FAH262H1 Chap.1 World's Fairs, Fine Art and Craft
World's Fairs, Fine Art and Craft
Why the course begins at a World's Fair
The first week sets the problem that the rest of the course keeps returning to. In the 1870s the new Meiji government wanted Japan to be treated as a modern nation, and Matsushima Masato argues that the verdict on that question was not Japan's to give.
Western judges at international expositions decided what counted as modern culture, so the way objects were selected, labelled and displayed became a matter of national policy.
Vienna in 1873 was the Meiji state's debut at an international exposition, and its preparations produced Japan's first domestic exposition at the Yushima Seido hall in 1872, the display from which the Tokyo National Museum dates its origins.
A word invented for the exhibition hall
Exposition rules divided entries into art and craft and assumed art was the superior class.
Japan had no such division: as Chiaki Ajioka puts it, skilled making existed as individual tasks, and an object's standing followed the social rank of its users. The word bijutsu, fine art, filled the gap. The syllabus dates its formulation to 1872; Ajioka, following Kitazawa Noriaki, dates the coinage to 1871 as a translation of the German Schone Kunst.
Kogei, the word that came to mean craft, first covered making in general, industrial products included. Over the next three decades the two words were pulled apart until craft sat between fine art and mechanical industry.
How objects were moved between categories
Makers and officials worked the system. Ceramics decorated with pictures were entered as painting to win the higher class.
At Chicago in 1893, where Japan classified its own entries, screens and hanging scrolls were framed so that they would hang as pictures, and even cloisonne was framed. The same logic ran the other way at home: calligraphy, long the most respected Japanese art, was removed from the fine art category at the 1890 national exhibition.
In 1900 Paris settled the question with a rule that reserved art for works designed and made by the artist, which pushed workshop production, often credited to a director rather than the hands that made it, into craft.
What to carry into later weeks
The Week 1 objectives point forward: the concept of bijutsu later circulated as meishu in China and misul in Korea.
When later chapters ask whether a painting is national or Western, traditional or modern, the question usually has the shape it acquired here, a classification made for an outside audience and then adopted at home. Key terms for the week also include the materials Japan exported, lacquer, bamboo and cloisonne, and makers such as Shibata Zeshin and Namikawa Sosuke, whose work sits exactly on the line the expositions drew.
What this chapter covers
- 01
The Vienna World's Fair of 1873 and its preparations
- 02
The 1872 Yushima Seido exposition and the national museum
- 03
Bijutsu and kogei as exposition categories
- 04
Framing screens and scrolls at Chicago in 1893
- 05
Calligraphy removed from fine art in 1890
- 06
The 1900 Paris rules and the separation of craft
- 07
Meishu and misul: the word travels
Worked example · free
Explain why a cloisonne panel was framed in 1893
- 2State the rule: exposition classifications ranked fine art above applied art, and Western viewers treated screens and scrolls as furnishings.
- 2Explain the move: framing presented decorative and pictorial objects in the format of easel pictures so that Japan's own classification in Chicago could place them in the Palace of Fine Arts.
- 2Draw the conclusion: the category was set by display conventions an outside audience recognised, which is why the 1897 Venice ruling could still class screens as applied art.
Key terms
- Shachihoko
- A fish-bodied roof ornament; the golden pair from Nagoya Castle were sent to the 1873 Vienna exposition.
- Cloisonne
- Enamel fused into wire compartments on a metal body, one of the decorative wares Japan exported and exhibited.
- Yuto Kogei
- Superior craft, the name that replaced art craft under the 1900 Paris submission rules.
- Domestic Exposition
- A Japanese national industrial exhibition, first held at Ueno in 1877, with prizes and an art gallery modelled on the international fairs.
World's Fairs, Fine Art and Craft FAQ
When was the word bijutsu first used for fine art?
The syllabus says 1872, in connection with the World's Fairs. Ajioka's reading, drawing on Kitazawa Noriaki, puts the coinage in 1871 during preparations for Vienna. Cite the source with the date.
Why did Japan send castle ornaments to Vienna?
Early Meiji reformers treated many feudal symbols as useless, so the golden dolphins of Nagoya Castle became exhibition material, displayed alongside ceramics, cloisonne and lacquer intended for export markets.
What made the 1900 Paris exposition decisive for craft?
Under Hayashi Tadamasa the submission rules required the artist's own design and execution. Workshop products made to other people's designs therefore counted as craft, renamed superior craft rather than art craft.
Exam move
Draw the three-way split of fine art, craft and industry from memory, then place five exhibits on it with the year and venue that decided their category. Finish by writing two sentences on why calligraphy moved out of fine art.
