JAPANESE WOODBLOCK PRINTS : BOWERS EXHIBIT SHOWS MEETING OF EAST, WEST

For the Japanese, the arrival of American Commodore Matthew Perry and his “black ships” in 1853 signaled a time of rapid change after more than two centuries of isolation from the West.

Those years of change are documented in a traveling exhibit of 40 Japanese woodblock prints now on display at Bowers Museum. The works in “First Impressions: Japanese Prints of Foreigners” range from early detailed representations of the customs, clothing and possessions of these strange intruders to panoramic views that record the rapid modernization they helped bring about.

The first wave of European visitors to Japan were expelled in 1639, largely because of Jesuit missionaries whose success in converting thousands of Japanese to Christianity became a threat to the ruling Tokugawa Shogunate. A handful of Dutch traders were allowed to remain but were restricted to a small island in Nagasaki harbor.

Japan’s isolationism was strictly enforced until Perry’s visit, a show of force calculated to persuade the Japanese to heed a rather pointed U.S. request for diplomatic relations. The plan succeeded: The Japanese, aware that they were essentially defenseless against the superior U.S. forces, agreed to limited relations during Perry’s return in 1854.

In July, 1858, a persistent U.S. consul general concluded the first commercial treaty with Japan; in the months that followed, Japan signed similar agreements with England, France, Holland and Russia. Japan’s isolationist shield had been broken.

Three ports--Yokohama, Nagasaki and Hakodate--were opened to foreign trade, and Yokohama became the most popular because of its deep harbor and its proximity to the capital city of Edo (now called Tokyo). The Bowers exhibit focuses on the woodblock prints of artists from Yokohama, practitioners of what is called Yokohama-e (literally “Yokohama pictures”).

Armand Labbe, the Bowers’ curator, said in an interview at the museum that the earliest Yokohama-e prints in the show, from the years 1860-67, reflect the initial curiosity of the artists about the foreigners themselves: their dress, their customs, their possessions and their activities.

Several prints from this period show the foreigners being entertained by the Japanese. One print shows Japanese Sumo wrestlers easily carrying huge bales of rice that the European sailors struggle to lift; another shows a Sumo throwing a Frenchman to the ground as a crowd cheers in the background. While the faces of the foreigners in these prints are usually schematic, the artists portrayed in intricate detail such items as Western ships, military uniforms and weapons, technological items, such as working steam engines, and everyday dress.

Labbe said these early prints are similar in theme to Nagasaki-e prints, which hit their peak during the 17th Century. Nagasaki artists of the time showed a curiosity for foreigners that was echoed by the later Yokohama printmakers. The fascination with the Europeans did not necessarily reflect admiration, Labbe said. While the Japanese were curious about their customs, and intrigued by such items as watches, telescopes, printed books and guns, they generally considered the Westerners to be culturally inferior. “They considered Europeans, by and large, to be barbarians,” Labbe said.

Most of the Nagasaki-e prints were done second-hand from hearsay and from the work of earlier artists because strict rules limited contact between the Japanese and residents of the Dutch colony in Nagasaki Harbor--the only Westerners in Japan at the time. The Nagasaki-e prints were generally of low quality, Labbe added, and were manufactured primarily as inexpensive souvenirs. “They were not done by the best artists in Japan,” Labbe said. “The importance is not so much in their artistic value, but in their function as a window on a culture.”

The later Yokohama-e artists, on the other hand, created quality artworks that drew inspiration from the accomplished printmakers of Edo. “Many of these prints have intrinsic artistic value,” Labbe commented. “The artists were concerned with creating a viable artistic product.”

The initial focus on the foreigners themselves in Yokohama-e printmaking gave way to a second period, stretching roughly from 1868-1890, when artists focused largely on panoramic views of Yokohama. These prints show the effect of the Western presence on the once traditional port: Western-style buildings dominate the waterfront, industry is beginning to emerge and transportation begins to take on a Western flavor--the first railroad linking Yokohama and the new imperial capital of Tokyo was completed in 1868.

Also in that year, the shogunate fell and the imperial court was restored. The change evident in the Yokohama-e prints of the second period foreshadowed the modernization of Japan that was to take place under the new Emperor Meiji.

The value of the prints as a cultural and anthropological record, combined with their artistic merit, made the exhibit a natural for the culturally oriented Bowers, Labbe said. While there is a great deal of historical material with a Western perspective on the opening of Japan, historical materials with a Japanese perspective are scant, contributing to the research value of the prints.

Although they were often produced in large quantities, Labbe termed it “lucky” that any of the fragile paper prints have survived. “Back in the early years, nobody was collecting these things,” Labbe said.

The works in “First Impressions” are on loan from the Melvin P. McGovern Collection of Honolulu. The exhibition was organized by students from the University of Hawaii to mark 100 years of Japanese emigration to Hawaii. It remains on view at Bowers through April 5.