Japanese Artistic Traditions: Mimêsis, Politeia and Re-Interpretation

My paper analyses the representation and perfecting of reality (mimêsis)by visual arts in Japan and how the different traditions of art have been connected to changes in Japanese society and culture. The Japanese state was slow to realize how important visual arts for Japanese the Japanese society and culture and that visual arts have a huge influence home and abroad. The idea of state being responsible for promoting the cultured life of people or the idea of cultural rights of people are rather foreign to Japanese society. However, the whole idea of ‘being Japanese’ is very much a cultural reconstruction and the Japanese state has been actively encaged in shaping that reconstruction together with other pillars of establishement in Japan, such as the educational and economic institutions.

The invention of tradition does not mean that they are all false or invented from a scratch. The refined tastes of upper classes served as a basis for artistic traditions that are officially associated with the essence of Japanese art and culture. The modern Japanese state presented the Japanese cultural traditions as a proof of Japanese cultural superiority and, therefore, there has all along been a tendency also to protect the ”Japanese” cultural traditions. For instance, nihonga was seen by the early modern policy makers as more Japanese than yôga, regardless of the theme of painting and without much of critical discussion whether nihonga really is that uniquely Japanese. After all, both Japanese nihonga and yôga are deeply influenced by former foreign and Japanese art and by each other. My paper reinterprets the tradition(s) of Japanese visual arts and places it in its social and political context, as well as develops theoretical tools that would better suit analysing Japanese artistic traditions.