Daigaku Shuppankai, 2004), 169.

116

society. Taste for art acted not only as a conspicuous marker of social status but also as
an active determinant of it in the fluid conditions of modern Japan. By putting the arts
back in private interior spaces that immediately communicated the occupants social
status, department store art sections created a new dynamic of social distinction within
the nominally equal experience of the arts, while official art exhibitions, held in public
abstract gallery spaces, propagated the idea that broad distribution of art would help to
realize the democratic ideals of the nation, advancing the peoples taste and
enlightenment. This chapter examines how the new middle class achieved mastery of the
tasteful consumption of art crucial to the generation of social distinction and class
identity through the art sections of department stores, and how department stores in turn
capitalized on the cultural aspirations of their upwardly mobile customers.11

The Opening of Art Sections

In September 1907, Mitsukoshi published an article announcing the opening of its
art section in its house magazine Jik":
We have opened an art room (bijutsu shitsu) called the Special Display Room
(tokubetsu chinretsu shitsu) in the store, where we have begun to display and sell
nihonga and watercolor paintings by leading contemporary Japanese artists,
starting September 15. Nihonga and watercolor paintings are works of fine art,
which are the greatest creation among human products. If there were no art in the
11

Art sections of department stores have not been a focus of research except for a few limited
studies. An exception is the work of art historian Hirota Takashi, who wrote a pioneering article
about art exhibitions held by Mitsukoshi and Takashimaya art sections during the Meiji period.
Hirota examines what works were exhibited and how they were commissioned. However, he
does not extend his study to the investigation of the integral relationship between the large-scale
social transformations and the changing meanings of art in everyday life. Hirota Takashi,
Meijiki no hyakkaten shusai no bijutsu tenrankai ni tsuite: Mitsukoshi to Takashimaya o
hikakushite, Dezain riron 48 (2006): 47-60.

117

world, it would be desolate. And if we could not see fine works of art, it would
be impossible for us to have taste (shumi). That is to say, it is a civilized nation
whose art is advanced. If a nation is civilized, its art is advanced and its people
are sophisticated As a gofukuten, which deals with designs suggesting new
taste, Mitsukoshi cannot neglect fine art and has decided to establish an art
section.12
As fine art was increasingly understood as a necessary component of a civilized nation,
the cultural literacy needed to appreciate fine art became considered a prerequisite for
being a citizen of such a nation. The cultivation of taste for fine art came to be seen not
as the prerogative of a select elite but as essential to the formation of national identity,
regardless of class, gender, or regional differences. To justify their sale of the arts,
department stores claimed that they would serve as a forum for disseminating the taste for
art to a broader Japanese audience while also offering more opportunities for artists to
showcase their talents.13
In the same historical moment that the Bunten and the department store art
sections emerged, Japanese intellectuals turned their attention to the cultural cultivation
and refinement of the nation. In Taish" bunka, Minami Hiroshi described this effort as a
shift from bunmei (civilization) to bunka (culture), which occurred during the late Meiji
and Taish! periods.14 According to Minami, the early Meiji periods bunmei kaika
(civilization and enlightenment) may have accomplished political and economic reforms,
that is, a material revolution through Westernization, but it failed to revolutionize the
12

Suzuna, Nihonga oyobi suisaiga: #saka Mitsukoshi no shinsetsubi, Jik" 5, no.11 (September
1907): 4-5.
13

Misako, Bijutsukai no ry"k!, Jik" 6, no.3 (March 1908): 19.

14

Minami Hiroshi, Taish" bunka (Tokyo: Keis! shob!, 1965), 35-59.

118

mindset of the nation. With Japans victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905),
bunmei kaika seemed to achieve its goal of catching up with the West, and Japan was
filled with a new sense of confidence as the first Asian power to defeat a Western
nation. However, at the same time, this war victory served as momentum to call into
question the justification of bunmei kaika, which was considered as externally
motivated modernization.15 The mere adoption of Western institutions and technology
was seen as insufficient to create a true modern nation if not accompanied by a
concomitant change in consciousness. The voices calling for seishinteki ishin (spiritual
reforms) were increasing against butsushitsuteki ishin (material reforms) by bunmei
kaika. It was believed that, through self-inspired seishinteki ishin, the Japanese would
be subjects of an itto-koku (first-class nation) neither bound by old native customs nor
modernizing themselves under pressure from the West. In order to fulfill the countrys
new vision of itself and its aspiration to be a culturally as well as technically advanced
nation, cultivation of the aesthetic and rational faculties of individuals was emerging as a
national task for Japan during the late Meiji and early Taish! periods. This shift in
ideology was accompanied by the advent of cultural institutions such as the Higher
Entertainment Hall (K!t! engeij!) in 1908, the Literature Committee (Bungei iinkai) in
1911, and the Imperial Theater (Teikoku gekij!) in 1911.16 It was no mere coincidence

15

Natsume S!seki criticized Japans modernization since the Meiji Restoration for being
externally motivated (gaihatsu-teki) in a speech titled Gendai nihon no kaika (Civilization
of Modern-day Japan), which he delivered in August 1911. The speech was reprinted in
Natsume S!seki, Watashi no kojinshugi (Tokyo: K!dansha, 1978).
16

Minami Hiroshi, Taish" bunka, 48-59.

119

that the Bunten also came into being in 1907, promoting art as one of the cultural
activities essential to the accomplishment of seishinteki ishin.
Monbush!, the Ministry of Education, established a juried exhibition modeled
after the Paris Salon in 1907.17 The Bunten marked itself as an officially sanctioned
forum for the showing of contemporary art by bringing private art groups (bijutsu dantai)
together under government auspices. In addition, the inauguration of the Bunten
reflected the Meiji governments new policy of treating art independently from
industry.18 During the early years of Meiji, the governments administration of art gave
greater weight to economic and technical considerations than to educational and cultural
ones, making art exhibitions institutionally subordinate to industrial expositions such as
the Naikoku Kangy! Hakurankai (National Industrial Expositions). Yet the Meiji
government gradually became aware not only of the significant role that art played in the
economic development of the nation, but also of the fact that art was critically linked to
the perception of Japan as a civilized nation. If Japan failed to demonstrate itself as a
nation with an excellent tradition of fine art production, it risked being relegated to the
category of the backward, uncivilized nations of the world. The establishment of the
Bunten represented the first official attempt by the Meiji government to promote
production of fine art by contemporary artists and cultivate a refined artistic sensibility
17

In fact, the Paris Salon was not as much of an official institution as the Bunten in 1907 since
the French state had turned over the Salon to the artists and abandoned all responsibility for its
organization and control in 1880. For further discussion of the end of state sponsorship for the
Paris Salon, see Patricia Mainardi, The End of the Salon: Art and the State in the Early Third
Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
18

Kojima Kaoru, Introduction, in Bunten no meisaku, 1907-1918 (Tokyo: T!ky! Kokuritsu

Kindai Bijutsukan, 1990), 11.

120

in the viewing public. The shift of jurisdiction over art from the Ministry of Agriculture
and Commerce to the Ministry of Education reflected the fact that the government was
convinced of the cultural and educational value of art and art exhibitions.
The Meiji governments new art policy argued for fine arts autonomous status
not only to separate art from industry but also to place art in a purely aesthetic realm, free
from the old feudal and religious hegemony. Art objects and their appreciation, hitherto
limited to the purview of the samurai, court noble and religious patronage were now
regarded as the nations cultural accomplishments, equally available to all Japanese
subjects by positioning the works of art in abstract gallery spaces free from all social
implications. The Bunten was one of the most important art institutions intended for the
edification of the Japanese people in the late Meiji, teaching the public what
contemporary Japanese art was, how to view it, and how to understand it.
When department stores spoke of the meanings of their art sections, they
reiterated the states art policy of forming a national culture, claiming that they would
contribute to the fostering of contemporary Japanese arts and provide a site for general
education about the arts. Mitsukoshis executive director, Hibi #suke (1860-1931),
emphasized that Mitsukoshi came to consider establishing an art section not only for the
purpose of providing a convenience for the customers but also to contribute to the
cultural development of the nation. In an era when there were few exhibition spaces for
the display of art even in Tokyo, the department store was almost the only place for

121

ordinary people to go to see art at any time, and for free.19 Thus the establishment of
department store art sections won endorsements from both inside and outside the art
world.

Yamanote People: A Core Clientele of Art Sections

Department stores inculcated their customers with the notion that art was
indispensible for an ideal life in the new modern era. Yet, contrary to the professed goal
to meet the current demand that the arts as a product of civilization should be
appreciated by all citizens transcending social class, department store art sections
catered to a specific group of people.20 This fact can be inferred from a statement about
the opening of Mitsukoshi art section published in Jik":
When public and private art exhibitions are being held in spring and autumn,
artists showcase their skills and audiences please their eyes and minds with the
arts. However, apart from this season, it is hard for people to have an opportunity
to see works of art other than their own collections. Even if one can order the
works directly from artists, the process is complicated and takes time. Or there
are sometimes art brokers who cheat customers. Our art section does not suffer
such inconveniences; it holds art exhibitions throughout the year for foreigners
visiting for a short time or people requiring art works immediately to decorate a
new house.21
As mentioned in this statement, the art section was clearly aimed at those who had

19

Enzan Genji Mitsukoshi kara nozoita Meijimatsu, Taish!, Sh!wa no bijutsukai, Mitsukoshi
Nihon hyakkaten s"ran dai 1kan (Tokyo: Hykkatensh!h!sha, 1933), 156.
20

Shitsunai s!shoku o omofuno shiki, Mitsukoshi taimusu 7, no.11 (November 1909): 1-2. This
article also states that as long as one has a living room, no matter how small it is, one cannot help
having the taste for art to decorate it.
21

Bijutsubu no shinsetsu, Jik" 6, no.1 (January 1908): 27.

122

just acquired a new house as well as foreign tourists.22 In the same issue of Jik",
Hibi #suke reemphasized that Mitsukoshis new art section would display the works
of prominent contemporary artists and sell them at a very reasonable price in order to
provide convenience for those who occupied a new house and those who resided in
remote areas and found it difficult to commission works of art personally.23 In other
words, department stores targeted as the major clientele of their art sections those
who needed art for the interior decoration of their new houses.
As mentioned in Chapter One, the first Japanese department stores evolved from
leading gofukuten, which had started doing business in the Tokugawa period. Thus, the
stores were initially institutions for a specific and extremely wealthy clientele, who had
been their established customers for high-quality kimono.24 This began to change with
their transformation from gofukuten to department stores. The renovated stores were
aimed at the burgeoning new middle class that emerged in the wake of the
industrialization and urbanization sparked by the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese
Wars. More particularly, the new clientele that the department stores in Nihonbashi of
Tokyo endeavored to reach were Yamanotezoku (Yamanote people), who had recently

22

During the Meiji 30s, even before Mitsukoshi opened its art section, foreign tourists had been
already purchasing crafts, including ceramics, lacquerware, and textiles, as souvenirs from the
store.
23

Hibi #suke, Nend! no kotoba, Jik" 6, no.1 (January 1908): 2-3.

24

In their product lines and services, Shirokiya catered to the descendants of the daimy", and
Mitsukoshi cultivated the merchant capitalist and Kyoto aristocracy. Takashimaya maintained its
service to the imperial family and Matsuzakaya continued to costume and equip religious
institutions. Tsukamoto Hachisabur!, Hyakkaten omoide hanashi (Tokyo: Hyakkaten omoide
kak!kai, 1950). Cited in Hatsuda, Hyakkaten no tanj", 83.

123

settled in the Yamanote district.25 Yamonote is the western part of central Tokyo, which
includes such areas as K!jimachi, Akasaka, Azabu, Yotsuya, Ushigome, Koishikawa and
Hong!. The Yamanote district had been full of middle-and higher-ranking samurai
mansions during the Tokugawa period but became empty due to the exodus of daimy"
from Edo after the Meiji Restoration. However, this area soon experienced an explosive
growth in population; for example, of 90 percent between 1903 and 1908 and another 70
percent over the next five years, with immigrants leaving the countryside and moving to
Tokyo seeking higher education and a professional career.26 While the great estates of
daimy" mansions became detached palaces, military training grounds and college
campuses, the moderately ample residences of the hatamoto, samurai in the direct service
of the Tokugawa shogunate, were nicely proportioned to the needs of the upper middle
class of the new day.27 Among the new Tokyoites, Yamanote people referred to the
upper reaches of the middle class that consisted of civil servants, military officers,
university professors, doctors, professionals and small-scale modern business owners.
Takahashi Yoshio, who had transformed Mitsukoshi from a gofukuten into a department

25

For more explanation of the emergence of the Yamanote People or Yamanote Class see
Kindai nihon no bunka to ch"ry" kaiky", in T"shi bunka, kindai nihon bunkaron vol.6, ed.
Aoki Tamotsu (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1999), 116.
26

Maeda Ai, Text and the City: Essays on Japanese Modernity (Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Press, 2004), 332. For more about the change in the population in Tokyo, see T"ky" k!kan 18681930, vol.1 T"ky" jidai, ed. Maeda Ai and Ogi Shinz! (Tokyo: Chikuma Shob!, 1986), 142-143
and about the change in the population in Yamanote district, see T"ky" k!kan 1868-1930, vol.2
Teito T"ky", ed. Maeda Ai and Ogi Shinz! (Tokyo: Chikuma Shob!, 1986), 72-73.
27

Edward Seidensticker, Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake (New York:
Knopf, 1983), 238-240. The hatamoto were of a lower military rank than the daimy", but they
could still claim access to the shoguns presence.

124

store that came to be one of the defining elements of modern urban life in Japan,
recognized early on that the new clientele would appear around the Yamanote district
with the development of urban transportation, the increase in middle class income and the
growth of interest in new commodities.28 Although the term Yamanote people literally
referred to people who resided in Tokyos Yamanote district, the identity of this group
was based more on culture and class than on geography. Thus, the term Yamanote
people was applied extensively to the newly-emerging professional middle class in other
urban areas as well.29
Yamanote people formed the consumer base for new products, ideas, and
activities on the basis of some combination of financial means, higher education, and
self-cultivation. The luxury goods that Yamanote people purchased at department stores
included cosmetics, hats, childrens toys, Western-style clothes, bags, shoes, umbrellas,
stationery and furniture, which up until the mid-Meiji period were items available only to
the small group of well-traveled members of wealthy upper-class.30 (Fig. 2.3) The novel
28

Takahashi Yoshio, Sh!gy!j! ni okeru ch"!shikken no s"sei, Sh"gy"kai (January 1904),

Cited in Hatsuda, Hankagai no kindai, 154-155. The Yamanote district was linked to downtown
areas by the new transportation systems being opened up at that time: the city street railway
opened in 1903; the electrification of the Yamanote Loop Line in 1910; and the connection
through to the city center provided by the Ch"! Line, which opened between Shinjuku and
Manseibashi in 1912. Development of interurban public transport enabled potential customers
from Yamanote to travel easily to the core of the city and across town.
29

After the Kant! Earthquake in 1923, suburban residential areas that developed in the south and
west of Tokyo came to be called Yamanote. Hatsuda, Hankagai no kindai, 201.
30

By the Meiji 30s, the increasing number of European and American imports flooding into
Japan fed a new interest in adopting a Westernized lifestyle. Also, some of the luxury goods
began to be domestically produced. Jinno Yuki, Hyakkaten ga tsukuridashita sh!hin sekai
kodomo y!hin no imisuru mono, in Ara, sentantekine: Taish" matsu, Sh"wa shoki no toshi
bunka to sh"gy" bijutsu (Okazaki: Okazakishi bijutsuhakubutsukan, 2009), 113.

125

commodities that Yamanote people consumed and the modern lifestyle they enjoyed
through the efforts of department stores were often designated as haikara. By
deploying new, often imported, social knowledge and models of social relationships,
Yamanote people constructed a collective middle-class identity. The ideal lifestyle that
Yamanote people sought revolved around the idea of a home centered on the conjugal
unit as opposed to the lineal extended family found in the countryside they had just left.
Occupying a small, detached house for a child-centered nuclear family anchored by a
husband and wife became the common aspiration of the new middle class.31 In fact, this
vision of home life referred to the European or American bourgeois lifestyle as the
epitome of modern life. Jordan Sand, who has carried out extensive research on how the
passage into modernity had profound implications for the organization of domestic space
and the decoration of the domestic interior in modern Japan, also refers to this new
middle class as bourgeois. Of course, as he states, the new middle class would not
qualify as bourgeoisie in the strict Marxist sense, that is, the owners of the means of
production. 32 However, class was defined not only by economic criteria but also by
knowledge and taste. As such, it is a social and cultural formation. This bourgeois ideal
and sensibility, especially regarding the home, had far-reaching effects on Japans new

31

According to Jordan Sand, however, it does not necessarily mean that they would purchase
their own home. It was not until World War I that home ownership became common in the city.
Renting a new house rather than building one was more feasible for members of new middle
class. Sand, House and Home in Modern Japan, 123.
32

Ibid., 10.

126

middle class culture.33 The new middle class embraced the bourgeois ethos that
emphasized private family life.
With the burgeoning my-home-ism, interest in interior decorating rapidly
increased among the new middle class. The publication of interior decorating advice
manuals such as Shitsunai s"shokuh" (The Way to Decorate Interiors) explosively
increased.34 Department stores helped their new middle-class customers envision the
ideal domestic space by providing furniture and ornaments necessary for home
decoration. Jordan Sand and Jinno Yuki successfully demonstrated how the acquisition
and display of new goods for the home became an important element in the forming of
new middle-class identity in modern Japan, and how department stores tapped into this
expanding classs ideals and aspirations for an appropriately decorated home to improve
33

The new middle classs pursuit of bourgeois domesticity was also reflected in the development
of childrens goods by department stores. Around 1906 Mitsukoshi began to sell childrens
clothes and in March 1908 opened childrens section dealing in childrens furniture, books,
school supplies, and toys. To create a market for these goods, Mitsukoshi held a Jid!
Hakurankai (Childrens Exposition) in 1909, promoting the idea of a child who required such
things. Childrens expositions became one of the most popular regular events for Mitsukoshi, and
other stores soon followed the suit. For further discussion of department stores Childrens
Expositions, see #shima Sonia, Media toshite no hakurankai: Mitsukoshi taimusu ni miru
bunka no tenjij! Mitsukoshi jid! hakurankai, Shinbungaku 18 (2002): 43-66; Nakamura
Kiyoko, Kindai nihon ni okeru kodomo im$ji to kodomo hakurankai: Mitsukoshini okeru
kodomo hakurankai no ransh!, Bijutsuka ky"ikugakkaishi 18 (1997): 215-225; Jinno Yuki,
Hyakkaten no kodomoy! sh!hin kaihatsu: Mitsukoshiten wo reini, in Hyakkaten no bunkashi:
nihon no sh"hi kakumei, ed. Nishizawa Tamotsu and Yamamoto Taketoshi (Tokyo: Sekaishis!shi,
1999), 178-197; Jinno Yuki, Kindai nihon ni okeru sh!hin dezain no tenkai: Meiji--Sh!wa shoki
no kodomoy! sh!hin o rei ni, Dezain riron 46 (2005): 67-81.
34

Kond! Sh!ichi, Shitsunai s"shokuh": Katei hyakkazensho vol. 26 (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1910);
Inoue Shigejir!, Shitsunai s"shoku kagu zusetsu ichi mei seigu shishin (Tokyo: Hakubunkan,
1909); Sugimoto Fumitar!, Nihon j!taku shitsunai s"shokuh" (Tokyo: Kenchiku Shoin, 1910);
Sugimoto Fumitar!, Nihon kakujidai shitsunai s"shokuh" (Tokyo: Kenchiku Shoin, 1911);
Sugimoto Fumitar!, Zukai zashiki to niwa no tsukurikata (Tokyo: Daiy!d!, 1912); Sugimoto
Fumitar!, Nihon j!taku shitsunai kazari d"gu zukai (Tokyo: Kenchiku Shoin, 1912); Zukai nihon
zashiki no kazarikata (Tokyo: Kenchiku Shoin, 1912).

127

the marketing of their merchandise.35 Building on their seminal studies, I propose that art
collecting also contributed to the construction of a new middle class identity, as a work of
art was portrayed as an essential item for interior decorating. As Hatsuda T!ru has
pointed out, department stores propagated the idea that the modern home ought to be
decorated with contemporary works of art through essays in their house magazines, and
showed concrete examples of how to display art in customers homes through the interior
decoration of their stores or model rooms.36
Even though the new middle class was eager to participate in the consumption of
art, potential middle-class customers often lacked knowledge of and experience with
existing art collecting conventions. The process of buying and selling high art had
been kept in the closed world of a small elite group, which had amassed extensive family
collections and handed them down from generation to generation. Thus, not only had the
pieces of art themselves been inherited, but also the way to collect and appreciate them
had been inculcated in family members from the time of youth. However, most of those
who would buy the art displayed at department stores or listed in their magazines were
not from families who had enjoyed such privilege and wealth. Even though a growing
segment of the new middle class became familiar with high art through higher
education, public exhibitions, and mass media, they never had an opportunity to learn
how to commission works from artists, or how to purchase works of art from or exchange
35

Sand, House and Home in Modern Japan and Jinno Yuki, Shumi no tanj": hyakkaten ga
tsukutta teisuto (Tokyo: Keis! shob!, 1994) and Jinno Yuki, Hyakkaten to shitsunai s!shoku,
in Hyakkaten no bunkashi, 155-177.
36

Hatsuda, Hyakkaten no tanj", 150.

128

them among connoisseurs and antiquarians. As the established relationships between

artists and samurai patrons broke down with the abolition of the feudal system, the loss of
direct patronage forced artists to enter the free market and the formerly exclusive art trade
became more open to the public. Antique dealers began to handle modern paintings, and
some of the mounters who were intimately associated with the artists began to serve as
dealers. Nonetheless, purchasing a work of art was still an overwhelming experience,
especially for the first-time shopper. To acquire a painting, one was required to make
many decisions, ranging from the subject of the painting to the mounting of it. If the
customer received help from a professional art dealer, the fee was substantial.
The number of art-desiring consumers was rapidly increasing, but a reliable and
affordable supplier of art had not yet been secured. Thus it was a propitious time for the
department stores to enter the art market. Banking on the cultural authority and
credibility they had established thus far, the department stores opened art sections.
Above all, in order to appeal to the new urban middle class, which did not have the
proper means to indulge their craving for high art, department stores stressed the
convenience that their art sections offered to ease the process of order and acquisition.37
Articles published in Mitsukoshi magazine promoted its art section as follows:
Most of all, our art section is ready to offer all conveniences to our customers.
When you attempt to order a painting directly from an artist, it costs a pretty
penny and takes at least one or two years to make the painting your own. If you
commission a mounter, you may save a little time, but you will have to pay
extremely high fees. Thus, either way is not of benefit to you. But if you come to
the Mitsukoshi art section, you can have a ready-made work to hang in your

37

Suzuna, Kasaku o atsumetaru kaigashitsu, Jik" 6, no. 3 (March 1908): 4.

129

house instantly. Mitsukoshi is cheaper, faster and easier. 38

Since all paintings displayed at our art section are already mounted or framed,
once you purchase them, you can hang them immediately in your tokonoma to
enjoy. Mounted paintings are perfect for a gift, too.39
The department stores simplified the process of commissioning art and took care of the
post-production processes such as mounting and framing. If one ordered a work
personally from an artist, there was no guarantee when it would be ready. While waiting
for the completion of the work, the client had no idea what the finished work would look
like. In contrast, department stores usually sold works of art that they bought in advance
from the artists. Thus the works were already on display for public viewing and for sale
at their art sections. Without depending on a network of personal contacts for advice and
help in making acquisitions, customers could make their choice after comparing diverse
completed works by many artists already on display.
Secondly, department stores touted reasonable prices as a sales pitch for their art
sections. Indeed, the primary selling point of the Mitsukoshi exhibition with which this
chapter started was also the relatively low price of the paintings, which ranged between
12 yen and 45 yen. (1 yen equaled about 3000 yen at present).40 For example, Yokoyama
Taikans Wind of Lakeside was priced at 16 yen, Kawai Gyokudos (1873-1957) Autumn
Landscape at 20 yen, and Takeuchi Seih!s Dog at 36 yen. (Fig. 2.4) People could not
help but welcome department store art sections, where they were able to purchase works
38

Suzuna, Nihonga oyobi suisaiga: #saka Mitsukoshi no shinsetsubi, 5.

39

Bijutsubu no shinsetsu, 27.

40

Hansetsugakai, 2-3.

130

by famous painters at prices that were less than one would have to pay an art dealer.
Whereas individual art dealers depended a great deal on the commission they earned in
each deal, department stores could minimize their margin by supplanting the patronage
tradition with mass marketing. For example, the Takashimaya art section was famous
for a series of One Hundred Painting Exhibitions (Hyakuhukugakai), which displayed
one hundred paintings of the same theme and the same size by one hundred painters, such
as One Hundred Paintings of Autumn Leaves by Famous Contemporary Artists
(Gendai meika momiji hyakugakai) in 1910 and One Hundred Paintings of Cherry
Blossoms by Famous Contemporary Artists (Gendai meika hyakuga!kai) in 1912.41 (Fig.
2.5) For this series, Takashimaya first determined the theme of each exhibition and then
ordered one hundred artists to produce one painting each that fit the theme. Although the
number of exhibited works was less than one hundred, Mitsukoshi held very similar types
of exhibitions, which mounted paintings on the same subject matter produced by
numerous top artists. For example, Mitsukoshi commissioned Taikan, Kanzan, K!gy!,
Seih!, and Tomioka Tessai (1836-1924) to produce paintings with the theme of a
chrysanthemum for Exhibition of New Chrysanthemum Paintings (Shinsaku Gafuku

41

The exhibition of One Hundred Paintings of Famous Contemporary Artists in November

1909, mentioned earlier, was the first show of Takashimayas One Hundred Paintings series,
although its works were not intended for sale. For this show, Takashimaya sent a letter of
commission to one hundred painters from masters to promising new artists from Tokyo and
Kyoto schools in July 1908. Hirota, Meijiki no hyakkaten shusai no bijutsu tenrankai ni tsuite,
53. The letter addressed the size and theme of the paintings that painters would produce as well as
the deadline. The size was determined uniformly as 5 shaku in length. (1 shaku is approximately
1 foot) Takashimaya bijutsubu 50 nenshi (Osaka: Takashimaya Honsha, 1960), 296.

131

Kiku Tenrankai) in October 1916.42 Since the department stores dealt all at once with a
sufficiently large number of works standardized in size and format, they were able to
keep down the basic unit cost, particularly the cost of mounting, from which art dealers
usually made undue profits. By expanding the scale of the market, the department stores
were able to sell art for lower prices and still make a profit. Department store art sections
that could provide works by the same artists for less than art dealers charged were thus
very favorably received. When Takashimaya held a special exhibition in
commemoration of the opening of its art section in 1911, the store was crowded from 5
a.m. on, like on bargain days, and the works were sold out by around the noon on the first
day of the exhibition. Even art dealers were included among the crowd of buyers who
purchased art there.43 Department store art sections not only offered high-quality works
at a relatively low price but also sold art for a fixed price, as they did other merchandise.
In department store art sections, where the price of each work was clearly marked, there
was no need to haggle with artists or art dealers over price, an advantage that appealed
primarily to novice art collectors who wanted to avoid feeling embarrassed over their
lack of bargaining skills.
Last but not least, department stores guaranteed the authenticity of works by
dealing directly with living artists and offering only new works. The problem of
forgeries was a serious impediment for an emerging group of art consumers who lacked
the connoisseurship to judge the provenance of a work of art. Instead of dealing with
42

In March 1917, forty-four artists transcending differences in region and generation participated
in Mitsukoshi exhibition with the theme of cherry blossoms.
43

Takashimaya bijutsubu 50 nenshi, 297.

132

antiques, which required more experienced connoisseurship, department stores ordered

the production of works of contemporary artists to avoid the problem of fakes.44 This is
the very reason Mitsukoshi named its art section shin bijutsu bu (New Art Section),
to emphasize the fact that it dealt only in new works by living artists. Among
contemporary artists, department stores concentrated on those artists whose art had been
exhibited and received high appraisal in the Bunten. In their art sections, department
stores competed to introduce works of the reigning artists of the Bunten, such as
Hashimoto Gah! (1835-1908), Yokoyama Taikan, Shimomura Kanzan (1873-1930), and
Takeuchi Seih! in nihonga and Kuroda Seiki (1866-1924), Okada Saburosuke, and Wada
Eisaku in y"ga. Since the inauguration of the Bunten, its criteria for evaluation had been
used as the standard in judging paintings rather than the appraisal of a connoisseur in the
art world.45 The prizes awarded by the Bunten conferred monetary value on artists work
in the market as well. The prices of the works by Terasaki K!gy!, Shimomura Kanzan,
and Yokohama Taikan increased tenfold when they were appointed as judges for the
Bunten.46 By focusing on the introduction of art by the Bunten artists, department stores
were able to appropriate the Buntens reputation as well as make a considerable financial
profit. Recognition of the artists name was a major determinant in new middle class
customers consumption of art, as important as, and sometimes more important than the
aesthetic quality of the work itself. This phenomenon is exemplified by an episode
44

Suzuna, Koga to shinga, Mitsukoshi taimusu 8, no.1 (January 1910): 2-3.

45

Kojima, Bunten no meisaku, 1907-1918, 14.

46

Ibid., 14.

133

during a Takashimaya exhibition in which people decided whether they wanted to buy a
work or not after only hearing the name of the artist, even before looking at the work
itself. 47 To convince customers who cared about the genuineness of works and name
recognition of artists, department stores paid great attention to the mounting and
packaging of the works, which helped to maintain their dignity as original works.48 Each
painting was put in a separate box sealed with the painters hakogaki (sign and seal),
which guaranteed that the work inside was genuine.49
The marketing tactics of the department store art sections discussed thus far were
clearly manifested in Takashimaya art sections policy, published in every issue of the
tabloid newspaper Takashimaya bijutsu gah" (Takashimaya Art News):
1. Since we order works directly from masters, there is no need to worry about
forgeries. You can purchase art in our art section without such fear.
2. We deal with new paintings and crafts including ceramics, lacquerware, and
metalwork produced by prominent contemporary artists. The works of the bestknown artists are always available.
3. In addition to a permanent display, we make an effort to offer new works
continuously and hold new exhibitions every season.
4. We produce catalogues which reproduce the works with high-quality
photographs. They are being well received every time by customers.50
In addition to the publication of exhibition catalogues, department stores reproduced
the works of art in their new sales displays in every issue of their house magazines as
well for customers who could not visit the stores in person and thus had to purchase
47

Takashimaya bijutsubu 50 nenshi, 298.

48

Ibid., 312.

49

Hansetsugakai, 2-3.

50

Takashimaya bijutsubu 80 nenshi (Osaka: Takashimaya, 1992), 120.

134

the works by mail order, like other household articles. Each work was listed with its
artist, title, size, medium, format and price. The picture of the work almost always
showed the mount or frame in which the work was placed, since framed or mounted
works seemed more like commodities ready for sale. (Fig. 2.6)
In the late Meiji period, how-to literature proliferated along with the increasing
interest in self-cultivation and self-education aroused by seishikiteki ishin ideology.
Publishers released hundreds of volumes every year detailing the proper procedures for
everything one needed to know to become a cultivated citizen, from domestic
management and etiquette to practices of high culture, promoting these books as a
necessary home reference for modern life.51 Guides to art were of course included in the
repertoire. A famous artist, Takamura K!tar! (1883-1956), wrote an article in Bunsh"
sekai, a literary magazine targeted at teenagers, that instructed readers in how to look at
the works of art at the Bunten.52 The market for how-to literature was geared primarily
toward the new middle class, which needed instruction in how to partake of both the new
cultural activities that had been recently imported, such as photography, and the old
cultural activities that had not been permissible for them to engage in, such as chanoyu
(tea ceremony). The taste for specific cultural practices is essentially acquired over time,
as much of it is derived from an individuals habitus and thus is not instantaneously

51

Kond! Sh!ichis Shitsunai s"shokuh" mentioned above was included in an encyclopedic series
of Katei hyakkazensho published by Hakubunkan in 1910. Besides interior decoration, the series
included the topics such as infant care, child education, closet arrangement, cooking of Western
dishes, hygiene, baking, and sewing.
52

Takamura K!tar!, Bijutsutenrankai kenbutsu ni tsuite no shui, Bunsh" sekai 5, no.13

(October 1910): 32.

135

transmissible. The higher a culture is considered to be, the more complex and
restricted are the social and institutional conditions under which one may access it.
Nonetheless, for new middle class readers, the how-to literature promised the
blandishments of instant elevation to the cultural elite in exchange for reading a single
volume or even part of an article. The instruction offered in the how-to literature
would demystify a complicated and highly formalized set of practices and simplify the
minutely detailed codes of their meanings. The readers were meant to require neither
specialized disciplinary knowledge nor a particular philosophical background in order to
understand what the guides were teaching.
Department store art sections shared the same marketing strategy with the howto literature. Both of these vehicles transformed the knowledge and taste desired by the
new middle class into a commodity that was immediately obtainable. This ready
availability of high art offered by department store art sections appealed to the new
middle class consumers, who wanted to acquire it as casually as they did any other
household article.53 The success of department store art sections reflected the emergence
of a new quest for commodified culture through whose consumption the aspired-to new
life style could be achieved.

The New Middle Class and Taste for Tokonoma Decorating

The department stores owed the success of their art sections to the
government-sponsored Bunten, which aroused public interest in modern art and
53

Sand, House and Home in Modern Japan, 122-123.

136

artists. Most of the artists whose works the department stores commissioned had
exhibited their art in the Bunten. A quick look through the list of artists who
showcased their works in the department stores illustrates the profound connection
the stores maintained with the Bunten. In its first year the Mitsukoshi art section
displayed the works of thirteen nihonga artists among the fourteen who served on the
jury at the first Bunten in 1907.54 In the exhibition of One Hundred Paintings of
Famous Contemporary Artists (Gendai meika hyakuhuku kai) held in Takashimaya
in November 1909, the eighteen artists who exhibited their works were among the
twenty nihonga judges of the second and third Bunten.55
However, not every artist who exhibited his or her work at the Bunten was
necessarily welcomed equally by the department stores. Whereas the stores
frequently asked nihonga artists of the Bunten to submit works to the exhibitions
held by their art sections, they less often did so for y"ga artists and rarely for
sculptors. The department stores started to mount y"ga exhibitions relatively late as
compared to nihonga exhibitions. Although a y"ga department was formed at the
Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1896 and the Bunten featured a separate section for
y"ga from its inception, the y"ga market had not yet been fully established and thus

54

Those artists included Hashimoto Gah! (1835-1908), Kawabata Gyokush! (1842-1913), Araki
Kanpo (1831-1915), Imao Keinen (1845-1924), Terasaki K!gy! (1866-1919), Shimomura
Kanzan (1873-1930), Kobori Tomoto (1864-1931), Kawai Gyokud! (1873-1957), Yokoyama
Taikan (1868-1958), Takeuchi Seih! (1864-1942), Yamamoto Shunky! (1871-1933), Kikuchi
H!bun (1862-1918), and Matsumoto F"ko (1840-1923). For the list of artists who exhibited their
works in Mitsukoshi in 1907 and 1908, see Suzuna, Nihonga oyobi suisaiga: #saka Mitsukoshi
no shinsetsubi, 5-6; Bijutsubu no shinsetsu, 27; Misako, Bijutsukai no ry"ko, 19.
55

Hirota, Meijiki no hyakkaten shusai no bijutsu tenrankai ni tsuite, 51.

137

even specialists in frames for windows or mirrors traded in y"ga. According to

records published in Mitsukoshi bijutsubu 100 nenshi (The history of Mitsukoshi fine
arts department 100 years), the number of nihonga exhibitions held between 1907
and 1912 was three times larger than that of y"ga exhibitions during the same
period.56 During this period, only one exhibition titled ch"koku ten (sculpture
exhibition) was held in May 1912, but most of the exhibited works were not
Western-style sculptures like those the Bunten accepted, but closer to the crafts the
Bunten excluded from its selections.57 In Takashimaya, only two exhibitions among
a total of fourteen held between 1909 and 1912 displayed y"ga, and none of them
exhibited sculptures.58 These disparities clearly indicate the fact that the art sections
of department stores focused more on nihonga and crafts than y"ga and sculpture,
unlike the Bunten.
Given department stores pursuit of a modern and Western image, it is interesting
that their art sections concentrated more on nihonga exhibitions than on y"ga exhibitions.
One explanation is that although y"ga seemingly fit better into the department stores role
as promoters of modern urban life, y"ga fit less easily into Japanese houses. As
discussed earlier, department store art sections marketed art as an indispensable item for
interior decorating. Therefore, coordination with the house could not be overlooked
when department stores decided which art they would display and sell. According to
56

Mitsukoshi bijutsubu 100 nenshi, 24-25.

57

The Buntens entries were limited to three divisions: the first for nihonga, the second for y"ga,
and the third for ch"koku.
58

Takashimaya bijutsubu 50 nenshi, 342.

138

Jordan Sand, the houses of the new middle class were unlikely to have a Western-style
room with the expanse of wall space necessary to hang a framed oil painting.59 Neither
did such rooms have the space to place a sculpture on a pedestal.
The lack of an appropriate space to display y"ga and sculptures in new middle
class houses must be considered one of the crucial points in understanding the dominance
of nihonga exhibitions in department store art sections. Yet it is not sufficient to explain
this phenomenon only with regard to the physical limitations of domestic space. New
middle class customers desire to have a room decorated in Western style was so strong
that they even placed a table and chairs on tatami of their Japanese-style rooms. Catering
to this desire, department stores began to merchandise inexpensive and lightweight rattan
chairs and tables that aesthetically harmonized well with the tatami room of Japanese
native dwellings around 1910.60 In other words, the problem of space did not cause
customers to give up their pursuit of a Western-style interior, and department stores
developed a hybrid-style design to satisfy their desire to have one. If there were strong
demands for y"ga from customers, that kind of eclecticism could have been employed for
the marketing of y"ga as well. Yet the stores did not press for different dimensions for
y"ga, for example, ordering y"ga painters to produce vertical paintings like a hanging
scroll that would fit in a tokonoma. The department stores held a few exhibitions of
small-size y"ga paintings to hang in the narrow space between the lintel and ceiling of
59

Sand, House and Home in Modern Japan, 123. Including a formal Western-style room in their
house remained far beyond what most new middle class customers could afford.
60

For further discussion of Mitsukoshi furniture, see Sand, House and Home in Modern Japan,
126-130 and Jinno, Shumi no tanj", 123-129.

139

Japanese-style rooms.61(Fig. 2.7) That was all the effort department stores made to adapt
y"ga to Japanese-style rooms. The fact that department stores concentrated on a vigorous
promotion of nihonga reflected the fact that their customers preferred to decorate their
interiors with nihonga.
The Japanese native mode of displaying art revolved around a tokonoma, which is
a built-in recessed space in traditional Japanese residential architecture. Under the status
regulations of the Tokugawa period that prescribed everything from the size and location
of residences to the style of footwear, the use of a tokonoma was also restricted according
to social rank by sumptuary codes. The ruling class sought to control who could have the
right to possess such architectural space as part of the projection and maintenance of its
power and influence. Therefore, a house with tokonoma was associated with fixed status
distinctions and both the decorating of the tokonoma with artistic objects and the
appreciation of them had been considered the prerogative of the samurai class. As the old
restrictions on tokonoma were lifted with the Meiji Restoration, members of the new
middle class who were looking for new residences in the cities strove to acquire houses
with a formal Japanese-style room in which a tokonoma was built.62 How extensively
tokonoma proliferated in the new middle classs houses was well demonstrated in
publications featuring residential architecture of the late Meiji period such as Meiji k"ki
no way" setch! j!taku (Combined Japanese-Western style houses of the late Meiji
61

Sand, House and Home in Modern Japan, 123. Mitsukoshi held its first Exhibition of Small
Western-style Paintings (Y!ga sh!hin tenrankai) in May 1912.
62

Mori Hitoshi, Ikinobita kinsei in Sugimoto Buntar!, Nihon j!taku shitsunai s"shokuh"
(Tokyo: Kenchiku Shoin, 1911; reprint, Tokyo: Yumani Shob!, 2007), 296.

140

period) (1906), Meiji k"ki no ch!ry! j!taku (Middle-class houses of the late Meiji period)
(1910), and an article in Tokyo asahi shinbun, Meiji k!ki no ch"ry" shinshi teikaku
kanshuzu (Plans of middle-class gentlemens houses of the late Meiji period) (1911).63
(Fig. 2.8-2.10) According to the floor plans introduced in those publications, either a
study or a parlor had a tokonoma without exception. Indeed, among one hundred plans in
a design manual of detached houses published in 1913, ninety-nine plans had at least one
room with a tokonoma.64
The liberation of tokonoma from feudal restrictions abolished the samurais
exclusive right not just to have a tokonoma itself, but also to partake in cultural practices
around that space. In Natsume S!sekis The Wayfarer (K!gin) (1912-1913), there is an
episode in which the protagonist, Jir!, and his father discuss a scroll hung in the 3-shaku
tokonoma of Jir!s room.65 Jir!s family is a typical new middle class family of the late
Meiji period. The father is a retired governmental official, the eldest son is a college
professor, and the second son, Jir!, works in an architecture firm. Jir! has just moved out
of his parents house, where the extended family had lived together, and started a single
life in a lodging house. Although his new residence is a small rented room with only a
desk, a bookcase, and a brazier (kotatsu), it has a tokonoma, which Jir! decorated with a

63

All these publications are introduced in Yamanote Seikatsushi, in T"ky" k!kan 1868-1930,
vol.2 Teito T"ky", 76.
64

Kaneko Seikichi, Nihon j!taku kenchiku zuan hyakushu (Tokyo: Kenchiku Shoin, 1913). Cited
in Sand, House and Home in Modern Japan, 123.
65

Natsume S!seki, The Wayfarer, trans. Beongcheon Yu (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1967), 242243.

141

half-size hanging scroll.66 Through his conversation with his father, we can see that Jir!
has neither a particular interest in art nor much knowledge about the scroll. Nonetheless,
interestingly enough, Jir! made a point of borrowing this hanging scroll from the father
to decorate the tokonoma, despite the fact that the rest of his household is very simple.
This episode demonstrates well that a tokonoma was so universal in new middle class
households that even a rented room in a lodging house possessed a tokonoma, and that
tokonoma decorating became de rigueur among the new middle class occupants of such
rooms, regardless of the focus of their artistic attention.
An explosion of interest in tokonoma decorating led to a significant increase in
demand for works of art that could be used for this purpose. Not surprisingly, department
stores took advantage of this expansion of tokonoma in the marketing of their art sections.
The department stores that concentrated on the sale of art for tokonoma decorating could
not help but deal with nihonga primarily rather than y"ga or sculptures. Kitamura
Naojir! (1875-1924), who took charge of the sale and display of art in the Osaka
Mitsukoshi art section, wrote an essay titled New Construction and Tokonoma,
Tokonoma and Hanging Scrolls for Mitsukoshi taimusu in February 1909.67 According
to this essay, an increase in population and the development of transportation in the
Kansai area led to a boom in construction of rented houses in Kyoto and vacation homes

66

This half-size hanging scroll does not seem to have been purchased from a department store.
Given the fathers comment that it was drawn by the chief priest of T!daiji, it may be among the
paintings that were dispersed during the anti-Buddhist outburst of the first years of the Meiji era.
67

Kitamura Naojir!s pseudonym was Suzuna. Thus, he also published articles in Mitsukoshi
magazines under the name of Suzuna. Suzuna, Shinchiku to tokonoma, tokonoma to kakemono,
Mitsukoshi taimusu 7, no.2 (February 1909): 1-2.

142

in the suburbs. Kitamura argued that interior decoration was an indispensable

consideration for construction of new houses and tokonoma were essential for their
decoration. Official residences or houses of salaried workers certainly had tokonoma
unless they were small thatched houses. He said continuously tokonoma should be
decorated. It is nice to adorn it with flowers in a vase or with okimono (objects for
placement [on display]) on the table, but the best is with a hanging scroll. Even if the
scroll is drawn on and mounted with paper, it brings dignity to tokonoma and upgrades
the class of the house.68 Kitamura finished his essay by encouraging readers to buy
contemporary art works, which were more readily obtainable than antiques, through
Mitsukoshi art section, which offered the most reliably authentic and diverse works of
art.69
To help customers imagine how the paintings would look when they hung them in
their houses, department stores occasionally built a Japanese-style room instead of using
a neutral setting, like the official salons did. The size and structure of such rooms was
slightly different on each occasion. For the Tokyo Mitsukoshi exhibition of 1910
mentioned above, a full zashiki (Japanese-style formal room) with tatami, tokonoma, and
chigaidana was constructed and hanging scrolls decorated the tokonoma and chigaidana
along with other small art objects. (Fig. 2.1) On the other hand, for the hansetsuga
exhibition held in April 1911, Tokyo Mitsukoshi simply built tokonoma in the wall of its
art section and hung two or three pieces of hansetsuga for each tokonoma. (Fig.2.11) In
68

Ibid., 1-2.

69

Ibid., 1-2.

143

1915 Matsuzakaya installed tokonoma for its Kyotos Top 10 Painters Exhibition
(Ky!to j" dai gaka tenrankai). (Fig.2.12) In the case of Takashimaya, its Osaka branch
art section had tokonoma permanently built in its reception room furnished with a table
and chairs, and every season it hung the best example of nihonga in the tokonoma as a
sample of its artworks. (Fig. 2.13)
In addition to the display of art in model rooms, the stores provided new middle
class customers with lessons in the placement of artworks and the meanings of the new
cultural practices through their house magazines. Takashimaya serialized The Way of
Room Decoration (Ozashiki no kazarikata) in its Takashimaya bijutsu gah", giving
detailed explanations of which theme of painting should be displayed in tokonoma
according to the season, and how paintings and flower vases should be arranged in
tokonoma and chigaidana.70
Here is an illustration of how new middle class customers decorated their
tokonoma with the works of art they bought at the department stores. Mitsukoshi taimusu
of January 1909 featured an essay titled My Study Decorated with Goods from
Mitsukoshi:
For the first spring since I became the head of a family finishing the life of a
student, I decorated my study entirely with goods from Mitsukoshi.
First, in the tokonoma I hung Yamamoto Shunkyos painting A Pine Tree in the
Snow that I bought at the Mitsukoshi art section. It was a half-size hanging scroll
on paper, which was popular at the time. The scroll was mounted in the most
Kyoto style with twilled silk for the body and ivory for the bars, and it suited well
the wall space, crossed by a tokobashira (alcove pillar) made of pine. I am very
happy that the work shows its worth better than when I saw it at Mitsukoshi. On
the second day, I hung Takeuchi Seih!s painting of the Chicken in the Chinese
70

Takashimaya bijutsu gah" (January 1921) and (April 1921).

144

zodiac cycle. Given my current standard of living, the purchase of two scrolls
seems extravagant, but somehow I developed a taste for paintings. I dont really
like old paintings, but I am crazy about new ones. In the first month of this year, I
bought Seih!s painting of two young chickens with an end-of-the-year bonus. I
do not mean to boast of my purchase, but it is hard to acquire such a great work
elsewhere.71
This essay informs us of what kind of art was purchased at department store art
sections during that time, who purchased it, and why and how they did so.
In S!sekis novels that depict middle-class intellectuals living in the Yamanote
district, the characters are often described through what is displayed in their interior
environments and how they appreciate it. The protagonist of Kokoro (1914), who is a
college student and has been brought up by a father fond of such things as Chinese poetry,
calligraphy, and chanoyu, derides the taste of the landlady who decorated his rooms
tokonoma with a vase of flowers and a koto (a Japanese harp) in a too obvious way.72
On the other hand, in The Wayfarer (discussed above), Jir! praises his sisters taste as
haikara when taking a look at her room, which is decorated with a gaily-patterned
cushion, a domestically produced majolica plate, and an artificial rose arranged in a
Secessionist style flower vase.73 It became clear that taste as revealed in the display of
art in interior spaces functioned as a criterion by which to judge people at the time.

71

Tamiya, Mitsukoshi no baihin nite kazararetaru y!ga shosai, Mitsukoshi taimusu 7, no.1
(January 1909): 3-4.
72

Natsume S!seki, Kokoro, trans. Edwin McClellan (Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing,
2000), 147.
73

S!seki, The Wayfarer, 249. Jir!s words of (haikara) in Japanese version was
translated into quite stylish in English version.

145

Interior dcor came to be considered as a means of self-expression, with each object and
work of art being a reflection of the individual who chose it.
In 1909 Ishikawa Denkai published T"ky"gaku (A Study of Tokyo), which was a
guide for migrants who were starting a new life in Tokyo. This book, a pioneer in the
field of how-to literature, instructed new Tokyoites to have the kind of shumi (taste)
that would help them socialize, such as a taste for y"kyoku (songs of noh), waka (a 31syllable Japanese poem), haiku (a form of Japanese poetry), chanoyu, billiards, go (a
board game), nagauta (songs of kabuki), calligraphy, or antique collecting.74 As
Ishikawa noted, taste became the most conspicuous marker identifying a person during
this period of profound social and economic change. In particular, the emerging middle
class considered taste to be one of the most important means of communication in a city
where an anonymous individual was predisposed to be judged by his or her own
personality rather than by family background. Following the Meiji governments
abolition of prescriptive status distinctions, the old social order structured around a
system of fixed meanings and their referents was disrupted and the cultural practices that
had embodied a strict social hierarchy ceased to provide stable indices of social standing.
Paradoxically, however, individual taste and cultivation of culture became vital to the
negotiation of ones social position in the fluid moment of modern Japan.

74

Cited in Minami, 82.

146

Here the main theoretical inspiration comes from Pierre Bourdieus sociology of
taste. 75 Within a society where the social position of individuals is determined by the
volume of economic, social, cultural and symbolic capital each possesses, Bourdieu
stresses, taste is never innate but determined by class, despite the myth that a persons
artistic preference is a personal expression and in an autonomous sphere. As taste
strongly ties in with social standing, people in turn attempt to deploy their taste to define,
legitimate and preserve their social position. Taste does not just reflect and perpetuate
social distinctions, but also has a major role in creating such distinctions. In modern
Japan, the revocation of strict status delineations made the hitherto fixed relationship
between configurations of social status and modes of cultural practice relatively loose and,
simultaneously, created an opportunity to acquire a social position by displaying to others
ones personal taste and cultivation of culture. Consequently, art sections of department
stores won particular popularity among the new middle class customers, not only helping
them become familiar with the high culture they aspired to but also satisfying their thirst
for the cultural capital that consolidated their social position.

Growing Popular Interest in Chanoyu and Art Collecting

In the cultural tradition of Japan, chanoyu and art collecting were inseparably
intertwined.76 Art had been often collected with the intention to display it during tea

75

See Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. Richard
Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).
76

Chanoyu, which literally means hot water for tea, had developed since the fifteenth century
under the patronage of military rulers, although its practice was not exclusive to this class. The

147

gatherings. As an essential part of social elite intercourse, chanoyu had contributed to the
practice of viewing art as part of a decorative ensemble arranged within the tokonoma.
Department stores promotion of art for tokonoma decorating was thus also closely linked
to the practice of chanoyu, which was being redefined as a cultural requisite for
cultivated citizens during the late Meiji and Taish! period.
Chanoyu, which had been in decline as a result of the collapse of its samurai
patron class right after the Meiji Restoration, first gained acceptance among the affluent
Meiji elite. In Art, Tea, and Industry: Masuda Takashi and the Mitsui Circle, Christine
Guth explores in depth how Meiji entrepreneurial capitalists and higher government
officials used chanoyu and art collecting as a means to legitimize their newly acquired
political and economic power with the social reordering of the Restoration. By the 1890s,
the practice of chanoyu and art collecting became an activity symbolizing refinement,
cultural advancement, and even cultural nationalism for the new Meiji ruling class.77 By
involving themselves in cultural practices associated with high-class samurai in feudal
Japan, the Meiji elite attempted to appropriate that groups social prestige.
Takahashi Yoshio, the first director of Mitsukoshi, was a principal member of the
Mitsui chanoyu circle formed by Masuda Takashi (1848-1938), the director of Mitsui
Trading Company. Masuda was one of the great art collectors as well as a dominant
most established mode of appreciation of art objects was structured in relation to chanoyu,
distinguishing between those who had merely accumulated valuable works of art and those who
appreciated their aesthetic value. Christine Guth, Art, Tea, and Industry: Masuda Takashi and the
Mitsui Circle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 16.
77

Nagatani Ken, Jitsugy!ka bunka no zenryaku to keishiki: Meiji Taish! o ch"shin ni, in
Haikarucha Vol. 3 of Kindai Nihon bunkaron, ed. Aoki Tamotsu (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2000),
182-184.

148

figure in the chanoyu circle in modern Japan.78 Mitsui was the parent company of
Mitsukoshi, and Takahashi worked for four years at the Mitsui Bank before he moved to
Mitsukoshi as director in 1895. Like other executives of the Mitsui Company, Takahashi
first joined the tea gatherings hosted by Masuda during his years at the Mitsui Bank.
As a member of the new Meiji elite, Takahashi had become acutely aware that
social and political supremacy required appropriation of the cultural symbols of the class
he was seeking to supplant. Although he is now better known as a chajin (man of tea)
Takahashi S!an (his tea name), the author of numerous books about chanoyu and art
collecting, rather than being remembered as the industrialist Takahashi Yoshio, for
Takahashi, a taste for chanoyu and art collecting was not inherited from his family, but
consciously acquired after he entered the Meiji business world.79 During his youth,
chanoyu and art collecting had been associated with a world of privilege and wealth to
which his family had no doubt aspired but did not belong. Afterwards, as a highly
regarded connoisseur, his knowledge of tokonoma decorating became sufficiently
profound that he was able to write the foreword to Sugimoto Fumitar!s Nihon j!taku
shitsunai s"shokuh" (Rules of Japanese Domestic Interior Decoration) (1910) and the
same authors Zukai nihon zashiki no kazarikata (Illustrations of Japanese Room
Decoration) (1912), books about traditional decorative techniques in the shoin (study
room), focusing mostly on the proper placement of art objects and hanging scrolls in
tokonoma. However, there once had been days when Takahashi himself had hankered
78

Masuda Takashi began to organize tea gatherings in 1878.

79

Jinno, Shumi no tanj", 72.

149

after a cultured life with art, despite his early lack of taste. In his autobiography, he
recollects that his first home as a newlywed was decorated with an imitation of a work by
Matsumura Keibun (1779-1843), a famous painter of the late Edo period, even though he
knew it was a forgery, and a cheap bonsai (potted plant). He subsequently says he was
very embarrassed about his vulgar or tasteless past and, simultaneously, surprised at his
own boldness when he thought back to that period after he was taught chanoyu and art
collecting.80 Thus, Takahashi understood better than anyone the cultural concerns and
anxieties of the new middle class, who wanted and needed to engage in high culture to
enhance their social standing even though they had not accumulated enough cultural
knowledge and experience.
Discerning an opportunity to appropriate the cultural pretensions of the new
middle class, Mitsukoshi opened up its art section, which would provide a cheaper,
faster and easier way to become a member of the cultural elite with a taste for art.
Although Takahashi technically left Mitsukoshi to work for Mitsui Mine in 1906, a year
before the opening of the art section, he remained as a consultant for the new director,
Hibi #suke, who continued Takahashis reforms and took Mitsukoshi into the new age as
a department store. Thus, I would suggest that Takahashi was among those who were
influential in commercializing works of art as profitable goods for Mitsukoshi by
capitalizing on the new middle class's pursuit of chanoyu and the accompanying
collecting of art as good taste. Takahashis keen insight into the new middle classs
desire for high art and his own trials and errors in art collecting contributed to the success
80

Takahashi Yoshio, H"ki no ato (Tokyo: Sh"h!en, 1932), 197-198.

150

of the Mitsukoshi art section, on which other Japanese department stores modeled their
own art sections.
Also, Takahashi is a key figure among those who brought the practice of chanoyu
from the haute bourgeoisie, such as members of the Mitsui circle, to the new middle
class, such as Mitsukoshi customers. In the history of modern chanoyu, Takahashi is
recorded as a leader in disseminating chanoyu as a mark of good taste in the aesthetic
realm of everyday life, rather than a means of spiritual cultivation in Zen.81 Tea
gatherings were featured regularly in the nations major newspapers beginning in the
1890s, and Takahashi wrote many of the firsthand descriptions of such gatherings
between the 1890s and the 1930s.82 As chanoyu eventually spread in popularity
throughout the new middle class, Mitsukoshi held exhibitions of tea utensils every
September, beginning with the first Exhibition of Utensils for Macha and Sencha
(Macha oyobi Senchaki Chinretsukai) in September 1915. In addition, the store built a
permanent tea room (chashitsu) on the rooftop, where it held tea ceremonies.83 (Fig. 2.14)

81

Tanaka Hidetaka, Kindai chad" no rekishi shakaigaku (Tokyo: Shibunkaku Shuppan, 2007),
79-81.
82

Takahashi devoted himself to the popularization of chanoyu by writing a regular column about
tea gatherings in newspapers. His columns were so popular that they were subsequently printed
in books such as T"to chakaiki Vol. 1-13 (Tokyo: Keibund! Shoten, 1914-1920) and Taish"
chad"ki Vol.1-8 (Tokyo: Keibund! Shoten, 1921-1928).
83

The tea room in the roof garden of Tokyo Mitsukoshi was called Kuch"an and the one at
Osaka branch was Ry"untei. Kuch"an was built initially to serve a tea to Prince Arthur of
Connaugh, who visited Japan in February 1906. Kuch"an, which had been used for a VIP tea
gathering, was opened to the public in March 1916. In Ry"untei, which was built with the new
construction of Osaka Mitsukoshi, a large tea gathering was held for a month in August 1918.
Every day more than three hundred customers joined the event. Ry"untei no dai chakai,
Mitsukoshi, (September 1918): 15-16.

151

The popularization of chanoyu led to interest in art collecting and consequently the
demand for works of art increased.84
Many of the artworks displayed in tokonoma during the Meiji elites tea
gatherings were treasures that had belonged to the great art collections that had been
assembled over the centuries by temples, aristocrats, and daimy" but dispersed after 1868.
Aspiring collectors coveted meibutsu (famous objects) that had once belonged to Japans
feudal military rulers. In assuming ownership of these artistic treasures, the new Meiji
elite was also assuming the political and social prestige associated with their former
owners. Yet the number of old paintings, works of calligraphy, and antiques was limited
and thus could not meet the rapidly increasing demand for them. At some point,
forgeries, fake antiques and fake old tea utensils appeared on the market and lured the
nouveau riche, a class that emerged with the stock market boom after the Russo-Japanese
war.85 The collecting fever caused not only the problem of rampant forgery but also
inflation in the price of old art works. In the turmoil of the old art market, antique dealers
made excessive profits by buying works cheap from the old collectors, mostly their
descendants who were urgently in need of money, and selling them dear to the new
collectors, who lacked the cultural competence required for their consumption. In
another of S!sekis novels, The Gate (1910), there is an episode that epitomizes this
phenomenon. The protagonist Sosuke sells a two-fold screen by Sakai H!itsu (17611828) inherited from his father to a local antique shop after a long bout of haggling over
84

Gendai meika hansetsuga tenrankai, Mitsukoshi (April 1920): 44.

85

Nagatani, Jitsugy!ka bunka no zenryaku to keishiki, 187-188.

152

the price, which started at 6 yen and ended at 35 yen. A few days later, Sosuke finds that
his neighbor has purchased the folding screen at the shop for 80 yen, more than double
what he received for it.86 It was in such an environment that department stores opened up
the market for contemporary art in order to meet the demand for works of art created as a
result of the interest in chanoyu and the expansion of tokonoma into the new middle class
household.
In the essay Its Time to Think about Interior Decorating, Mitsukoshi promoted
new works of art to the readers of its magazines:
Rather than antiques, new works, which are produced on the basis of modern
ideas, have become popular these days. Artists who became famous after the
Meiji Restoration are considered contemporary artists, even if they are no longer
living. Not only old masters works but also the works of young artists are very
popular as a result of the pursuit of new, modern ideas. New paintings are most
appropriate for the interior decoration of new houses. It is not a big deal to decide
whose work is most proper to hang, but what is the most important is the harmony
with the interior.87
The contemporary nihonga and crafts, which formerly had not been given much attention
by Meiji elite art collectors, came to be appreciated by the new middle-class customers
who, with less financial means, followed the decorating practices of elite collectors.
Instead of unaffordable and risky old artworks, department store art sections sold
contemporary works at a reasonable price and enabled the new middle class to participate
in the practice of tokonoma decorating. Within the dichotomy of nihonga and y"ga of
modern Japanese art institutions, nihonga came to be regarded as if it embodied a
86

Natsume S!seki, The Gate, trans. Francis Mathy and Damian Flanagan (London: Peter Owen;
Chester Springs, PA: Dafour Editions, 2006), 70-73 and 100-102.
87

Shitsunai s!shoku o omofuno shiki, 1-2.

153

Japanese art tradition in its essence, although it was a new category of art formed in the
Meiji period. As a distinction between Japan and the West overlapped with the
distinction between tradition and modern, nihonga functioned smoothly as a substitute for
old artwork in the practices of the new middle classs art collecting.

The Promotion of Hansetsuga for Display in Tokonoma

Among the nihonga paintings, hanging scrolls were preferred by department
stores art sections over hand scrolls, screens, albums or paintings in horizontal frames,
which were not appropriate for being displayed in tokonoma. Of the exhibitions held at
department stores in the early years, exhibitions of hansetsuga were a particularly
popular means of selling works of prominent artists at a reasonable price. Hansetsu
literally means half size. Hansetsuga is a hanging scroll approximately 135 x 35 cm,
which fits the best for display in the tokonoma of less than 1 ken (about 1.8m) found in
common households.88 On the other hand, among the traditional formats of painting,
folding screens were dominant in the Bunten since they were the most convenient format
to expand the size of the picture just by adding folds. For entry into the Bunten, artists
produced large-scale works since they believed that the enlargement of a paintings size
reflected its artistic worth in its own right, free from the function of decoration, and thus
had an effect on the result of awards decisions.89

88

Suzuna, Shinchiku to tokonoma, tokonoma to kakemono, 2.

89

In 1911, in view of the fact that too many of the Japanese-style paintings were of a large size,
the rule [one of the Art Exhibition Rules announced by the Ministry of Education on June 8,

154

As art exhibitions including the Bunten were institutionalized as a major venue to

display and evaluate works of art, in the minds of artists a work destined for public
exhibitions took a superior position compared to one produced to decorate tokonoma. In
a pamphlet titled Kaiga ni tsuite (About Painting) that Yokoyama Taikan and Hishida
Shuns! published together in 1905, the two artists criticized the traditional practice of
displaying paintings for tokonoma decoration as follows: Painting has been deprived of
its freedom and subject to tokonoma. In the place of an incense burner or flower vase, a
painting has merely contributed to creating a luxurious atmosphere, along with the flavor
of tea.90 Nonetheless, paradoxically, Taikan and Shuns! were among the painters who
most frequently displayed their works at department store art sections over the years.
Even artists who insisted on the independence of paintings from the tokonoma were
obliged to ensure their livelihood by selling their works at department stores, which were
dealing with art works as decorative items for private residential spaces.
The works of the Bunten were too big and too expensive for individual collectors
to afford.91 Every year the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of the Imperial
Household purchased several pieces of art from among the prize-winning works to build
the national and Imperial Courts collections of modern Japanese art, respectively.

1907] was changed and now it was possible that, for large works, to show only part of the work
or to display parts of it in turn. Kojima Kaoru, Introduction, 11.
90

Cited in Shionoya Jun, Tokonoma no ue no rafu: Kobayashi Kokei kami yori, in Sh"waki
bijutsutenrankai kenky! (Tokyo: Ch"!k!ron Bijutsu Shuppan, 2009), 90.
91

Aoki Shigeru, Fuwafuwa to shita Taish! jidai: Meiji kara mita bijutsu to sakkani tsuite, in
Taish"ki bijutsu tenrankai no kenky!, ed. T!ky! Bunkazai Kenky"jo Bijutsubu (Tokyo:
Ch"!k!ron Bijutsu Shuppan, 2005), 653.

155

However, a considerable number of works were not sold due to the lack of art museums
that could accommodate such monumental works for public display. As Kojima Kaoru
aptly points out, this phenomenon gave rise to a dual structure in which artists produced
separate works for salon (kaij" geijutsu) and works for sale (urie).92 If the Bunten
was an haute couture show, the hansetsuga exhibition can be regarded as a prt-a-porter
show. As every haute couture house also markets prt-a-porter collections, which
typically deliver a higher return on investment than their custom clothing, prestigious
painters of the Bunten produced hansetsuga for display in tokonoma to make a living. In
the case of hansetsuga, painters could complete a large number of works in a short time
not only because their size was small but also because the works were mostly produced
on paper instead of silk. Since paper absorbs ink faster than silk, it requires excellent
skill to control the brush strokes, but at the same time it takes less time to finish one
painting. And along with the productivity advantage, paper was less expensive than silk,
offering further cost savings.
Distinctions between works for salon and works for sale were reflected not
just in the size and format of paintings but also in their style and subject matter. Kawai
Gyokud! said in 1908, Public exhibits are usually held in Western-style buildings.
Therefore, to match those buildings, the paintings for the exhibitions became larger in
size and thicker in color, with higher contrasts and deeper perspective.93 In department
92

Kojima Kaoru, K%ndae ilbones& kwanj&n%i y&khwalgwa chuyo jakpum puns&k,

Misulsanondan 13 (December 2001): 19.
93

Kawai Gyokudo, Tenrankai jidai, Shoga kott" zasshi (April 1908). Cited in Nihon bijutsuin
100 nenshi vol. 4 (Tokyo: Nihon bijutsuin, 1989), 945.

156

store art sections, on the other hand, monochrome or lightly-colored ink paintings were
dominant. As the simplest depiction of nature through the use of subdued colors, limited
lines and negative space had been highly appreciated as an expression of the artists
sincere and candid personality or spirituality in the tradition of literati paintings,
department stores endorsed the simplest hansetsuga as true paintings revealing the
essence of the artist.94 On the other hand, there was a practical reason for the praise of
hansetsuga by department store art sections, which needed higher productivity from the
artists in order to stock enough paintings. In short, hansetsuga emerged as a genre that
department stores vigorously promoted for the mass marketing of original paintings by
contemporary masters.
Mitsukoshis first hansetsuga exhibition, held in its Osaka branch in November
1908, was so successful that the display had to be changed about ten times so that the
works that were sold could be replaced with new ones, and a total of more than one
hundred paintings were displayed. The house magazine Mitsukoshi taimusu carried
plates that reproduced nine paintings among the works displayed in this exhibition.
(Fig.2.15) All nine were painted on paper and most of them were lightly colored, inkand-wash paintings. The range in price was from 8.5 yen (Kishi Yoneyama) to 24 yen
(Imao Keinen), remarkably inexpensive considering the renown of the artists. From the
second exhibition of hansetsuga, there was a rush of orders for paintings from various
parts of the country.95 In April 1910, Mitsukoshis Tokyo branch finally held The First
94

Suzuna, Shinchiku to tokonoma, tokonoma to kakemono, 2.

95

Dai ni kai Hansetsugakai, Mitsukoshi taimusu 7, no.4 (April 1909): 4.

157

Contemporary Masters Half-size Hanging-scroll Exhibition discussed at the beginning

of this chapter. Since then, Mitsukoshi held hansetsuga exhibitions twice every year both
in Osaka and Tokyo. Successive hansetsuga exhibitions were all so popular that the day
before the opening they attracted crowds of customers who were eager to purchase the
best pieces. In the case of Takashimaya, an Exhibition of Famous Contemporary
Artists Small Size Paintings (Gendai meika sh!hin gafuku tenkan) was held annually,
beginning in 1913. Even though Takashimaya did not use in the title of their exhibitions
the term hansetsuga, which its rival Mitsukoshi had already appropriated, Takashimayas
exhibition was actually of the same type, showcasing half-size hanging scrolls of wellknown artists of the day.
The preference for hansetsuga affected the choice of subject matter of the
paintings that department stores dealt in. For example, hansetsugas narrow and long
format was not appropriate for history paintings, which had been one of the genres most
valued by the official exhibitions.96 Department store art sections showed relatively less
interest in epic themes such as war, myths, and legends, which usually required
horizontally broad space to deliver their grand narratives. The subject matter advocated
by the department stores included instead landscapes, kach" (flowers and birds), animals,
and bijin. This preference is well reflected in the subject matter Takashimaya assigned to
96

History painting occupied the most prestigious status within the European academy hierarchy.
History painting had been considered essential for the construction of national identity and
fostered by modern nation-states. In Meiji Japan, history painting developed around 1890 as a
way of solidifying the new emphasis on imperial history and nation-building through
representation of historical events, mythology, and folk tales. About the relationship between the
development of history paintings and the formation of the nation-state in modern Japan, see Sat!
D!shin, Nihon bijutsu no tanj" (Tokyo: K!dansha, 1996), 104-131.

158

the artists for the series of One Hundred Painting Exhibitions, such as autumn leaves,
(1910), cherry blossoms (1912 and 1914), the moon (1913), pines (1915), Mt. Fuji (1915),
chrysanthemums (1915), bamboo (1917), and waterfalls (1923). Many of these themes
were traditionally loved by Japanese as auspicious symbols and thus were a frequent
motif for the decoration of native dwellings. In addition, given the custom that
tokonoma decoration was changed with the seasons, each theme seemed to be chosen
taking into account the seasonal change. In articles with titles such as Shoshun no toko
kazari (Tokonoma decorating for early spring) or Natsu no toko kazari (Tokonoma
decorating for summer), department stores promoted new works of art in their house
magazines when each new season came. (Fig. 2.16) At the end of the year in particular,
every department store was busy preparing Shinnen no toko kazari (Tokonoma
decorating for the New Year), which was one of the most popular gift items for seasons
greetings in the stores. Hanging scrolls with subjects symbolizing good fortune and
prosperity, such as the rising sun or cranes with pine trees, enjoyed particular favor
during the season welcoming the New Year. According to a report about Mitsukoshi art
sections, not only art lovers but also those who wanted to decorate their tokonoma to
reflect best wishes for the happiness of the family for the New Year welcomed the
paintings of auspicious symbols. Paintings such as Rising Sun were almost all sold out
regardless of the artist.97 In December 1918, Mitsukoshi installed a model room for
Tokonoma decoration for the New Year, decorating its tokonoma with Imao Keinens
Kyokujitsueir"zu (Rising Sun Shining on Waves) and other small art objects. The price
97

Sh!gatsu kake gafuku chinretsu, Mitsukoshi (January 1914), 5.

159

of each item, including Keinens painting, was put in Mitsukoshi magazine with a
photograph of the model room.98 (Fig. 2.17) Mitsukoshi turned the whole decorative
ensemble of the model room into a commodity.
In addition to nihonga exhibitions, the department stores frequently held
exhibitions of lacquerware, ceramics, and metalwork, occasionally even bonsai and
ikebana (flower arrangements), all of which had been popular items for tokonoma
decorating in Japanese native cultural practices. Department store art sections developed
parallel to the Bunten, depending on its authority and popularity. Yet they
simultaneously subverted the exclusive and hierarchical distinction between fine art
and decorative art instituted via the Bunten. In native Japanese art practices, almost all
three-dimensional figures other than dolls were referred to as okimono (objects for
placement [on display]). However, the modernization of art led to the division of threedimensional figures into k"gei, categorized as crafts by Western standards, and
ch"koku, meaning Western-style sculptures. The term ch"koku is a new term coined
in the Meiji period, as bijutsu was. While the Bunten officially accepted only ch"koku,
department stores indiscriminately embraced k"gei in their exhibitions.
Stimulated by the success of its first hansetsuga exhibition in 1910, the Tokyo
Mitsukoshi art section planned to hold The First Exhibition of Art and Fine Decorative
Art (Dai ikkai bijutsu oyobi bijutsu kogeihin tenrankai) in October of the same year.
(Fig. 2.18) Imperial court artists (teishitsu gigei in) such as Takamura K!un (sculpture),
Unno Sh!min (metalwork), Takeuchi Ky"ichi (sculpture), Shirayama Sh!sai (lacquer),
98

Mitsukoshi (December 1918), 27.

160

and Miyagawa G!zan (ceramics) pledged their support of this exhibition.99 For thirteen
years, from 1910 to 1922, this decorative art exhibition was held every October at Tokyo
Mitsukoshi. During that period, the exhibition functioned as the most prestigious place to
showcase distinguished decorative arts by master craftsmen. It was not until 1927 that
the Teiten (the successor of the Bunten) opened a separate division for exhibits of
decorative arts for the first time.100
From time to time department store art sections also held exhibitions of
calligraphy, which had been one of the most common items traditionally displayed in
tokonoma, although calligraphy had been rigorously excluded from modern art
institutions based on the discourse of fine art. Department stores neither restricted their
exhibitions to fine art nor differentiated so-called high art from low art. They
would display flower arrangements in the very same place where an exhibition of
prominent painters had been held a week before. Rather than following a rigid definition
of fine art, the selection of art to be displayed at department store exhibitions focused
on works that would be used for interior decoration, especially tokonoma decoration, of
new middle class houses.

99

The teishitsu gigei in system was established in 1890 and it offered high prospects for the social
position of traditional craftsmen. Takamura K!un, Unno Sh!min, and Takeuchi Ky"ichi wrote
messages of support for this exhibition in Mitsukoshi taimusu. Bijutsu oyobi bijutsu k!gei hin
tenrankai wa ikanishite umareshitaka, Mitsukoshi taimusu 8, no.12 (November 1910): 14-19.
100

In 1927, the Teiten organized a separate division for exhibits of crafts by creating the notion of
Bijutstu kogei (fine decorative art). The term could be understood to mean decorative art as
fine art, and to distinguish highly artistic crafts from industrial ones.

161

Conclusion
In spring 1930, sixteen tokonoma were built for the Japanese Art Exhibition
within Palazzo delle Esposizion, the largest exhibit venue in Rome. (Fig. 2.19) #kura
Kishichir! (1882-1963), the organizer and sponsor of the exhibition stated its purpose as
follows:
Japanese art exhibitions that have been held overseas so far have followed
Western conventions of display. This has resulted in westerners never
recognizing the true value of Japanese art. This exhibition will enhance national
prestige by displaying masterpieces of top artists in tokonoma, which is the most
appropriate way to appreciate Japanese art.101
About two hundred works of the most prominent nihonga painters of the day, including
Taikan, Gyokud!, and Seih!, were displayed at tokonoma built in a monumental
neoclassical building, the Palazzo delle Esposizion.102 With the strong intent to introduce
nihonga in its true light in a foreign land, #kura hired an architect and professor at the
Tokyo School of Fine Arts, #sawa Sanosuke, for the design of the tokonoma and had an
ikebana master fly to Italy to decorate the tokonoma with ikebana along with paintings
during the exhibition.103 The exhibition propagated the notion that tokonoma is the
indigenous element of the Japanese house, and its decoration is the essential element of
the Japanese way to appreciate art not as a single work but as a totality of the works
101

Roma kaisai nihon bijutsu tenrankai shiry! in #kura sh!kokan meihinten ed. #kura bunka
zaidan (Niigata: Niigatakenritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, 2003), 126.
102

All works were commissioned by #kura Kishichir!, the head of zaibatsu (conglomerate)
#kura. He sponsored this exhibition with one million yen (5-10 billion yen in current currency).
103

To supervise the construction work in the field, #sawas son, who also graduated from the
Tokyo School of Fine Art with a major in architecture, was sent to Rome with five master
carpenters.

162

displayed therein. The way to display nihonga in tokonoma was reimported to domestic
art exhibitions. In 1931, simple tokonoma were built for the eighteenth exhibition of
Saik! Nihon Bijutsuin (Revived Japan Art Institute) at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art
Museum (T!ky!to Bijutsukan), which was the first time that tokonoma were built for an
art exhibition held in an official art museum in Japan.104 The endeavor to recuperate a
Japanese indigenous way to appreciate art was no doubt related to the issue of cultural
nationalism during the early Sh!wa period.105
Twenty years before the movement to build tokonoma for nihonga exhibitions
occurred in the Japanese art world, department store art sections had already built
tokonoma in the stores and offered their customers an opportunity to experience nihonga
not as a single independent work but as a part of a decorative ensemble that worked
together with the environment in which it was displayed. Yet I do not intend to suggest
that the new middle classs pursuit of tokonoma decorating with nihonga and crafts arose
from historical consciousness to recover and preserve what is considered Japanese
indigenous culture. The revival of traditional culture in modern Japan cannot be
sufficiently understood only through the lens of a cultural nationalism that endeavored to
define and defend national identity in the face of the onslaught of Western modernity.
For the new middle class, the engagement with traditional Japanese cultural practices like
chanoyu and tokonoma decorating acted as a manifestation of a personal quest for social
104

It is ironic that Yokoyama Taikan as the representative painter of Nihon Bijutsuin led the
movement to build tokonoma for exhibitions because he had insisted on the emancipation of
nihonga from tokonoma to secure artistic freedom in 1905, as discussed above.
105

Shionoya, Tokonoma no ue no rafu: Kobayashi Kokei kami yori, 91.

163

legitimacy. The Japanese new middle class had a penchant for tokonoma decorating not
because it was indigenous to Japanese culture but because it was associated with the
upper classs cultural taste, just as the European bourgeoisie emulated aristocratic taste
for their interior decoration. Strictly speaking, the new middle class consisted of those
who had been alienated from traditional cultural practices such as chanoyu and tokonoma
until then. The formalities of chanoyu and tokonoma decorating were to the new middle
class, as foreign as imported customs and goods. Thus department stores educated the
new middle class about how to conduct chanoyu and tokonoma decorating through their
magazines and exhibitions, just as they first introduced the knowledge required to use
foreign imports in order to sell those unfamiliar items.106
The new middle classs taste for native aesthetic practices was motivated by a
desire to create class identity and foster class consciousness rather than by an effort to
affirm Japans cultural identity vis--vis the West. Consequently, tokonoma decorating
with nihonga not as a collective signifier of Japanese cultural distinction but as an
individual marker of cultural authority did not conflict with the haikara image of the new
middle class. The new middle class's tokonoma decorating was a modern practice,
challenging the artificial binary of modern Western and traditional Japanese.

106

For further discussion of Japanese department stores customer education about foreign goods,
see Miller R. Creighton, The Dep'to: Merchandising the West while Selling Japaneseness, in
Re-made in Japan: Everyday Life and Consumer Taste in a Changing Society, ed. Joseph J. Tobin
(New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1992), 42-57.

164

Fig. 2.1: Japanese-style Room for The First Contemporary Masters Half-size
Hanging-scroll Exhibition from Mitsukoshi taimusu (May 1910)

165

Fig. 2.2: Mitsukoshis Second-floor Lounge in Louis XV Style

from Jik! (April 1908)

166

Fig. 2.3: Postcard Advertising Mitsukoshis Sale Items in the Late Meiji Period

167

Fig. 2.4: Paintings exhibited in Mitsukoshis The First Contemporary Masters

Half-size Hanging-scroll Exhibition from Mitsukoshi taimusu (May 1910)

168

Fig. 2.5: Takashimayas Exhibition of One Hundred Paintings of Famous Artists, 1909

169

Fig. 2.6: Advertisement of Mitsukoshi Art Section from Jik! (March 1908)

170

Fig. 2.7: Exhibition of Small Western Paintings, Mitsukoshi, May 1912

from Mitsukoshi (June 1912)

171

Fig. 2.8: Floor Plans from Combined Japanese-Western style houses of the late Meiji
period (1906)
172

Fig. 2.9: Floor Plan from Middle-class houses of the late Meiji period (1910)

Fig. 2.10: Floor Plans of Middle-class gentlemens houses of the late Meiji period
from Tokyo asahi shinbun (January 1911)

173

Fig. 2.11: Mitsukoshis The Third Half-size Hanging-scroll Exhibition

from Mitsukoshi (May 1911)

174

Fig. 2.12: Matsuyas Kyotos Top 10 Painters Exhibition

from Bijutsu sh"ho (May 16, 1915)

Fig. 2.13: Reception Room of Takashimaya Art Section in 1922

from Takashimaya bijutsubu 50 nenshi (1962)
175

Fig. 2.14: Mitsukoshi Tea Room, Kuch!an

176

Fig. 2.15: Paintings of Mitsukoshis first Half-size Hanging-scroll Exhibition,

from Mitsukoshi taimusu (December 1908)

177

Fig. 2.16: Tokonoma Decoration for Spring from Mitsukoshi (January 1916)

Fig. 2.17: Tokonoma Decoration for New Year from Mitsukoshi (December 1918)

178

Fig. 2.18: Works of The First Exhibition of Art and Fine Decorative Art,
Mitsukoshi, 1910 from Mitsukoshi taimusu (November 1910)

179

Fig. 2.19: Palazzo delle Exposizion in Rome in 1930 (up)

Installation View of Japanese Art Exhibition (down)

180

CHAPTER THREE
Art Exhibitions in Department Stores: Marketing the Image of Cultural Institutions

Introduction
On October 13, 1915, one day before the opening of the ninth Bunten in Ueno
Park, the Nika-kai (Second Section Association) began its exhibition at the Mitsukoshi
department store in Nihonbashi. (Fig. 3.1) Including Yasui S!tar!s (1888-1955) recent
works, which he had produced during his study in Paris, the works presented in Nika
Bijutsu Tenrankai (Nika Art Exhibition, abbreviated as Nikaten) were vigorously
promoted by Mitsukoshi as new and original works never before seen at any other art
exhibition in Japan.1 (Fig. 3.2-3.4) Not only Mitsukoshis self-congratulatory words
but also newspaper reviews focused on the novelty of Nikaten.2 For example, Jiji shinp!
opined, [Nikatens] works were full of a fresh energy we cannot find at the Bunten, and
T!ky! mainichi shinbun characterized Nikatens entries as audaciously and undefinably
new as compared with those of the Bunten.3 Nika-kai was an exhibition society founded
in 1914 by a group of young artists who had recently returned from Europe, where they
had studied the latest artistic developments such as post-Impressionism and

Nika bijutsu tenrankai: Shin kich! gahaku no shuppin, Mitsukoshi (October 1915): 13.

The reviews in newspapers were republished in Nika bijutsu tenrankai, Mitsukoshi

(November 1915): 34-35.
3

Ibid., 34-35.

181

Expressionism.4 Dissatisfied with the narrow selections of the Bunten, which favored the
academic styles, the young artists petitioned the Vice-Minister of Education to divide the
y!ga division into two categories, the ikka (first section) for the old school and the nika
(second section) for the new school, as had been done for the nihonga division since
1912.5 When their petition was rejected, they decided to leave the Bunten to found their
own independent exhibition society, Nika-kai. According to the Rules of Nika-kai
published in the September 1915 issue of Mitsukoshi, anybody could submit his or her
work to Nikaten, but it would reject only the works of those who submitted their works to
the Bunten.6 To express its opposition to the Bunten in public, Nika-kai deliberately
scheduled its first few annual exhibitions, including the second and third ones held at
Mitsukoshi, concurrently with those of the Bunten.7

Nika-kai membership included Ishi Hakutei (1882-1958, returned from France in 1912), Tsuda
Seif" (1880-1987, returned from France in 1909), Umehara Ryuzabur! (1888-1986, returned
from France in 1913), Yanagi Keisuke (1881-1923, returned from America and France in 1909),
Yamashita Shintar! (1881-1966, returned from France in 1910), Kosugi H!an (1881-1964,
returned from France in 1914), Arishima Ikuma (1882-1974, returned from France and Italy in
1910), Saito Toyosaku (1880-1951, returned from France in 1910), Sakamoto Hanjir! (18821969, left for France in 1921), Yuasa Ichir! (1869-1931, returned from Europe in 1909), and
Morita Tsunetomo (1881-1933, returned from Europe in 1915). Masamune Tokusabur! (18831962) joined Nika-kai in 1915 while he was in Europe.
5

After years of confrontation between the new and old schools, the nihonga exhibit was divided
into two sections at the sixth Bunten in 1912. Each section was organized by its own jury and was
judged and awarded separately. However, in 1914, the two-section program for nihonga was
abolished since that division rather came to emphasize the confrontation between the new and old
schools.
6

Nika bijutu tenrankai wa raigetsu Mitsukoshi de hirakaru beshi, Mitsukoshi (September

1915): 19.
7

From the first to the third exhibition, the Nikaten was intentionally scheduled to take place
during the period of the Bunten.

182

Since Nika-kai took an anti-Bunten stance, the department stores might be seen as
anti-institutional spaces for art. Yet the stores offered exhibition spaces not exclusively
to artists who opposed the Bunten but also to pro-Bunten artists as well. Here, what I
want to emphasize is the fact that the department stores gained sufficient prominence as
art exhibition venues to be chosen by a group of artists who challenged the authority of
the official salon. The department stores that had developed their art sections by drawing
on the Buntens authority and popularity came into their own as authorized venues to
accommodate art exhibitions competitive with the Bunten by around 1914. In Chapter
Two, I discussed the distinction between works for sale (urie) and works for salon
(kaij! geijutsu) and the department store art sections concentration on the marketing of
works for sale. Yet not only works destined for sale but also works aimed at exhibition
gradually began to be exhibited at the department stores. That is to say, department
stores ended up functioning as salons as well as art dealers. During the Taish! period
(1912-1926), department stores were firmly established as a primary venue for
exhibitions organized by various art groups (bijutsu dantai). Among the six major art
exhibitions that a contemporaneous art journal, Ch"! bijutsu, referred to as the most
established ones in 1925!Teiten (Teikoku Bijutsu Tenrankai [Exhibition of the
Imperial Academy of Fine Art], abbreviated to Teiten), Inten (abbreviation of Nihon
Bijutsu-in Exhibition), Nikaten, Kokuten (Exhibition of the Kokuga S!saku Ky!kai), the
exhibition of Shuny!-kai, and Ch"ten (Exhibition of the Ch"! Bijutsu Sha)! all except
the state-sponsored Teiten took place at department stores at least once.8
8

Ch"! bijutsu12, no.5 (May 1926): 78. In 1919, the Bunten was renamed Teikoku Bijutsu

183

This chapter explores the social and cultural circumstances that encouraged art
exhibitions to take place at department stores. During the late Meiji and Taish! eras, new
movements occurred in the art world, which had long been led by government art policies.
Outside the state-sponsored art institutions, artists themselves organized art groups in
order to establish independent venues to display their work in public. Although
institutionally distanced from the official art establishment, department stores provided
an alternative exhibition venue for the art groups. The stores enhanced their reputations
as cultural institutions by hosting various events of high culture, including art exhibitions.
The stores private (minkan) links, never seen at the level of public art policy, with the
societys cultural elite and the leadership within the Japanese art profession contributed to
the development of department store art exhibitions that transcended the factionalism of
the art establishment.

The Advent of Art Groups

In the middle of the 1890s, modern art schools including the Tokyo School of
Fine Arts (inaugurated in 1887 and officially opened in 1889) began to turn out graduates
who had been educated under a curriculum promoting art as an autonomous creative
activity and emphasizing individual subjectivity in the production of art. In conjunction
with those who returned from their studies abroad, such as Kuroda Seiki (1866-1924) and
Tenrankai and the sponsor of the exhibition changed from the Ministry of Education to the
Imperial Academy of Art (Teikoku Bijutsuin). The first exhibition of the Inten was held in 1914
at Tokyo Mitsukoshi and Osaka Takashimaya. Nika-kai mounted its second and third exhibitions
at Mitsukoshi in 1915 and 1916. Kokutens first to third exhibitions were held at Nihonbashi
Shirokiya (1918-1920) and the fifth in Osaka Takashimaya (1926). The third Ch"ten (1922) and
the second Shuny!-kai exhibition (1924) were held at Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi.

184

Kume Keiichir! (1866-1934), the graduates of the modern art schools comprised the first
generation of Japanese artists who fought to establish fine art as an autonomous sphere
of cultivated intellectual endeavor and self-consciously identified themselves as modern
intellectuals as opposed to artisans. Under the apprenticeship system, which had
occupied an important place in art training practices until the establishment of modern art
schools after the Meiji Restoration, masters had passed down to their disciples not only
their artistic style and techniques but also their established relationships with patrons.9 In
contrast, modern art education aimed at producing not apprentices but independent artists.
Since the profession of fine artist, involving someone devoted solely to the creation of
junsui geijutsu (pure art) in a purely self-sufficient aesthetic realm, was not something
that had existed before, the fine artist was forced to cultivate a new field to develop his or
her career. What was most urgent for the artists was an institutional setting to show their
art, not made to order but made for creation, to the public. The artists gathered to
organize art groups that functioned as exhibition societies hosting regular exhibits to
show works by their members. Such societies, established for displaying the members
art, became institutions that supported the professional accomplishments of the artists and
conferred social prestige on them. By the Meiji 30s (1897-1906), the Japanese modern
art world consisted of a number of art groups, which were in conflict with one another

Traditional Japanese art schools (ha or ry"ha) such as Kan!, Tosa, Maruyama, or Shij! were
strictly based on the master-disciple relationship.

185

because of the rivalry between nihonga and y!ga, new school and old school, and Tokyo
and Kyoto.10
In 1907 the government inaugurated the Bunten as a comprehensive exhibition
open to artists from all art groups in order to unify the factious art world. The Bunten
was directly sponsored by the Ministry of Education and run by a jury, members of which
were appointed every year by the Minister and important posts in which were occupied
by officials of the Ministry.11 The Ministry of Education applied the principle of
competition to its newly inaugurated fine art exhibition.12 A public contest system, under
which anyone was allowed to submit a work, might have seemed democratic, but in fact
this system, in which only works that received the approval of the jury could be shown,
developed so as to enhance the authority of the organizer. Accordingly, the public
contest system served the purpose of the Meiji government, which wanted the Bunten to
create a civilized and enlightened image of Japan as a modern nation-state, while at the
same time bringing the rapidly growing art groups under the direct control of the state.

10

The most representative art groups of the day were Nihon Bijutsu-ky!kai (Japan Art
Association, est. 1887), Nihon Bijutsu-in (Japan Art Institute, est. 1898), Meiji Bijutsu-kai (Meiji
Art Association, est. 1889), Hakuba-kai (White Horse Society, est. 1896), and Taiheiy!ga-kai
(Pacific Painting Society, est. 1902).
11

The Vice-Minister of Education, Sawayanagi Masatar! (1865-1927), took the position of the
chair of the first Buntens jury.
12

The Naikoku Kaiga Ky!shinkai (Domestic Painting Competitive Exhibition), which was held
in 1882 and 1884 before the Buntens inauguration, took the form of a juried exhibition.
Although it was an exhibition that focused solely on paintings, it was still closer to industrial
expositions than art exhibitions, as told by the fact that its sponsor was the Ministry of
Agriculture and Commerce.

186

As the state-sponsored public art exhibition venue, the Bunten drew attention
from broad audiences who were curious about the art that the government was
guaranteeing the quality of. In addition, the form of competition of the Bunten fostered
public interest in it. Newspapers and magazines gave considerable space to introductions
of the entries, reviews of the exhibits and reports on award winners. Due to the medias
extensive coverage, more ordinary citizens became interested in the art world, and much
larger crowds came to visit the exhibitions.
The Bunten made a great contribution to the early cultivation of modern
audiences for art exhibitions. According to Nittenshi (History of the Nitten), 43,741
people visited the first Bunten in 1907.13 The number of visitors grew rapidly, reaching
around 160,000 in 1912 and over 230,000 in 1916 at the tenth exhibition. Omuka
Toshiharu calculated that in 1916 the whole population of Tokyo prefecture was 3.5
million, so if there were roughly 1.7 million adults, around one in eight citizens of the
capital city must have come to see the Bunten.14 In his diary, Uchida Roan (1868-1929)
described the crowd waiting for the opening of the exhibition hall where the seventh
Bunten (1913) was being held as follows:
On the morning of October 13, I passed Ueno on my way to Negishi. There was a
great crowd in front of the site of the Bunten, though it was before the opening
13

Tenrankaiki narabini kanranjins", in Nittenshi vol.5 Buntenhen, ed. Nittenshi Hensaniinkai

(Tokyo: Nitten, 1981), 570. The official or state-sponsored exhibitions (kanten) changed their
titles as follows: Bunten, Ministry of Education Fine Arts Exhibition, 1907-1918; Teiten,
Imperial Academy Fine Arts Exhibition, 1919-34; Shin Bunten, New Ministry of Education Fine
Arts Exhibition, 1935-43; Nitten, Japanese Fine Arts Exhibition, 1946-present.
14

Omuka Toshiharu, The Formation of the Audiences for Modern Art in Japan, in Being
Modern in Japan: Culture and Society from the 1910s to the 1930s, ed. Elise K. Tipton and John
Clark (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000), 50.

187

time of the exhibition. It was no wonder that many were young gentlemen and
students, but there were also girls of fifteen or sixteen, grandmothers holding the
hands of their grandchildren, and whole families including the parents, children,
and even grandparents. It seems that the Bunten is no longer an exhibition solely
for the artists and connoisseurs but is a public entertainment for all.15
The convention of going to see the Bunten came to be so established in the everyday life
of the general public that its opening every October came to be regarded as the beginning
of autumn.16 In 1916, one writer wrote in Ch"! bijutsu that the opening of the Bunten
makes the eyes of all art lovers in Japan turn to Takenodai, just as the opening of the
Sumo season is felt in every town and the Ekoin temple becomes the focus of everyones
attention.17 The Bunten became an annual event that not just art students and experts in
the art world but also so-called cultured persons ought to go to see.18 To quote Uchida
Roan once more, even businessmen who did not know anything besides stock quotations
and interest receipts, lawyers who did not talk about anything but rights and duties, and
geisha who only had Ichimura-san [a kabuki actor] and Ii-san [?] in mind now started to
comment on art. Terasaki K!gy! (1866-1919) and Yokoyama Taikan became as famous

15

Uchida Roan, Kimagure nikki, in Uchida Roan sh": Meiji bungaku zensh" vol. 24 (Tokyo:
Chikuma Shob!,1978), 325.
16

Aoki Shigeru, Fuwafuwa to shita Taish! jidai: Meiji kara mita bijutsu to sakka ni tsuite, in
Taish!ki bijutsu tenrankai no kenky", ed. T!ky! Bunkazai Kenky"jo Bijutsubu (Tokyo:
Ch"!k!ron Bijutsu Shuppan, 2005), 653.
17

Tomegane, Shinga no soba, Ch"! bijutsu (September 1916): 66.

18

Aoki, Fuwafuwa to shita Taish! jidai, 653.

188

as Tachiyama [a sumo wrestler] and Uzaemon [a kabuki actor].19 Takeuchi Itsuz!, son
of Seih!, described the period as follows:
Its [the Buntens] impact on the art world was so great that the publics interest in
art deepened and the artists social position rose significantly. To say the least,
the Bunten judges were shoulder to shoulder with university professors and in
some cases they were even said to compete with government officials for fame.
Consequently, societal interest in painting increasingly deepened.20
As the Bunten popularized and enhanced the social recognition of art, the artists
whose works were exhibited at the Bunten gained social prestige.
In other words, the Bunten had great influence on artists social and economic
success. The y!ga painter Miyake Kokki (1874-1945) said that an individual painters
life as an artist was determined by whether or not his or her work was accepted by the
Bunten; thus, since its inauguration, painters devoted most days of the year to creating
works to submit to the Bunten, held every fall.21 As discussed in a previous Chapter, the
Buntens criteria for evaluation became the standard in judging works of art and the
ranking at the Bunten determined the monetary value of an individual artists work in the

19

Uchida Roan, Bunten zakkan, Shumi 26 no. 5 (June 1912): 2. Cited in Omuka Toshiharu,
Kansh" no seiritsu: Bijutsutenrankai, bijutsuzasshi, bijutsushi (Tokyo: T!ky! daigaku shuppan
kai, 2008), 65.
20

In an interview recorded in the volume commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the

Takashimaya Art Section, Takashimaya bijutsubu 50 nenshi, ed. Takashimaya Bijutsubu 50
nenshi Hensaniinkai (Osaka: Takashimaya Honsha, 1960), 152-3. Cited and translated in Julia E.
Sapin, Liaisons between Painters and Department Stores: Merchandising Art and Identity in
Meiji Japan, 1868-1912 (PhD diss., University of Washington, 2003), 99.
21

Miyake Kokki, Omoiizuru mama (Tokyo: K!dansha, 1938), reprinted in Nika 70 nenshi
(Tokyo: Nikakai, 1985), 7.

189

market.22 Not surprisingly, the competition among art groups to seize the aesthetic and
professional hegemony of the Bunten intensified. As Sat! D!shin points out, the
Japanese modern art world became an arena for power struggles among art groups over
which of them would achieve institutional authority sanctioned by the state.23 Thus
ironically, contrary to the initial intention, the establishment of the Bunten actually
fuelled the factionalism of the art world, rather than lessening it. Disagreements and
repeated complications over the selection of the jury, the acceptance and rejection of
submissions, and the awarding of prizes generated a number of zaiya (anti-official) art
groups.
Nika-kai was not the first anti-Bunten group that deliberately mounted an
exhibition at a department store during the same period as the Bunten. In 1914, Nihon
Bijutsu-in (Japan Art Institute) formally withdrew from participation in the Bunten and
inaugurated its exhibition at Mitsukoshi in Nihonbashi on October 15, when the opening
ceremony of the eighth Bunten was being held at Takenodai Chinretsukan (Takenodai
Exhibition Hall) in Ueno Park.24 (Fig.3.5) While the Bunten toured to Kyoto from
November 25 to December 9 after the Tokyo exhibit, Nihon Bijutsu-in staged its
exhibition at Takashimaya Osaka branch, again at exactly the same time as the

22

Kojima Kaoru, Introduction, in Bunten no meisaku, 1907-1918, ed. Tokyo Kokuritsu Kindai
Bijutsukan (Tokyo: T!ky! Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, 1990), 14.
23

Sat! D!shin, Nihon bijutsu tanj!: kindai nihon no kotoba to senryaku (Tokyo: K!dansha,
1996), 198.
24

The Inten was held at Mitsukoshi in Nihonbashi from October 15 to November 15 and the
Bunten was held in Ueno Park from October 15 to November 18.

190

Buntens.25 Nihon Bijutsu-in is a private, or non-governmental, art organization initially

established in 1898 by Okakura Kakuz! (1862-1913) with his colleague Hashimoto Gah!
and his students Yokoyama Taikan, Hishida Shuns!, and Shimomura Kanzan.26 Nihon
Bijutsu-in was a cradle of the new school of nihonga that had been advocated by Okakura
and Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1908), who sought to modernize Japanese traditional
painting. However, due to the leader Okakuras leaving for Boston and the institutes
financial difficulties, the activity of Nihon Bijutsu-in was on the wane by around 1906.27
For the Nihon Bijutsu-in, which was suffering from adverse circumstances at that time,
the establishment of the Bunten offered a suitable place to showcase its art. Okakura and
others of the Nihon Bijutsu-in were appointed to the jury of the Bunten. Nonetheless, the
power struggle in the nihonga division between the old school and the new school did not
abate and as a result, Yokoyama Taikan was excluded from the jury of the eighth Bunten
in 1914. Taikans exclusion fueled the idea of reviving the Nihon Bijutsu-in, which had
emerged in 1913 with Okakuras death as an impetus. In the end, Shimomura Kanzan
also resigned voluntarily from the jury and participated in the revival of Nihon Bijutsu-in.

25

From 1911, works of nihonga and y!ga selected for the Bunten started to be shown in the
Kyoto Showing organized by the city of Kyoto. The Kyoto Showing was held at Okazaki K!en
Kangy!kan (Okazaki Parks Pavilion for Industry).
26

In 1898, Okakura was forced to resign from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts as well as all his
positions of public office, including curator of the Imperial Museum, because of slander from
opposing forces. There was a series of negative articles in the mass media attacking both his
personal life and his administration of the institution. A number of the faculty including Gah!
resigned in a gesture of solidarity and left with him to form Nihon Bijutsu-in.
27

In 1904 Okakura went to America to take the position of advisor for the Oriental department at
the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Around then, the Nihon Bijutsu-in faced a breakdown in its
financial management and finally left Tokyo and moved to Izura, Ibaraki prefecture in 1906.

191

The revived Nihon Bijutsu-in held Saik! Kinen Tenrankai (Exhibition for the
Commemoration of the Revival), which is the above-mentioned exhibit held at
Mitsukoshi in Tokyo and at Takashimaya in Osaka in the fall of 1914.28 The mass media
sensationalized this exhibition, which was intentionally opened on the same day as the
Bunten as a rebellion against the state-sponsored exhibition (kanten).29 Mitsukoshi
compared the Inten to the Salon d'Automne, first held in 1903 as a reaction to the
conservative policies of the official Paris Salon.30 Asahi shinbun lauded the Inten in the
following terms:
[Nihon Bijutsu-ins withdrawal from the Bunten] might be an attack on the
Bunten, though it should be welcomed by the art world. Since the Bunten was the
one sole legitimate arena for art, there was no way to challenge its artistic choices.
At this time, however, unexpectedly we can see a confrontation between the
Bunten and the Nihon Bijutsu-in. The Bijutsu-in is in high spirits resisting the
state-sponsored event.31
The Nikaten and Inten that were held at Mitsukoshi and Takashimaya were exhibitions
that marked a milestone in the history of modern Japanese art. The fact that the majority
of individual works on display at these exhibits became preserved in the national

28

In order to take the same format as the Bunten, the exhibition of the revived Nihon Bijutsu-in
included not only nihonga but also y!ga and sculpture. Yet it was still a nihonga-centered
exhibition.
29

Asahi shinbun, October 16, 1914 and To shinbun, October 16, 1914. Cited in Miyano Rikiya,
Bijutsukan no daik!: Hyakkaten to bijutsu, in Etoki Hyakkaten bunkashi (Tokyo: Nihon
Keizai Shinbunsha, 2002), 136.
30

Nihon bijutsuin saik! kinen tenrankai, Mitsukoshi (October 1914): 4. Salon d'Automne was
held in the Petit-Palais, which is a museum in Paris, initially built for the Universal Exposition in
1900.
31

Asahi shinbun, October 16, 1914.

192

museums and praised as canons of modern art attests to the historical significance of the
exhibitions. Yokoyama Taikans Story of Emperor Wenhuijunwang and a Cook
(Y"jinyochiari), Shimomura Kanzans White Fox (Hyakko), Kobayashi Kokeis (18831957) Heresy (Fumie) (Itan [Fumie]), Maeda Seisons (1885-1977) Therapeutic Bath
(T!jiba), Yasuda Yukihikos (1884-1978) Prayer for Safe Birth (Gosan no inori), and
#chi Sh!kans Listening to the Wind (Ch!y"), all of which are now housed in the Tokyo
National Museum, were first introduced to the public through the Inten held at Tokyo
Mitsukoshi and at Osaka Takashimaya in 1914. (Fig. 3.6-3.11) Among the works
presented there, Imamura Shikos Scene in a Tropical Land (Nekkoku no maki) was
designated as an Important Cultural Property (J"y!bunkazai). (Fig. 3.12) That is to say,
the works of seven among eight Nihon Biutsu-in members who participated in this
exhibition are included in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum.
Through department store exhibitions, not only did established artists showcase
their new pieces, but young and fledgling artists also made their debut in the art world. It
was the third Nikaten, which was held at Mitsukoshi in 1916, that first showcased to the
public T!g! Seijis (1897-1978) Woman Holding a Parasol (Parasoru saseru onna),
which Kanbara Tai (1898-1997) praised as the origin of Japanese avant-garde art.32
(Fig.3.13) Kokumin shinbun described T!g!s painting as follows:
32

In an article published in the art magazine Bi no kuni, Kanbara Tai remarked: The
development of avant-garde art in Japan did not, in effect, take place in that early stage. It was
initiated by T!g! Seijis submission of Woman Holding a Parasol under the name of Futurism
when Nika-kai held its exhibition at Mitsukoshi in 1915. Kanbara Tai, Wagakuni ni okeru
shink! geijutsu [no hatatsu] to shink! geijutsu no genj!, Bi no kuni 3 no.3 (April 1927): 36.
After citing Kanbara Tais comment, Omuka Toshiharu agreed as well that the advent of this
work paved the way for Taish! avant-garde art. Omuka Toshiharu, Taish!ki shink! bijutsu und!
no kenky" (Tokyo: Sukaidoa, 1998), 78.

193

T!g! Seijis futurist or cubist work may be too difficult for ordinary people to
understand. They would be puzzled by how such a painting could exist. An
enigmatic painting titled Woman Holding a Parasol seems at first glance to
depict a flock of gulls floating on the water painted in blue, red, and white. Yet if
you look at it carefully, shoulder, neck and mouth appear and finally the image of
a young woman holding a parasol emerges. That is mysterious.33
T!g!, an unknown artist 19 years old at the time, won the Nika prize with this
mysterious painting. It was virtually impossible that such an experimental painting
would have been accepted by the Bunten, not to mention receiving an award there.34
This provocative selection by the Nikaten exemplified the progressiveness it aimed for,
even by holding the exhibition at Mitsukoshi in order to challenge the Bunten. T!g!s
Woman Holding a Parasol provided strong stimulation to the art world and this cubofuturist work remains a groundbreaking piece in modern Japanese art history.
Although Nihon Bijutsu-in and Nika-kai have been extensively investigated as the
two most prominent and prestigious zaiya art groups in the history of modern Japanese
art, it was rarely noticed by art historians that the crucial exhibitions of these two art
groups were held at department stores. However, the fact that the exhibitions of Nihon
Bijutsu-in and Nika-kai were held simultaneously with, but independently from, the
Bunten caused a sensation and garnered attention in the press at the time. This initial
manifestation of their protest against the Bunten was critical for both Nihon Bijutsu-in
and Nika-kai to establish their identity as zaiya art groups. Not only did the space offered
33

Republished in Nika bijutsu tenrankai, Mitsukoshi, (November 1916): 7.

34

T!g! Seiji was surprised by the mere fact that his painting was sold. He won 50 yen in prize
money and sold the painting for 25 yen. The total earnings of 75 yen corresponded to 4-5 months
salary for white collar workers at the time. T!g! Seiji, Watashi no rirekisho, Tagonmuy!,
(Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1973), 202-203, Cited in Okabe Masayuki, Geijutsu no mise
toshite no Mitsukoshi, in Mitsukoshi bijutsubu 100 nenshi (Tokyo: Mitsukoshi, 2009), 8.

194

by the department stores materialize the exhibitions, but also the stores nature as privatesector venues for commerce contributed significantly to reinforcing a zaiya identity,
emphasizing the confrontation between the public official Bunten and the private antiofficial art groups. To have the first few exhibitions at a department store during the
same period as the Bunten period became a rite of passage for zaiya art groups that
founded secession movements to organize their own exhibitions. In 1918, Kokuga
S!saku Ky!kai (Association for Creating National Painting), another notable zaiya art
group of nihonga, was founded by young painters in Kyoto such as Tsuchida Bakusen
(1887-1936) who were dissatisfied with the Tokyo-centralism of the Bunten. Like Nihon
Bijutsu-in and Nika-kai, Kokuga S!saku Ky!kai held its first to third exhibitions at a
department store !in this case Shirokiya!during the Bunten period.35 Outside the official
art institutions, Japanese department stores contributed to the formation of new art groups
and participated in the dissemination of the new canons they produced.

Alternative Exhibition Venues for Art Groups

Why did art groups decide to hold their exhibitions at department stores? The
most immediate reason was an absence of exhibition space for contemporary arts. The
Bunten eventually failed to integrate the conflicting art groups, rather contributing to
their proliferation. As their membership grew and their prestige increased, the Bunten

35

Its Tokyo exhibit was held at Shirokiya from November 1 to November 15 and its Kyoto
exhibit at the first Kangy!kan of Okazaki Park from November 27 to December 11. Meanwhile,
the Bunten of the year was held at Takenodai Chinretsukan from October 14 to November 20 and
then at the second Kangy!kan of Okazaki Park from November 27 to December 11.

195

ended up losing its all-encompassing character and came to be considered just one among
several art groups that exerted influence in the Japanese art world. The number of art
groups, either anti-Bunten or pro-Bunten, was rapidly increasing, whereas there was no
permanent space dedicated to the display of contemporary art for public viewing until the
establishment of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (T!ky!-fu Bijutsukan) in 1926.
This vacuum was filled by the department stores, which provided their in-house
exhibition halls for the growing number of art groups.
A building labeled bijutsukan (art museum) had first emerged in Japan at the
first National Industrial Exposition held in 1877 in Ueno Park. It was also the first
occasion in Japan for bringing together the products of contemporary artists and showing
them to the public in the name of bijutsu.36 Bijutsu was a major classification of the
exposition and was housed in its own pavilion, the bijutsukan. Yet this first bijutsukan
of Japan was a temporary facility for an ephemeral exposition, not a permanent institution.
Works of art on display at the bijutsukan of expositions were treated like other industrial
products, promoted for their practical and commercial value. Although the building per
se remained in service to the Imperial Museum (Teikoku Hakubutsukan) in Ueno Park
after the fair, it was no longer identified as bijutsukan, nor did it display art exclusively.37

36

The exposition was divided into six categories: mining, manufacturing, machinery, agriculture,
gardening, and art. The subdivisions of art included sculpture, painting, engraving and
lithography, photography, industrial and architectural design, and ceramic and decorative arts.
37

This building became an annex to the main building of the Imperial Museum, which was
established in 1882. The main building itself, designed by Josiah Conder (1852-1920), was also
initially used as a bijutsukan temporarily for the second National Industrial Exposition in 1881
before the Imperial Museum opened the following year. Alice Y. Tseng, The Imperial Museums
of Meiji Japan: Architecture and the Art of the Nation (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
2008), 177. During that time, the official title of the museum was not yet Teikoku

196

The fundamental framework of the Meiji governments art policy, initially established as
a part of the national economic policy, shokusan k!gy! (increasing production and
promoting industry), was immediately and inevitably responsible for the absence or
delayed emergence of a museum for modern art in Japan. As Sat! D!shin explicitly
schematized, the art policy of the Meiji government was split into the protection of old art
(kobijutsu) as cultural heritage, and the promotion of new art (shinbijutsu) as export
items.38 In terms of institutional settings, the task of collecting and exhibiting works of
old art was delegated to museums (hakubutsukan), while that of fostering new art was
accomplished by expositions (hakurankai).39 Even after the Meiji governments
administration of new art shifted from the area of industry and exports to that concerning
education and cultural affairs with the establishment of the Bunten, a museum devoted to
new art was not immediately built. According to an initial plan, the winning works of the
Bunten that were honored by being purchased by the state would be permanently stored
and displayed at a new national museum specializing in modern art. However, it was not
until 1952, after the Second World War, that Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan (the National
Museum of Modern Art) would be founded in Tokyo to provide a home for these works.
Without a space for their permanent display, the works purchased for the national
Hakubutsukan (the Imperial Museum). It was just called Hakubutsukan (the Museum). The
Museum was titled the Imperial Museum in 1889, and then changed to the Imperial Household
Museum (Teishitsu hakubutsukan) in 1900.
38

Sat! D!shin, Tenrankai geijutsu ni tsuite, in Nihon bijutsu zensh" vol. 21 Edo kara Meiji e
(Tokyo: K!dansha, 1991), 183 and 186. Old art meant works produced before the Meiji
Restoration and new art, works produced after the Meiji Restoration.
39

In Nara and Kyoto as well, the Imperial Museums were constructed in 1895 and 1897
respectively to house and display objects owned by temples in the two ancient capitals.

197

collections of modern art were commonly either stored in the warehouse of the Ministry
of Education or lent to governmental buildings for their interior decoration.40 In sum, in
Japan an institution to display modern art for public viewing was established not in the
form of a permanent museum but in the form of ephemeral exhibitions.
Until the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum opened in 1926, exhibitions of
contemporary art including the Bunten were mostly held at Takenodai Chinretsukan in
Ueno Park.41 (Fig. 3.14) Takenodai Chinretsukan was formerly Gog!kan (the fifth
building), originally built as a pavilion for the third National Industrial Exposition in
1890. It was Meiji Bijutsu-kai (Meiji Art Association) that first rented Gog!kan for an
art exhibition.42 Meiji Bijutsu-kai, the first art group organized by artists on their own
initiative, was formed in 1889 by a group of artists who wished to promote y!ga
exhibitions in opposition to the nationalistic art policy of the Meiji government that
exclusively supported the development of nihonga.43 With the inauguration of Meiji

40

Morishita Masaaki, The Empty Museum: Western Cultures and the Artistic Field in Modern
Japan (London: Ashgate, 2010), 78.
41

Only two Bunten were not held at Takenodai Chinretsukan: the first Bunten was held at
bijutsukan built for the Tokyo Industrial Exposition (T!ky! Kangy! Hakurankai) and the
eighth Bunten at bijutsukan built for the Tokyo Taish! Exposition (T!ky! Taish! Hakurankai).
42

After the exposition, Gog!kan was rented to the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce. In
September 1881, this building was handed over to the Imperial Museum. At the time, Ueno Park
belonged to the Ministry of the Imperial Household and was managed by the Imperial Museum.
Thus, in order to hold an exhibition at Gog!kan, the exhibition organizers had to get permission
from the Imperial Museum. Furuta Ry!, Nihon no bijutsutenrankai sono kigen to hattatsu,
Museum (December 1996): 45.
43

Strictly speaking, the first art group in Japan was Ry"chi-kai (Dragon Pond Association),
which was founded in 1879. However, it was not a group organized by artists. Ry"chi-kais
membership was comprised of prominent bureaucrats and ministers charged with implementing
the policy of shokusan k!gy!, which promoted the export trade in decorative arts much sought
after by European and American collectors due to the popularity of Japonisme. In 1882 and

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Bijutsu-kais annual exhibits, the prototype of the so-called bijutsudantaiten (art group
exhibitions) was established. Art group exhibitions were differentiated in terms of scale
and publicity from the exhibits that had been held in gajuku (private art schools)
primarily for internal viewing, and distinguished in terms of artistic autonomy from
exhibits that had been held as part of state-sponsored expositions to promote industry.44
Yet due to the absence of a permanent and exclusive venue for art exhibitions, Meiji
Bijutsu-kais first few exhibits ranged in venue from the stands of the horse racing track
at Shinobazu Pond in Ueno Park to Yayoikan in Shiba Park. 45 In October 1892, Meiji
Bijutsu-kai finally asked the Imperial Museum if it could rent Gog!kan for its annual art
exhibition and succeeded in holding its fifth exhibition there in April 1893. Since the
Meiji Bijutsu-kai exhibit, Gog!kan was in constant demand as an exhibition space for
various art groups including Nihon Seinen Kaiga-ky!kai (Japan Youth Painting
Association), Nihon Kaiga-ky!kai (Japan Painting Association), Zenki Nihon Bijutsu-in
(the former Japan Art Institute), Nihonga-kai (Japanese-style Painting Association), and
Hakuba-kai (White Horse Society).46 When the Tokyo Metropolitan Government

1884, y!ga was excluded from the entries of the Domestic Painting Competitive Exhibition held
by the government. When the Tokyo School of Fine Arts was established in 1889, it initially
refused to include y!ga in its curriculum. To protest against these exclusions, a group of y!ga
artists led by Asai Ch" (1856-1907) and Koyama Sh!tar! (1857-1916) banded together and
formed the Meiji Bijutsu-kai in 1889.
44

Miwa Hideo, Bijutsudantaiten no jidai in Nihon y!gash!shi (Tokyo: Bijutsu shuppansha,

1985), 171-172.
45

Meiji Bijutsu-kai held its first exhibition in the stands of the horse racing track at Shinobazu
Pond in Ueno Park, the second and third ones at Kazoku Kaikan (Peers Hall) in Ueno Park, and
the fourth one at Yayoikan in Shiba Park.
46

Nihon Seinen Kaiga-ky!kai, founded in 1891, had a close relationship with the Tokyo School

199

announced a plan to demolish Gog!kan for the T!ky! Kangy! Hakurankai (Tokyo
Industrial Exposition) in 1907, the art groups cooperated to protest against the plan. As a
result, Nig!kan (the second pavilion) of the Tokyo Industrial Exposition was built to
replace Gog!kan. Nig!kan, newly named Takenodai Chinretsukan after the end of the
exposition, continued to accommodate various temporary art exhibitions. During the late
Meiji and Taish! periods, Takenodai Chinretsukan was a mecca for art groups that
desperately needed a space for their regular exhibitions.
However, Takenodai Chinretsukan was not a purpose-built space for art
exhibitions and thus was considered by artists not to be entirely suitable for displaying
works of art. It was intended as nothing more than a barrack for the temporary use of the
exposition. (Fig. 3.15) Because it was feared that this structure, a mere wooden shed, was
highly vulnerable to fire, and that a heating system and even a lighting system might
cause a fire, neither of these systems was properly installed.47 Thus, some areas of the
building were too dark to display works of art. The roof was covered with tin and leaked
when it rained. Originally intended for showcasing the greatest possible assortment of
manufactures and industrial products, the vast and undivided interior of over 35,000
square feet made no special concession to the paintings or sculptures being put on
of Fine Arts, allowing students to hold their annual shows there and asking Okakura to serve as a
judge. Its first public exhibition was held at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in October of 1892.
Its second exhibition in April of 1893 to its last one in 1895 were held at Gog!kan. In 1896, it
merged with Nihon Kaiga-ky!kai, which hosted biennial exhibitions at Gog!kan. The y!ga
artists group Hakuba-kai also held its annual exhibition at Gog!kan and then at Takenodai
Chinretsukan, except for once in 1909.
47

Soeta Tatsunei, T!ky!fu bijutsukan kinenten ni saishite gog!kan no mukashi o kataru, T!ei
11 no.5 (May 1935), reprinted in Nihon bijutsuin 100 nenshi vol. 4 (Tokyo: Nihon Bijutsuin,
1989), 934.

200

display.48 To compensate for this stark interior, exhibition organizers often placed potted
plants borrowed from a botanical garden to decorate the hall and the art groups that
regularly held their exhibitions there owned tailored curtains that they used to cover its
walls.49 Due to the lack of subsidiary space, makeshift structures for the submissions to
be collected in and for the audiences to wait in before their entry were frequently built
and demolished for each exhibition. However, with no other choice, art groups resorted
to this temporary building in order to hold their exhibitions.
The proliferation of art groups after the inauguration of the Bunten accelerated the
overcrowding of the Takenodai Chinretsukan. Overwhelmed by requests to rent the
space, the Imperial Museum delegated the screening of applicants to the federation of art
groups called Takenodai Chawakai (Takenodai Tea Party).50 At the end of every year,
Takenodai Chawakai held a general meeting where it decided the next years schedule of
exhibitions to be held at Takenodai Chinretsukan. October and November were allocated,
by priority, to the Bunten for its preparation and exhibition. The rest of the time was
allocated to art groups according to their influence in the art world. Prominent art groups

48

Tseng, The Imperial Museums of Meiji Japan, 180-181. Except for huge-scale events like the
Bunten, Takenodai Chinretsukan usually rented its space simultaneously to separate
organizations, splitting it into three to four smaller spaces. As a result, art exhibitions were
sometimes held side by side with exhibitions of the Japan Horticulture Association or the Japan
Livestock Association. Furuta, Nihon no bijutsutenrankai sono kigen to hattatsu, 45.
49

Nika 70 nenshi, 35.

50

Takenodai Chawakai consisted of art groups that had cooperated to protect Gog!kan from
demolition. When Nig!kan was renamed Takenodai Chinretsukan after the end of the exposition,
the federation of the art groups also got to have a new name, Takenodai Chawakai.

201

were given September and spring.51 Also excluding hot and humid summer or freezing
winter times, this left a small window for other minor groups to hold their exhibitions.52
It was under such circumstances that department stores emerged as alternative
venues for art groups to hold their exhibits. Not only did major department stores have a
permanent showroom in their art sections, they also had exhibition halls for various
events, from seasonal displays of new kimono to art exhibits. The stores provided these
multi-purpose event areas to art groups that were suffering from the dearth of exhibition
venues. In particular, for zaiya art groups that intended to schedule their exhibitions for
the same time as the Bunten, the space available for their exhibitions was extremely
restricted. In 1914, whereas Nika-kai had been fortunate enough to rent Takenodai
Chinretsukan since the Bunten took place at the bijutsukan, built early in the year for
T!ky! Taish! Hakurankai (Tokyo Taish! Exposition), Nihon Bijutsu-in was forced to
find a new place other than Ueno Park to hold its exhibition. Finally, Yokoyama Taikan
and Sait! Ry"z! (1875-1961) visited Mitsukoshis then executive director, Nakamura
Rikitar!, and requested permission to use a part of Mitsukoshis exhibition halls for their

51

After Nika-kai and Bijutsu-in established their positions as leading zaiya art groups through
their first few exhibitions held deliberately concurrent with the Bunten, both of them began to
hold their exhibitions at Takenodai Chinretsukan every September, one month before the Bunten.
If they continued to hold their exhibitions at department stores, they could not charge admission.
Although they did not need to pay rent to department stores, proceeds from ticket sales were
much bigger than the rental fee for Takenodai Chinrestsukan. In the end, the Inten and the
Nikaten moved to Takenodai Chiretsukan.
52

According to the seasons, Takenodai Chinretsukan applied differential rental fees. During two
months in the best season, March and April, it charged 15 yen per day. In May, June and
September, the fee was 12 yen per day. It charged the cheapest rate, 8 yen per day, in too hot or
too cold months including January, February, July, August and December. Soeta, T!ky!fu
bijutsukan kinenten ni saishite gog!kan no mukashi o kataru, 934.

202

exhibition.53 Although until then Mitsukoshi had never staged within its store an
exhibition brought in by an external organization, Nakamura readily accepted their
request. This unprecedented decision was made possible because Mitsukoshi had already
established a good working relationship with Nihon Bijutsu-in members who had been
major contributors to the Mitsukoshi art section since its inauguration in 1907. Likewise,
Takashimaya provided Nihon Bijutsu-in with the second floor of its Shinsaibashi store
when the show traveled to the Kansai area.54 Inspired by the Intens success beyond
expectations, Mitsukoshi offered the very space where the Inten had been held a year ago
to Nika-kai when the Bunten returned to Takenodai Chinretsukan in 1915. After the
Tokyo exhibit, there were plans for Nikaten to travel to Kyoto. Daimaru department
store was seriously considered as a strong candidate for its Kyoto show, but in the end it
was held at a kank!ba (emporium) in Gion.55 In 1916, Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi provided
Nika-kai with the fifth, or top, floor of its new building.
In terms of the facilities, the department store buildings certainly were better
equipped and maintained than Takenodai Chirentsukan, which was being rented to
53

Sait! Ry"z!, Nihon Bijutsuin saik!, in Jij!den (Tokyo: Shitomiyuie, 1961), reprinted in
Nihon Bijutsuin 100 nenshi vol. 4, 1004. Sait! Ry"z! was one of the founding members of Nihon
Bijutsu-in, although he was not an artist but a critic and historian. From 1907 to 1916, he worked
to compile the history of the Mitsui family and company. Mitsuika gofuku jigy!shi koh!n (19081916) and Mitsukoshi enkakushi koh!n (1920-1922) were published by him. He was also a
member of Mitsukoshis Ry"k! Kenkyu-kai (Fashion Research Group, as known as Ry"k!kai)
from 1910. Thus when Taikan and Sait! went to Mitsukoshi to ask for an exhibition space, Sait!
had already established a relationship with Mitsukoshi.
54

Initially, Nihon Bijutsu-in also intended to hold its Kansai exhibition in Kyoto like the Bunten.
However, it changed the venue to Osaka, listening to Takashimayas entreaty. Sait!, Nihon
Bijutsuin saik!, 1004.
55

Nika 70 nenshi, 50.

203

diverse organizations for short-term use. In order to generate the image of a modern
institution, department stores used not only an ostentatious Western architectural style but
also the most advanced engineering technologies of the day for their buildings. The
department stores were among the first buildings in Japan to have elevators, escalators
and a central heating system. During the summer, they were kept cool with electric fans
and ice pillars. The exteriors of the buildings were decorated with illumination and the
interiors were brightly lit with electric lighting. When holding an exhibition in a
department store, art groups were able to avoid the disadvantages of Takenodai
Chinretsukan as a temporary building. In Osaka asahi shinbun on November 1, 1914,
Masamune Hakuch! (1879-1962), a noted writer and critic, complained about the
Buntens exhibition environment in comparison with the Intens:
To get to the exhibition hall of the Bunten, we cannot help but pass through the
crowded Ueno Park, where the facilities for the Taish! Exposition are being taken
down. In such a cluttered environment, our minds are not properly ready to
appreciate the works of art. Since the submitted works are too many while the
exhibition space is too small to house them, audiences easily get exhausted. All
things considered, the Intens exhibition environment is better.56
It was Mitsukoshi that created the better exhibition environment for the Inten in that
year. Mitsukoshi advertised that people could appreciate the works of art at the Inten in a
leisurely fashion since a small number of works were displayed in a large space at its
store.57 In regard to the third Nikaten, held at Mitsukoshi in 1916, newspaper reviews

56

In 1914, the Bunten was held not at Takenodai Chiretsukan but at bijutsukan of the Tokyo
Taish! Exposition held in earlier of the year. Yet bijutsukan was still a temporary structure
built for an ephemeral exposition.
57

Nihon Bijutsuin saik! kinen tenrankai, 4.

204

highlighted the pleasant ambiance of the exhibition as well.58 (Fig. 3.16) Under the title
Nikaten with Music: to the Exhibition Hall by Elevator, T!ky! asahi shinbun described
the atmosphere of Nikaten as follows: Beautiful music is playing, the exhibition room is
bright and a number of works are hanging against a beautiful background. It is
impossible not to hear about the place where this great exhibition is being held.59 Artists
themselves appreciated the pleasant and comfortable ambiance of Mitsukoshi. Nika-kai
member Yuasa Ichir! remarked, I am really grateful to have an exhibit in such a
beautiful place with good light. We cannot expect to have this natural light entering
through a glass roof elsewhere in Japan.60 Mitsukoshis new building, completed in
1914, had a five-story central hall covered with an arched, stained-glass roof, which let
plenty of sunlight into the interior. (Fig. 3.17) The best-lighted top floor, immediately
below the roof, was often offered to art groups for their exhibitions.
In addition to Takenodai Chinretsukan and the department stores, small private
galleries should be counted as venues for contemporary art exhibitions during the late
Meiji and Taish! eras as well. By the 1910s, a succession of small galleries began to
emerge, starting with the opening of R!kand!, established by Takamura K!tar! in
1910.61 Most of the other small galleries were also run by artists themselves or by their

58

Favorable reviews of the exhibitions published in T!ky! asahi shinbun, Jiji shinp!, Kokumin
shinbun, Yorozuch!h!, H!ji, and To shinbun were republished in Mitsukoshi. Nika bijutsu
tenrankai, Mitsukoshi, (November 1916): 7-8.
59
60

T!ky! asahi shinbun, October 14, 1916 (a.m.ed.), 5.

Nika Bijutsu Tenrankai, Mitsukoshi, (November 1916): 6.

61

In 1910, R!kand! was established by Takamura K!tar!; in 1913, Vinasu Kurabu by the
entrepreneur Kimura Ry!ichi; in 1913, Hibiya Bijutsukan by Sat! Ky"ji; in 1914, Bijutsuten

205

collectors or sponsors. Their spaces were renovated houses or shops and looked like the
living rooms of mansions. These small galleries had the character of intellectual salons
where social and cultural elites met, discussed ideas and appreciated works of art.62 In
other words, although these small galleries were technically open to public, they focused
more on the gathering of like-minded art people based on a shared taste for their art rather
than on the public display of their works.63 As a consequence, these newly emerging
private galleries were physically too small and socially too closed to accommodate the art
group exhibitions that were generally being held in the form of large-scale juried shows.
After the Bunten established the jury system for its own fine art exhibition, the
annual competitive exhibition became fully institutionalized as the standard model for the
exhibition of contemporary art. The Japanese modern art world began to revolve around
juried art exhibitions that increased in scale and number. Art critiques published in
newspapers and art magazines were also centered on the review of those juried
exhibitions. Even zaiya art groups, which had expressed strong dissatisfaction with the
Ministry of Educations bureaucratic control over the Bunten, never questioned the
validity of the jury system per se. Rather than criticizing this institutional art system as
Tanakaya by the art critic Tanaka Kisaku; in 1914, Ry"itsus! by Kuroda Seikis friend, Naka
Sh!go (1878-); in 1914, Mikasa by Yamamot! Shisuke; and in 1914, Minatoya by the painter
Takehisa Yumeji (1884-1934).
62

The salonesque atmosphere of the small galleries is discussed in Nagato Saki, Taish!ki shik!
bijutsu und! ni okeru k"kan ishiki ni tsuite, in Tais!ki shink! bijutsu shiry! sh"sei, ed. Omuka
Toshiharu (Tokyo: Kokushokank!kai, 2006), 550 and Yokosuka Yukie, Ry"itsus! to Naka
Seigo: Taish! jidai no shoki gar! o megutte, Taish! imajuri, 3, (2007): 86.
63

As we will see in the subsequent chapter, these small galleries held mainly solo or small-scale
group exhibitions organized by a coterie of artists such as Shirakabaha. In the end, all of them
were short-lived due to financial problems.

206

hierarchical, exclusive, and authoritarian, by mounting their own independent juried

exhibitions, zaiya art groups such as Nika-kai and Nihon Bijutsu-in attempted to compete
against the official juried exhibition.64
The juried art exhibitions helped to establish the reputations of the host art groups
and influenced the careers of individual artists. Regardless of their stance toward the
Bunten, art groups strove to organize their own juried exhibitions. They invited public
contributions, selected the works to be exhibited, and awarded prizes for exceptional
submissions. On the other hand, the works of their own members were exempt from the
judging and were displayed separately. New members of the groups were recruited from
among the selected artists and would enjoy unconditional acceptance from the following
year on. Young artists were given an opportunity to launch their careers and established
artists were guaranteed a venue to pursue their work. Above all, the most important
change the art group exhibitions brought about was that by forming the jury from among
the groups own artists, the artists finally retrieved the right to judge their art from
patrons and bureaucrats. Thus the exhibitions organized by the art groups generated an
autonomous venue of the artists, by the artists, and for the artists. Considering the
jurisdiction over their art, it is hardly surprising that the art groups preferred a rented
gallery that only offered space and left all decisions up to the artists rather than a museum
under the direction of a curatorial authority.

64

It was not until the early 1920s that critical opinions on the juried system of art exhibitions
emerged in the art world. See Murayama Tomoyoshi, Tenrankai soshiki no ris!, Mizue, no. 238
(December 1924): 15-19.

207

In the book The Empty Museum: Western Cultures and the Artistic Field in
Modern Japan, Morishita Masaaki called the distinctive form of Japanese museums
without a collection, permanent displays or curators the empty museum and argued that
this particular style of museum emerged in Japan not through ignorance or
misunderstanding of the Western model, but as a result of a positive decision made in
circumstances that were historically and culturally specific to modern Japan and its art
world. According to Morishita, the history of the empty museum began with the
establishment of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, which focused not on pursuing
collection-based practices but on accommodating temporary exhibitions organized by art
groups.65 Morishita argued that the emptiness of the first Japanese museum
specializing in modern art was a consequence of a particular situation in which art groups
dominated the art world and the members of those groups played the most important role
in the establishment of the art museum. I agree with Morishitas statement that the
emptiness of the art museum was precisely what the art groups wanted. Furthermore, I
argue that Takenodai Chiretsukan and the department stores functioned as empty
museums for the art groups until the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum was built in 1926.
However, I do not agree with Morishitas argument that the organizational structure of art
groups remained identical to the iemoto system, a system based on master-disciple
relations associated with various forms of artistic and cultural practices in pre-modern
Japan. Rather, I argue that the weakening of the traditional relationship between master
65

Tokyo Metropolitan Museums no-collection and no-permanent-exhibit policy were later

adopted by many other regional art museums in Japan, most of which were built in the 1970s and
1980s. Morishita, The Empty Museum, 59.

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and disciples led artists to organize art groups, a very modern construct aiming to support
the profession of independent artists. Contrary to Morishitas assumption, the authority
and power within the modern art world was derived not from a charismatic master with
extraordinary ability and disciples personal loyalty to him but rather from the structure
of art institutions such as juried exhibitions that generated a hierarchy between the judge
and the judged, the accepted and the rejected, and the awardee and non-awardee. Instead
of relying on an absolute master, modern art groups attempted to authorize and justify the
artists sovereignty by appropriating the very power structure associated with a juried
exhibition. Accordingly, securing a venue to hold their regular juried exhibitions was
critical to the art groups.
If the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum became empty as a result of reflecting
the demands of thriving art groups, department stores had already satisfied these demands
before its establishment. Department stores employed a person in charge of their art
sections, but strictly speaking he was not a professional curator with specialized training.
For their art sections the stores purchased works of art from the artists in advance for sale
but did not intend to build permanent collections. The seeming disadvantages of
department stores holding art exhibitions were ironically welcomed by art groups and
adopted by the first modern art museum in Japan. As the art groups arose as one of the
most significant forces in the modern art world, which previously had been supervised by
the state, and their juried exhibitions that required judges instead of curators and
submissions instead of collections emerged as the typical exhibition style for

209

contemporary art, the department stores became crucial venues for art exhibitions in
modern Japan.

Supporters of High Culture

During the late Meiji and Taish! periods, department stores invested in
developing their image as key agents for cultural production in Japan. In addition to the
spatial availability and the relative autonomy the department stores offered, their cultural
authority induced art groups to choose them as the primary venue to hold their
exhibitions. The stores not only provided the latest goods for the improvement of
peoples material lives, but advertised themselves as places where people could
experience cultured life, or modern life. The years around 1914, when the Nihon Bijutsuin and Nika-kai broke away from the Bunten and held their independent exhibitions at
Mitsukoshi and Takashimaya, marked the culmination of the development of cultural
practices by department stores. In particular, Mitsukoshi, the foremost innovator in the
field, consolidated the image of an aesthetically-cultivated institution by sponsoring a
variety of cultural activities during this period.
In 1913, Mitsukoshi sponsored a contest titled Bungei No Mitsukoshi (Literary
Mitsukoshi), proclaiming that it would contribute to the development of literature.66 The
contest invited works rendering or featuring Mitsukoshi from twenty literary and artistic
genres including the novel, play script, childrens play script, childrens story, waka,
66

For the discussion of the meaning and function of Mitsukoshi literary competition in modern
Japanese literary world, see Sezaki Keiji, Ry"k! to kyoei no seisei: Sh!hi bunka o utsusu nihon
kindai bungaku, (Tokyo: Sekaishis!sha, 2008), 109-119.

210

haiku, rakugo, book cover design, and sketching.67 Thirty-six eminent writers and artists
served on its jury and two hundred works were selected from over thirty-five thousand
submissions.68 (Fig. 3.18) In January 1914, Mitsukoshi published a book, Bungei no
Mitsukoshi, that reproduced the winning works and it held an exhibition presenting the
selected book cover designs.69 (Fig. 3.19 and 3.20) The works that won first prize in the
childrens play script and rakugo categories were performed on stage. The actors
associated with Iwaya Sazanami (1870-1933), a pioneer in childrens literature,
performed the best childrens play at Y"rakuza, one of the few modern theaters in Tokyo
at the time.70 On the other hand, the best rakugo was presented by Sanyutei Enyu II
(1867-1924), one of the greatest rakugo masters of the time.71 After performing it once
at Mitsukoshi, Sanyutei Enyu II included it in his repertoire and performed it at his own
yose (rakugo theater). The majority of prizewinners were still young students. To these
fledging writers, it was a great honor that their works were enacted by professional
performers at a decent theater. Although the contest provided one-shot support, the total
67

Book cover designs and sketches seemed to be included in order to use them for a book, which
Mitsukoshi would publish by compiling winning works of each category.
68

Okamoto Kid! (1872-1939) served on the jury for play scripts, K!da Rohan (1867-1947) for
novels, Mori #gai (1862-1922) for novel, Iwaya Sazamani (1870-1933) for childrens play scripts
and childrens stories, Nakarai T!sui (1861-1926) for nagauta and hautaOka Onitar! (18721943) for rakugo, Maeda Shozan (1872-1941) for hitokuchibanashi, and Inoue Michiyasu (18671941) for waka.
69

Bungei no Mitsukoshi, published on January 10, had 254 pages and its price was 35 sen. The
exhibition opened on January 4.
70

Y"rakuza, built in 1908, was designed by Yokogawa Tamisuke (1864-1945), incorporating

many features of its Western counterparts. It had chair seating on the first floor, was equipped
with artificial lighting and forbade eating except in the dining area.
71

Bungei no Mitsukoshi no okogikyakuhon to rakugo, Mitsukoshi (January 1914): 8-9.

211

prizes of 3000 yen meant an enormous amount of money for prospective writers who
were finding it hard to make a living. Writers who would later become so well-known in
the history of modern Japanese literature that they needed no identification participated in
this Mitsukoshi literary contest. For example, the poet and translator Matsumura Mineko
(1878-1957), the historical novelist Yoshikawa Eiji (1892-1962), and the novelist and
playwright Kikuchi Kan (1888-1948) submitted their works and won prizes in the novel
or senry" categories.72 An eminent art critic, Moriguchi Tari (1892-1984), was a junior
at Waseda University majoring in literature when his childrens play script won first prize
and was performed at Y"rakuza. Ikeda Eiji (1889-1950), who was awarded first prize in
sketching, also became famous, in his case as a cartoon artist. Through Bungei no
Mitsukoshi, Mitsukoshi not only derived a direct promotional boost from the depictions
of its store in diverse literary genres by young writers with promising futures, but also
firmly implanted its image as a generous supporter of high culture in the minds of
Japanese people, in particular the writers themselves.
For Mitsukoshi, the most important event in 1914 was the completion of a new
building referred to as the greatest architecture east of Suez.73 (Fig. 3.17) In celebration
of its completion, Mitsukoshi started a new advertising campaign, and the famous
advertising slogan Today the Imperial Theater, Tomorrow Mitsukoshi (Ky!wa Teigeki,
Ashitawa Mitsukoshi) was coined around that time. Mitsukoshi inserted an
advertisement with this slogan in the program of the Imperial Theater. (Fig.3.21)
72

Kikuchi Kan graduated from Kyoto University in 1916. He found a monthly magazine
Bungeishunj" in 1923 and established Akutagawa Prize in 1935.
73

The new building was completed on September 15 and opened to the public on October 1.

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Mitsukoshis advertisement enticed the Imperial Theaters audience to its store,

suggesting that anyone who was cultured and refined enough to visit the Imperial Theater
should also shop at Mitsukoshi. A visit to Mitsukoshi, like a visit to the Imperial Theater,
was described as an essential part of modern cultured life. The Imperial Theater,
established in Marunouchi in 1911, was the first purely Western-style theater in Japan.
(Fig.3.22) Its buildings, with a performance space, lounges, and a restaurant, was
designed in the Renaissance style by Yokogawa Tamisuke (1864-1945), the same
architect who would design Mitsukoshis new building in 1914. Both the Imperial
Theater and Mitsukoshi department store sought to represent themselves as the most
refined and modern institutions through their elaborate Western-style architecture,
becoming new urban landmarks in Tokyo. In 1911, when the building of the Imperial
Theater was completed, Mitsukoshi won the contract to produce its theater curtain, stage
costumes, stage props, and employees uniforms as well as to upholster its interior.74 Not
only did the appearance of Mitsukoshi and the Imperial Theater correspond to each other,
but they also referred to each other in their practices.75 In February 1915, the Imperial
Theater staged a ballet performance thematizing dancing dolls in the Mitsukoshi toy
section.76 Reminiscent of The Nutcracker, this ballet was written by the Italian Giovanni
Vittorio Rossi, head of the opera department at the Imperial Theater. In the work, Rossi
74

Mitsukoshi 100 nenshi, 76.

75

The Imperial Theater came to be established at the suggestion of Takahashi Yoshio with the
approval of It! Hirobumi (1841-1909), Shibusawa Eiichi (1840-1931), #kura Kihachir! (18371928), Kond! Renpei (1848-1921), and Fujiyama Raita (1863-1938). Takahashi wrote its
prospectus. Takahashi Yoshio, H!ki no ato (Tokyo: Sh"h!en, 1932), 499-502.
76

Teikoku gekkij! ni okeru Mitsukoshi gofukuten, Mitsukoshi (February 1915): 23-25.

213

attempted to portray the atmosphere of Mitsukoshi store more or less as it was. The stage
was also designed after the first floor of Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi with a grand staircase.
(Fig. 3.23) As the setting for a dance performance style recently imported from the West,
there was nowhere more exotic than Mitsukoshi in Japan at the time. The close affinity
between Mitsukoshi and the Imperial Theater enabled Mitsukoshi to claim cultural parity
with the Imperial Theater, a symbol of modern high culture in Taish! Japan.
Since 1910 Mitsukoshi had sponsored a free lecture series every fall, aimed at the
general public.77 The subjects of these lectures ranged from each lecturers expertise to a
travelogue on Europe or America, to Edo culture. Compiled lectures were reprinted in
Mitsukoshi magazines or published in book form for a wider audience. After the major
sections of the store moved to the new building, mentioned above, Mitsukoshi made full
use of the old building as a multi-purpose event area. Along with the expansion of
exhibition spaces, Mitsukoshi developed various forms of cultural events. Not only
through public lectures but also by means of exhibitions, Mitsukoshi educated customers
on an extensive range of subjects such as the arts, culture, lifestyles, travel, fashion,
interior design, child care, domestic science and housework. Nihon Bijutsu-ins
exhibition in October 1914 was one of the earliest events held at this newly converted
space in the old building. Following the Inten, Mitsukoshi organized quite a number of
exhibitions including Exhibition of Advertising and Design (November 1914),

77

Mitsukoshis first lecture series, held in the evening on October 10, consisted of Tsuboi
Sh!gor!s (1863-1913) National costume of various countries, Takashima Heizabur!s (18651946) Principles of taste, and Tsukahara Jushiens (1848-1917) Customs of Edo during the
late Bakufu era. Ry"k!kai dai ikkai k!enkai no ki, Mitsukoshi (November 1910): 36-37.

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Exhibition on Theaters and Plays (February 1915), Bicentenary Exhibition of K!rins

Works (June 1915), Exhibition of Edo Taste (June 1915), Travel Exhibition (July
1915), Exhibition of K!y!s works (December 1915), Mountains and Water
Exhibition (July 1916), and Exhibition of Meiji Customs (October 1917).
Inspired by Mitsukoshis successful spearheading of cultural practices, other
stores soon followed suit. By the mid-1920s, most Japanese department stores were
hosting a variety of events including art exhibitions, cultural exhibitions, and classical
music concerts. Music concerts were among the most common cultural events that
department stores provided for their customers. Tokyo Mitsukoshi took the lead in
organizing a boys band for its Childrens Exposition in 1909, followed by the formation
of boys bands by Nagoya Matsuzakaya in 1911 and Kyoto Daimaru and Osaka
Mitsukoshi in 1912. (Fig.3.24) Notably, Shirokiya organized a girls band in 1911.78
The youth bands of department stores not only had regular concerts within each store but
also were often invited to perform for outside events. Among others, Matsuzakayas band
evolved into a full-scale orchestra, which was renamed Matsuzakaya Symphonia in
1935 and became the parent organization of todays Tokyo Philharmonic.
As Hatsuda T!ru has pointed out, during the Taish! period cultural events
sponsored by department stores were not regarded as unusual.79 In other words, people
took it for granted that department stores created culture. Department stores promoted
78

In 1911, Shirokiya renovated its Nihonbashi building and built an auditorium with over 200
seats. The girls band regularly performed in this auditorium.
79

Hatsuda T!ru, Hyakkaten no tanj!: Meiji Taish! Sh!wa no toshi bunka o enshutsushita
hyakkaten to kank!ba no kindaishi (Tokyo: Sanseid!, 1993), 152.

215

themselves not just as sites for the selling of goods but as the locus of taste education.80
Yoshimi Shunya, a scholar of media studies, characterized Japanese department stores as
an apparatus or as a cultural medium that disseminated cultural information.81 Through
various cultural activities from literary contests to classical music concerts, department
stores educated people on the new, modern lifestyle in concrete ways and, at the same
time, added cachet to their image as highbrow cultural institutions. Thus, it is hardly
surprising to find that department stores staged art exhibitions whose emphasis was not
on sales but on aesthetic appreciation.
As department stores increasingly held exhibitions that were relatively free from
the constraints required for sale, the way in which department store magazines presented
works of art changed. When department stores first established their art sections and held
exhibitions, they published photographs of artworks, along with the price, next to other
new products for sale, but the price was phased out of the publications and the images of
individual works were replaced by an installation view of the exhibition as a whole. In
addition, the genre of the works exhibited at the stores was diversified beyond nihonga
and crafts associated with the decoration of tokonoma. The number of y!ga exhibitions
grew and even the architecture exhibitions, in which the sale of the exhibited works was
fundamentally unfeasible, were held in department stores.82 It was also department stores
80

Mitsukoshi (November 1911): 6.

81

Yoshimi Shunya, Hakurankai no seijigaku (Tokyo: Ch"!k!ronsha, 1992), 135-44 and 158-72.

82

The two modernist avant-garde architect groups, Bunri-ha Kenchikukai (Secession Group,
est.1920) and S!usha (Creation of the Universe Society, est.1923), held their regular exhibitions
at department stores: Bunriha at Shirokiya (1920, 1921, 1926 and 1927), Matsuya (1924) and
Mitsukoshi (1928) and S!usha at Shirokiya (1924).

216

that exhibited the works of foreign artists that Japanese people had been able to see only
in magazines thus far. The third Nikaten, held at Mitsukoshi in 1916, offered one of the
earliest displays of original paintings by the French artist Henri Matisse (1869-1954) to
the Japanese public, although only two small works of his were included.83 Newspapers
and art magazines reported on the department store art exhibitions in the same manner as
their reviews of the Bunten, not regarding them as mere displays of works for sale. The
department stores offered their spaces free for all of the art group exhibitions discussed
above and did not charge admission. Art students frequently visited the department
stores art exhibitions, where they could look at various examples of art from the masters
works to the new artistic trends of progressive artists, throughout the year without an
entrance fee.84

Deploying the Relationship with the Intellectual World

Department stores achievement of prominence as cultural institutions was
heavily indebted to their advisory groups of renowned intellectuals. Both the judging of
Mitsukoshis literary contest and the planning of its various cultural exhibits also relied
on outside human resources. Those cultural programs were developed by groups of
prominent intellectuals whom the department stores invited to proffer their ideas and

83

Following Yasaui Sotar!, Masamune showcased the works he had produced during his study in
France in the 3rd Nikaten in 1916. Along with 36 of Masamunes works, Matisses paintings that
Masamuse had received from Matisse himself were displayed in the last room of the exhibition.
84

As department stores began to rent their spaces for art exhibitions sponsored by newspaper
companies, shows that sold tickets emerged. However, until the end of the 1920s, most
department store art exhibitions were free.

217

advice on a variety of topics. One of the most famous intellectual groups was
Mitsukoshis Ry"k! Kenkyu-kai (Fashion Research Group, as known as Ry"k!kai),
which was active from 1905 until 1923 with the avowed goal of studying Eastern and
Western, ancient and modern fashion for the improvement of contemporary taste.
(Fig.3.25) Artists, scholars, and journalists were commissioned to conduct research on
the issue of ry"k! (fashion). At monthly meetings with Mitsukoshi personnel, the
intellectuals presented and discussed their findings. Mitsukoshi made an effort to apply
the results of these meetings to its business.85
Mitsukoshis executive director, Hibi #suke, was an ardent supporter of
Ry"k!kai. In 1898 Nakamigawa Hikojir! (1854-1901), the nephew of Fukuzawa
Yukichi, recommended Hibi to Takahashi Yoshio, who was searching for a competent
person to help him carry out the reform of Mitsukoshi.86 Hibi transferred from the Mitsui
Bank to Mitsukoshi as Takahashi had three years previously. Hibi also had graduated
from Kei! Gijyuku and was greatly influenced by Fukuzawa Yukichis philosophy that
85

Following Mitsukoshi as a preeminent example, this kind of advisory group became common
for other department stores during the late Meiji and early Taish! period. Like Ry"k!-kai, the
advisory groups of other department stores were first organized for research on fashion.
Daimarus Ish!kenkyu-kai (Design Research Group) founded in 1906, Matsuyas Imay!-kai
(Contemporary Design Group) founded in 1912, Takashimayas Hyakusen-kai (Best Selection
Group) founded in 1913, and Shirokiya Shinisho-kai (New Trend Group) founded in 1922
focused on the study of kimono design. Yet the membership of each advisory group was not
limited to the field of design. Many novelists and artists such as Yosano Akiko (1878-1942),
Yosano Tekkan, and Horiguchi Gakko (1892-1981) were members of Takashimayas Hyakusenkai. Among its members, Matsuyas Imay!-kai invited journalists from leading newspapers and
magazines. Shirokiyas Shinshio-kai included Wada Eisaku and Torii Mayotada.
86

Nakamigawa is remembered for having recruited more top-level managers for Mitsui than
anyone before or since his time. His method, if immodest, was simple. He selected men whose
background was the same as his own: sons of samurai families, university graduates (mostly
graduates of Keio Gijuku), and journalists (again mostly staff of Jiji Shinpo). John G. Roberts,
Mitsui: Three Centuries of Japanese Business (New York: Weatherhill, 1973), 139.

218

the growth of commerce and industry was vital to the development of Japan, and that
private enterprises should not just make money but also return the profits to society for
social improvement.87 Claiming that the progress of Mitsukoshis business was
inseparable from the progress of the nation, Hibi consulted distinguished scholars for
their elevated opinions and tried to implement these opinions in every field of
Mitsukoshis endeavors. Hibis theory gaku zoku ky!d! (cooperation between
academia and industry) was put into practice through the establishment of Ry"k!kai.88
Ry"k!kai was mainly comprised of contributors to Mitsukoshis house organ,
Jik!, which had the characteristics of a high-quality literary magazine.89 Before Jik!,
Mitsukoshi had occasionally issued house magazines which not only advertised the
stores choice of goods for sale but also included semi-academic articles and fiction by
the most noted writers of the day. One of the most renowned Meiji writers, Ozaki K!y!
(1868-1903), and his associates were regular contributors to the early Mitsukoshi
magazines. As discussed in Chapter One, K!y! published his short story Musaura in
Mitsukoshis first house organ, Hanagoromo, in 1899 and assumed the editorship of a
later Mitsukoshi magazine, Himekagami, in 1901. Jinno Yuki pointed to K!y! as one of
the most influential figures in generating Mitsukoshi taste and consolidating the
87

Hibi #suke, Sh!bai hansh! no hiketsu, in Hibi #suke no omoide, ed. Toyoizumi Masuz!
(Tokyo: Mitsukoshi, 1933), Cited in Hatsuda, Hyakkaten no tanj!, 91-92.
88

Mitsukoshi no gakuzoku ky!d!, Mitsukoshi taimusu 10, no. 8 (July 1912): 10-11.

89

The first issue of Jik! was published in August 1903 as a monthly magazine with the size of A5
and 66 pages. Sixteen thousand copies were printed. Initially the price of a copy was 12 sen, later
raised to 18 sen. Tsuchiya Reiko, Hyakkaten hakk! no kikan zasshi, in Hyakkaten no
bunkashi: Nihon no sh!hi kakumei, ed. Nishizawa Tamotsu and Yamamoto Taketoshi (Tokyo:
Sekaishis!shi, 1999), 230.

219

Mitsukoshi brand.90 Although K!y! himself was not able to participate in Ry"k!kai due
to his early death, K!y!s associates such as Iwaya Sazanami, Ishibashi Shian (18671927), and Izumi Ky!ka (1873-1939) actively took part in this group.91 Iwaya Sazanami
served as the first secretary of Ry"k!kai.
According to Yamaguchi Masao, who conducted a detailed study of the human
network around Mitsukoshi, Mitsukoshis internal and external human resources drew on
personal connections around Hakubunkan, the most comprehensive publishing company
in Meiji Japan.92 Ozaki K!y!, Iwaya Sazanami, and Ishibashi Shian all worked for
Hakubunkan as editors of its magazines. 93 Mitsukoshis staff members Kubota Beisai
(1874-1937) and Hamada Shir! were directly and indirectly connected to Hakubunkan as
well. In 1903, Takahashi Yoshio asked #hashi Shintar!, the head of Hakubunkan, to
recommend a proper person who could take charge of Mitsukoshis new house organ,
Jik!. Iwaya Sazanami introduced Takahashi to Kubota Beisai, whom he had met on a
ship returning from Europe. Kubota was in charge of the editing and illustration of all of
90

Jinno Yuki, Shumi no tanj!: Hyakkaten ga tsukudda teisuto (Tokyo: Keis! Shob!, 1994), 130134.
91

All of them were members of literary group Keny"sha (The Society of Friends and the
Inkstone), which was founded by Ozaki K!y! and Ishibashi Shian in 1885.
92

Yamaguchi Masao, Meiji modanizumu: Bunka s!chi toshite no hyakkaten no hassei (j!) and
Kaidai nihon ni okeru karuch$ sent$ no sokei: Bunka s!chi toshite no hyakkaten no hassei (ka)
in Haisah no seishinshi, (Tokyo: Iwanani Shoten, 1995).
93

Hakubunkan was founded in 1887 and ran for about sixty years. Iwaya Sazanami worked at
publishing the first issue of Hakubunkans new series, Shonen bungaku, in 1891 and worked as
chief editor of Hakubunkans childrens magazine, Shonen sekai from 1894. Ishibashi Shian was
a chief editor of Hakubunkans literary magazine, Bungei kurabu. For further research into the
Hakubunkan, see Giles Righter, Entrepreneurship and Culture: The Hakubunkan Publishing
Empire in Meiji Japan, in New Directions in the Study of Meiji Japan ed. Helen Hardacre and
Adam L. Kern (Leiden and New York: Brill, 1997), 590-602.

220

Mitsukoshis publications until Sugiura Hisui joined Mitsukoshi in 1908.94 Hamada

Shir!, who created the slogan Today the Imperial Theater, Tomorrow Mitsukoshi, had
been chief editor of Taiheiyo (Pacific), the leading business magazine of Hakubunkan,
until he was recruited by Hibi as an advertising executive for Mitsukoshi in 1905. The
person who had introduced Hamada to Hakubunkan was his older brother, Ishii Kend!
(1865-1943), the author of Meiji jibutsu kigen (Origins of the Meiji Phenomenon) as well
as an editor of childrens magazines.95 Ishii also published several of his own books with
Hakubunkan.96 In Meiji Japan, newspapers and magazines were among the most
significant realms of public discourse where intellectuals of the day circulated their
thoughts and opinions about all different kinds of social, cultural, and political issues.
Publishers like Hakubunkan were therefore at the center of the Meiji intellectual world.
Through close ties to Hakubunkan, Mitsukoshi could be connected to a cadre of
influential intellectuals, leaders in every field of society in the early twentieth-century
Japan.
In April 1906, Hibi left for Europe and America to investigate the most advanced
form of department stores. What impressed him was the variety of European department
stores activities that were not restricted to the sale of goods; these ranged from donations
to social welfare organizations to abundant in-house cultural offerings. Returning from
94

Iwaya Sazanami also met Hibi, who accompanied Takahashi, for the first time on this occasion.
Iwaya Sazanami, Hibi san to watashi, in Hibi #suke no omoide, 59. Cited in Haisah no
seishinshi, 127.
95

Meiji jibutsu kigen (Tokyo: Shuny!d!, 1908).

96

Manbutsu kokkei kassenki (Hakubunkan, 1901) and the series of Rika j"nikagetsu (Hakubunkan,
1901).

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this research tour abroad, Hibi aimed to make Mitsukoshi a creator of new high culture
and a social leader that would guide public thought in Japan. First, he expanded the
membership of Ry"k!kai to include the writer Mori #gai (1862-1922), the writer K!da
Rohan (1867-1947), the painter Kuroda Seiki, the anthropologist Tsuboi Sh!gor! (18631913), the educator Nitobe Inaz! (1862-1933), the architect Tsukamoto Yasushi (18691937), the art administrator Masaki Naohiko(1862-1940), the playwright Matsui Sh!y!
(1870-1933), the writer Uchida R!an, the folklorist Yanagita Kunio, the painter Wada
Eisaku, the art critic Sait! Ry"z!, and so forth. With the expansion of its membership,
Ry"k!kai extended the realm of its activities beyond giving talks on contemporary trends
in clothing and households and evaluating new designs of kimono for each season. On
the basis of their own expertise, Ry"k!kais members studied the issue of fashion in a
much broader historical and cultural context. The results of their studies were
disseminated through Mitsukoshis magazines, public lectures, and thematic exhibitions.
One of the important tasks that department stores entrusted to their advisory
intellectuals was serving as judges for the public contests they sponsored. In 1907,
Mitsukoshi inaugurated literary and photography competitions, expanding the theme of
its contests to high culture beyond the subjects related to its business such as kimono or
poster design. Although department stores per se were commercial institutions with no
expertise in literature or photography, by means of their established relationships with the
intellectual world, the stores commissioned experts to be members of the jury for each
contest on an ad hoc basis. For example, Kuroda Seiki, Wada Eisaku, and Okada
Sabur!suke, the three most eminent y!ga painters of the day, were invited as judges for

222

Mitsukoshis photography contest. (Fig.3.26) At a time when pictorial photography, socalled geijutsu shashin (art photography), dominated the nascent field of photography,
this new artistic form followed the aesthetic principles of paintings. As a consequence,
y!ga painters were considered to be discerning experts who were capable of judging the
aesthetic value of photographs. Kuroda, who had been a member of Ry"k!kai, was one
of the most approachable y!ga painters for Mitsukoshi, and Wada and Okada, who were
teaching y!ga with Kuroda at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, were not total strangers to
Mitsukoshi, either, as discussed in Chapter One. Besides those three painters, Ry"k!kai
member Ishibashi Shian, Mitsukoshi photo studios Yoshida Tsunekichi and the author of
photography guidebooks Y"ki Rinzau were included in the jury. Once made regular and
public, photography contests remained one of the most popular annual Mitsukoshi events.
The winning works were reprinted in Mitsukoshis magazine and exhibited at the
Mitsukoshi photo studio. In 1909, not only the photos of winning works but also detailed
commentaries by each judge were published in Mitsukoshi taimusu.97 Mitsukoshi had
considerable influence on the development of geijutsu shashin during the period when
protocols for the critiquing and exhibition of photography had not yet been firmly
established.
Close relationship of department stores with intellectuals also played a crucial
role in attracting prominent artists of the day to their newly launched art sections. In fall
1907, Hibi directed Kubota Beisai and Hamada Shir! to prepare the opening of
Mitsukoshis art section. Kubota and Hamada first contacted the writer Takahashi Taika
97

Kensh! shashin shinsa shokanroku, Mitsukoshi taimusu (December 1909): 2-27.

223

(1863-1947) for advice about the selection of artists to commission.98 Takahashi Taika
was an old friend of Ishii Kend!, the older brother of Hamada Shir!, and a member of
Negishi-to group, a gathering of writers and artists which Kubotas father, Beisen (18521906), also had participated in. Kubota Beisen was a nihonga painter who drew
illustrations for the newspaper Kokumin no tomo. Beisen died in 1906, so he was not
able to contribute to Mitsukoshis art section himself. However, Beisens personal
connections in his lifetime gave Beisai access to influential figures in the art world.
Okakura Kakuz! was also a member of the Neigishi-to group and maintained a close
relationship with Beisen and Takahashi.99 In 1899, Takahashi was invited by Okakura to
join Nihon Bijutsu-in as the editor of its magazine, Nihon bijutsu. Takahashi acted as a
conduit through which painters of Nihon Bijutsu-in became engaged in the art section of
Mitsukoshi. 100
If Kubota Beisai and Hamada Shir!s personal connections with Nihon Bijutsu-in
played a crucial role in shaping the art section of Tokyo Mitsukoshi, the establishment of
an art section in Osaka Mitsukoshi rested on Kitamura Naojir!s (1875-1924) extensive
network in the Kyoto art scene. When Kitamura joined Mitsukoshi in 1907 as head of its
newly established art section as well as chief editor of the Osaka version of Jik!, he
already had considerable experience in the art world. First, he had worked for the art

98

Yamaguchi, Haisah no seishinshi, 107.

99

Kubota Beisen was appointed as a professor of Ishikawa Kenritsu K!geigakko (Isikawa

Prefecture College of Crafts) at Okakuras recommendation in 1897.
100

Mitsukoshi bijutsubu 100 nen no rekishi to kore kara no tenb!, Bijutsu no mado (April
2007): 100-106.

224

department of the executive office for the fourth National Industrial Exposition, held in
1895. From 1897 to 1906, Kitamura had been working as a journalist specializing in arts
and crafts for Nisshu Shinbunsha (the present Kyoto Shinbunsha). During this period,
Kitamura was often invited to be a judge for textile design contests or to be an advisor for
various groups of young artists.101 Based on the strong relationship with Kyoto artists he
had built up over the previous ten years, Kitamura readily collected appealing works to
display and sell in the Mitsukoshi art section from famous painters such as Imao Keinen,
Kikuchi H!bun(1862-1918), Tomioka Tessai, Tsuji Kak!(1870-1931), and Yamamoto
Shunko (1871-1933).102
Although department stores existed outside official art institutions, the cultural
expertise gained by means of cooperation with renowned artists allowed the department
stores to host various art exhibitions. In order to launch Art and Crafts Exhibition
(Bijutsu oyobi bijusuk!gei tenrankai) in 1910, Mitsukoshi formed an advisory committee.
Masaki Naohiko, president of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts and a member of Ry"k!kai,
was appointed as chair, and professors of the same school as well as Imperial Household
Artists (Teishitsu Gigeiin) such as Takamura K!un (1852-1934), Unno Sh!min (18441915), Takeuchi Ky"ichi (1857-1916), Shirayama Sh!sai (1853-1923), and Miyagawa
G!zan (1842-1916) were included as members.103 (Fig.3.27) The fact that highly

101

For further discussion of Kitamuras work before joining Mitsukoshi, see Tsukanesawa
Toshihiro, Hyakkaten no ibento to toshi bunka, in Hyakkaten no bunkashi, 139-142.
102

Simizu Sinsuke, Junsei bijutsu no ry!iki ni dokuji no kachi o hakki, in Kagayaku #saka
Mitsukoshi, ed. #hashi Tomiichir! (Tokyo: Nihon Hyakkaten Ts"shinsha, 1937), 131.
103

They are the representative artists who had created decorative arts for world expositions under
the Meiji state policy of shokusan k!gy! and were hired as professors in the new school. The

225

reputable artists spared no effort to support this exhibition attested to their

acknowledgement of Mitsukoshis contribution to the development of the arts. It was
true that department stores drew on the social and cultural capital of intellectuals in order
to enhance their status. Yet, as Jinno Yuki pointed out, department stores prestige
gradually came to redound upon the reputation of the intellectuals. An invitation from a
department store became a guarantee of premier status for intellectuals.104
Department stores, which had no curatorial experts, relied on advisory groups
temporarily formed whenever they needed to organize new special art exhibitions, as was
the case for their other cultural events. Such ad hoc groups, comprised of those artists
and experts best suited to advise on each exhibitions theme, allowed department stores to
hold diverse art exhibitions outside the purview of art groups or art schools. Department
stores did not build exclusive relationships with any particular art groups. It was a
phenomenon peculiar to modern Japan that art groups had the characteristics of
institutional cartels, with the practical need to achieve artistic, social, and economic
hegemony in the art establishment, rather than those of art movements, with a strong
sense of a shared aesthetic principle and style but a loose organization and short life span.
The factionalism and cronyism that was prevalent among such art groups has been
criticized as backwardness on the part of the Japanese modern art establishment.
Ironically, however, the emergence of artistic cliques was caused by the state-led art
policy that attempted to monopolize the modernization and institutionalization of art
Imperial Household Artists system encouraged the preservation of traditional decorative arts
techniques and honored their practitioners.
104

Jinno, Shumi no tanj!, 54.

226

under the states supervision. The distinct historical condition of modernity in Japan,
imposed largely from above by the state, was also reflected in its art policy, which
entrenched power and authority over Japanese artistic life and careers. In other words,
the prevailing factionalism and cronyism was itself the outcome of the modern art
establishment supervised by the state art policy, in the political arena of which art groups
strove to survive.
Art group exhibitions were mostly cliquish and did not include works by artists
belonging to other art groups. In particular, after zaiya art groups separated from the
Bunten, the works of zaiya artists were rarely juxtaposed with those of Bunten artists in
the same exhibition. Nonetheless, there was one exceptional locus where artists from
different art groups showcased their works together, transcending group boundaries.
That was the department store. The fact that department stores were not art institutions
but commercial ones gave them relative autonomy from the Japanese modern art
establishment ruled by the factionalism of art groups. Even if department stores were
among the most popular venues for the exhibitions of art groups, in principle they were
considered as market-driven and thus free from power relationships within the art
establishment.
As Morishita states, department stores organized their own trans-group
exhibitions mainly for commercial purposes.105 After Mitsukoshi opened its art section
in 1907, its sale-oriented exhibitions such as Half-size Hanging-scroll Exhibitions
displayed works by famous nihonga artists, regardless of the antagonism between old
105

Morishita, The Empty Museum, 77.

227

school and new school, and Tokyo school and Kyoto school. Even after the Nika-kai and
the Nihon Bijutsu-in declared their separation from the Bunten, just two months later
Mitsukoshi launched Mitsukoshi Kaiga Tenrankai (Mitsukoshi Painting Exhibition),
which showcased paintings by both nihonga and y!ga artists from all art groups,
including the Bunten, Nihon Bijutsu-in, and Nika-kai. Since its first show in December
1914, Mitsukoshi Kaiga Tenrankai was held every spring and fall until 1944,
promoting itself as a venue to gain an overview of all trends in contemporary Japanese
paintings from all different groups in one place. Mitsukoshi Kaiga Tenrankai was also
a sale-oriented exhibition focusing on small-size works.
Yet the participation of artists from different factions, transcending the conflicts
among them, was not restricted to exhibitions with commercial purposes. In 1924
Mitsukoshi gathered six eminent nihonga painters to form a new exhibition group, named
Tank!-kai. The Tank!-kai exhibition is one of the best indications that department stores
succeeded in providing a venue where artists from rival groups could jointly exhibit art
that was not exclusively destined for sale. Yokoyama Taikan, Shimomura Kanzan, and
Kobori Tomoto (1864-1931) from Inten and Takeuchi Seih!, Kawai Gyokud! (18731957), and Yamamoto Shunkyo (1871-1933) from Teiten, whose works would never
have been displayed at the same exhibition if it were not for this innovation, got together
for this exhibition group.106 How and why Mitsukoshi strove to form this group at the
time was well discussed in Sait! Ry"z!s memoir:

106

Ibid., 77

228

People naturally aspired to appreciate in one place masterpieces by great

contemporary artists, Seih! and Gyokud! from the Teiten and Taikan and Kanzan
from the Inten. They were also representatives of the Kyoto school and the
Tokyo school, respectively. It was Mitsukoshi that captured this desire of people
and it was Tank!-kai that converted it into reality. Hadama Shir!, the then
director of Mitsukoshi, quickly gained insight into the situation of the art world
and contacted the senior artists of the Teiten and the Inten, in order to realize the
inauguration of a permanent joint exhibition of the two groups. Although
Mitsukoshi as a commercial company could not ignore profits, the greatest
motivation for this project was to demonstrate that Mitsukoshi was able to
accomplish a challenging task that had never ever been carried out by any public
institution. In fact, when the state established the Imperial Art Academy, the
Minister and the Vice-Minister of Education courteously extended an invitation to
Taikan and Kanzan of Nihon Bijutsu-in, asking them to join this new statesponsored art institution and become reconciled with K!gy!, Seih! and Gyokud!.
However, in the end they did not succeed in persuading the two artists. If
Mitsukoshi contrived that reconciliation, it would certainly be able to take pride in
its achievement. The economic benefit from the joint exhibition was a minor
issue for Mitsukoshi at the time. With this ambitious plan, Hamada first talked to
Taikan and Kazan and after getting Gyokud!s agreement went to Kyoto to
convince Seih! and Shunky!. Despite his worries, everything went smoothly and
the joint exhibition group was established. The group was named Tank!-kai,
which means intercourse between noble men. Adding to the five painters
mentioned above, Kobori Tomoto became the last member The only rule of
Tank!-kai was that an annual exhibition would be held at Mitsukoshi. Neither a
specific aim nor a particular opinion was put forth by this exhibition group. Yet,
by all accounts, it was a union of the greatest masters of the contemporary art
world, who were chosen evenly from the zaich! (official) group and the zaiya
group, and it was a venue to put their works together in one place to receive
evaluations of them from the world. The task of founding such a prestigious
exhibition institution, for which wishing had not made it happen, was finally
accomplished.107
From 1924 to 1935, a total of nine exhibitions of Tank!-kai took place at Mitsukoshi.
(Fig.3.28) The hosting of these historic exhibitions reinforced Mitsukoshis image as a
supporter of high culture. As Sait! Ry"z! states, the contemporaneous reviews
sometimes remarked that the art exhibitions of department stores were superior to the
107

Sait! Ry"z!, Geienkonjaku (Tokyo: S!gensha, 1948), 140-141.

229

Bunten in that they chose the works to exhibit, irrespective of which art groups had
produced them.

Conclusion
Given that department stores existed primarily as profit-oriented institutions
whose product was sales, their investment in cultural programs including art exhibitions
should not be accepted as merely pure support for art in good faith, as Mitsukoshi
proclaimed. Art exhibitions ultimately provided lucrative returns to the stores. The
stores discovered new promotional tactics provided by art exhibitions beyond the profits
earned by the sale of artworks. Capitalizing on the trend in exhibition-going, the stores
increased and diversified their visitors. The visitors, once drawn by art exhibitions into
the stores, would be seduced to shop for other products. Most of all, department stores
were able to raise their prestige through the association with high culture. Although their
investment in cultural programming did not bring immediate financial benefits, it
endowed the stores with the cultural or aesthetic authority crucial to create new fashion
trends, the successful production and dissemination of which the fortunes of department
stores rested on. According to Andrew McClellan, who studied the increase of
commercialism in European and American art museums, corporate sponsorship began in
the 1960s as a form of philanthropy.108 McClellan quoted the words David Rockefeller
used to encourage fellow business leaders to support the arts in 1967:

108

Andrew McClellan, The Art Museum from Boulle to Bilbao (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 2008), 225.

230

It can provide a company with extensive publicity and advertising, a brighter

public reputation, and an improved corporate image. It can build better customer
relations, a readier acceptance of company products, and a superior appraisal of
their quality. Promotion of the arts can improve the morale of employees and help
attract qualified personnel.109
Indeed, Japanese department stores had already discerned the advantages associated with
art sponsorship that Rockefeller described to his colleagues about a half century later.
Even after the opening of art museums dedicated to modern arts, including the
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, department stores remained one of the most popular
venues for art exhibitions. This demonstrates that department stores not only
compensated for the dearth of public art museums but performed the particular role of an
artistic institution in the history of modern Japanese art. Co-sponsorships of art
exhibitions by department stores and newspaper companies, which became an
idiosyncratic format for Japanese art exhibitions and has continued through the present,
originated during this period. In the 1920s, major technological advances in the print
industry and an increasingly literate population enabled the development of
unprecedented mass circulations of periodicals and the cultivation of a mass audience.
While competition to maintain and expand the number of readers was growing,
newspaper companies began to organize and sponsor art exhibitions around the 1920s as
a market strategy for attracting readership.110 The commercialization of journalism
transformed art exhibitions into media events and artists into media celebrities.
109

Ibid., 225-226.

110

Asahi Shinbunsha began to sponsor art exhibitions as a part of their culture projects in 1919.
For further discussion of sponsorship of art exhibitions by newspaper companies, see Yamano
Hidetsugu. J$narizumu to bijutsu: Senzen no kansai ni okeru bijutsukai no idk!, in Kindai
nihon no media ibento, ed. Tsuganezawa Toshihiro (Kyoto: D!bunkan, 1996), 249-269.

231

Especially after Japan recovered from the ashes of World War II, department stores and
newspaper companies often cosponsored so-called blockbuster shows, which brought
together masterpieces loaned from foreign museums. Sat! D!shin acknowledges that it
would be difficult to hold such large-scale exhibitions without the cooperation of
department stores and newspaper companies.111 Blockbuster shows were expensive to
mount, but their proven popularity has made them attractive to department stores and
newspaper companies both of which were willing to exchange financial support for
publicity and advertising.
As discussed in the previous chapters, the modern Japanese art world attempted to
project an image that fine art is indifferent to material concerns: by consigning
commercial design to the separate profession of zuan, it proposed arts divorce from
utility and commerce; by relegating works for sale to a lower plane of home decoration,
it elevated works for salon above the base concerns of the marketplace. Nonetheless,
even art exhibitions, which displayed works of art for pure aesthetic appreciation, ended
up being appropriated for commercial purposes. Self-sufficient and self-reflective
aesthetic autonomy paradoxically raised the value of art exhibitions as cultural
commodity. Contrary to the discourse of fine art, which states that art and commerce are
incompatible, the artistic reality in modern Japan crossed the lines between fine art,
entertainment, and commerce.

111

Sat! D!shin, The Present State of Research on Modern Art History and Related Issues, Acta
Asiatica 85 (2003): 92.

232

Fig. 3.1: Installation View of the Nika Art Exhibition (Nikaten)

Mitsukoshi, Nihonbashi, October 1915
from Mitsukoshi (November 1915)

233

Fig. 3.2: Installation View of the Nika Art Exhibition, 1915

Fig. 3.3: Yasui S!tar!, Woman Washing Her Feet, 1913 (left)
Fig. 3.4: Yasui S!tar!, Woman with a Peacock, 1914 (right)

234

Fig. 3.5: Installation View of the Nihon Bijutsu-in Exhibition (Inten)

Mitsukoshi, Nihonbashi, October 1914

235

Fig. 3.6: Yokoyama Taikan

Story of Emperor Wenhuijunwang and a Cook (Y"jinuyochi), 1914

236

Fig. 3.7: Shimomura Kanzan, White Fox (Hyakko), 1914

237

Fig. 3.8: Kobayashi Kokei, Heresy (Fumie) (Itan [Fumie]), 1914

238

Fig. 3.9: Maeda Seison, Therapeutic Bath (T!jiba), 1914

239

Fig. 3.10: Yasuda Yukihiko, Prayer for Safe Birth (Giyosan no inori), 1914

240

Fig. 3.11: #chi Sh!kan, Listening to the Wind (Ch!y"), 1914

!

241

Fig. 3.12: Imamura Shiko, Scene in a Tropical Land (Nekkoku no maki), 1914

242

Fig. 3.13: T!g! Seiji, Woman Holding a Parasol (Parasoru saseru onna), 1916

243

Fig. 3. 14: Takenodai Exhibition Hall

244

Fig. 3. 15: Interior of Takenodai Exhibition Hall

245

Fig. 3.16: Installation View of the Nika Art Exhibition (Nikaten)

Mitsukoshi, Nihonbashi, October 1916
from Mitsukoshi (November 1916)

246

Fig. 3.17: Mitsukoshi, Nihonbashi, Tokyo, 1914

247

Fig. 3.18: Bungei no Mitsukoshi, from Mitsukoshi (February 1914)

248

Fig. 3.19: Bungei no Mitsukoshi, 1914

Fig. 3.20: Installation View of Cover Design Exhibition of Bungei no Mitukoshi

from Mitsukoshi (February 1914)

249

Fig. 3.21: Mitsukoshi Advertisements in Programs of Imperial Theater

250

Fig. 3.22: Imperial Theater, 1911

251

Fig. 3.23: Imperial Theaters Ballet Mitsukoshi Toy Section, 1915

252

Fig. 3.24: Mitsukoshi Band, Rooftop Garden of Mitsukoshi, 1914

253

Fig. 3.25: Ryukokenkyukai, Rooftop Garden of Mitsukoshi, 1907

254

Fig. 3.26: Mitsukoshi Photography Competition, 1907

View of Screening (up)
Installation View (bottom)

255

Fig. 3.27: Art and Crafts Exhibition, 1910

Advisory Committee (up), Exhibition Hall (bottom)

256

Fig. 3.28: Installation View of the Tank!-kais First Exhibition

Mitsukoshi, November 1924

257

CHAPTER FOUR
Incongruous Alliance: Avant-garde and Department Stores in the 1920s

Introduction
Murayama Tomoyoshi (1901-1977), the leader of Mavo, the most radical avantgarde art group in the 1920s, contributed an article titled An Admonition to Action
Members to the art magazine Mizue, harshly criticizing the second exhibition of another
avant-garde group, Action, held in April 1924.1 Murayama denounced Actions
exhibition venue, Mitsukoshi, as the castle of bourgeois money and Actions paintings
displayed there as bourgeois art like black tea after the meal. However, exactly one
year after the Action exhibition, Murayamas work entitled Destiny of Still Life (Seibutsu
no inochi) was employed as a back cover of Mitsukoshis house organ, Mitsukoshi, in
April 1925. (Fig. 4.1) Beginning in December 1924, Mistukoshi graced its covers with
the works of well-known y!ga painters such as Okada Saburosuke. It may be
disconcerting to discover that Murayama provided his work for advertising purposes to
an institution that he attacked as being bourgeois. The ambivalent attitude Murayama
had toward the department store was also evident in his work. Destiny of Still Life is a
painting combined with collage, affixing newspaper, photograph, and textile fragments
on a pictorial surface framed with wood.2 Among the abstract or nonobjective forms in

Murayama Tomoyoshi, Akushon no shokun ni kugen o teisuru, Mizue no. 232 (June 1924):
28-29.
2

Murayamas work in the April issue of Mitsukoshi is virtually the same as a work titled Still Life
(Seibutsu) that he exhibited at the first Mavo exhibition in July 1923. The only difference

258

this work, what first attracts the viewers eye is a photographic image of a white woman
in the upper right corner. Images of white women with bobbed hair, rouged lips, and
seductive make-up were prevalent in popular illustrations and advertisements at the time.
Murayama appropriated the image of a fashion icon, ubiquitous in mass culture, for his
work and then returned his work to the realm of commerce. Yet Murayamas
appropriation of the female image is ambiguous. On the one hand, it could be seen as a
critique of the commodification of women, closely mimicking the mechanism of
capitalist exploitation. On the other hand, it could be seen as the embrace of the material
reality of everyday life, corresponding to the pervasive presence of womens images in
modern urban surroundings. The meaning of Murayamas Destiny of Still Life on the
Mitsukoshi cover vacillates between these two interpretations.
Conflicted feelings about consumer culture, including department stores, were not
limited to Murayama but applicable to other avant-garde artists active in the 1920s as
well. The avant-garde art movement of the 1920s attacked the privileged status of works
of art for bourgeois aesthetic appreciation and challenged the notion of autonomous fine
art. Ironically, however, for the avant-garde artists, commercial art and mass culture
provided artistic venues in which they reintegrated art, which had been severed from

between the two works is that a photographic image of a woman appears in the 1925 version but
not in the 1923 one. The latter, without the womans image, was also featured in Murayamas
book Genzai no bijutsu to mirai no bijutsu (Art of Today and Art of the Future), which was
published in November 1924. That is to say, Murayama pasted the image of a woman on his
original work sometime between November 1924 and April 1925. Thus it is probable that
Murayama added the image of the woman after he received a commission from Mitsukoshi. The
original work is no longer extant; it remains only in the form of a black-and-white photographic
reproduction. While I was examining Mitsukoshi, I found a color reproduction of this work,
which has never been published in studies of Murayama or Mavo.

259

social relevance by official art institutions, into the praxis of daily life and communicated
with a much broader audience. This phenomenon explains Murayamas contradictory
responses toward department store art practices. Whereas he was disturbed by
department store art exhibitions in which bourgeois customers purchased works of art for
their home dcor, he capitalized on the opportunity to disseminate his work throughout
the nation in the mass-reproducible form of a Mitsukoshi cover.
While the avant-garde artists of the 1920s shared a general tendency in their move
away from the autonomous aesthetic realm and into the lived experience of the everyday,
their artistic styles, media and genres were far from monolithic. They engaged in
multifarious art practices, spanning oil painting, sculpture, collage, and assemblage, as
well as architectural projects and theatrical performances. Their works also reflected a
wide variety of stylistic sources, including Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Dadaism,
and Constructivism. In addition, membership in avant-garde groups was far from static,
with many artists having affiliations with several groups, which were usually formed,
dissolved, and sometimes reformed in relatively short periods of time. The 1920s avantgarde in Japan was a constellation of artists participating in a dynamic and rebellious
movement which sought to forge new artistic solutions for modern Japan with the belief
that by revolutionizing artistic practice they would also revolutionize the Japanese art
establishment and society in general. Despite the diversity of their artistic styles and
formats, however, most avant-garde art groups including Mavo, Action, Sanka, Z!kei,
and Tani Sanka held exhibitions in department stores. In the 1920s, department stores

260

became the primary venues for showcasing the artistic activities of avant-garde artists in
Japan.

261

Omuka Toshiharu and Gennifer Weisenfeld conducted remarkable research on the

Japanese avant-garde art movement in the 1920s.3 In particular, Weisenfeld explores
how Mavo artists who had proletarian and revolutionary sympathies came to participate
in consumer culture. According to her, commercial art and consumer culture satisfied
Mavos desire to integrate modern aesthetics with the practical elements of daily living,
all the while enabling the cultivation of a much-expanded audience.4 Building on the
work of Weisenfled, I examine how leftist avant-garde artists came to bring their works
into department stores, which most typically developed in relation to the power and value
system of the bourgeoisie. This chapter examines the relationship between department
stores and avant-garde art not only from the perspective of avant-garde artists but also
from that of the stores, looking at why department stores wanted to embrace avant-garde
artists who negatively perceived the capitalist system on which the stores were based. I
would suggest what made department stores align with avant-garde artists during the
1920s included the following three reasons: taish"ka (massification) of the stores,
responding the rise of mass society; the common desire of both avant-garde art and
department stores to stand on the cutting edge of the time and to lead the masses; and the
existence of avant-garde art audiences who were ideologically inclined toward leftist

Omuka Toshiharu, Taish!ki shink! bijutsu und! no kenky" (Tokyo: Sukaidoa, 1998) and
Gennifer Weisenfeld, Mavo: Japanese Artists and the Avant-garde 1903-1931, (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 2002).
4

Weisenfeld, Mavo, 170.

262

political thought but at the same time enjoyed a lifestyle that department stores
promoted.5

The Emergence of the Avant-garde amid Social, Political, and Material

Transformations
The 1920s was an era colored by the explosive growth of consumer culture and
the flourishing of the culture industry. During World War I (1914-1918), Japanese
industry rapidly expanded as Japan served as a wartime supplier to the Allies and
capitalized on an opportunity to increase its trade with other Asian countries by supplying
goods that could no longer be imported from Europe. This unprecedented industrial
expansion reordered social and economic structures within Japan. Large numbers of
rural dwellers migrated to urban areas and constituted industrial workers as well as whitecollar salaried workers.6 Due to a combination of increased prosperity and greater
purchasing power, a mass consumer society emerged, particularly in the big cities, and
consumption and leisure in everyday life expanded. Cafs, restaurants, dance halls, and
movie theaters mushroomed across the city, serving the burgeoning mass of urban

Here taish"ka means making the things, images, and information associated with a specific
social class more accessible to the masses.
6

The growth of white-collar office occupations after World War I gave rise to the increase of
salaried workers and the term sarariman (salary man) was popularized in the late 1920s.
According to the social psychologist Minami Hiroshi, 18.1 percent of the populace lived in the
cities in 1920; this figure rose to 21.7 percent five years later and to 24.1 percent by 1930.
Minami Hiroshi and Shakai Shinri Kenky"jo, Sh!wa bunka: 1925-1945 (Tokyo: Keis! Shob!,
1987), 19. Middle-class households constituted 2.38 percent of the nations households in 1903
and 5 percent by 1917; by the mid-1920s, that figure was 11.5 percent. Maeda Ai, Kindai
dokusha no seiritsu (Tokyo: Y"seid!, 1973), 217-18.

263

dwellers. Moga (modern girls) and mobo (modern boys), who aimlessly strolled down
Ginza gazing at window displays, epitomized this newly-emergent urban mass culture.
The national prosperity that Japan achieved through World War I, however, did
not benefit all Japanese evenly. Rather, the overheated economy gave rise to inflation
and reduced the value of wages.7 The onset of a severe global economic depression after
World War I escalated the social unrest unleashed by the Rice Riots in 1918.8 Stock
prices collapsed and small businesses went bankrupt in the recession. A series of
company bankruptcies resulted in large-scale unemployment. The economic boom and
bust precipitated by the war led to a monopolization of capital and a polarization of
wealth in Japan. The growing social instability and economic inequality precipitated
uprisings by various mass movements, including labor strikes and tenancy disputes. As
sociologist Yoshimi Shunya eloquently argues, the culture of the Taisho period (1912-

Between 1914 and 1918, while the wages of textile industry workers, who comprised forty-five
percent of the newly-emerging workforce of one million workers, increased only 120 percent, the
price of rice rose 190 percent, the price of cotton cloth 300 percent, and the price of charcoal 160
percent. Minami Hiroshi and Shakai Shinri Kenky"jo, Taish! bunka (Tokyo: Keis! Shob!,
1965), 81-82.
8

In particular, the inflated price of rice, as the main staple of the Japanese diet, affected the prices
of most consumer goods and the cost of rent. The price of Tokyo rent rose 250 percent between
1914 and 1922. The cost of living, which had more than doubled, proved to be difficult for urban
residents. Despite the difficulties in the domestic economy, however, the government decided to
dispatch the Japanese army to Russia in 1918 in order to protect Japan from the social upheaval
spawned by the Russian Revolution of 1917 and to extend Japans militaristic power to
Manchuria and Siberia. The Siberian Intervention completely disrupted the rice market and led to
mass hoarding, further aggravating the inflation in rice prices. Consumer dissatisfaction with the
rise in rice prices led to a nationwide series of spontaneous revolts known as the Rice Riots of
1918. The wave of protests began in a small fishing village in Toyoma Prefecture in July and
quickly spread to urban areas.

264

1926) should be read not merely as an expansion of bourgeois consumer culture, but also
as a manifestation of class cleavages and contradictions within the society.9
The problematic social conditions generated by the growth of industrial capitalism
engendered the introduction of leftist political thought and the formation of a social
consciousness among the intelligentsia. Many intellectuals, including artists and writers,
called for a more socially-engaged role and took upon themselves the task of social
critique. Artists were forced to reconsider the role of art in society and some of them
attempted to transform their artistic pursuits from art for arts sake to the search for
arts social utility. The avant-garde art groups of the 1920s considered in this chapter
represent a collective of the very artists concerned with the need for artistic production to
incorporate more of a social consciousness beyond the internal structure of artistic
discourse. The avant-garde artists of the 1920s actively resisted the exclusive and
hierarchical art establishment, which considered art to be detached from society and the
reality of everyday life by placing art in the ivory tower of fine art. The aim of the
1920s avant-garde movement, rather, was to seek a new definition of the artist and a new
role for art, focusing on everyday experience and the material conditions of everyday life.
Within the studies of modern Japanese art history that had taken a largely
formalist approach to their subjects, the 1920s avant-garde groups had been placed under
the broader classification of formalist modernism and thus were not distinguished from

Yoshimi Shunya, Teikoku shuto T!ky! to modaniti no bunka seiji, Kakudai suru modaniti
(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2002), 20.

265

the 1910s art groups which emerged from opposition to academicism.10 It is unlikely,
however, that the activities of those zaiya (anti-official) artists in the 1910s constituted a
fatal threat to Japans art establishment. The zaiya artists advocated a broader range of
stylistic novelty than the official salon had accepted, but their interest in aesthetic
innovation operated within, rather than against, the institution of art. They never
questioned the notion of art as institution, which authorized the art establishment to
maintain artistic, social, and economic hegemony by paradoxically instrumentalizing the
doctrine of aesthetic autonomy. The conception of junsui geijutsu (pure art), claiming
a purely self-sufficient and self-reflective aesthetic realm, had been advocated as the
means to achieve social significance both by the art establishment and by the zaiya artists.
As long as the zaiya artists remained within the autonomous realm of fine art per se,
they merely expanded the aesthetic boundaries of the art establishment and thus
reinforced its existing structures. For example, Nika-kai (Second Section Association),
which had been comprised of young artists disenfranchised from the Bunten, became
another art establishment that younger artists increasingly opposed by the early 1920s. In
order to revolutionize the art establishment altogether, the abolishment of art itself was
inevitable. Whereas zaiya artists active in the 1910s attempted an aesthetic revolt still
within the institutional frame of art, the avant-garde art groups of the 1920s challenged

10

As Weisenfeld points out, the 1920s avant-garde art movement had been considered an early
formal pioneer of abstract painting in modern Japanese art history, which had been less concerned
with examining the nature or meaning of an avant-garde in the sociopolitical context of 1920s
Japan than with establishing dynamic manifestations of abstraction in Japans modernist past.
Weisenfeld, Mavo, 255-256.

266

the institutionalized discourse of art itself. The critique of autonomous art by the
avant-garde artists resulted in a recognition of arts existence as an institution.
To differentiate their activities from existing artistic practices, the avant-garde
artists abandoned the concept of art (bijutsu or geijustu) and replaced it with new
concepts such as construction (k!sei), constructive art (keisei geijutsu), or making
form (z!kei).11 Such new conceptions of art can be traced, in part, to the Russian avantgarde artist Varvara Bubnova (1886-1983), who came to Japan in June 1922 and
published two articles on contemporary Russian Constructivism in Shis! and Ch"! k!ron,
both of which were highly influential magazines in the Japanese intellectual world at the
time.12 These two related articles conveyed the latest theoretical discussions and artistic
accomplishments of post-Revolutionary Russian artists, along with formal analyses of
Constructivist works.13 Bubnova also discussed the broader sociocultural implications of
Constructivist theory, stressing the unprecedented relationship between art and society
that the Russian Revolution had engendered. According to her, through construction,

11

Kei signifies form and sei signifies to construct; thus keisei means form-constructing.
In the context of the Japanese avant-garde in the 1920s, keisei is almost synonymous with
k!sei (construction), in which both k! and sei signify construct. With z! signifying to
make and kei signifying form, z!kei means making form.
12

Bubnova came to Japan to visit her sister, Anna Dmitrievna, who had married a Japanese
scholar, Ono Shunichi, and returned to the Soviet Union in 1958. In Russia, Bubnova had been
involved in the famous debate on construction and composition in the Institute of Artistic
Culture in Moscow between January and April 1921. Her colleagues included the prominent
Russian avant-garde artists Alexander Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, and Liubov Popova.
Bubnova was also a member of Sanka.
13

Varvara Bubnova, Gendai ni okeru Roshia kaiga no kis" ni tsuite, Shis! 13 (October 1922):
75-110; Varvara Bubnova, Bijutsu matsuro ni tsuite, Ch"! k!ron 8, no. 11 (November 1922):
80-90.

267

aestheticism was changing into action, paintings into real objects, and art into industry.
Bubnovas theoretical formulations of construction gave a significant stimulus to
Japanese avant-garde art movement of the 1920s.14
In the first line of their manifesto, the group Mavo declared, We are a group that
aims to work on constructive art (keisei geijutsu).15 The entire manifesto was
published in the pamphlet for the groups first exhibition in July 1923, which received
mixed reviews from critics. In response to criticism that Mavos work transgressed the
bounds of pure art (junsui geijutsu), Murayama Tomoyoshi responded as follows:
What I am willing to make is not something that can fit into the narrow category
of artI do not approve of pure art, neither its positive nor its negative
effectsConstructive art breaks down the boundary between itself and the other
arts, and even does so in other areas of lifeMy work is not an after-meal tea. I
have no time to get involved with the trivial matter of taste. My works do not
demand appreciation; they demand understanding.16
Murayama learned about Dadaism and Constructivism when he visited Germany for ten
months in 1922.17 During his stay in Berlin, Murayama met various leading avant-garde
artists and got a chance to participate in the First International Art Exhibition and the
14

For a further discussion of Bubnovas activities in Japan, see Omuka Toshiharu, Varvara
Bubnova as a Vanguard Artist in Japan, in A Hidden Fire: Russian and Japanese Cultural
Encounters, 1868-1926, ed. J. Thomas Rimer (Stanford, Calif., and Washington, D.C.: Stanford
University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995), 101-13.
15

This Mavo Manifesto (Mavo no sengen) was published in the pamphlet of the groups first
exhibition at the Buddhist temple Denp!in in Asakusa in late July 1923.
16

Murayama Tomoyoshi, Mavo tenrankai ni taishite: Asaedakun ni kotaeru T!ky! asahi

shinbun, August 5, 1923 (a.m.ed.), 6. (emphasis in the original). The quotation is my translation
based on Weisenfelds translation in Mavo, 74-75.
17

Murayamas stay in Germany coincided with a particular moment in the history of Berlin Dada
when it appeared to be converging with Constructivism.

268

concurrent Congress of International Progressive Artists in May in Dsseldorf. The latter

marked the first time Dadaists and Constructivists held a joint conference.18 After
Murayama came back to Japan, he exchanged ideas about Constructivism with Bubnova.
In The Passing of Expressionism, one of the first essays he published after his return
from Berlin, Murayama proclaimed that art should no longer exist for expression
(hy!gen), but for construction (k!sei).19 Murayama labeled his artistic theory conscious
constructivism (ishikiteki k!seishugi) and sought to create a nonrepresentational image
of modernity pertinent to the reality of everyday life, to use Weisenfelds words.20
Murayamas conscious constructivism became the theoretical foundation of Mavos
collective activities.
The 1920s avant-garde art movement in Japan reached its culmination in Sanka
(short for Sanka Z!kei Bijutsu Ky!kai [Third Section Plastic Arts Association]). Under
the headline Painted people speak (Egaita ningen ga kuchi o kiku), the daily newspaper
Yorozu ch!h! reviewed the first Sanka exhibition held at the Matsuzakaya department
store in May 1925.21 What this intriguing title referred to was a work entitled R.G by
Kinoshita Sh"ichir! (1896-1991), who had organized the Sanka group. Kinoshitas work
consisted of models with their faces painted red, white, and blue. (Fig. 4.2) In this
performance, figures at first sat like mannequins before a Lissitzky-style composition

18

Weisenfeld, Mavo, 36.

19

Murayama, Sugiyuku hy!genha, Ch"! bijutsu, no.91 (April 1923): 1-30.

20

Weisenfeld, Mavo, 3.

21

Yorozu ch!h!, May 21, 1925 (a.m.ed.), 2

269

that hung on the wall, but suddenly they began to shake, blink their eyes like automatons,
and finally stand up and move about the exhibition hall. This living sculpture made art
critic Nakada Sadanosuke (1888-1970) shocked enough to faint and was sensational
enough to bewilder or amuse people.22 Another critic, Kawaji Ry"k! (1888-1959) said,
Well, if art (or whatever it is) is something that has the wonderful power to stimulate
the people, then the works of Sanka have really succeeded. Nobody opened his or her
mouth. Nobody played music. But silent, bizarre constructive objects (keiseibutsu)
aroused the audiences interest more than the acrobatics of street performers.23
Sanka was founded in October 1924 as a progressive alliance by fourteen artists
from several different groups including Mavo and Action.24 The name Sanka had been
coined initially for the unjuried exhibition called Sanka Independent (Third Section
Independent) held by the Futurist Art Association (Miraiha Bijutsu Ky!kai) in October
1922. Kinoshita Sh"ichir! devised this name to emphasize the groups distance from and
opposition to Nika-kai. Kinoshita brought up the name Sanka again for the founding of
a new, unjuried, all-inclusive forum and said Sankas existence signifies a uniting to
reject the contemporary art establishment where we cannot pursue our goals.25 The

22

Nakada Sadanosuke Megane o suteru (Sanka kaiin tenpy!), Ch"! bijutsu, no.116 (July
1925): 52-58.
23

Kawaji Ry"k! Hy!gen geijutsu yori seikatsu geijutsu e, Atelier 2, no.7 (July 1925): 167.

24

The founding members include Kinoshita Sh"ichir!, Shibuya Osamu, Murayama Tomoyoshi,
#ura Sh"zo, Yanase Masamu, Yabe Tomoe, Okamato T!ki, Tamamura Zennosuke, Kanbara Tai,
Yoshida Kenkichi, Asano M!fu, Nakahara Minoru, Yokoi Hiroz!, and Varvara Bubnova.
25

Kinoshita continued to say, With the birth of Nika, the [nature of the] Teiten [Imperial art
exhibition] became clear, and similarly, with the birth of Sanka, [the nature of the] Nika will
become clear. However, we look forward to the time when young artists will form the Shika

270

alliance was based more on similar attitudes toward the art establishment than agreement
on artistic styles and formats. Action and Mavo were established in 1922 and 1923
respectively.26 From the beginning, however, there were tensions between Action and
Mavo. While Action members worked in the comparatively traditional formats of
painting and sculpture, working primarily in Fauvist, Cubist, and Futurist styles, Mavo
moved toward the new formats of collage and assemblage influenced by Dadaism and
Constructivism. In addition, whereas Actions statements were an optimistic call to
action, Mavos writings were more anarchic and nihilistic. Yet recognition of the art
establishment as the key antagonist in the struggle over the production and reception of
their art led Mavo and Action to bond in Sanka. The collaborative project group Sanka
mounted two exhibitions, the first of which was held at Matsuzakaya. Omuka Toshiharu
notes that this exhibition was among the largest of any avant-garde exhibitions in the
prewar era and was comprised of a range of works of disparate media and subjects,
many of them aimed at scandalizing the public.27
Besides Kinoshitas R.G, the works on display for Sankas first exhibition were
divided into two types: conventional oil paintings and constructive objects (keiseibutsu

(Fourth Section) and crush us underfoot as they advance. Honma Masayoshi ed., Nihon no
zenei bijutsu, Kindai no bijutsu no. 3 (Tokyo: Shibund!, 1971), 39-40. Quoted and translated in
Weisenfeld, Mavo, 98.
26

Mavo was formed by the five artists Kadowaki Shinr!, Murayama Tomoyoshi, #ura Shuz!,
Yanase Masamu, and Ogata Kamenosuke.
27

Cited in David Robert Pellegrini, Avant-garde East and West: A Comparison of Prewar
German and Japanese Avant-garde Art and Performance, (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburg,
2001), 197.

271

or z!keibutsu).28 Yet a great deal of attention was paid to the constructive objects,
including collages, assemblages, and three-dimensional structures. (Fig. 4.3) Many artists
who had worked mainly in painting, either y!ga or nihonga, until then also tried to
produce constructive objects inspired by Mavo. Unfortunately, however, most of the
works exhibited in the Sanka show are no longer in existence. Among the constructive
objects in particular, the only one that still exists is Murayama Tomoyoshis Construction
(K!sei or konsutorakuchion), which is now in the National Museum of Modern Art,
Tokyo. (Fig. 4.4) The rest of the constructive objects survive only in a few photographs
and verbal accounts in contemporary journals. Action member Yoshida Kenkichi (18971982) mounted a kind of installation work on the wall, which consisted of five individual
shop signs.29 (Fig. 4.5) Mavoist Shibuya Osamu (1900-1963)s Construction of Artificial
Flowers Lacking in Sympathy (Ky!kansei no toboshii z!ka no aru konsutorackushon)
combined fragmented photographic images of female legs wearing high-heeled shoes
with real objects such as synthetic flowers inside a box. (Fig.4.6) Another Mavo member,
#ura Sh"z! (1890-1928), made a collage with cutouts from Russian and German
magazines, explicitly and implicitly referring to the Russian Revolution.30 (Fig.4.7)
Tamamura Zennosuke (1893-1951), who had been working in nihonga until he joined
Sanka, constructed a structure entitled Monument to Art of Industry and Hygiene Z!kei

28

Kwaji, Hy!gen geijutsu yori seikatsu geijutsu e, 169.

29

Yoshida created these signboards for stores that sold paper lanterns, geta, dry goods, and
textiles, kitchenware and sundries, and tobacco soon after the earthquake for the Imperial
University Settlement.
30

Weisenfeld, Mavo, 105.

272

(Kogy!to eisietono geijutsuheno kinent! z!kei). (Fig. 4.8) As an example of a work

that falls into the category of neither constructive object nor oil painting, Yanase
Masamu (1900-1945) submitted a practical design; his Rental Car (Kashimono jid!sha)
was a schematic drawing for a truck. (Fig. 4.9)
Sankas constructive objects were made largely of non-art materials and were
also difficult to define as either paintings or sculptures. Although a considerable
proportion of artists still showed works in the conventional format of oil painting in the
exhibition, their paintings also were treated like other objects without distinction. The
hierarchy between genres and, by extension, between art and other quotidian objects did
not work in Sankas exhibition. In conjunction with the first exhibition at Matsuzakaya,
Sanka members also held Gekij! no Sanka (Sanka in the Theater) on May 30 at Tsukiji
Sh!gekij! (Tsukiji Little Theater).31 (Fig. 4.10)
Sankas works and activities challenged the traditional generic categorization of
art, eventually leading to a questioning of the definition of art itself. Sanka was
revolutionary as well as aesthetically radical. Contemporary critics defined Sanka as the
most radical of the Japanese leftist art groups32 or iconoclasts against art.33 The
31

Tsukiji Little Theater was an important center of Japans modern theater, particularly the
proletarian theater movement. Yoshida Kenkichi was a founding member of it. Department
stores showcased a few works of avant-garde artists related to Tsukiji Little Theater. In June
1925, the Shirokiya department stores in Nihonbashi held a large-scale stage design exhibition
commemorating the first anniversary of the Tsukiji Little Theater, which featured the works of
Murayama Tomoyoshi and Yoshida Kenkichi. In September 1926, the Kyoto branch of
Takashimaya department store mounted an exhibition entitled Works of Tsukiji Little Theater
and Mavo: Stage Designs and Movie Sets.
32

Kawaji, Hy!gen geijutsu yori seikatsu geijutsu e, 166.

33

Ichiuji Yoshinaga, Atarashi z!kei ni tsuite no ichi k!satsu, Atelier, no.7 (July 1925): 9.

273

Sanka exhibition was not only described in numerous art journals as a groundbreaking
exhibition in the art world,34 but was also portrayed by the popular press in highly
sensationalized terms, with Yorozu ch!h! calling it a great innovation (daikakushin) in
art.35
Contemporary art critics referred to the works of Sanka as non-art. In response
to the first Sanka exhibition, Nakada Sadanosuke said:
Sanka does not apply the title of art (geijutsu) to its work. Sanka artists do not
fake and deceive by making a gold sign of art (bijutsu). They do not go so far
as daring to profane the sacred art of the solemn and severe classical imperial
palace and the brilliant palace academy by treating it as something commonplace
and dragging it into this mundane, earthly realm. They decline to label their work
with the beautiful name of art. Thus, they titled their exhibition Exhibition of
Sankas work [instead of Exhibition of Sankas art]. Their work is not the socalled art from olden times and thus cannot be judged by the aesthetic of
yesterday. Instead of the name art (geijutsu), it should be referred to as
constructive work (keisei sakuhin) or non-art(hi geijustu).36
The leftist art critic Ichiuji Yoshinaga (1888-1952), who was also sympathetic to Sankas
inclination toward non-art, employed the notion of z!kei to explain Sankas works,
which defied the conventional bounds of art. According to Ichiuji, since art had been a
sybaritic illusion of bourgeois society, innovation in art should be nothing other than the
34

The art magazine Mizue conducted a survey among prominent art and literary personalities
regarding the Sanka exhibition. Mizue (July 1925); Kawaji, Hy!gen geijutsu yori seikatsu
geijutsu e, 166-176; Oda, Kokumin bijutsu (July 1925): 14; Nakada, Megane o suteru (Sanka
kaiin tenpy!), 52-57.
35

Yorozu ch!h!, May 21, 1925 (a.m.ed.).

36

Nakada, Megane o suteru (Sanka kaiin tenpy!), 52. (emphasis in the original) The quotation
is my translation based on Weisenfelds translation in Mavo, 107-108. Nakada had just returned
from studying in Germany (1922-24), where he met with many well-known European artists and
visited the Bauhaus on several occasions with Bunriha architect Ishimoto Kikuji. Nakada also
joined Sankas second exhibition (1925) and Sanka in theater with Tani Sanka (1927).

274

negation of art, and art should be replaced with z!kei.37 Z!kei referred to
producing real objects fundamentally different in style, content, motivation, and material
from old art and based on a proletarian consciousness about the new realities of daily
life. Ichiuji claimed that Sanka was the most enthusiastic participant in the new
revolutionary z!kei in Japan at the moment.
After the disbandment of Sanka in September 1925, former members of Action
who had been involved in Sanka organized a new group named Z!kei in November 1925.
Their rhetoric of z!kei was strongly indebted to Ichiujis theory.38 In the daily
newspaper Yomiuri shinbun, Z!kei published its manifesto, starting with provocative
statements such as Art (geijutsu) has already been negated. Now it is replaced with the
new z!kei.39 Okamoto T!ki, who had been member of Action and Sanka and now one
of the organizers of Z!kei, stated the theoretical foundation of Z!kei in his essay titled
About Z!kei and Its Meaning.40 Okamoto condemned art because, he claimed, it
was a mere object of aesthetic appreciation, which required the bourgeois life as an

37

Ichiuji, Atarashi z!kei ni tsuite no ichi k!satsu, 2-31.

38

Omuka, Taish!ki shink! bijutsu und! no kenky", 41.

39

Z!kei shussan nami ni sengen, Yomiuri shinbun, December 1, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 4. Kanbara
Tai, who wrote the manifesto, said that the name Z!kei was brought up by Okamoto and all the
members agree to use it. According to Okamoto, z!kei was not plastic art (z!kei geijutsu or
z!kei bijutsu), but z!kei that is making forms (z!kei suru Z!kei). Akushonten: Taish! shink!
bijutsu no ibuki, (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1989), 11. Z!kei was the translation of the German
word Gestaltung and was taken from the book Kunst und Gestaltung[Von Kunst zur
Gestaltung] written by German left-wing art critic Adolf Behne. Omuka Toshiharu, 20th Century
Art and Japan: A Focus on the Taisho Era, in The Birth of 20th Century Art: Europe, U.S.A., and
Japan in the 1920s-30s (Hiroshima: Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum, 1996), 29.
40

Okamoto T!ki, Z!kei to sono igi ni tsuite, Atelier, no.3 (March, 1926): 36-45 and Atelier,
no.4 (April, 1926): 84-104.

275

ontological precondition. According to Okamoto, Sankas exhibition of non-art

emancipated z!kei from the realm of art, which had been limited to painting,
sculpture, and architecture. Now art should return to z!kei, that is, to encompass the
activity of making all common, everyday objects in general.

Beyond Subjective Individualism Toward the Masses Everyday Life

Avant-garde artists of the 1920s renounced the ideal of fine art as a sacred and
separate realm of individual achievement protected from the pollution of the vulgar and
the everyday. In her 1922 essay mentioned above, Russian Constructivist artist Bubnova
insisted that the so-called art of painting would depart from the dead path of
exhibitions, museums, and the warehouses of the rich and make its way into peoples
intense and energetic lives.41 The avant-garde artists sought to eliminate the elitist
notion of fine art by integrating the practices of everyday life into art. As seen in the
Sanka, the avant-garde artists linked art to the material reality of everyday experience by
including industrially produced materials, reproduced images from mass culture, and
fragments of discarded machinery in their works. In his review of the first Sanka
exhibition, From expressionist art to the art of daily life (Hy!gen geijutsu yori seikatsu
geijutsu e), Kawaji Ry"k! defined Sankas artistic aim as making art real (geijutsu no
jissakika) and transforming art into a part of daily life (geijutsu no seikatsuka).42

41

Bubnova, Gendai ni okeru Roshia kaiga no kis" ni tsuite, 104.

42

Kawaji, Hy!gen geijutsu yori seikatsu geijutsu e, 166-170.

276

[Sankas] constructive object (z!keibutsu) jumps out of the frame and seizes us.
We think of a constructive object (z!keibutsu) as a real object in the same way
that we view a utensil on the table or a part of a wall, or a part of a column
supporting a room. In other words, we consider it a real thing that relates to and
exists in our everyday lives. It is not simply expression. In a word, it has an
organic relationship to daily life. No, rather, it is an art that possesses a part of
daily life. This is probably the intention of the constructivists. Making art real
(geijutsu no jissakika) and transforming it into a part of daily life (seikatsuka) is
the result of this abstract, machine-like, impulsive form of art. If you agree with
this, then you must also acknowledge that the artist and art have a utilitarian
function. You must grant that art is a material object necessary to daily life.
This forces you to abhor the hanging scroll that adorns the tokonoma. You think
of the oil paintings that are gently hung in frames on the wall as just another
version of someones best clothes.43
By inserting fragments of everyday life into their works, avant-garde artists aimed to
break down the barriers between art and life. Many avant-garde works did not fit
conventional conceptions of fine art, which consisted exclusively of paintings in a
frame and sculptures on a pedestal. Yanase Masamu, Mavo and Saka member, even
insisted that paintings that fit in a frame, trends in essays that are like black tea, all of
them are just little arts for the living room. Decorations for capitalist society.44 Avantgarde ideas and practices disregarded the genres and hierarchies of existing art
institutions and discourse. The incorporation of found objects into their works
represented the attempt of avant-garde artists to destroy the aura of their originality, and
hence represented their subversive attempt to transcend the autonomy principle.

43

Ibid., 173-174. Quoted and translated in Weisenfeld, Mavo, 103.

44

Mabashi z!gon, Bungei sensen 2, no. 8 (November 1925): 32. Quoted and translated in
Weisenfeld, Mavo, 170.

277

For the avant-garde artists who produced works that were unacceptable or even
unidentifiable according to conceptions of fine art, department stores could be an
alternative venue to display their works, since the department store exhibitions never
adhered to a restrictive definition of fine art. Department stores often displayed new
kimono patterns in the very same place where an exhibition of prominent painters had
been held a week before. Indeed, nihonga painter Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878-1972)
expressed his dissatisfaction with the absence of a clear division between the art
exhibition space and the sales floors in Mitsukoshi as follows:
The exhibition space for half-size hanging-scrolls is not separated from the
display floors for other goods. It would be nice to make at least a door, which
clearly indicates to customers that the space is not for ordinary goods but for art in
the form of paintings. Since the part of the mind used to appreciate paintings
should be different from the one used to look at textiles, a division that helps to
make our minds properly ready to appreciate works of art is necessary, even if it
is not a strict line.45
Because of their refusal to conform to the notions of what constituted fine art, the works
of avant-garde artists were unable to be exhibited at conventional art galleries or
museums and thus were unlikely to be collected by art collectors as authentic works of
art. As a result, the vast majority of avant-garde works of the 1920s have been lost.
Ironically, however, the loss of these works reaffirms the success of their resistance to the
institutional status of art. As Omuka Toshiharu aptly notes, the avant-garde art of the

45

Hansetsuga wa Edo shumi, Mitsukoshi, (June 1911): 36-37.

278

1920s was recorded and remembered as an art movement covered in journalism rather
than remaining as works of art exhibited in museums and written about in art history.46
To understand the nature and objectives of the 1920s avant-garde art movement, it
would be useful to compare its choice and conception of exhibition space with that of the
1910s modernist art groups such as Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), Fy"zan-kai
(Sketch Society) and S!dosha (Grass and Earth Society).47 If modernism is defined in a
broad sense as an aesthetic response to modernity, avant-garde art must be part of
modernism, and modernist and avant-garde practices are thus not mutually exclusive.
However, here I am defining modernist and avant-garde practice in opposition to each
other to distinguish the artists who championed the primacy of subjective interiority and
self-expression in their art in the 1910s from those who criticized the autonomous status
of art and attempted to integrate art into life in the 1920s. Shirakaba-ha was a
representative advocate of the aesthetic theory of subjective individualism that flourished
among the intelligentsia in the 1910s as a reaction against the authoritarianism of the
46

Omuka, Taish!ki shink! bijutsu und! no kenky", 32.

47

Shirakaba-ha was a literary group centered around the journal Shirakaba. From the journals
inception in 1910 until its demise in 1923, Shirakaba played a central role in the modernist
literary movement, but also actively introduced in its pages information about European artists
such as Czanne, van Gogh, Gaugin, Matisse, and Rodin. Three of the most important modernist
painters in the 1910s, Kishida Ry"sei, Umehara Ry"zabur!, and Yorozu Tetsugor!, also
contributed to Shirakaba and its stress on the creative personality of the individual artist.
Shirakaba-ha also organized art exhibitions displaying original works by its members as well as
reproductions of works by the European artists it featured in the magazine. Fusain-kai was a
short-lived gathering of artists dedicated to individualism and the necessity of self-expression,
generally opposing Bunten institutionalism. The main members of the Fusain-kai were Sait!
Yori, Takamura K!tar!, Kimura Shohachi, Yorozu Testugor!, Kishida Ry"sei, Hazama Inosuke,
and Kobayashi Tokusabur!. The first exhibition was held in October 1912 in the Yomiuri
Shinbun and displayed various styles of works basically associated with post-Impressionism.
After its second exhibition in March 1913, the group disbanded.

279

Meiji period, which understood an individuals accomplishments only in terms of their

contribution to the state. Shirakaba-ha asserted the detachment of art from social and
political concerns and the centrality of the autonomous individual in the arts. Takamura
K!tar!, a well-known sculptor, poet, and critic as well as a Shirakaba-ha member,
published his famous essay Green Sun (Midori iro no taiy!) in the literary magazine
Subaru in 1910.48 In this essay, Takamura advocated in passionate prose, I am seeking
absolute freedom in art. I recognize the infinite authority of the artists personality. In
every sense I want to think of art from the viewpoint of one single human being.49
Takamuras advocacy of subjective individualism in art struck a sympathetic chord with
many artists who desired to produce art centered on self-expression, regardless of
existing social, political, or artistic convention.
In the same year he published Green Sun, Takamura opened the art gallery
R!kand! in order to exhibit his modernist colleagues works as well as his own,
independent from the Buntens influence. As briefly mentioned in Chapter Three, the
opening of R!kand! stimulated the opening of other small galleries including Vinasu
Kurabu, Hibiya Bijutsukan, and Ry"itsus!. These small galleries became the major
exhibition venues for the modernist artists involved in Shirakaba-ha such as Kishida
Ry"sei (1891-1929), Umehara Ryuzaburo (1888-1986), and Yorozu Tetsugor! (18851927), as well as Takamura, elevating the consciousness about solo exhibitions within the

48

Subaru 2, no.4 (April 1910): 35-41. Takamura went abroad in 1906-9 to study sculpture in the
United States under Gutzon J. Borglum (1867-1941).
49

Quoted and translated in Weisenfeld, Mavo, 24.

280

Japanese art world that the Bunten and juried exhibitions of art groups dominated at that
time. The small galleries run by modernist artists themselves or their collectors or
sponsors became a space where like-minded art people assembled, discussed ideas and
appreciated their art. Thus, the audience for these galleries was very limited; Harada
Hikaru even described them as mere pleasure places for the rich.50 In fact, the
modernist artists who gathered around these small galleries had little concern for
audience acceptance, financial rewards or critical approbation.51
A lively debate known as The Covenant of Painting (Kaiga no Yakusoku) that
took place at the beginning of the 1910s illustrated well the modernists indifference to
the public response to their work.52 The debate centered around Yamawaki Shintokus
(1886-1952) solo exhibition held at R!kand! in 1911. Although the exhibition received
positive reviews in Shirakaba, the art critic Kinoshita Mokutar! argued in Ch"! k!ron
that Yamawakis paintings were too expressive, thus lacking a certain covenant
(yakusoku), a skill that makes a painting universally understood and keeps the artist from
excessive subjectivity.53 As a counter-critique, Yamawaki responded in Shirakaba that
he had endeavored to break away from any such covenant and that each painting was,
50

Harada Hikaru, Nika$ Shuny!kai$Taish! avangyarudo no soshiki to unei in Nihon y!ga

sh!shi (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1985), 234-235.
51

The members of Shirakaba-ha were mostly from aristocratic families and many of them
attended the elite Peers School in Tokyo. This background allowed them to be less concerned
about earning a living and optimistic in their humanistic idealism.
52

For a fuller account of this debate, see Kitazawa Noriaki, Kishida Ry"sei to Taish!
avangyarudo (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1993), 155-166 and Omuka Toshiharu, Kansh" no
seiritsu: Bijutsuten, bijutsu zasshi, bijutsushi (Tokyo: T!ky! Daigaku Shuppankai, 2008), 83-103.
53

Kinoshita Mokutar!, Gakaikinji, Ch"! k!ron 26, no.6 (June 1911): 144.

281

and he hoped would be seen as, an expression of his artistic life. The public exchanges
eventually drew the attention of Mushan!koji Saneatsu (1885-1976), a major contributor
to Shirakaba. Mushanok!ji defended Yamawakis right to unmediated and authentic
self-expression.
The 1910s modernists strong desire for artistic and personal freedom resulted in
their elitist proclivities and isolation from society. On the founding of the Fy"zan-kai,
one of its members, Kishida Ry"sei, said that we do not have the luxury of starting a
social movement.It amounts to nothing more than a movement for our own selves.54
S!d!sha, organized by Kishida Ry"sei, held its exhibitions on purpose in December,
when people were too busy with other social events to attend the exhibitions, thereby
decreasing the audiences for these showings.55 Kishida Ry"sei explained:
We are holding exhibitions for ourselves. Recently, this opinion gets stronger.
We already exhausted the affections of the world. We are not lonely even if
nobody looks at our art Once a year, we show our own accomplishments to
ourselves. Solely with this, we can comprehend all about each other without any
trivial obstacles.56
They wanted to distribute their works only among their immediate circle of artists and
their colleagues not only because they focused on self-expression but also because they

54

Kishida Ry"sei, Jiko no geijutsu, in Kishida Ry"sei zensh", vol. 1 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten,
1979), 42. Quoted and translated in Alicia Volk, In Pursuit of Universalism: Yorozu Tetsugor!
and Japanese Modern Art (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2010), 78.
55

Omuka, Taish!ki shink! bijutsu und! no kenky", 30.

56

Kishida Ry"sei, Introduction of the 6th S!d!sha exhibition (1918). Quoted in Mitsukoshi
bijutsubu 100 nenshi (Tokyo: Mitsukoshi, 2009), 10.

282

could enjoy a solid relationship only with the limited audience that was able to enjoy and
judge their art.57
On the other hand, for avant-garde artists in the 1920s, it was more vital to
circulate their ideas about art to the general public through their various artistic activities
than to produce the works in the form of painting or sculpture based on expressive
individualism. Accordingly, they subverted the contemplative modes of aesthetic
experience and replaced these with communicative activities and aspirations toward
simultaneous collective perception. They exploited a variety of media and modes to
bring their art to the people, moving outside of the spaces and modes of presentation
traditionally assigned to works of art. By employing manifestos, group magazines,
public lectures and art criticism, avant-garde artists took every opportunity to disseminate
information about their aesthetic interests and social goals to the masses.58
Avant-garde artists also considered exhibitions not as a venue for making their
works self-referent aesthetic objects in a white cube, but as a forum or as another medium
that presented their message to the public at large. For instance, after being very
disappointed with the small number of visitors to its first exhibition held at the Buddhist
temple Denp!in in Asakusa in late July 1923, Mavo went out literally into the streets to
bring its works into contact with the people. As Murayama recalled, After realizing that
it was no use sitting like milord (danna) and waiting for the audience to come, we
57

Omuka Toshiharu, Kansh" no seiritsu, 266.

58

The highly prolific essayists Murayama, Kanbara, and Kinoshita wrote for a number of art and
literary journals about contemporary trends in both Japanese and Western avant-garde art. Mavo
launched its own magazine, Mavo, in July 1924. Mavo ran for seven issues from July 1924
through August 1925.

283

decided to move on to the scattering exhibition (bunsan-ten) and the street exhibition
(gait!-ten).59 From November 18!30, 1923, Mavo organized an exhibition called
bunsan-ten that traveled to over seventeen different cafs and restaurants, bookstores,
stationery stores and pharmacies throughout Tokyo, which was still under reconstruction
after the 1923 earthquake. While moving from caf to caf, Mavo members would also
often pause and display some of their works on benches in Hibiya Park, which became a
kind of gait!-ten.60 For the avant-garde artists who aimed to display their works in the
spaces of everyday life, these popular gathering spots provided a perfect venue to
showcase their works. The physical transformation of Tokyo following the earthquake
led to new cultural practices in everyday life, reflecting the renewed importance of
consumer spaces like cafs and restaurants as venues for public communication.61
Along with new popular urban spaces created by the burgeoning consumerism
and mass culture before and after the earthquake, avant-garde artists considered
department stores as places that had as great a potential to communicate with the general
public as the street. People who simply came to department stores to shop would in
passing incidentally see their exhibition that happened to be taking place. The number of
visitors to the art section of the Mitsukoshi department store, where the first Action

59

Murayama Tomoyoshi, Engekiteki jijoden dainibu (Tokyo: T!h! Shuppansha, 1971), 173.

60

Ibid., 193.

61

The number of cafs in Tokyo tripled after the earthquake. Amid the rapid expansion of
consumer space after the earthquake, the artists found ways to transcend various existing
frameworks and sometimes created new ideas by conjoining their activities with commercial
spaces. Nagato Saki, Taish!ki shink! bijutsu undo ni okeru k"kan ishiki ni tsuite, in Tais!ki
shink! bijutsu shiry! sh"sei, ed. Omuka Toshiharu (Tokyo: Kokushokank!kai, 2006), 552.

284

exhibition was held in May 1923, reached up to 20,000 a day at its peak.62 The avantgarde artists could not help but see department stores as ideal exhibition venues that
would allow broad dissemination of their ideas and aesthetics, and enable the expansion
of their audience beyond the art world.
In two reviews of the first Action exhibition for Mizue art magazine in May 1923,
Action members Nakagawa Kigen and Kanbara Tai each extended their appreciation to
Mitsukoshi, which hosted their exhibition despite a financial loss caused by the poor sales
of their work.63 Actions works were considered relatively less radical and more
acceptable in terms of their style and format than Mavos were, but nonetheless their
abstractive quality or less representational expressions made them too radical to decorate
the bourgeois home. The progressiveness of Actions exhibition is emphasized in
comparison with The third Exhibition of New Yamatoe (Dai sankai shink! yamatoe
tenrankai), another exhibition held in the same month at Mitsukoshi. Contingently,
images of the works of the two exhibitions were published on facing pages of
Mitsukoshi.64 (Fig. 4.11) The seven paintings of The third Exhibition of New Yamatoe
on the left page are mostly landscapes depicting the countryside or snow-covered
mountains in traditional style. On the other hand, in Actions six paintings on the right
page, it is hard to recognize what they are depicting at first sight. For example, the
objects in Yokoyama Junnosukes Still Life (Seibutsu) are deconstructed and the figures
62

Kanbara Tai, Akushon tenrankai jikki, Mizue (May 1923): 30.

63

Nakagawa Kigen, Akushon jisan, and Kanbara Tai Akushon tenrankai jikki, Mizue (May
1923): 28-30.
64

Mitsukoshi (April, 1923): 2-3.

285

in Yabe Tomoes Hospital Room (By!shitsu) are extremely simplified or deformed. As a

result, only three small paintings were sold from the total of 86 works that Action
exhibited at Mitsukoshi.65 In fact, the exhibitions of avant-garde artists were not as
profitable for the department stores as the exhibitions of conservative artists associated
with the art establishment. Yet, despite the proven poor marketability of avant-garde
works, department stores went ahead and mounted avant-garde art exhibitions. This can
be explained by a marked increase in media coverage of avant-garde events throughout
the 1920s. Publications found it profitable to devote a significant amount of space to
news about culture and cultural personalities.66 Images of art-related events began to
appear in the popular press on a regular basis, particularly following the genesis of
illustrated magazines such as the pictorial weekly Asahi graph. As demonstrated by
Sankas exhibition discussed above, the avant-gardes provocative attacks on the art
establishment and on artistic convention caused a sensation, winning extensive coverage
in the popular press. Avant-garde exhibitions not only generated free advertising for the
host department stores through media exposure of the events, but also attracted many
curious customers into the stores to see the exhibitions.
Avant-garde artists also recognized that the effective use of the mass media could
raise the profile of their art movement and amplify their message. To maximize exposure
of their art to the masses, the group Action secured the sponsorship of Asahi Shinbunsha

65

Nakagawa, Akushon jisan, 28.

66

Minami, Taish! bunka, 118-19 and 121.

286

even before it mounted the first exhibition.67 Although this sponsorship did not translate
into financial support, Action was offered every opportunity to be covered in newspapers
and magazines published by Asahi Shinbunsha. Specifically, Asahi Shinbunsha
promised to publish essays of Action members in the arts and sciences section of Tokyo
asahi shinbun five times a month and Kanbara Tai took charge of writing the essays.68
Starting with an article reporting the inaugural meeting of Action, Actions activities
consistently appeared in Asahis pages.69 Actions first exhibition, which was held at
Mitsukoshi department store in Nihonbashi from April 2 to April 7, 1923, was covered
for three consecutive days in Tokyo asahi shinbun.70 Asahi graph published two pictures
of Action members in the April 3rd issue. (Fig. 4.12) The first photograph showed the
members with browsing customers in the center of the gallery at Mitsukoshi, and the
other was a commemorative group portrait taken after a public lecture held the day before
the opening of its exhibition.71 The constant press coverage, particularly with illustrated
reports, was expected to draw interest from the public and entice a larger audience to
Mitsukoshi. Due to active promotion by Asahi, Actions public lecture drew a full house
as well.72 Following this first show, Asahi continued to extensively cover the activities of

67

Kanbara Tai, Kanbara Tai, oitachi to Taish!ki shink! bijutsu und! o kataru, in Akushonten, 8.

68

Ibid., 8.

69

Bijutsukakari-akushon d!jin konshinkai, T!ky! asahi shinbun, October 26, 1922.

70

T!ky! asahi shinbun, April 6-8, 1923.

71

Akushon tenrankai, Asahi graph, April 3, 1923, 4.

72

Kanbara, Kanbara Tai, oitachi to Taish!ki shink! bijutsu und! o kataru, 8.

287

Action up to and including an article about the groups dispersion in 1924.73 Not only
Asahi but also other daily newspapers and general interest magazines heavily reviewed
Actions exhibitions and activities.74 Even if Mitsukoshi anticipated the poor sales of
Actions works beforehand, the store was still pleased to hold their exhibition because
Asahi Shinbunshas sponsorship had ensured proper media coverage of the event. Very
aware of the tremendous power of the burgeoning mass media, avant-garde artists also
enthusiastically exploited it for their own ends.

Recuperating the Use-Value of Art

The avant-garde artists focus on the relevance of art to the experience of
everyday life eventually led them to the ever-expanding realm of consumer culture. The
production of commercial art offered an opportunity to make their works more practical
and integral to everyday life. Accordingly, avant-garde artists began to participate in a
vast array of commercial projects including textile designs, window displays, poster
designs, book illustrations, theater designs, and decorative and architectural designs. The
most representative example was certainly the barracks decoration projects, which
attempted to redesign commercial spaces with their innovative aesthetics after the
devastating earthquake of 1923.

73

Kanbara Tai, Akushon no kaisan, T!ky! asahi shinbun, October 14, 1924, 5 and October 15,
1924, 9.
74

Weekly Asahi, April 15, 1924; Asahi graph, April 3 and April 10, 1924; Mizue (May 1924);
Ch"! bijutsu (May 1924); Shi to ongaku, (May 1924).

288

The Great Kant! Earthquake on September 1, 1923 devastated Tokyo, leaving

more than 100,000 people dead, another 50,000 injured from the ensuing fires, and over
60 percent of metropolitan Tokyo destroyed. The upheaval that immediately followed
the devastating earthquake offered the avant-garde artists an unprecedented opportunity
to realize their motto, From Atelier to Street, via their participation in the physical and
social reconstruction of Tokyo.75 Members of both Action and Mavo contributed to the
reconstruction effort through barracks projects, which decorated the interiors and
exteriors of the temporary structures built to serve as residences and businesses after the
earthquake.
The most active group involved in barracks projects was the Barrack Decoration
Company (Barakku S!shokusha), founded by Waseda University architecture professor
Kon Wajiro (1888-1973), together with a designer group, Sent!sha (Forefront
Company).76 Due to the close relationship of Action member Yoshida Kenkichi to Kon
and Sent!sha, Action came to participate in this company from September 1923 until
around June 1924.77 Under the title Artists Out into the Street: Action and D!jinsha,
T!ky! asahi shinbun reported the formation of the Barrack Decoration Company.78 The
75

Atorie kara gairo e, Miyako shinbun, October 9, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 5. Omuka, Taish!ki shink!
bijutsu und! no kenky", 293.
76

Sent!sha was a group of designers who had graduated from the design department of the Tokyo
School of Fine Arts. Kon and Yoshida were graduates of the same program as well.
77

Besides Yoshida, among Action members, Nakagawa Kigen (1892-1972), Kanbara Tai (18981997), Asano Mof" (1900-1984), Yokoyama Junnosuke (1903-1971), and Yoshimura Jir! (18991942) joined the Barrack Decoration Company.
78

Gait! ni deru gakkatachi: Akusonsha to d!jinsha ga, Asahi shinbun, October 2, 1923 (p.m.
ed.), 3.

289

article also included the companys public statement:

We have to become the avant-garde of the imperial reconstruction. In an effort to
create beautiful buildings distinct from convention, we have taken to working in
the street. We believe that Tokyo in the age of barracks has afforded us a good
opportunity to experiment with our art.79
The company advertised that it was willing to decorate any kind of structure, including
stores, factories, restaurants, cafs, residences, and office buildings.80 (Fig. 4.13) The
artists who worked on these projects followed three rules: 1. Do not paint a self-portrait
nor any other portrait; 2. Do not paint in any artistic style before Post-Impressionism; 3.
Do not paint motifs like chickens, turtles, snow, moon and flowers.81 The rules reflected
these avant-garde artists antipathy toward individualistic expression and traditional
artistic practice and their pursuit of the most modern international art movements.
The first completed project of the Barrack Decoration Company was Kaishin
restaurant in Hibiya Park. Yoshida was responsible for the building design and the
overall decorative program, which even included the menus.82 (Fig. 4. 14) Following the
Kaishin restaurant project, the Barrack Decoration Company completed many important
projects including T!j! Bookstore in Jimboch!, Caf Kirin in Ginza, Meidi-ya in Ginza,

79

Quoted and translated in Weisenfeld, Mavo, 230.

80

They offered their services at a wage of 3 yen per day. Kitazawa Noriaki, Zenei bijutsu no
d!k!: Bijutsu no 1920 nendai n!to, Bijutsu tech! no. 467 (July 1980): 165.
81

Ogiwara Masamitsu, Kon Wajir! no shinsai barakku ch!sa, barakku s!shokusha katsud! kara
k!gengaku no s!shi e, in Ara, sentantekine: Taish! matsu, Sh!wa shokino toshi bunka to sh!gy!
bijutsu (Okazaki: Okazakishi bijutsuhakubutsukan, 2009), 39.
82

Barakku no s!shoku ga mirai rashii moy!, Jiji shinp!, October 25, 1923 (a.m. ed.); Ch"gai
sh!gy! shinbun; Omuka, Taish!ki shink! bijutsu und! no kenky", 295 and 298.

290

and Imashiro Ryokan at Kandamashi, which were often covered in both specialty and
general interest magazines.83 (Fig. 4.15-4.16) Action members saw the barracks as sites
where they could invest their art with social significance. In an essay titled The Mission
of the Barrack Decoration Company and My Hopes, Kanbara Tai (1898-1997), a
spokesman for Action, mourned the losses the earthquake had caused, but at the same
time he admitted the group was pleased that the exigencies caused by the earthquake
provided a great opportunity for them to bring their art into society and to prove that
artists were not parasites of the rich, but workers for the masses.84
Whereas Mavo has been accepted without question as an archetypal avant-garde
movement in Japan, some scholars have argued against designating Action as avantgarde since Action still maintained some ties with the preceding generation, Nika-kai,
and Actions artistic style and format were relatively less radical than those of Mavo.85
Yet Action members self-consciously identified themselves as avant-garde and the
Action Coterie Manifesto clearly articulated their avant-garde awareness:
We are young men who lead with a clear conscience and a rigorous conviction,
who want to walk on the front line of art with free and sure steps, with audacity
and gaiety We constitute a group and search for a common idea that allows us
83

Meidi-ya in Ginza published in Kenchikushinjo (January 1924); Caf Kirin in Ginza in

Kenchikushinjo (February 1924); Imashiro Ryokan at Kandamashi in Kenchikushinjo (March
1924).
84

Kanbara Tai, Barakku s!shokusha no shimei to watashi no kib!, Mizue, 225 (November
1923): 24-25.
85

Whereas Mavo severely criticized Nika-kai, Action appointed the most influential Nika-kai
artists Arishima Ikuma (1882-1974) and Ishii Hakutei (1882-1958) as its advisors. The existence
of Action was one of the reasons Omuka rejected calling the art movement of the 1920s avantgarde. Omuka called the 1920s art movement including Action shink! geijutsu und! (new art
movement). Omuka, Taish!ki shink! bijutsu und! no kenky", 22-23.

291

to organize this first exhibition and public lecture. It is only possible by our ardor
and joy to be avant-garde (zenei) for the spirit of the coming era...We know we
are but beginners. But if we do not stand up here and now, the birth of the new
era will be even more painful86
The manifesto addressed the groups philosophy in the most general terms and did not
suggest any specific proposals. Nonetheless, we can sense their optimism over the
potential for their art to influence and shape a new era. At the very beginning of its
formation, Action spoke of its aspiration to make a new, better society through
collaborations with other arts such as music, literature, theater, and film.87 While it is
questionable whether all of Actions initial promises were fully realized in its activities, it
is significant that Action members were very aware of the need for artistic social
activism. As the groups name Action suggested, they adopted an activist posture and
discourse to reform art, the Japanese art establishment, and society in general.88 Actions
intention to engage art in life was more a reliable indicator of avant-garde identity than a
command of any radical artistic style or format. Actions avant-gardeness was further
proven by the fact that Action members, along with Mavo members, joined Sanka at the
zenith of the avant-garde art movement in the 1920s.
Mavo also was one of the most important groups active in the streets during the
post-earthquake reconstruction period. Starting with its first commission by a bookstore
86

The quotation is my translation based on Weisenfelds translation in Mavo, 99 and Pellegrinis

translation in Avant-garde east and west, 69.
87

Kanbara Tai, Akushon ni tsuite, Ch"! bijutsu 8 no.12 (December 1922): 10.

88

The name Action was chosen by Kanbara Tai. He said, The groups name of Action
originated from the fact that we had called ourselves actionists, although we had not been sure
whether such an English word existed or not. Akushonten, 7.

292

in Kanda, Mavo designed signboards for businesses and facades of buildings. (Fig. 4.17)
By decorating building faades, Mavo gave passersby an interactive experience with
Tokyos transforming cityscape.89 Mavo members were especially motivated to join the
barracks projects by the fact that barracks decorations could be a means to shape peoples
perceptions of the new urban environment. The low-cost and ephemeral nature of the
structures provided a chance to design in a more experimental manner.90 After the
barracks projects, Mavo embarked on a series of other architectural projects, including
the renovation of the Aoikan movie theater in Asakusa and Mavo Hair Salon as well as
participation in Exhibition of Plans for the Reconstruction of the Imperial Capital(Teito
fukk! s!an tenrankai). (Fig. 4.18) Mavo member Okada Tatsuo (1900-1935) wrote in the
Yomiuri shinbun in December 1923, Art is now separated from so-called art and is
something with meaning directly for our everyday life. In other words, it demands more
practical content.91
The Great Kanto Earthquake had the twin effects for Tokyo and its residents of
causing both devastation and renewal. Despite the wretched conditions, new material
realities became an inspiration for a new society among the avant-garde artists, who
actively endeavored to participate in the construction of a new Tokyo. The socially
transformative potential of innovative aesthetics and the utility of art as a practical means

89

Weisenfeld, Mavo, 83

90

Gennifer Weisenfeld, Designing after Disaster: Barrack Decoration and the Great Kant!
Earthquake, Japanese Studies 18, no.3 (1998): 230.
91

Okada Tatsuo Ishikiteki k!seishugi e no k!gi (ge), Yomiuri shinbun, August 19, 1923 (a.m.
ed.,), 6. Quoted and translated in Weisenfeld, Mavo, 125.

293

for reforming society had already been ingrained in the manifestos of both Action and
Mavo, issued prior to the Great Kanto Earthquake. The disaster, however, amplified
these ideas. It was the new urban space afforded by the physical upheaval immediately
following the earthquake that allowed for the flowering of the avant-garde movement in
the 1920s. The physical and psychological conditions of Tokyo after the earthquake were
often compared with the turmoil and subsequent social and cultural reordering of Europe
brought on by World War I.92 Avant-garde artists themselves considered the earthquake
a major impetus for the intensification of avant-garde activities, as the emergence of
Dadaism in Europe was inseparable from the effects of World War I.93 Avant-garde
works emerged as the artists considered the spatial transformation of the city and how art
would exist in that new urban condition. The new spatial consciousness created by the
changed urban space was a major factor in the birth of the avant-gardes idiosyncratic
expression, including constructive works.94
Avant-garde artists who revitalized art by tying it more closely to the real
conditions of everyday life through the barrack project continued to extend their artistic
practices to the sphere of everyday life rather than displaying their works in
institutionally designated art exhibition spaces. The Union of Textile Art Study
(Shokusen Geijutsu Kenky" Renmei), which was established by Murayama Tomoyoshi,
Yoshida Kenkichi and Mavo and Sanka member Maki Hisao, had some relationship with
92

Weisenfeld, Mavo, 81.

93

Kitazawa, Zenei bijutsu no d!k!: Bijutsu no 1920 nendai n!to, 164.

94

Nagato, Taish!ki shink! bijutsu undo ni okeru k"kan ishiki ni tsuite, 557.

294

department stores. The union was organized for the scientific study of Japanese textiles
in conjunction with young textile designers in Kyoto.95 Announcing the formation of the
union, Osaka asahi shinbun stated that it would inaugurate the creation of textile designs
based on Constructivism and simplicity and through its activities industry and art would
be combined.96 Beginning in November 1926, its first exhibition was held at Mitsukoshi
in Osaka, Takashimaya in Kyoto, Matsuzakaya in Nagoya and Mitsukoshi in Tokyo. The
womens magazine Fujin graph introduced this exhibition as a revolution in textile art: a
new movement that would destroy the established clothing art, alongside a photograph
of eight of the designs among the exhibited works.97 (Fig. 4.19) In the following year the
Mavo Textile Design Album (Mavo Senshoku Zuansh") was published with Makis
introduction, A Constructivist View of Clothing (K!seishugi Fukushokukan) and 41
designs.98(Fig. 4.20) As discussed in Chapter One, department stores commissioned
nihonga painters to design kimono textiles for a while even after they transformed
themselves from gofukuten into department stores. However, since department stores
began to hire professional textile designers, fine artists had gotten away from textile

95

K!seiha senshokuten, #saka jiji shinp!, November 4, 1926. Reprinted in Taish!ki shink!
bijutsu shiry! sh"sei, 464.
96

Ky!to ni nareta senshoku geijutsu kenky" renmei, #saka asashi shinbun, October 20, 1926,
(Kyoto ed.), 13. The unions formation was also announced in Senshoku geijutsu kenky" renmei
naru, Ky!to nisshutsu shinbun, October 20, 1926, (p.m. ed.)
97

Shokusen geijutsu no kakumei, Fujin graph 3, no. 12 (December 1926).

98

Nishimura Masahiro, M! issatsu no Mavo Mavo senshoku zuansh" H!shogekkan 17, no.6
(May 2001): 24-25.

295

design. The Union of Textile Art Study brought back the integration of art and design or
art and industry.
Commercial art and consumer culture allowed avant-garde artists to realize their
aim of integrating modern aesthetics with the practical elements of everyday life. Yet it
is still striking, given the fact that the avant-garde artists were hostile toward capitalism,
that they were not doctrinally averse to commercial works, and were even actively
engaged in producing them. Avant-garde artists turned to commercial art, paradoxical as
it may seem since they rejected the commodification of art. To prevent their works from
becoming bourgeois commodities, avant-garde artists emphasized the utility of artworks,
a notion which had been suppressed within the discourse of aesthetic autonomy. Avantgarde artists applied their formal and technical innovation to the design of everyday
objects and architectural spaces that the masses would use. The bourgeois
institutionalization of art suggested that works of art should be divorced from commercial
concerns. In fact, however, works of autonomous art had been merely fetishized under
capitalism, just as other commodities had. Avant-garde artists exposed the internal
contradiction of artistic autonomy, which could be guaranteed only in the commodity
structure of works of art themselves. By recuperating the use-value of art works, avantgarde artists attacked the ideology of artistic autonomy, which insisted that art should be
free from social and economic utility.
Avant-garde artists argued that culture was being commodified by capitalism, but
at the same time they had a belief in the emancipatory potential of nascent consumer

296

culture as a site for the masses to participate in the construction of society.99 Kon Wajiro
and Yoshida Kenkichi, who had worked together for the Barrack Decoration Company,
were developing a strong interest in documenting the changing practices and material
conditions of everyday life in urban Tokyo after the earthquake. They called their
ethnographic studies of Japanese modern life modernology (K!gengaku). The
discipline of modernology attempted to deal with commodities as use objects,
privileging their functionality and utility, and to link consumption to subjective,
conscious, and rational decisions identifying utility and its value.100 Through their
consumer choices, according to Kon, the masses constructed the praxis of everyday life.
Modernologys conception of commodities and consumption presented a utopian vision
about consumer culture, which would encourage avant-garde artists to participate in
commercial projects.
If fine art was mere decorations for bourgeoisie in capitalist society, as Yanase
Masamu criticized, then commercial art created a modern visual language for a wider
public in the mass-mediated consumer culture. Commercial art in easily-reproducible
and widely-available forms enabled the cultivation of a much-expanded audience,
reflecting the transformation in the mode of being of artwork in the new age of
mechanical reproduction. Collectivity in both the production of and reception to art was
epitomized in the avant-gardes engagement of commercial artistic production.

99

Miriam Silverberg, Constructing the Japanese Ethnography of Modernity, The Journal of

Asian Studies 51, no. 1 (February 1992): 35.
100

Ibid., 42.

297

Taish!ka of Department Stores and Desire for sentan

What did the department stores gain from holding exhibitions by provocative and
confrontational avant-garde art groups? In the rapidly changing dynamics of social
formation accompanied by the rising mass society, the department stores were forced
to make their stores more accessible to a broader customer base. It was not until the late
1910s that department stores began to expand their market to a broader range of the
masses. The economic troubles and social unrest in the late 1910s and the early 1920s
drove the department stores to offer their services and merchandise to broader classes of
customers. At the time of the Rice Riots in 1918, Mitsukoshi and Shirokiya in
Nihonbashi became a target of demonstrators and the police formed a cordon. Matsuya
in Kanda ended up being attacked and its show windows were broken.101 Just as some
zaibatsu (conglomerates) such as Mitsui and Iwasaki donated considerable sums of
money to appease the public after the Rice Riots, department stores launched a
taish"ka (massification) policy in response to the crisis in order to deflect criticism
toward them.102 First of all, in order to break away from their extravagant image, the
department stores emphasized their role in productive consumption, defining themselves
as repositories of rational and efficient objects. The department stores promoted the
idea that rationalizing daily life meant improving standards of living by offering
expanded access to modern commodities. They began to deal in a broader range of
merchandise, including daily necessities in addition to the luxury items catering to the
101

Matsuya 100 nenshi (Tokyo: Matsuya, 1969), 136.

102

Minami, Taish! bunka, 85.

298

upper- and upper-middle classes. In short, the stores attempted to project the lifestyle
they promoted as a quintessentially modern lifestyle rather than a bourgeois lifestyle
that was exclusively available to a limited social class.
In 1919 Mitsukoshi held bargain sales called Sakae-hi (prosperous day) in Osaka,
and Kiwata-dei (cotton day) in Tokyo.103 (Fig. 4.21) Both of these promotions were huge
successes and were given prominent coverage in the mass media.104 Osaka mainichi
shinbun reported that Mitsukoshis Sakae-hi was most welcomed by the lower-middle
class, who are suffering the most from inflation From 4 a.m. on the first day, about
three hundred people were lined up, waiting for the opening.105 Matsumiya Saburo, who
worked in the Mitsukoshi advertising department at that time, recalled the contemporary
response to Kiwata-dei this way: Until yesterday Mitsukoshi was a bourgeois shop, but
from today it has become a shop for the proletariat.106 Scaled-down versions of luxury
items and mass-market daily necessities attracted huge crowds. On the first day alone of
Sakae-hi in Osaka, about 60,000 people visited Mitsukoshi; 370 police officers were
placed around the location of Kiwata-dei in Tokyo for public safety. These two bargain
sales generated an unexpectedly large profit for Mitsukoshi. In the case of Osakas
Sakae-hi, goods designated as sale items for the four-day event were all sold out on the

103

Sakae-hi was held from October 1!2 at the Osaka branch, and Kiwata-dei was held from
November 3!5 at Marunouchi in Tokyo.
104

Sakae-hi was covered in major newspapers including #saka mainichi, #saka asahi, and
#saka jiji and Kiwata-dei was covered in Jiji, T!ky! asahi, Kokumin, and Ch"kaish!gy!.
105

Mitsukoshi (October 1919): 43-44.

106

Matsumiya Sabur!, K!koku seikatsu 20 nen (Tokyo: Seibund!shink!sha, 1935), 202.

299

second day, and two days of sales totaled 180,000 yen; 100,000 people visited Tokyos
Kiwata-dei over three days and the sales total was 475,000 yen. Spurred by this success,
in 1922 Mitsukoshi opened the Mitsukoshi Market, a permanent outlet for low-priced
goods on the fifth floor of its main store in Nihonbashi. The retail reform undertaken by
Mitsukoshi created a model for other department stores to follow. Takashimaya held
Renbai-dei (Bargain Day) in 1920, coined a new advertising slogan Minasana no
Takashimaya (Everyones Takashimaya) in 1924 and opened a 10 sen shop in 1926 to
cast off its image as a high-end shop and to attract the masses to its store.107 In 1922
Shirokiya opened its own outlet, changing its target clientele to include those who were
living on a monthly income under 200 yen.108 Matsuya also held a bargain sale in 1920
and in 1923 opened Matsuya Market, which dealt in groceries.
The taish"ka of the department stores was given added impetus after the 1923
earthquake. Right after the earthquake, there was a tendency to interpret this event as an
act of divine providence to punish Japanese subjects for leading the luxurious and
extravagant lifestyles that materialism and industrial capitalism brought about during the
wartime boom years.109 The burned department stores in the Nihonbashi area had come
to be considered centers of hedonistic consumer culture, entertainment, and decadence.
One of Japans strongest proponents of the divine retribution interpretation, Okutani
107

Takashimaya 100 nenshi, 103. Kawakatsu Kenichi, Minasama no Takashimaya o motto to

shite, Taiy! 30, no.11 (September 1924): 456.
108

Ara, sentantekine, 9.

109

For this interpretation, see Charles Schencking, Great Kant! Earthquake and the Culture of
Catastrophe and Reconstruction in 1920s Japan, Journal of Japanese Studies 34, no.2 (Summer
2008): 295-331.

300

Fumitomo, suggested that the accuracy of Gods aim could be seen clearly, if one
looked at the building that housed Mitsukoshi, Japans largest department store.110 The
center of consumer spending, where crowds had flocked to satisfy their vanity, had
been turned into a pathetic wreck.111 Horie Kiichi, a professor of economics at Keio
University, also acknowledged that the destruction of Mitsukoshi lent terrestrial evidence
and truth to the theory that this earthquake is heavens punishment for the evil deeds of
the people of Tokyo over the years.112 Of course, the department stores were not
selectively devastated, but these stores happened to be located near the most heavily
damaged area known as shitamachi (the low city), which encompassed the commercial
center of Tokyo prior to the disaster. Since the department stores had been built using the
most advanced architectural engineering at the time, photos of their destruction were
published widely by the media as a symbol of how humankinds technological
achievements had been humbled by a natural disaster. The media overexposure made it
necessary for department stores not only to reconstruct their physically damaged
buildings but also to renovate their tarnished image after the earthquake.
To make their stores more readily accessible to a broad base of consumers, the
department stores began to eliminate entirely the policy of gesoku nyujo (barefoot
entrance), which required that customers remove their shoes at the entrance. The

110

Quoted and translated in Ibid., 305.

111

Quoted and translated in Ibid., 305.

112

Horie Kiichi, Tokyoshi no saigai to keizaiteki fukkoan, Ch"! k!ron 38, no.11 (1923): 50-52.
Quoted and translated in Schencking, Great Kanto Earthquake and the Culture of Catastrophe
and Reconstruction in 1920s Japan, 306.

301

complicated procedure for gesoku nyujo was an invisible barrier for the less affluent, who
felt obligated to make a purchase once they entered the stores. Shirokiya was the first
store to introduce the policy of dosoku nyujo (shoes on when entering) in 1923, followed
by Matsuzakaya in 1924, and Mitsukoshi in 1925. This new practice of allowing
customers to enter in their street shoes emphasized free access to the stores and
encouraged customers from all walks of life to enter the stores to browse.
The department stores emphasized the fact that their taish"ka policy was
inaugurated as a service to a society facing difficulties rather than as a means to expand
profits. Through taish"ka, however, the department stores came to discover the
potential of a larger mass market and the burgeoning economic profits that went along
with it. The stores could no longer disregard the advantages of reaching out to a growing
mass of middle and lower-middle class customers. A new conception of mass was
introduced into public discourse, spanning the political spectrum during the Taish! period.
As Jordan Sand notes, in precisely the same years that mass movements were emerging,
mass consumer culture was taking shape as well.113 Mass was a key word of the era,
referring both to the revolutionary agent and to the consumer subject.114 The two
connotations for the term mass were not diametrically opposed, but rather intricately
interconnected.

113

Jordan Sand, House and Home in Modern Japan: Architecture, Domestic Space, and
Bourgeois Culture, 1880-1930 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003), 162.
114

Miriam Silverberg, Erotic Grotesque Nonsense The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006), 29. During the same period
one more type of social imagination of mass was articulated through the universal suffrage
movement, which began in 1919 and finally realized its goal in 1925.

302

Yet even while pursuing a taish"ka policy, the stores sought to remain at the
cutting edge of the latest cultural trends. The department stores embrace of avant-garde
art enabled them to fulfill the expectation of generating what was new, advanced,
and modern, but concurrently not to represent themselves as exclusively high-end.
Department stores shared the fundamental paradox in the ontology of the avant-garde
with the artists who inclined their work toward the masses but at the same time distanced
themselves from the masses to retain their status as being in the vanguard. The term
avant-garde originated as a spatial concept within the military referring to the leading
edge of the army, a small force sent out in front to surprise the enemy, but the term came
to imply a temporal state of being at the leading edge of the present in its passage to
futurity. Mavos Manifesto asserted its vanguard stance as follows:
We are standing on the cutting-edge (sentan). And we will stand on the cuttingedge forever. We are not bound. We are radical. We will carry out a revolution.
We will advance. We will create. We will ceaselessly affirm, and ceaselessly
negate. We are alive in all the meanings of words and to such a degree that
nothing can be compared.115
Department stores appropriated the rhetoric of sentan (cutting-edge) of the avant-garde
artists in order to maintain their position as the most advanced repositories of knowledge
about modern life and the goods that made it possible.
The pursuit of the sentan was ideologically linked to capitalist consumerism,
which requires the endless differentiating of new fashion, as well as socialist revolution,

115

The quotation is my translation based on Weisenfelds translation in Mavo, 66 and William

Gardners translation in Advertising Tower: Japanese Modernism and Modernity in the 1920s
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 36.

303

which requires an elite minority leading the rest of the population. Fundamentally, both
endorsed the idea of defining the modern in terms of ceaseless novelty and progress.
Their shared intellectual prejudice toward history-as-progress led both avant-garde artists
and department stores to aspire to sentan. Both department stores and avant-garde
artists were fascinated with the universal value of modernity, as signified by a cultural
esteem for anything new and advanced. Although the arenas of the avant-garde and
department stores are often seen as discrete or even adversarial, their common desire for
sentan explains the mutually beneficial and often reciprocally sustaining relationship
between department stores and avant-garde artists in the 1920s.
Matsuzakaya, which held the first Sanka exhibition, praised as a great innovation
in art, was among the department stores that marketed most effectively the
progressiveness of avant-garde art exhibitions. Not only did Sanka get an opportunity to
exhibit works that could not be accepted by conventional art exhibition venues, but
Matsuzakaya reciprocated by appropriating the provocativeness that Sanka evoked. The
Ginza branch of Matsuzakaya was a new store that opened only five months before the
exhibition. Until the earthquake of 1923, the center for Tokyo department stores had
been the Nihonbashi area, where three major department stores, Mitsukoshi, Shirokiya
and Takashimaya, were located.116 With the onset of taish"ka policy, department stores
began to open their branches one after another in a newly emerging commercial center,
Ginza: Mastuzakaya in 1924, Matsuya in 1925 and Mitsukoshi in 1930. As the first
department store in Ginza, Matsuzakaya spared no effort to differentiate itself from the
116

Strictly speaking, Takashimaya was located in Kyobashi, south of Nihonbashi.

304

old Tokyo department stores in Nihonbashi, projecting a young and practical

image.117 The Sanka exhibition poster, in a fresh design, advertised not only the
exhibition but also Matsuzakaya. (Fig.4.22) The upper left-hand corner contained the
logo of Matsuzakaya and at the bottom, the name Matsuzakaya was written in the
second-largest font, the largest having been used for the title of the exhibition itself. An
abstract composition of geometric forms along with the shape of an arrow, a fish motif,
and the symbol of a hand with an extended index finger corresponded with other Mavo
illustrations and prints. Most of all, the image of a corkscrew-shaped pigs tail indicates
that this poster was designed by Murayama Tomoyoshi. Murayama used the image of a
pig and the pigs tail as his signature around this time.118 Thus Sankas poster, designed
in the most advanced style at the time, affected the image of Matsuzakaya as well.
Sankas provocative exhibition succeeded in generating publicity for the newly opened
Matsuzakaya, receiving wide coverage in the mass media. In addition, Sankas
progressiveness contributed to the formation of a new image for Matsuzakaya, thanks to
the sensational press coverage.
In June 1927, Takashimayas house newspaper Hyakka shinbun gave prominent
coverage to the Exhibition of Sanka Constructive Art (Sanka Keisei Geijutsuten) being
held in its Osaka branch.119 A photograph published alongside the article shows an
installation view of the exhibition. (Fig. 4.23) The most outstanding work is an abstract
117

See Matsuzakaya advertisement in Asahi graph, January 14, 1925.

118

Weisenfeld, Mavo, 79.

119

Waga geijutsukai no shinchin und! sanka keisei geijutsuten, Hyakka shinbun, June 21, 1926,

2.

305

structure hung in the middle of the exhibition space by strings from the ceiling. It
occupies a three-dimensional space with rectangular and circular frames, which are
interconnected with strings in tension. This work, which does not seem to belong to any
traditional artistic genre, may be what Sanka members had called a constructive object
(keiseibutsu). This exhibition was organized by the group Tani Sanka, which consisted
of artists eager to continue Sankas movement after it was disbanded. The exhibited
works were not limited to paintings and sculptures but extended to photographs, graphic
designs, crafts, furniture, stage designs and architecture. In particular, the avant-garde
architecture group S!ushas members actively participated in the exhibition, submitting
architectural models. According to Hyakka shinbuns interview with Tamamura
Zennosuke, the organizer of Tani Saka, their keisei geijutsu (constructive art)
aggressively engaged in urban life in contrast to bijutsu, which depicted mountains and
water. Hyakka shinbun also covered Gekij! no Sanka (Sanka in the Theater) with a
photograph showing a scene from one of its rehearsals.120 Takashimaya planned to stage
Gekij! no Sanka in its event hall in conjunction with the Tani Sanka exhibition, but the
performance was cancelled due to a fire. Through its own journal, Takashimaya
advertised to its customers that the store supported a new art movement, which was
entirely different from existing arts and transcending whatever existed.121

120

Nazo no yauna gekij! no sanka, Hyakka shinbun, June 21, 1926, 2.

121

Waga geijutsukai no shinchin und! sanka keisei geijutsuten, 2.

306

The Ambivalence of the Period

In the 1920s, ironically enough, Marxism and socialism themselves were often
consumed as fashionable items newly imported from abroad. The success of the Russian
Revolution in 1917 undoubtedly inspired many intellectuals in Japan. In 1918,
Takabatake Motoyuki published the first article in Japan on Lenins theories and
translated Marxs Kapital!first published in its entirety in Japan in 1924.122 The socalled Marx boy and Engels girl emerged as the latest fashion among young people,
who were drawn to leftist social critique and activism. This trend was related to the
mass-marketing of a new type of publication, the one-yen book, an effort by the
publishing industry to attract more readers. The complete works of Marx and Engels, in
thirty small red volumes, had been published in the mass market as enpon (one-yen
books). In fact, the Japanese state suppressed the expansion of leftist thought.
Nonetheless, as Tsutsui Kiyotada aptly points out, antiestablishment Marxism and
socialism were justified and defended in Japanese society by the fact that professors and
students of Imperial University supported these new ideas with interest.123
In 1919 Shirokiya was the first to open a section that dealt with foreign books, the
importing of which had been monopolized by Maruzen thus far. 124 At the beginning
Shirokiya imported mainly British and American books, but the first year the business

122

George M. Beckmann, The Radical Left and the Failure of Communism, in Dilemmas of
Growth in Prewar Japan. ed. James Morley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 144.
123

Tsutsui Kiyotada, Gendai Nihon chishikijin no genkei, in Chishikijin, ed. Aoki Tamotsu
(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1999), 88-96.
124

Shirokiya 300 nenshi, 334-335.

307

failed because its lack of experience resulted in wrong selections of books. In 1920
Shirokiya began to import German books through Maisuna, a bookstore in Hamburg.
The owner of Maisuna, a former professor, provided an annotated bibliography for each
book, which was eagerly welcomed by Japanese professors. If books arrived from
Germany, the office of the book section was swamped with inquiries. Since the mark
tumbled after World War I, the relatively inexpensive price caused the books to be sold
out even before they were displayed. The majority of these German books were about
social issues. Along with the rise of socialist tendencies at the time, the reputation of
Shirokiyas book section was growing.
The response to avant-garde artists subversive statements must be understood
within this context of growing interest in leftist thought. Avant-garde art became chic
among educated urban consumers not only because they appreciated the movements
passion for revolution and rebellion, but also because such appreciation signaled
sophisticated taste. In this regard, it was hardly extraordinary that the department stores
sought to hold exhibitions of leftist avant-garde art, aesthetically progressive and
politically radical.
Department stores had already held Russian avant-garde art exhibitions prior to
exhibitions of Japanese avant-garde art. After the Russian Revolution, Japanese peoples
interest not only in its new ideology but also in its new culture was rapidly increasing.
The media industry never lost the chance to develop this interest into a cultural
commodity. In 1920 Tokyo nichi nichi shinbun and Osaka mainichi shinbun sponsored
The First Exhibition of Russian Paintings in Japan in Tokyo and the Kansai area,

308

respectively. (Fig. 4.24) The Tokyo show was held in October at the Hoshi
pharmaceutical headquarters, the Osaka show was in November at Mitsukoshi
department store, and the Kyoto show was in December at Takashimaya department store.
This exhibition consisted of over three hundred modern Russian paintings brought by the
Russian futurist David Burliuk when he arrived in Japan. Only two weeks after his
arrival, Burliuk, along with artist Viktor Palmov, presented the exhibition. The works in
the exhibition showcased artistic styles such as Futurism and Cubism that most Japanese
had previously only read about in art journals. In particular, what drew many peoples
interest were the works using collage. New artistic styles and techniques introduced by
this exhibition stimulated Japanese artists not only artistically but ideologically as well.
During his two-year stay in Japan, Burliuk held solo exhibitions in various places,
including Kyoto Daimaru department store and Osaka Shirokiya department store. These
exhibitions were extensively covered by the media.125 (Fig. 4.25)
Department stores put their advertisements in the pages of major leftist literary
journals of the time, such as Tanemaku hito (The Sower), Bungei sensen (Literary Front),
and Zenei (Avant-Garde).126 (Fig. 4.26-4.28) These magazines, dedicated to promoting

125

Burliuks striking appearance!he dressed in a frock coat, brightly colored silk vest, and top hat,
and he had colorful abstract designs painted on his face!attracted a great deal of attention
wherever he went.
126

The establishment of Tanemaku hito is often considered to be the foundation of the proletarian
literary movement. Tanemaku hito clearly stressed its linkage with the International Comintern.
Mavo member Yanase Masamu joined with other young socialist sympathizers to form the leftist
literary journal Tanamaku Hito in 1921. Yanase wrote regularly for the publication as well as
drawing political cartoons. Many of them fused anarchic sensibilities with a Marxist critique of
capitalism. He continued this work while he was a Mavoist, even after the magazine was shut
down and restarted under the new title Bungei sensen in June 1924. Weisenfeld, Mavo, 54.
Bungei sensen maintained as its editorial policy the common front of artistic struggle in the

309

a proletarian literary movement, published theoretical and literary works articulating an

opposition to capitalism. In these journals, pages for advertisements were few and
published advertisements were limited to mostly leftist-related publications. Thus,
advertisements for department stores in these leftist literary journals would seem very
incongruous. However, the department stores recognized the possibility of appealing to a
particular sector of readers who were fascinated by the stylish lifestyle that the stores
promoted. In fact, the majority of the readers of early proletarian literary journals were
not peasants or workers but intellectuals, who were ideologically leftist but, in their
everyday life, enjoyed the lifestyle the department stores promoted.127
With their passionate leftist sympathies, avant-garde artists wished to believe that
their audience included industrial laborers, but in fact they were largely speaking to their
own class of urban middle-class intellectuals.128 Art critic Ichiuji, although he supported
Sankas art movement, expressed his concerns in following words:
Young proletarian workers who are exhausted with everyday labor have rarely the
opportunity to go to see Sankas exhibition held in the sixth floor of Matsuzakaya
or to go to see Sankas performances at Tsukiji theater. Even if they go to see
liberation of the proletariat. Zenei-1922.1-1923.3
127

The leftist poet and critic Kat! Kazuo admitted that proletarian literature faced a crisis,
alienated the masses, and was read only by a few members of intelligentsia; he urged leftist
writers to produce popular novels. Atarashi ts"zoku sh!setsu, Tokyo Asahi shinbun, May 4-6,
1925. Cited in Maeda Ai, Text and the City: Essays on Japanese Modernity, ed. James A. Fuji
(Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004), 189-190. The Japanese Proletarian Literary
Arts League was established in part as a reaction on the part of younger Marxist intellectuals such
as Nakano Shigeharu to what they perceived as the bourgeois propensities of writers associated
with Bungei sensen. Iwamoto Yoshio, Aspects of the Proletarian Literary Movement in Japan,
in Japan in Crisis: Essay on Taish! Democracy, eds. Bernard S. Silberman and H.D. Harootunian
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 163.
128

Weisenfeld, Mavo, 248.

310

them by any chance, they do not have the cultural literacy to understand Sanka
works and empathize with Sanka members right now. Unfortunately, this article
of mine also will surely become just another waste paper read and thrown away
by people who are enjoying the bourgeois lifestyle and will never be read by a
single proletarian.129
As Omuka Toshiharu points out, major supporters of democratic movements during the
Taish! period (so-called Taisho Democracy) were members of the new middle-class
intelligentsia, which emerged with the reformation of higher education and composed the
audience for avant-garde art as well.130 The seeming imbalance between ones ideological
inclination and ones everyday lifestyle was found among the audience for avant-garde
art as well. Sakata Minoru defined the nature of the intellectual of this period as follows:
As intellectuals, they must have been baptized with the liberalism and Marxism
that was popular in the late Taish! period. They criticized state power as well as
the contradiction and harmful effects of capitalism. Yet, in reality, they were
living as an affluent class in a capitalist society. About modernisms epicurean
tendencies, they had a self-contradictory or passive hostility.131
Contemporary scholar Nii Itaru explained the full ambivalence of the period, which
generated such self-contradicting intellectuals, as follows:
Strangely enough, Americanism in everyday life was in fashion along with
Russianism in ideology. In Japan at that time, there were more than a few who
followed Russian ideology while at the same time having American tastes. Even
modern boys living in American style were never uninterested in socialism.132

129

Ichiuji, Atarashi z!kei ni tsuite no ichi k!satsu, 13.

130

Omuka, Taish!ki shink! bijutsu und! no kenky", 32-33.

131

Sakata Minoru, Seikatsu bunka ni miru modanizumu, in Nihon modanizumu no kenky", ed.
Minami Hiroshi (Tokyo: Bur%m Shuppan, 1982), 158.
132

Nii Itaru, Ch"! k!ron (June 1929): 59-66.

311

Within this ambivalent cultural and social environment, it was not considered
unacceptable for revolutionary avant-garde artists to exhibit in capitalist department
stores.

312

Fig. 4.1: The Back Cover of Mitsukoshi (April 1925) (right)

313

Fig. 4.2: Kinoshita Sh!ichir", R.G

at the first Sanka exhibition, Matsuzakaya, Ginza, May 1925
from Yorozu ch!h! (May 21, 1925)

314

Fig. 4.3: Installation View of the first Sanka exhibition,

Matsuzakaya, Ginza, May 1925
from Mizue (July 1925)

315

Fig. 4.4: Murayama Tomoyoshi, Construction, 1925.

Collection National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

316

Fig. 4.5: Yoshida Kenkichi, Signs in Honjo Oshiage Dedicated

by the Young Sociologist Mr. H from the Imperial University Settlement
at the first Sanka exhibition, Matsuzakaya, Ginza, May 1925

317

Fig. 4.6: Shibuya Osamu, Construction of Artificial Flowers Lacking in Sympathy,

1925, Mixed media construction
from Mizue (July 1925)

318

Fig. 4.7: #ura Sh!z", PROUN.D.II.

Mixed media construction,
from Atelier (July 1925)

319

Fig. 4.8: Tamamura Zennosuke,

Monument to Art of Industry and Hygiene Z!kei
at the first Sanka exhibition, Matsuzakaya, Ginza, May 1925

320

Fig. 4.9: Yanase Masamu, Rental Car from Mizue (July 1925)

321

Fig. 4.10: Murayama Tomoyoshi,

Prostitute Giving Birth to a Child, performed as part of Sanka in the Theater
Rehearsal photograph from Yorozu ch!h! (May 30, 1925) (up)
Performance photograph from H!chi shinbun (May 31, 1925) (bottom)

322

Fig. 4.11: Works of The Third Exhibition of New Yamatoe (left)

Works of The First Action Exhibition (right)
from Mitsukoshi (April 1923)

323

Fig. 4.12: Actions First Exhibition at Mitsukoshi, April 1923

from Asashi graph (April 3, 1923)

324

Fig. 4.13: Fliers of Barrack Decoration Company, 1923

from Mizue (November 1923)

325

Fig. 4.14: Kaishin Restaurant, Hibiya, 1923

Barrack Decoration Company

326

Fig.4.15: Barrack Decoration Company members,

T"j" Bookstore, Jimbocho, Tokyo
from Asahi graph (November 14, 1923)

327

Fig. 4.16: Caf Kirin, Ginza, 1923

Barrack Decoration Company
from Kenchiku zasshi (January 1924)

328

Fig. 4.17: Barrack decoration projects by Mavo

Morie bookstore signboard (up) from Kenchiku shinch! (July 1924)
Hayashi restaurant (bottom) from Ch"! shinbun (March 6, 1924)

329

Fig. 4.18: Aoikan Movie Theater in Asakusa, 1924

Renovation by Mavo

330

Fig. 4.19: Textile designs

by Murayama Tomoyoshi, Maki Hisao, and Yoshida Kenkichi
from Fujin graph (December 1926)

331

Fig. 4.20: Mavo Textile Design Album, 1927

332

Fig. 4.21: Bargain sale, Sakae-hi, Mitsukoshi, Osaka, October 1919

from Mitsukoshi (November 1919)

333

Fig. 4.22: Posters of the First Sanka Exhibition, Matsuzakaya, Ginza, May 1925

334

Fig. 4.23: Installation View of Exhibition of Sanka Constructive Art (up)

Rehearsal View of Gekij" no Sanka (bottom)
from Hyakka shinbun (June 21, 1926)

335

Fig. 4.24: The First Exhibition of Russian Paintings in Japan, 1920

336

Fig. 4.25: David Burliuk and His Party

from Osaka mainichi shinbun (November 16, 1920)

337

Fig. 4.26: Tanemaku Hito, front cover and Mitsukoshi advertisement

December 1923 (up), July 1921 (bottom)

338

Fig. 4.27: Cover of Bungei sensen

Mitsukoshi advertisement, April 1926 (up)
Matsuya advertisement, June 1926 (bottom)
!

339

Fig. 4.28: Cover of Zenei with Mitsukoshi advertisement

May 1922 (up), September 1922 (bottom)
!

340

CONCLUSION
The postwar artistic practices of Japanese department stores, which reached their
culmination during the bubble economy in the late 1980s and continued to flourish even
after the bubble burst, waned in the late 1990s with the downturn of economy.
Nonetheless, department stores still play a critical role in mediating and dictating public
standards of taste and aesthetic criteria for appreciating art in Japan. Why is it that
department stores have constituted a primary venue for introducing art to the general
public in Japan ever since their inception in the early twentieth century through the
present, whereas their Euro-American counterparts abandoned their offering of cultural
services, including art exhibitions, early on? The difference can be attributed to the
particular historical condition of modern Japan in which Westernization was equated
with successful modernization.
In a world order dominated by the industrialized Euro-American powers in the
nineteenth century, Japan, more specifically the Meiji government, attempted to
modernize the nation and catch up with the West by rigorously adopting Western systems
of politics, law, economics, the military, education, and even culture and customs. In the
course of modernization, the putative unity of the West and attendant things called
Western were taken for granted within Japan. Paradoxically, however, the Meiji
governments program of modernization, which endeavored to emulate the West in every
aspect of society, made Japans modernization distinct from its Western counterparts.
This is not to say that the particularity of Japanese modernization resulted from so-called
Japanization, which would transform something foreign by means of what was inherent

341

in Japan. Rather, this particularity came into being because the West came to
constitute the most important element in determining Japans modernization. The statesponsored modernization project, in which being Western was equated with being
modern, brought about Japan-specific phenomena. The Japanese department store as a
cultural institution is one of them.
Beginning in 1872, when the Meiji emperor was first presented to the Japanese
populace in Western military dress, the state elite including the imperial family took the
initiative in promoting Westernization at the level of daily practices such as clothing,
food, and housing. The Rokumeikan, Renaissance-villa-style brick hall built in 1883 for
meetings of domestic and foreign dignitaries, was a clear symbol of Westernization. The
formal dances, banquets, recitals, and charity bazaars held at the Rokumeikan were far
removed from the reality of most Japanese peoples everyday lives at the time and there
was criticism of excessive Westernization. Nonetheless, public curiosity and interest
about Westernized manners and tastes were so great that they became the subject of
popular woodblock prints. From the 1870s into the 1890s, to be seen as Western was
virtually synonymous with being counted as high and privileged class and cultural
manifestations of Western influence were often subsumed under the Meiji states slogan
bunmei kaika (civilization and enlightenment).
At the turn of the twentieth century, department stores with highly conspicuous
Renaissance-style faades emerged one after another in major Japanese cities, where
buildings on this scale and of this style were otherwise rare except for a few government
office buildings. Coincidentally or not, students of Fukuzawa Yukichi, Meiji Japans

342

most ardent promoter of Western values and practices, came to work as key personnel for
major department stores and carried out a series of modernizing reforms of the stores,
contributing to establishing Japanese department stores based on the Euro-American
model. Once people entered the department stores, lounges decorated with French
furniture, restaurants serving sandwiches and coffee, orchestras playing classical music,
messenger boys wearing Western-style uniforms, and a variety of goods imported from
the West offered vicarious excursions to the West. Department stores provided
opportunities for ordinary Japanese to taste what the Meiji elite had enjoyed at the
Rokumeikan.
The explicit association with the West allowed Japanese department stores to
embed themselves in the public imagination as the epitome of modern civilization.
Their image as the most advanced introducer of Western goods and the knowledge
associated with this material culture gave Japanese department stores prestige and a
distinctive reputation that their Western counterparts had never acquired. Since
department stores were viewed as missionaries of civilization rather than cathedrals of
consumption in modern Japan, numerous prominent intellectuals of the day were willing
to serve as members of the advisory boards for these private commercial institutions.1 In
turn, the presence of these intellectual groups inevitably enhanced the status of the stores
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1

I borrow the phrase missionaries of civilization from Louise Young. To be more exact,
Young described industrial fairs (hakurankai) and emporiums (kank!ba) as missionaries of
civilization. I think that Japanese department stores succeeded these modern retail institutions as
missionaries of civilization. Louise Young, Marketing the Modern: Department Stores,
Consumer Culture, and the New Middle Class in Interwar Japan, International Labor and
Working-Class History, no. 55 (Spring 1999): 56. The phrase of cathedrals of consumption is
borrowed from the title of Cathedral of Consumption: The European Department Store, 18501939, eds., Geoffrey Crossick and Serve Jaumain (London: Ashgate, 1999).

343

as a cultural institution that defined modern life. Indeed, with the support of the
intellectual groups, department stores were able to hold various cultural events including
public lectures, literary competitions, and art exhibitions in their spaces.
Even after the pairing of Western and modern became less influential in the
public imagination, the cultural prominence that Japanese department stores had first
gained in the early twentieth century did not wane quickly. Japanese department stores
could not give up the benefits, both direct and indirect, that they obtained because they
were deemed a privileged cultural institution. To maintain their cultural authority,
Japanese department stores continued to provide cultural services throughout the
twentieth century and well into the present. Art was one of the most powerful factors in
the representation of the modern cultured life promoted by the stores. On the other hand,
early European and American department stores initially offered cultural services in order
to draw customers who had shopped at traditional retailing establishments such as the
small specialty shops to their newly opened stores, rather than to establish themselves as
a cultural institution. Thus, once the stores secured new customers, the services that had
not immediately brought financial benefits gradually disappeared in European and
American department stores.
One thing that should be noted here, as Louise Young points out, is that the
modern cultured life promoted by Japanese department stores was linked to a specific
urban class, the new middle class, who constituted the core market for modern consumer
culture.2 Although the stores marketed the purchase of works of art for home decoration
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2

Louise Young, Marketing the Modern, 52.

344

and the viewing of art exhibitions for leisure or self-cultivation as a quintessential part of
modern life, the class that could actually afford both aspects was limited. Official art
institutions propagated the idea that art should be autonomous from any social references
and thus equal to everybody. Yet, in reality, the concept of aesthetic autonomy was
instrumentalized to legitimate the social status of a specific class that commanded enough
cultural capital to appreciate art solely for aesthetic reasons. This dissertation explicitly
treats Japanese department stores as its subject not because the artistic practices of
department stores are a unique phenomenon but rather because they expose the meanings
and functions that were assigned to art by bourgeois capitalist society but that were
cloaked in the discourse of fine art.
Not only did Japanese department stores function as purveyors of Western
merchandise and cultural values, but also they functioned as a conduit through which
people, products, and knowledge flowed from Japans colonies in Asia to its metropolis
and vice versa. In 1921, Mitsukoshi established T!y!hinbu (Oriental goods section)
and began to deal in goods from China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Java. The items
ranged from Chinese ceramics to Java horn crafts. In the following year, Takashimaya
opened Shinabu (China section), which imported and sold Chinese crafts including
ceramics, lacquer wares, woodcrafts, and items of stationary. On the other hand,
Japanese department stores opened their branches in Japans colonial cities such Seoul,
Taipei, and Dairen. Within colonial branches of Japanese department stores built in the
same Renaissance style as the ones in metropolitan Japan, the works of fine art
produced by contemporary Japanese artists were being exhibited.

345

The disparity between the display of Oriental crafts in the Japanese metropolis
and the display of Japanese fine arts in its colonial cities both responded and
contributed to the manipulation of the binary image of modern Japan and the premodern Orient. Japan internalized Orientalism that was imposed on Japan by the West
and turned it back on the rest of Asia. In the worlds fairs held in the nineteenth century
across Europe and America, the distinction between a pavilion to display fine art and
one to display crafts not only implied a hierarchy of artistic genres, but it projected the
hierarchy onto the international state. Despite Japonism, which swept Europe and
America in the late nineteenth century, it was not until the 1893 Worlds Columbian
Exposition in Chicago that Japan was able to display its arts at the fine arts venue of the
worlds fairs. Still, seven years later, the Exposition Universalle of 1900 in Paris did not
accept Japanese art in its Palace of Fine Arts. Euro-American powers constructed and
reinforced the discourse of fine art by consciously excluding the artistic productions of
the Orient. Japan reproduced the colonial relationship displaced onto the hierarchy of
artistic genres, which European imperialism invented in order to legitimate existing
relations of political power.
How fine art served to establish Japanese cultures superiority over those of
neighboring Asian nations and to justify Japanese imperialist expansion into Asia was
examined by the studies on the official art exhibitions established by Japanese colonial
government in its colonies such as the Chos"n Art Exhibition (est. 1922), Taiwan Art
Exhibition (est. 1927) and Manchukuo Art Exhibition (est. 1936). On the other hand,
how Japans imperial discourse of t!y! shumi (taste for the Orient) was reflected in,

346

and, simultaneously, shaped by Japanese middle-classs consumption of arts and crafts

from the colonies has yet to be fully explored. Future scholarship needs to address the
Japanese imperialist ideology through the prism of multi-directional cultural exchanges
not imposed from above by the states art policy, but mediated by social contexts and
cultural practices of those who participated in them.
Although this dissertation did not set out to investigate the complete range of
colonial modernity, it is appropriate to note that modernity in Japan cannot be divorced
from its histories of imperialist expansion into Asia in its political, economic, and cultural
dimensions. My future research will elucidate how the movement of artworks and artists
through transnational or transregional art markets created by Japanese department stores
during the colonial period contributed to the discursive construction of fine art not only
in Japan, but also in other parts of East Asia.

347

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