
Imagining the Western Other in 19th-Century Japanese Prints - lermontov
https://hyperallergic.com/512072/imagining-the-western-other-in-19th-century-japanese-prints/
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livueta
I guess I understand why they didn't mention it in an article about a specific
exhibit, but my absolute favorite example of this sort of thing is a, ah,
_highly imaginative_ rendition of the American Revolutionary War, complete
with George Washington punching out a tiger.

Book scans:
[http://archive.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kosho/bunko11/bunko11_a0380/...](http://archive.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kosho/bunko11/bunko11_a0380/bunko11_a0380_0002/bunko11_a0380_0002.html)

Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18430610](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18430610)

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dekhn
Not exactly the same thing, but I saw an interesting print from Japan during
the time when Dutch ships first entered the harbor. It was clear at that point
that Japanese ships were technically inferior to the Dutch ones, and the
perspective from the artist is interesting.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20171219041521/http://www.iisg.n...](https://web.archive.org/web/20171219041521/http://www.iisg.nl/exhibitions/japaneseprints/ships.html)

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60654
These prints are currently on display at the Art Institute of Chicago [1] and
if you're in the area, it's a highly recommended temp exhibition.

AIC is having a great run with prints lately. Before this they did a whole
exhibit on Japanese mass produced prints, using Hokusai's "Great Wave off
Kanagawa" and its variants as the leading example. [2]

[1] [https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9332/yokohama-e-19th-
centu...](https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9332/yokohama-e-19th-century-
prints-of-americans-in-japan)

[2] [https://www.artic.edu/articles/743/seeing-triple-the-
great-w...](https://www.artic.edu/articles/743/seeing-triple-the-great-wave-
by-hokusai)

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draw_down
A while back I saw an exhibit of Japanese masks from this period.
Interestingly, the noses were exaggeratedly large, because the Japanese at the
time (perhaps still today) thought Europeans had big noses.

~~~
deogeo
Seems like they still think so:
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japanese-
airli...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japanese-airline-ana-
apologises-for-racist-advert-stereotyping-foreigners-as-having-big-noses-
and-9072651.html)

But I think compared to Asians, white people objectively do have bigger noses,
so they're not wrong.

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coldtea
"Other" is such a cliche "liberal arts" term.

How about "How the Japanese imagined Westerners in 19-Century prints"?

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zapzupnz
Just because it's cliché doesn't mean it isn't specific and thus still useful.
I don't like the term either, but that doesn't stop it being the best term to
explain a rather particular but difficult-to-illustrate concept with the
highest level of unambiguity.

Also, why liberal arts in scare quotes? Of course the term comes from liberal
arts; social sciences come under that umbrella and have done for years. If
it's a politically-charged term, then just call it humanities.

~~~
coldtea
> _Just because it 's cliché doesn't mean it isn't specific and thus still
> useful. I don't like the term either, but that doesn't stop it being the
> best term to explain a rather particular but difficult-to-illustrate concept
> with the highest level of unambiguity._

A "particular but difficult-to-illustrate concept"?

Westerners (in particular) or foreigners (in general) both perfectly capture
what the Japanese where depicting, without the baggage and obscurantism of
"Others".

~~~
zapzupnz
Except that it's not just about Westerners full stop; there's also an element
of exoticism, compounded by the lack of proper interactions with the West by
most of Japan for around a century. Clearly these depictions of the West are
done from a hugely emic point of view, with the distortions of the depictions
of the West distorted partly by the art style but partly from the lack of
accurate information.

And yes, the concept of the Other is not easy to illustrate _because_ it has
less to do with the parties involved and more of their understanding of each
other, the lenses through which these preconceptions are analysed still being
debated to this day. It's helpful that there is a word, even if it's merely
shorthand, to describe this concisely.

There is nothing black and white about the Other but equally this being a
story simple of Western and Japanese is not as night and day as you claim.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
And using that word makes the title interesting! It's not just that it's
paintings of Westerners, but that it's paintings from the perspective of
people to whom they were exotic and unfamiliar.

~~~
zapzupnz
Indeed! This is the thing about the Other; the very fact that anybody can
claim it should refer to one thing and somebody else can claim it means
something slightly different demonstrates beyond peradventure that there is no
definitive answer as to what is under analysis.

