Printed Representations of Japanese Women in

 Printed Representations of Japanese Women in the 1920s Jennifer Weiler HIS 595 April 30, 2012 1 The early twentieth century was a period of monumental growth and change in Japan, resulting in a great diversification of both opportunities and expectations for the Japanese people. In particular, the women of Japan were faced with the challenge of adapting to modern life while being tasked with preserving traditional Japanese morals and culture. While they were still expected to care for their families, many women, whether by necessity or choice, began entering the workforce through the new opportunities provided by factory and service jobs. Within the home, the erosion of the multi-­‐generational family structure meant that the mother was solely responsible for the daily maintenance of the household, which necessitated knowledge of appliances, nutrition, and child development. To prepare for such a task, an increasing number of girls were receiving basic education, and a notable percentage, mostly from wealthier families, were even attending secondary school and college.1 However, despite being given such heavy responsibilities, women had few legal rights, being labeled as ‘incompetent,’ along with minors, the physically abnormal, and the mentally deficient.2 This strange mix of increasing opportunity and responsibility but still limited social status resulted in a splintering of experiences for Japanese women. While they all had to deal with the changes caused by modernization, the ways that women chose to respond to them were radically divergent. Many accepted society’s standards for what women should be but were forced into different lifestyles based 1 Jordan Sand, “The Housewife’s Laboratory,” House and Home in Modern Japan: Architecture, Domestic Space, and Bourgeois Culture, 1880-­1930, (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2003): 55—59. 2 Dorothy Robins-­‐Mowry, The Hidden Sun: Women of Modern Japan. (Boulder: Westview Press Inc., 1983): 57—58. 2 on their social class and education level. In addition, there were also those who rebelled against the system, either by defying societal norms of proper female behavior, or by organizing groups to demand political change, such as giving women the right to vote.3 At the same time that this headlong rush into modernity was taking place, Japan was seeing an increasing growth and diversification of its print culture, which included magazines and images for and about women. Today, these printed media can offer insight into the ideals and concerns of Japan at that time. However, given that these images are not an unbiased assessment of the times, it is important to address them with a critical eye to their goals and target audiences. This paper will analyze examples of popular and artistic print media in nineteen twenties Japan to better understand how women were depicted in order to determine what attributes of women are highlighted and what roles are underplayed or ignored. Shin hanga, the “new prints” movement, first emerged in Japan in the late 1910s and reached peak popularity in the mid-­‐1920s. In part a reaction to the opening of Japan to the west, the prints draw on the Japanese woodblock printing tradition as well as the naturalistic styles of Western art. Among the most popular and common subject matter of shin hanga artists were bijin-­ga, images of beautiful young women, who are often presented engaging in everyday leisure activities. Although modernity is sometimes depicted, the majority of bijin-­ga present an 3 Robins-­‐Mowry, The Hidden Sun, 65—68. 3 idealized, abstract concept of women, who would appear just as in place in the Edo Period as in industrialized Japan. At its inception, shin hanga was seen as a revival of the earlier ukiyo-­e prints (lit. “Pictures of the floating world”) that were popular during the Tokugawa Era. Shin hanga focused on the traditional subject matter of the ukiyo-­e, particularly beautiful women, actors, and landscapes. In addition, shin hanga prints were created in a similar matter to ukiyo-­e, with an artist designing the image and then having the woodblock prints created by professional carvers and printers. The similarity in craftsmanship and style is immediately apparent when comparing an ukiyo-­e, such as Kitagawa Utamaro’s Komurasaki of the Tamaya House After a Bath (fig. 1), to a shin hanga print, such as Hashiguchi Goyo’s Woman Combing her Hair (fig. 2). Both images contain large areas of uniform color, crisply delineated by dark lines. This was made possible by the woodblock printing technique, in which separate woodblocks, each cut to a corresponding area of color, were printed onto the paper in a specific sequence (fig. 3—4). In addition to similarities in how the figures are depicted, the focus of the prints is also alike, since both focus on representing beauty and the fleeting moment rather than creating a clear narrative or realistic image. However, the influence of Western artistic practices is also apparent. Many of the shin hanga artists, including Hashiguchi Goyo, were educated in the new academic art system, as opposed to the traditional practice of apprenticeship, and 4 almost all Japanese artists were exposed to Western art.4 For shin hanga, the resulting collision of styles resulted in images that were largely traditional in subject matter and creation process, but also contained some influence of Western painting practices and techniques. In particular, the bijin-­ga combined the content of traditional Japanese depictions of beautiful women and the sense of form and volume of the Western nude. Despite the obvious effort to recreate the aesthetic feel and creation process of ukiyo-­e, shin hanga’s audience is based on the idea of fine arts that Japan imported from the West. Instead of being seen as commodities or crafts, shin hanga is presented as high art. This is reflected in both the number of prints produced and their price. Unlike ukiyo-­e, which were printed in the thousands and sold relatively as affordable prices to a wide range of urban buyers,5 most shin hanga prints were produced in editions of a few hundred (which decreased their availability and thus raised their prices), and were sold to museums and art collectors, a large segment of which were overseas.6 From its beginning, shin hanga had a popular following outside of Japan, mostly because it was reminiscent of the ukiyo-­e prints that had been eagerly purchased by foreigners during the Meiji period. Today, both Western and Japanese scholars agree that much of shin hanga’s success was due to its popularity among 4 Laura J. Mueller, Strong Women Beautiful Men. (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005): 23—24. 5 Guan Carlo Calza, Ukiyo-­e. (New York: Phaidon Publishers, 2005): 7—9. 6 Amy Reigle Newland and Hamanaka Shinji, The Female Image: Twentieth Century Prints of Japanese Beauties. (Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2000): 28—30. 5 international collectors. The prints were in such demand outside of Japan that a shin hanga piece that could be bought for the equivalent of twenty dollars in Japan cost nearly five times that much in the United States.7 Overall, these foreign collectors valued shin hanga artists as the modern torchbearers of ukiyo-­e. In fact, many bemoaned the fact that shin hanga prints were obviously polluted by Western style and modern subject matter, and wished that the artists could continue to create prints with a completely pre-­‐Meiji aesthetic. One American commenter on shin hanga prints stated that the creeping of “Occidental pictorial effects” into the works of modern print designers was “lament [able]” but ultimately “inevitable” due to Japan’s opening to the West.8 In addition to the Western audience, there were also Japanese buyers of shin hanga prints who liked them for their pre-­‐modern subject matter and style. At the time that shin hanga was reaching peak popularity, Japan was beginning to question the results of modernity on society, and began to wonder if the same tools that were technologically advancing the nation were also leading to the corrosion of traditional Japanese lifestyle and values. As such, shin hanga’s focus on traditional imagery seemed both nostalgic and patriotic.9 However, despite the fact that shin hanga’s main appeal seemed to come from its ability to recreate traditional media, within some segments of the Japanese 7 Newland, The Female Image, 28—30. 8 Newland, The Female Image, 27. 9 Alicia Volk, In Persuit of Universalism: Yorozu Tetsugoro and Japanese Modern Art (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2010): 37—39. 6 art world the prints were criticized for being too reminiscent of ukiyo-­e and lacking any reflection on modern times.10 However, without denying its ukiyo-­e heritage, shin hanga was only made possible because of the international market and the work of artists trained in the modern system. As regard to the influence modernity had on shin hanga prints, artist Kobayakawa Kiyoshi notably stated: Even if I try to draw a scene reminiscent of the time of Harunobu [a ukiyo-­e artist from the 1700s famous for his depictions of beauties11], my drawing would inevitably express the healthful beauties of today. I do not just draw customs and manners but try to capture the essence of the time in which we live.12 However, given the fact that much of shin hanga’s appeal drew from nostalgia for earlier imagery, it seems that the modernity, or at least aspects of modernity that were clearly absent from the Edo Period, was not a recommended focus. Contemporaneously to the proliferation of shin hanga prints internationally, domestic Japanese culture was being recorded and displayed in a growing number of periodicals and magazines. One of the most popular women’s magazines of the time was Shufu no Tomo (lit. the Housewife’s Companion). The contents of the magazine generally focused on editorials on feminine activities, personal anecdotes of women, and general advice about how to deal with household tasks, especially focusing on cooking, cleaning, and childcare. Of course, the magazine was also filled with pages of advertisements meant to appeal to the middle-­‐to-­‐upper class woman. 10 Newland, The Female Image, 24—25. 11 Calza, Ukiyo-­e, 332—334. 12 Newland, The Female Image, 25. 7 In some cases, Shufu no Tomo and shin hanga prints seem to use very similar means of depicting women. For example, when comparing the cover of the January 1921 issue of Shufu no Tomo to Ito Shinsui’s 1916 shin hanga print Before the Mirror, the similarities are quite striking (fig. 5 & fig. 6). In both cases, a young woman is depicted in a richly decorated kimono and traditional hairstyle. Both images are clearly not photorealistic, as shown by the woman’s oversized head and eyes, and simplified nose, mouth, and chin. In addition, both women are shown in three quarter length and depicted leisurely sitting in profile, unaware of the viewers’ presence. It appears that, at least in these images, both printed media are drawing from the same traditional ideal of feminine beauty. However, within the pages of Shufu no Tomo it is difficult to find images that could be mistaken for shin hanga prints. The beauties of shin hanga are uniformly young, unmarried, and childless. Not only do they never appear with family members, they also never do any of the tasks that women of that age, married or unmarried, would need to daily perform. Despite being based on the idea of depicting images of everyday life, the bijin-­ga focus only on a very narrow margin of the daily lives of Japanese women. The women in shin hanga are never depicted going to school, cleaning, cooking, working, or engaging in group social activities. The bijin-­ga mainly focus on women enjoying the changing seasons, leisure activities, or engaging in body care and grooming.13 Certainly these and similar moments were part of women’s lives, but they only record a small percentage the spectrum of daily life. 13 Newland, The Female Image, 33—183. 8 In contrast, issues of Shufu no Tomo focus extensively on women performing practical household tasks, and are often depicted with friends or family members (fig. 7—8). As such, these images seem to better reflect the daily lives of the women who would be reading these magazines. However, beyond simply depicting ‘real life,’ these images were reflecting and reinforcing the contemporary beliefs about what duties, problems, and activities should compose a woman’s life. At this time, the government-­‐supported role of “good wife, wise mother” had become a common goal for girls in secondary school, which focused on domestic skills such as nutrition, childcare, and housekeeping.14 The housewife was embraced as a model for the ideal woman of the modern era, and was also seen as a continuation of women’s role during the Edo Period.15 To the average housewife, magazines such as Shufu no Tomo served as a model for emulation and aspiration. When viewed as a whole, the magazine’s images form a carefully crafted consumer based ideology about what the housewife’s life should resemble. Of course, due to the rapidly transforming nature of modernizing Japanese society, print media were presented with the challenge and opportunity to present new, emerging social trends. For depictions of women, this challenge was most clearly presented in the enigma of the modern girl, a female who was perceived as embracing the latest Western fashion and hairstyles, as well as having loose morals 14 Robins-­‐Mowry, The Hidden Sun, 38—43. 15 Sand, “The Housewife’s Laboratory,” House and Home in Modern Japan. 56—58. 9 and a self-­‐centered attitude.16 Although she was often seen as a threat to traditional society, the modern girl also represented the sense of excitement, independence, and possibility that made consumerism and modernity attractive. As the twenties progressed and their once shocking appearance became more normalized in Japanese society, modern girls began to appear in all sorts of popular media without negative connotation. This is somewhat surprising since, in many ways, the modern girl was everything the modern housewife was not supposed to be: unattached, forward, and promiscuous. Despite this, by the mid-­‐twenties girls with bob haircuts and western clothing were becoming commonplace in advertisements geared towards Japanese housewives. For example, in the March 1925 edition of Shufu no Tomo, a girl sporting the identifying bob haircut is present in an advertisement for shawls and sweaters (fig. 9). While her clothes and hairstyle definitely mark her as a modern girl, nothing about this young lady evokes the negative connotations of promiscuity and lawlessness. The modern girl’s figure is completely hidden by her dress, which goes up to her neck and covers everything above the elbows and knees. She looks upwards, away from the viewer, and is even holding a ball of yarn and knitting needles. Many other advertisements within Shufu no Tomo depict similar types of girls, possibly fueling the association between the modern girl and consumerism. 16 Barbara Sato. “The Modern Girl as a Representation of Consumer Culture.” The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media and Women in Interwar Japan, (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003): 61—65. 10 However, the depictions of modern girls are not limited to the advertizing pages. Even within the magazine’s editorials, many women who are obviously meant to be depicting housewives are drawn with the short, bob haircut of the modern girl. Notably, a modern girl is even featured on the cover of the April 1924 issue of Shufu no Tomo (fig. 10). Unlike previous covers of the magazine (fig. 5 & fig. 11) this women is not only sporting a western-­‐style outfit and makeup, but is making direct eye contact with the viewer. However, despite clearly acknowledging the viewer through her gaze, the modern girl does not seem to try to draw the potential buyer in with a warm demeanor. In fact, she looks aloft and even a little bored. Perhaps the image was attempting to draw upon the perceived social freedom and devil-­‐may-­‐care attitude of the modern girl. However, given that the intended audience were married women seeking advice on household tasks, it is difficult to determine what the magazine’s editors wanted this image to convey. In any case, the fact that a modern girl was seen as an acceptable face for an established women’s magazine proves how much her image had been integrated into the mainstream print culture by the mid-­‐nineteen twenties. In contrast, depictions of modern girls were overwhelmingly rare in shin hanga prints, and were not created at all by many shin hanga artists. However, there were notable exceptions where modern elements, and even modern girls, appear. For example, in Watanabe Ikuharu’s series ‘Competing Beauties of the Showa Era,’ six of the twelve images depict women in post-­‐Edo hairstyles, with one woman even sporting a bob and applying lipstick (fig. 12). However, all the girls in Watanabe’s series are still wearing kimonos, so none of them can truly be described as modern 11 girls. However, fully modern girls were present in the works of Kobayakawa Kiyoshi, a shin hanga artist who began depicting modern girls alongside his traditional beauties in the early nineteen thirties, nearly a decade after modern girls had first been presented in magazines and other popular media.17 Beyond depicting women with short hair wearing modern clothing, Kobayakawa places his models in the realistic environments of the modern girls. Instead of being portrayed alone inside their homes, Kobayakawa’s modern girls are out in the metropolitan nightlife. In his 1930 work ‘Tipsy’ from the series ‘Women’s Manners of Today,” Kobayakawa depicts a girl with a bob haircut and polka dotted dress holding a cigarette and a martini while smiling at the viewer (fig. 13). By placing the model in a public location (sitting at a bar or a table), labeling her as tipsy, and having her unabashedly engaging the (presumably male) viewer, Kobayakawa clearly articulates an embodiment of the stereotypes that modern girls were saddled with in Japanese society. Brazen and assertive, this modern girl is certainly a far cry from the demure, calm beauties that previous shin hanga artists had made their profits depicting. However, Kobayakawa’s works that deviate the farthest from the expected norm of bijin-­ga are his depictions of dancers. In his 1934 print, Dancer, Kobayakawa depicts a modern girl bending over backwards as she strikes a dramatic pose (fig. 14). The woman sports a bob haircut, high heels, and dress revealing dress that leaves her arms, chest, and inner thigh exposed. Of course, nudity was not uncommon in shin hanga prints, but was generally used when depicting women in a private space. In Dancer, the model’s flamboyant outfit and 17 Sato, “The Modern Girl as a Representation of Consumer Culture,” The New Japanese Woman. 56—60. 12 the dark background imply a stage setting, moving this scantily clad women into the public sphere. In addition, this subject is unique because of the dramatic movement implied in the pose. As earlier stated, bijin-­ga aren’t generally depicted doing things, certainly not difficult dance stunts. In fact, Dancer is so radically different from how original ukiyo-­e were designed that it is difficult to even label it as a bijin-­ga. This departure from tradition was likely made possible for Kobayakawa because he was working in the early nineteen thirties. By this time, the modern girl had been a part of modern culture for over a decade and had lost much of her shock value. In addition, shin hanga had also been an established art style for over a decade, possibly driving Kobayakawa to find new inspiration and subject matter. Of course, it is important to remember that these depictions of modern girls are rare and far between, as shin hanga thrived on focusing mostly on traditional beauties. Overall, while shin hanga prints include significantly fewer modern girls than contemporary women’s magazines, the modern girls that are depicted are portrayed with all the stereotypical boldness and sexuality of the modern girl fully on display. The most obvious explanation for the difference in portrayal of women between shin hanga prints and women’s magazines is the differences in the audience each was targeting. Women’s magazines, such as Shufu no Tomo, were created specifically for upper-­‐middle class Japanese women, while shin hanga prints were created for the art world, a male dominated arena, much of which was centered outside of Japan. Perhaps even more importantly, the two groups were looking for different types of material from the media. For the Japanese housewives, Shufu no Tomo served as entertainment, but was also important as a means of 13 practical information about daily life. Therefore, as the twenties progressed, and the once radical attributes of the modern girl became more normalized in Japanese society, it makes sense that a diluted, more approachable version of them would begin to appear in magazines, like Shufu no Tomo, which attempted to reflect the current expectations and desires of Japanese housewives. In contrast, because shin hanga relied largely on nostalgia for pre-­‐modern Japanese imagery, and were created predominantly for and by men, they focused mainly on demure, kimono-­‐
clad women. For its Western audience, shin hanga prints, in both content and style, served as a window into an exotic, foreign culture. In addition, shin hanga’s Japanese audience saw the works as a way to recapture the increasingly romanticized past that they felt they were loosing in the face of modernity. The prints’ appeal, therefore, were how different they were from the lives of their buyers, both in Japan and around the globe. The presence of the modern girl, a perceived threat to traditional male authority and family values, was not a quickly welcomed addition. However, in the instances where she was depicted, the modern girl in shin hanga prints is presented with all her forwardness and promiscuity on full display, in a way that will likely maintain the interest of a male art viewer. However, although they differ in many ways, depictions of women in both media, whether high art or popular periodicals, are still limit themselves to depictions of young, attractive, non-­‐working females. Obviously this was not the reality for many women in Japan during this time, and wasn’t the entire truth for almost anyone. By 1920, around 750,000 women were employed in textile factories 14 with many more taking jobs as teachers, secretaries, or waitresses.18 Not only are images of these working women non-­‐existent, but many of the everyday activities and social interactions of women are downplayed as well. Interpersonal relationships are not shown in shin hanga prints, and while Shufu no Tomo does show women interacting, it is always with immediate family members within their own home. However, even beyond the types of activities the women perform, there is an editing of what type of women is presented. It does not take long to realize that the women depicted in these print media are young and pretty. This makes more sense for bijin-­ga prints (which, by definition, are prints of beautiful women), but is also the case for women’s magazines that are meant to reflect the average housewife. Of course, as is still the case today, having attractive people in images is used as a way to increase sales, but it also perpetuates the idea that women only have value if they are pretty. However, this was not the case in Japanese society at the time, since, although women were not seen as equal to men, they were acknowledged for their contributions to society beyond their physical appearance and subservience. A notable number of girls, mostly from the upper class, were gaining higher education and were actively seeking to better themselves and their country. Some women even formed public discourses about the current state of and future goals for the Japanese woman. Most agreed that, while not being particularly 18 Robins-­‐Mowry, The Hidden Sun, 35—37. 15 revolutionary, the woman of the future needed to be politically aware and actively strive to improve both the state of women and of the Japanese people.19 While it is true that it is almost impossible for a single print media to accurately capture the experience of a large group of people, it is still important to wonder why such a wide range of women were downplayed or completely ignored. The answer for both media examined in this paper is likely that they were trying to convey an ideal, not a reality. For shin hanga prints, this means depicting beauties in a way reminiscent of the increasingly romanticized pre-­‐modern Japan. In women’s magazines, this perceived ideal was the role of housewife, which allowed women to live unencumbered by an extended family, financial stress, or an arduous job outside of the home. Although both shin hanga and Shufu no Tomo fall short of depicting the range of experiences of Japanese women, this should not be seen as a failure of either of the media, since neither group was attempting to accomplish such a task. However, it is important that the present day viewer keep this in mind when reviewing archival materials, so that they do not confuse the ideal with the reality. 19 Sato, “The Modern Girl as a Representation of Consumer Culture,” The New Japanese Woman. 53—57. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 1 Bibliography Calza, Guan Carlo. Ukiyoe. New York: Phaidon Publishers, 2005. Mueller, Laura J. Strong Women Beautiful Men. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005. 21—26, 55—72. Nagy, Margit. “Middle-­‐Class Working Women During the Interwar Years.” Recreating Japanese Women, 1600—1945. Ed. Gail Lee Bernstein. Los Angeles: California University Press, 1991. Print. Newland, Amy Reigle and Hamanaka Shinji. The Female Image: Twentieth Century Prints of Japanese Beauties. Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2000. 24—29, 141—
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