Ikebukuro Montparnasse: an avant-garde community in the era of Taishō democracy
2023; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 39; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/02666286.2023.2195960
ISSN1943-2178
Autores Tópico(s)Japanese History and Culture
ResumoAbstractThis article examines cross-national, geographical analogizing through the under-theorized example of an artist colony in Japan nicknamed the “Ikebukuro Montparnasse” (a title coined by the poet Hideo Oguma, 1901–40). Located in the Toshima Ward of Ikebukuro district, Tokyo, this community flourished in the 1930s and housed mostly young, impoverished painters and sculptors, evoking the Montparnasse area of Paris. The analogy with Montparnasse is significant for several reasons. First, the concept of an “artist’s village” was just being introduced to Japan during this time, and the Ikebukuro quarter exemplified this trend. Second, at the height of Japanese nationalism, the Ikebukuro Montparnasse had an anti-establishment reputation, partly linked to the ideal of Parisian bohemianism. Artworld analogies can be sharply political. Many of the artists and poets in this community were criticized as hikokumin, “those who failed to support the country,” during wartime. This study also elucidates what I see as a partial turn from Sinophilism to Francophilism in the modern Japanese art world. Overall, I demonstrate how becoming involved in a community seen as Tokyo’s answer to Montparnasse was a way for Japanese modernists to forge a new collective identity.Keywords: IkebukuroMontparnasseTokyoartist’s colonyParisian bohemianismJapanese modernism Notes1 Eri Miyoshi Robichon, “Montparnasse et Ikebukuro: Évolution comparée de deux quartiers d’artistes” (M.A. thesis, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1996), 62–63.2 “Taisho Democracy in Japan: 1912–1926,” Facing History & Ourselves, https://www.facinghistory.org/nanjing-atrocities/nation-building/taisho-democracy-japan-1912-1926 (accessed on July 19, 2021).3 Chinghsin Wu, Parallel Modernism: Koga Harue and Avant-garde Art in Modern Japan (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019), 7.4 Miura Atsushi, “The Triangle of Modern Japanese Yōga: Paris, Tokyo, and East Asia,” in East Asian Art History in a Transnational Context, ed. Eriko Tomizawa-Kay and Toshio Watanabe (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), 65–82, at 65.5 For example, see Christine Guth, Alicia Volk, and Emiko Yamanashi, eds, Japan & Paris: Impressionism, Postimpressionism, and the Modern Era (Honolulu: Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2004).6 Leon Hurvitz, “Preface,” in Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma (The Lotus Sutra), trans. from the Chinese of Kumārajīva (c.350–410) by Leon Hurvitz (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), ix–xxvi, at xi.7 Jeffrey Angles, “Bringing the Dead to Life: Translator’s Introduction,” in Orikuchi Shinobu, The Book of the Dead, trans. Jeffrey Angles (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016), 1–58, at 6.8 Ibid., 27–31. Here, Angles draws on the commentary on Orikuchi by the scholar Nakazawa Shin’ichi, Kodai kara kita miraijin Orikuchi Shinobu (Orikuchi Shinobu, A Man of the Future who Came from the Ancient Past) (Tōkyō: Chikuma Purimā Shinsho, 2008), 22, 37, 40.9 Mark A. Cheetham, “Analogous Histories? Textual/Visual Constructions of the Past and Present,” History and Art History: Looking Past Disciplines, ed. Nicholas Chare and Mitchell B. Frank (New York: Routledge, 2021), 173–86, at 173–74.10 Herbert R. Lottman, Man Ray’s Montparnasse (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001).11 Charles Douglas, Artist Quarter: Modigliani, Montmartre & Montparnasse (1941; repr., London: Pallas Athene, 2019).12 For a biographical study of Foujita, see Phyllis Birnbaum, Glory in a Line: A Life of Foujita, The Artist Caught Between East & West (New York: Faber & Faber, 2004).13 John Clark and Mizusawa Tsutomu, “The Avant-garde,” in Modern Boy, Modern Girl: Modernity in Japanese Art, 1910–1935, ed. Jackie Menzies (Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998), 81–94, at 85–87.14 Miyoshi Robichon, “Montparnasse et Ikebukuro,” 94–96; John Baxter, Montparnasse: Paris’s District of Memory and Desire (New York: Harper Perennial, 2018).15 Miyoshi Robichon, “Montparnasse et Ikebukuro,” 1.16 Ibid., 33–34.17 Ibid., 36–37.18 Relevant publications include Usami Shō, Ikebukuro Montparunasu: Taishō demokurashī no gakatachi (Ikebukuro Montparnasse: Painters of Taishō Democracy) (Tōkyō: Shūeisha, 1995); and Usami Shō, “Ikebukuro Monparunasu” (Ikebukuro Montparnasse), Hokkaidō Shinbun (August 3, 1995), 6.19 Clark Parker, “Ikebukuro’s Bohemian Ghosts: The Former Art Colonies of Northwestern Tokyo,” Metoroporisu (Metropolis Magazine), https://metropolisjapan.com/ikebukuros-secret-artistic-past (accessed on July 1, 2021).20 For example, see Takashima Shūji, J. Thomas Rimer, and Gerald D. Bolas, Paris in Japan: The Japanese Encounter with European Painting (Washington University Gallery of Art, Japan House Gallery, and Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery; Tokyo: Japan Foundation, 1987).21 Miyoshi Robichon, “Montparnasse et Ikebukuro,” 91.22 Usami, Ikebukuro Montparunasu, 110–18.23 Miyoshi Robichon, “Montparnasse et Ikebukuro,” 70.24 Usami, Ikebukuro Montparunasu, 115.25 Suzuki Sayaka, “‘Ikebukuro Monparunasu’ no jidai geijutsuka tachi no michi wa doko he kietano ka? Ikebukuro Monparunasu wo sagashite” (The Era of “Ikebukuro Montparnasse,” where did the Artists’ Streets Disappear to? In Search of Ikebukuro Montparnasse), Sanpo no tatsujin no. 290 (May 2020): 97–101, at 98; Elise K. Tipton, “The Café: Contested Space of Modernity in Interwar Japan,” in Being Modern in Japan: Culture and Society from the 1910s to the 1930s, ed. Elise K. Tipton and John Clark (Sydney: Fine Arts Press, 2000), 119–36, at 129–30.26 Suzuki, “‘Ikebukuro Monparunasu,’” 98.27 Miyoshi Robichon, “Montparnasse et Ikebukuro,” 89–91.28 On Van Gogh’s perceptions of Japan, see Tsukasa Kōdera, “Japan as Primitivistic Utopia: Van Gogh’s Japonisme Portraits,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 14, nos. 3–4 (1984): 189–208.29 The six criteria are articulated by the Chinese poet Li Gefei (c. eleventh century) in Luoyang mingyuan ji (Record of the Celebrated Gardens of Luoyang). For more on this source and Kenroku-en, see Yang Xiaoshan, “Le Gefei’s ‘Luoyang mingyuan ji’ (A Record of the Celebrated Gardens of Luoyang): Text and Context,” Monumenta Serica 52 (2004): 221–35.30 Yang, “Le Gefei’s ‘Luoyang mingyuan ji,’” 229.31 Cheetham, “Analogous Histories?”32 Miyoshi Robichon, “Montparnasse et Ikebukuro,” 40–46, 55.33 For an introduction to Oguma Hideo and his ties to the art world, see Nerima Kuritsu Bijutsukan et al., Oguma Hideo to gaka tachi: Ikebukuro Monparunasu (Oguma Hideo and Artists: Ikebukuro Montparnasse) (Tōkyō and other cities: Nerima Kuritsu Bijutsukan, 2004); and Shiritsu Otaru Bijutsukan, Oguma Hideo to Ikebukuro Montparnasse ten (Exhibition of Oguma Hideo and Ikebukuro Montparnasse) (Otaru: Shiritsu Otaru Bijutsukan and Shiritsu Otaru Bungakukan, 1995). On the Mavo Group, see Gennifer S. Weisenfeld, Mavo: Japanese Artists and the Avant-Garde, 1905–1931 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).34 Miyoshi Robichon, “Montparnasse et Ikebukuro,” 63.35 Suzuki, “‘Ikebukuro Monparunasu,’” 97.36 Elaine Gerbert, “Space and Aesthetic Imagination in Some Taishō Writings,” in Japan’s Competing Modernities: Issues in Culture and Democracy 1900–1930, ed. Sharon A. Minichiello (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998), 70–90.37 Ibid., 78.38 Tipton, “The Café,” 128.39 On the café Serupan, see Usami, Ikebukuro Montparunasu, 281–84.40 On the rise and fall of “ero” service in early twentieth-century cafés in Japan, see Tipton, “The Café,” 127–32.41 Miyoshi Robichon, “Montparnasse et Ikebukuro,” 81–87.42 There are numerous studies on artist colonies, e.g. Michael Jacob, The Good and Simple Life: Artist Colonies in Europe and America (Oxford: Phaidon, 1985); Brian Dudley Barrett, Artists on the Edge: The Rise of Coastal Artists’ Colonies, 1880–1920 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010); and Steve Shipp, American Art Colonies, 1850–1930: A Historical Guide to America’s Original Art Colonies and Their Artists (Westport: Greenwood, 1996).43 Miyoshi Robichon, “Montparnasse et Ikebukuro,” 61–64.44 Ibid., 61–62.45 Parker, “Ikebukuro’s Bohemian Ghosts.”46 For a recent study of Kumagai’s career, see Kumagai Morikazu and Itami City Museum, Kumagai Morikazu: Watashi wa watashi (Kumagai Morikazu: I Am Me) (Tōkyō: Kyūryūdo¯, 2020).47 For a succinct summary of Saeki’s experiences of Paris, see the chapter “Saeki Yūzõ’s Paris,” in Birnbaum, Glory in a Line, 102–7.48 Miyoshi Robichon, “Montparnasse et Ikebukuro,” 80, 87–88; Usami, Ikebukuro Montparunasu, 291. The Institute Croquis operated on a low-fee basis. Every time artists used the space, they pitched in to pay the models (posing nude), otherwise no other charges were involved. The artists could even have two models at the same time. The models were dancers, café waitresses, theater performers, and, among them, a French woman. Even Kumagai, who rarely ventured outside his home, could sometimes be seen there. The Institute Croquis was a great success, but it eventually disappeared because the government associated it with leftist rebellions.49 Birnbaum, Glory in a Line, 102.50 For a nuanced treatment of Shi Lu as the “Chinese Van Gogh,” see Shelly Drake Hawks, The Art of Resistance: Painting by Candlelight in Mao’s China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017), pt 3. For more on the Van Gogh–Japan connection, see Tsukasa Kodera, Cornelia Homberg, and Yukihiro Sato, eds, Van Gogh and Japan (Kyoto: Seigensha Art Publ., 2017); and Lana Tran’s essay in this volume.51 Potari Editorial Department, “‘Nihon no Gohho’ Hasegawa Toshiyuki no ikezama to sakuhin no enerugī ni attō Kurume-shi Bijutsukan” (“Van Gogh of Japan”: Overwhelmed by the Energy of Toshiyuki Hasegawa’s Life and Works Kurume City Art Museum), https://potari.jp/2018/11/371/ (accessed on July 27, 2021).52 Mejiro Gakuen Joshi Tanki Daigaku Kokugo Kokubunka Kenkyūshitsu, ed., Ochiai bunshimura (Ochiai Village of Litterateurs) (Tōkyō: Meiji Gakuen Joshi Tanshi Daigaku, 1984).53 Wu, Parallel Modernism, 172–73.54 Usami, Ikebukuro Montparunasu, 429.55 Wu, Parallel Modernism, 184.56 See Itabashi Kuritsu Bijutsukan, Ikebukuro Monparunasu ten: yōkoso, atorie-mura e! (Exhibition on Ikebukuro Montparnasse, welcome to the atelier village!), Nijūseiki kenshō shirțzu (20th-century verification series), no. 3 (Tokyo: Itabashi Art Museum, 2011), chapter 5.57 Miyoshi Robichon, “Montparnasse et Ikebukuro,” 91–93.58 Suzuki, “‘Ikebukuro Monparunasu,’” 99.59 “Let’s Meet! ‘City, Art and History’ Ikebukuro Montparnasse Atelier Village Walking Around,” http://culturecity-toshima.com/event/3767/ (accessed on November 6, 2020).60 On strategies in cultural tourism, see Bob McKercher and Hilary du Cros, Cultural Tourism: The Partnership between Tourism and Cultural Heritage Management (New York: Haworth Hospitality, 2002).61 Briavel Holcomb, “Marketing Cities for Tourism,” in The Tourist City, ed. Dennis R. Judd and Susan S. Fainstein (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 54–70, at 55–56.62 Atorie no toki e: 10 shō uchū (In the Atelier: 10 Small Universes) (Tokyo: Toshima Ward, 2018); Itabashi Kuritsu Bijutsukan, Ikebukuro Monparunasu ten (Tokyo: Itabashi Kuritsu Bijutsukan, 2012) Ikebukuro e no michi: kinsei no rekishi shiryō, Ikebukuro monparunasu, Moriyama Daidō (Road to Ikebukuro: Modern Historical Documents, Ikebukuro Montparnasse, Moriyama Daidō) (Tokyo: Tōkyō Geijutsu Gekijō, 2021). Special thanks to Ms. Kobayashi Mioko of the Toshima Ward Cultural Design Division, Arts and Culture Promotion Group, for providing these sources.Additional informationNotes on contributorsAida Yuen WongAida Yuen Wong is Nathan Cummings and Robert B. and Beatrice C. Mayer Chair in Fine Arts and Professor of Fine Arts and East Asian Studies at Brandeis University. A scholar of Asian art history who has written extensively on transcultural modernism, her major publications include Parting the Mists: Discovering Japan and the Rise of National-Style Painting in Modern China (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006), the edited volume Visualizing Beauty: Gender and Ideology in Modern East Asia (Hong Kong University Press, 2012), and The Other Kang Youwei: Calligrapher, Art Activist, and Aesthetic Reformer in Modern China (Brill, 2016). She is the co-editor of the volume Fashion, Identity, and Power in Modern Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
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