he radical Japanese art group Mavo roared into new arenas and new art forms during the 1 920s, with work ranging from performance art to painting, book illustration, and architectural projects. Mavo artists col- laborated in a movement that shook the Japanese art establishment to its foundations. Ultimately, Mavo’s work became a major influence in Japanese com'mer- cial art and had a pronounced and lasting impact on Japanese visual and political culture. This abundantly illustrated volume, the first book-length study in English on Mavo, provides a critical evaluation of this often out- rageous and iconoclastic movement, tracing Mavo’s relationship, to broader developments in modernism worldwide. . * Gennifer Weisenfeld provides a fascinating look into Japanese popular culture-especially during the 1 920s-^as she shows how Mavo artists sought to transform Japanese art in response to the rTse of indus- -trialism. They deliberately created images that conveyed the feelings of crisis, peril, and uncertainty that were beginning to characterize daily life. Their art often alluded to mechanical environments with abstracted imagery such as interconnected tubular forms and shapes rem- iniscent of riveted steel girders. Looking in depth at the art itself, the flamboyant personalities of the artists, and the cultural and, political history of Japan in this inter- war period, Weisenfeld traces the strategies the Mavo group used as they sought to reintegrate art into daily experience. • ’ The book thoroughly documents the links between Mavo artists and a wide range of other artistic and politicall movements with which they associated them- selves, such as futurism, Dada, expressionism, social- ism, and communism. Capturing the restlessness and iconoclastic fervor of Mavo, Weisenfeld locates this modern Japanese artistic community for the first time fully within the broader historical and inteltectual frame- work of eafly-twentieth-century international art. MURPHY IMPRINT THE AHMANSON FOUNDATION has endowed this imprint to honor the memory of FRANKLIN D. MURPHY who for half a century served arts and letters, beauty and learning, in equal measure by shaping with a brilliant devotion those institutions upon which they rely. Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Millard Meiss Publication Fund of the College Art Association of America. MM The publisher also gratefully acknowledges the generous contribution to this book provided by The Publications Committee, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University by the Blakemore Foundation and by the Art Book Endowment Fund of the University of California Press, which is supported by a major gift from the Ahmanson Foundation. MAVO ™ "VV 1 1 JAPANESE ARTISTS AND THE AVANT-GARDE 1905-1931 GENNIFER WEISENFELD UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY LOS ANGELES LONDON University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2002 by the Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Weisenfetd, Gennifer S. (Gennifer Stacy), 1966- Mavo ; Japanese artists and the avant-garde, 1 905-1 931 / Gennifer Weisenfeld. p . cm .-(Ahmanson-Murphy fine arts imprint) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-520-22338-1 (cloth ; alk. paper) 1. Mavo (Group of artists). 2. Arts, Japanese-Japan-Tokyo- 20th century. 3. Murayama, Tomoyoshi, 1 901 -. 4. Dadaism- Influence. 5. Avant-garde (Aesthetics)-Japan-Tokyo-History- 20th century. I. Title. NX584.Z9 M3938 2002 709'.52'09042-dc21 2001002134 Printed and bound in Canada 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 10 987654321 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI / NISO Z39 0.48-1 992 (R 1 997) (Permanence of Paper).® TO MY PARENTS, SUSAN AND JEFFREY CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Introduction I Western-Style Painting in Japan: Mimesis, Individualism, and Japanese Nationhood II A Prehistory of Mavo 29 Anatomy of a Movement 63 The Aesthetics and Politics of Rebellion 123 The Mavo Artist and Japan’s Culture Industry 165 Theater, Theatricality, and the Politics of Pleasure 217 Epilogue; Laying Claim to Mavo’s Legacy 247 List of Illustrations 263 Notes 269 Bibliography 325 Index 353 HIS BOOK COULD NEVER HAVE BEEN BEGUN, MUCH less completed, without the encouragement and guidance of many people. While scholarly work is often a solitary endeavor, it is built on the foundation of relationships with teachers, colleagues, friends, and family. I feel extremely lortunate to have had such a wonderful group of people around me. While it is tempting to try to thank everyone who has in some way had an influence on the completion of this pro ject, I have undoubtedly overlooked many deserving people. I hope that they will take the appearance of this book as a to- ken of my thanks. Words cannot adequately express my appreciation for the enormous generosity of Omuka Toshiharu of the University of Tsukuba. Professor Omuka has been a great teacher and friend since I contacted him out of the blue almost a decade ago. I owe the completion of this book to his continued support. Similarly, Mizusawa Tsu- tomu, curator at the Museum ot Modern Art, Kama- kura, has been an invaluable guide and inspiration for this project. I cherish the time that I have been able to spend with them both and look forward to our future conversations. The intellectual stimulation and friendship of so many people in Japan contributed to the gestation of this work and I gratefully acknowledge them here: Otani Shogo of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Kato Hiroko, Seki Naoko, and Nozaki Tamiko of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; Takizawa Kyoji and Aoki Shigeru of the Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts; Okatsuka Akiko and Kaneko Ryuichi of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; Tan’o Yasunori, Shimura Shoko, Kawata Akihisa, Mashino Keiko, Yasumatsti Midori, and Takahashi Tomoko of Waseda University; Shimizu Isao; Yamanashi Toshio, Harada Hikaru, Nagato Seki, Sakai Tadayasu, Ota Yasuto, and Hashi Hidebumi ol the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura; Hijikata Meiji of the Ner- ima Ward Museum; Kitazawa Noriaki; Yamaryo Kenji; Watanabe Yumio of Asahi Shinbun; Kinoshita Naoyuki of Tokyo University; Ozaki Masato of the Itabashi Ward Museum; Ogi- hara Masamitsu of Kogakuin University; Kai Shigeru of the Yanase Masamu Study Group; the Yoneyama Family; Asaumi Wakaba; Egami Yasushi; Egami Mitsuko; and everyone at Fujin no Tomosha. I was extremely fortunate to have access to the personal papers of sev- eral Mavo and Sanka artists. For their trust and time I thank Murayama Ado, Yanase Nobuaki, Sumiya Iwane, Okamoto Sayako, Hijikata Yohei, Matsuoka Asako, Yoshida Kanoko, Maeda Ranko, Tsuchioka Shuichi, Ono Tomoko, Hama Motoki, Kambara Ryo, Shirato Sanpei, Takamizawa Junko, Nakahara Sen, Yoshida Yukiko, and Nakada Junko. My profound gratitude goes to both of my dissertation advisers at Princeton University, Yoshiaki Shimizu and Dorothea Dietrich, for their unflagging support and advice. In differ- ent and complementary ways, both have helped shape me as a scholar and a teacher. I am also grateful to Henry Smith, Christine Giith, Mimi Yiengpruksawan, Jonathan Reynolds, Bert Winther-Tamaki, Norman Bryson, Adam Kern, Marius Jansen, Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, Amy Ogata, Laura Coyle, April Masten, and Sally Mills for their encouragement and invaluable suggestions during various stages of this project. I hope that all of them will find the positive effects of their labors reflected in these pages. I would like to express my gratitude to Deborah Kirshman, Stephanie Fay, Jennie Sut- ton, Annie Decker, and Kathleen MacDotigall at the University of California Press for all their hard work during the preparation of the manuscript for publication. A special thanks goes to my wonderful colleagues and friends at Duke University who make it a pleasure to go to work every day. Research and writing for this book were generously supported by grants from the Ful- bright-IIE, the Social Science Research Council, the Blakemore Foundation, the Spears Fund, the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery, the Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies, and the Arts and Sciences Research Council at Duke University. Revision of the text was enabled by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Ed- win O. Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University. Much art-related material was lost during the turbulent times Japan experienced in the twentieth century, and so a great many of Mavo’s art works and performative activities are known now only through documentary photographs of the period. Moreover, most photo- graphic images that do survive are only available in their published form from newspapers and magazines, which means their reproduction quality is not high. I would, therefore, like to remind the reader that every effort has been made to secure the best possible images avail- able to illustrate the text, but sometimes the best images are dark or murky. Rather than omit large portions of the illustration program, I have chosen to include these lesser-quality im- ages for their documentary value in order to provide the most complete visual understand- ing of Mavo’s work. To assist in reading these images, I have supplied textual descriptions of their subject matter. I thank all of my dear friends for their love and kindness. Above all, I thank my husband, Derek Jones. This book is dedicated to my parents, Susan and Jeffrey, with whom my many hours of lively intellectual debate over coffee at diners in Brooklyn was, and is, always a joy. INTRODUCTION ■ HERE WAS A LOUD CRASH AS ROCKS SHATTERED I the glass roof of the Takenodai exhibition hall in H Ueno Park on the afternoon of August 28, 1923. Star- tled jury members, there to return works rejected for the Nika art association’s tenth annual exhibition, rushed outside to investigate. They were greeted by thirty or forty artists gathered in front of the hall, their returned art works displayed on all sides, some propped on park benches, others against trees.' A triangular red flag draped from the roof of the building proclaimed the sin- gle word Mavo. What was Mavo? And what had precipitated this un- usual disorderly outburst in Tokyo’s genteel art society? These questions provide an entree into the story of one of the most notorious art groups of the 1920s, whose ac- tivities, while less well-known today, are by no means forgotten. Mavo was a self-proclaimed avant-garde con- stellation of artists and writers collaborating in a dynamic and rebellious movement that not only shook up the art establishment, but also made an indelible imprint on the art criticism of the period. Mavo artists cast themselves as social critics, strategically fusing modernist aesthetics with leftist politics and serving as a central voice for cul- tural anarchism in intellectual debates. In the words of the art historian Nakamura Giichi, the Mavo artists, in their rebellion, sought "'consciously to put contradiction on the front page.”^ Mavo launched attacks, amply re- ported in the press, on the art establishment (gadan), conventional taste, and social mores. The term gadan refers to established societies for ex- hibiting art, and to officially or semi-officially sponsored INTRODUCTION art schools. It is a companion term to bundan (the literary establishment), also widely used at the time. Both terms, however, were applied to amorphous, highly porous communities that were not nearly as monolithic as their critics implied. Mavo artists used^Wtfw disdain- lully to express their perception of the institutional art system as entrenched, exclusive, and hierarchical. This adversarial group of young, largely self-trained outsiders, with little or no institutional social status, thus promoted themselves as an avant-garde, revolutionizing force in rhe Japanese art world of the early twentieth century. The original group had five members, the artists Murayama Tomoyoshi, Otira Shuzo, Yanase Masamu, Ogata Kamenosuke, and Kadowaki Shinro. But Mavo quickly expanded to a core of between ten and fifteen young artist- activists. Responding to the rapidly chang- ing conditions ol modern Japan, group members sought to revolutionize the form, func- tion, and intent ol Japanese art. They aimed to reestablish a connection they felt had been broken in the Meiji period (1868—1912), with the codification of autonomous “fine art” based on the Western model. While their work interrogated issues of aesthetics, subjectivity, and mimesis, Mavo artists principally championed the reintegration of art into the social (and political) practice of everyday life. A primary objective of this study is to examine how the group defined these realms of practice and engaged them in their work. I consider Mavo a Japanese manifestation of a worldwide avant-garde movement in the visual arts during the 1920s. Mavo artists, like their counterparts abroad, engaged in a great diversity of artistic activity, including magazine publication, art criticism, book illustration, poster design, dance and theatrical performances, and architectural projects. I highlight the group’s ideological and personal connections to international developments, while attend- ing to the distinct historical conditions of Japan during the dynamic period between the end of the Russo-Japanese war in 1905 and the beginning of Japan’s war in China in 1931. The entity designated “Mavo” was neither monolithic nor static. Like other arristic move- ments, Mavo appealed to individuals of varying interests and artistic prominence. Current assessments ol Mavo have been shaped by the evidence that remains. Those members who either wrote a lot or were written about a lot are heard most loudly today, particularly when visual evidence of their work does not survive. Another powerful mediator of the current as- sessment of Mavo was the conversion of some of the artists to Marxism in the late 1920s, af- ter which they engaged in harsh self-criticism and disavowed their Mavo activity as out of line with Marxist dogma. Murayama Tomoyoshi exemplifies how the Mavo artists worked to construct and preserve their public image. These factors make it difficult to recapture the original dynamics of the group’s participants. Generally recognized as Mavo’s leader, Murayama had a forceful and charismatic per- sonality, which enabled him to mobilize the group; at the same time, he drew tremendous inspiration from his collaborations with others. With a wealth of artistic and intellectual ex- periences gained from study in Germany that would give him significant cachet among young Japanese artists, he returned to Tokyo in 1923, where he asserted himself as the leader of Mavo, supplanting others vying for the position. He largely set the tone and the project for the group. In many ways, Mavo’s history revolves around Murayama’s own intellectual devel- opment and interests. An ardent believer in the socially transformative potential of innova- tive aesthetics, Murayama played a crucial role in the Japanese art world as cultural inter- preter, arbiter, rebel, and personality. Japanese artists like him who studied and selectively assimilated the modernist credo to suit their needs and the context in which they worked helped domesticate modernism in Japan. ^ But this is not a monograph on Murayama. It is a study of artistic collaboration. While each artist considered here may deserve a full study, I have chosen to focus on Mavo as a col- lective and collaborative enterprise. To be sure, all Mavo members made distinctive contri- butions to the group, but the project was also defined by the interaction and conflict en- gendered by the group’s activities. Most important, each member’s personal contacts helped form a diverse social network invaluable for pursuing Mavo’s project. Indeed, the function- ing of the entire Japanese artistic community relied on its human relationships — which crossed stylistic, ideological, and group lines to a surprising degree. After his return from Berlin, Murayama labeled his artistic theory “conscious construc- tivism” (ishikiteki koseishugi). Inspired by ideas derived from anarchism, Marxism, futurism, expressionism, dadaism, and constructivism, Murayama sought to construct a nonrepre- sentational image of modernity pertinent to the reality of daily life in Japan. Murayama felt that the complete social and creative liberation of the individual was the first step toward re- alizing this project. Mavo members collectively implemented Murayama’s theory, taking it from the realm of aesthetics to the world of radical politics. Modernity in Japan, as in the West, spawned a forceful counterculture of rebellion, anarchy, and alienation. Many adherents of this counterculture maintained an ambivalent relationship to the modern, seeing it as liberating yet alienating, dynamic yet chaotic, tech- nologically advanced yet exploitative and dehumanized, accessible to the public yet com- mercialized, international yet uncomfortably un-Japanese. Mavo artists chose to critique state and society as outsiders. They saw the destructiveness of their critical posture in dialectic re- lation to its constructive potential. In other words, for them, destructive acts were a form of constructive criticism. Mavo launched an openly disruptive campaign against establishment practices, justifying their activities in the name of the culture of the modern. Because of their passion for revolution and rebellion they were branded left-wing radicals. Western-style painting had been gradually naturalized in Japan since the mid-iSyos. By the 1920S it had become a domesticated and legitimate mode of native self-expression by Japanese artists, no longer perceived as problematic or foreign. Thus it would not have seemed INTRODUCTION ironic or inappropriate for Japanese artists in the 1920s to criticize each other tor not demon- sttating enough “self-expression” ( jiko hyogen) in their oil paintings. And it would not have been strange for Mavo intellectuals to delineate their avant-garde position in relation to do- mestic discourses of Western-style painting and modernist developments specific to Japan. But the designation of Mavo as an avant-garde movement begs the question of how to define modernism and the avant-garde in the Japanese context. In modern Western art, these two terms have been used in diverse and olten contradictory ways, making even more daunt- ing the task of defining their relevance to Japanese modern art in general and to Mavo specifically. As a working definition lor this discussion, modernism in Japan may be defined as the movement of art for art’s sake — or, autonomous art, which in Japanese was often called “pure art” { junsei/junsui bijiitsu). Thus, modernism in Japanese art embraced aestheticism and subjectivity, focusing on pictorial technique and eschewing mimesis in order to make apparent the role of the artist in the production of art. Scholars have argued against applying the term “modernist” to early-twentieth-century Japanese art because Japan lacked a matrix for modernism; they declare that the country had no mimetic tradition and that artistic production there was never separated from social prac- tice. But by the early modern period both mimesis and empiricism are identifiable concerns in so-called traditional Japanese art forms such as ink painting and prints. Yet more impor- tant to consider than just the evidence of mimesis and empiricism is specifically the histor- ical development of Western-style painting (yoga ox yofuga) in Japan and the discourse out of which it emerged. Mimetic representation in Western-style painting was known from the study of imported Dutch texts (rangakti) and the copying of Dutch painting (ranga) in the mid-Toktigawa period.'^ In fact, the perception that Western-style painting faithfully repre- sented visual experience was one of its most compelling features for the Japanese. Given the concern for shajitsu (reproduction of reality) and the widespread practice of shasei (sketch- ing from life), there is a strong argument that early modern Japanese art did indeed em- phasize reptesentation and imitation of nature, at least within the circumscribed discourse of Western-style painting.^ It is also clear that this emphasis was greatly enhanced in the late nineteenth century in Japanese artists’ attention to European academicism. A modernist pro- clivity is strongly apparent among artists active in the 1910s, who defined their gestures to- ward pure expressivity as antinaturalist (hishizenshugi), validating their subjective vision. Moreover, as Kitazawa Noriaki has eloquently argued, the Western-derived notion of au- tonomous fine art (bijutsu) began to take hold in Japan around the late 1870s; by the 1920s, bijutsu was a fully assimilated cultural value espoused by a range of intellectuals.^ Mavo’s art falls both inside and outside the category of modernism but is solidly avant- garde. Several Japanese scholars have argued for jettisoning the term “avant-garde” altogether, either because of its distinct historical origins in the Western context or because zenei (the common Japanese translation for avant-garde) was not a term the attists themselves employed. Some scholars have wanted to substitute the phrase shinko geijutsu undo (new art movement), but this is so broad a designation as to have no defining character at all. ' In relation to Mavo, I have chosen to retain the terms “modernism” and “avant-garde” as heuristic tools. I believe that the aesthetic and sociopolitical concerns defined by these terms are still valuable for in- terpretive purposes and for characterizing the mtiltiple facets of Mavo’s project. Peter Burger, in his provocative study Theory of the Avant-Garde, articulates criteria for evaluating avant-gardist activity and differentiates between modernism and the avant-garde. Burger argues that modernist artists severed themselves from social relevance by maintain- ing the autonomy of art and by focusing on aesthetics and subjectivity. In contrast, the proj- ect of the avant-garde artist is a “liquidation of art as an activity that is split off from the praxis of life.” For Burger, the avant-garde artist is one who understands the social status and role of art and attempts to alter its institutionalization.*^ Recognizing modernism and the avant-garde as fluid categories, Burger still tries to sep- arate them by creating subcategories that leave few artists within the avant-garde — and leave scholars frustrated. My own analysis of Mavo artists reveals that they in fact occupy both camps simultaneously. It also reveals that Mavo’s project was to eradicate the art establish- ment itself and reinvent the Japanese art world as a generative soutce of art. Mavo artists re- belled against the gadan, which places them squarely within Burger’s avant-garde category. Mavo’s project of integrating art into the praxis of daily life was made easier by the emer- gence in modern Japan of a sizable literate and culture-consuming middle class, a mass au- dience to whom the artists could promote theit experience of the modern. With the sup- port of newspapers, publishing companies, and department stores, Mavo artists attempted to transform the relationship between art practice, art production, and the everyday condi- tions of modernity. On that August day in Ueno Park in 1923, the seemingly spontaneous outburst by tejected Mavo artists was actually a carefully planned public protest against the Nika art association, announced beforehand to the ptess to ensure proper media coverage. Though the Nika judges unanimously rejected all Mavo submissions to their annual show, in fact they had not been sure what to make of Mavo’s “constructions.” One press account noted somewhat incredulously the rusty tea canister affixed to one Mavo piece. Disgusted, the judges suggested that the dirty object be thrown away.^ Mavo quickly mobilized to protest this affront and denounce the jury publicly, staging a demonstration to “welcome” the re- jected Nika works. The Mavo plan was to catry the rejected art works out of the park to the downtown district of Shinbashi to the accompaniment of a brass band. The journal Yorozu choho called this event the first art-related protest demonstration in Japan.'® As Mavo demonstrators left the park, however, the Ueno police stopped their procession, taking several of them, including Murayama, who had been identified as the ring leader, into custody. Though accounts vary, authorities demanded a formal apology, on the grounds that Mavo’s demonstration violated the Police Peace Preservation Law (Chian Keisatsuho), which proscribed public protest gatherings of any kind. Murayama, however, publicly pledged be- fore the press that Mavo would continue such activities and would expand the scope of the protest.'' The pronouncement illustrates Murayama’s defiant character and love of show- manship. His effective use of the theatrical amplified Mavo’s message. I use the term “theatrical” here both to signify the self-conscious dramatization of any ac- tion or utterance and as a synonym for performativity, defined as drawing a viewer inro an artist’s work and relying on spectatorship for the work’s completion. To borrow a technical term from J. L. Austin’s speech-act theory, artists manifest performativity in the “illocutionary force” of their writings (or in this case, images) and actions — that is, in combining art with social practice. The effectiveness of Mavo’s provocation hinged on the audience’s response (what Austin would call the “perlocutionary” consequence): preferably discomfort and con- fusion, followed by self-awareness.'^ Mavo artists constructed identities that were meant to be enacted in a public arena for mass consumption. Their identity as radical artists depended on the social and moral conventions of their audience. Mavo artists opposed pure aestheticism and expressionism, whose literary and artistic pro- ponents advocated self-cultivation as the means to achieve social significance. The Mavo proj- ect confronted the state bureaucracy, which served the emperor and imperial concerns (and, not incidentally, sponsored the official art academy). Mavo artists participated in the evolv- ing mass consumer culture. They questioned the dominant discourses on gender and sexu- ality through performarive cross-dressing and by affirming a personal quest fot pleasure as a crucial component of individual rights. Chapter i discusses the development of Western-style painting in Japan to illuminate how Mavo constructed its artistic posture in response to its predecessors. I examine the evolving social role of art and the artist from the time when the Japanese nation-state was established to assess the imputed significance of yoga in relation to issues of representation, individual- ism, and nationhood up through the lateTaisho period, when Mavo appeared. In chapter 2, I locate the origins of the Mavo movement in the union of two new forces in Japanese Western-style art: the Japanese Futurist Art Association and the self-proclaimed interpreter of European modernism, Murayama Tomoyoshi. My discussion includes short biographical accounts of Mavo artists and a consideration of the personal relationships be- tween them. This approach not only reveals the underlying reasons for the association of these diverse individuals but also identifies many of Mavo’s aesthetic and theoretical foun- dations in Japanese futurism. To convey the full range of artistic dialogue, I include a brief account of Japanese artists studying abroad and foreign artists who spent time in Japan. The chapter explores Murayama Tomoyoshi’s pre-Mavo study in Germany and its significance lor his later artistic development and explains the basic tenets of his theory of “conscious constructivism.” Chapter 3 chronicles the formation of Mavo and its activities — exhibition practices, the publication of Mavo magazine, art criticism, book illustration, poster design, dance, the- atrical performances, and architectural projects — as well as contemporary critical responses to Mavo’s activities. I also discuss Mavo’s public demonstrations against the art establish- ment and its collaboration with other artists’ groups, such as the radical association known as Sanka (the Third Section). Chapter 4 analyzes Mavo’s aesthetic and sociopolitical strategies. I demonstrate how in its art works and theoretical writings the group self-consciously invented a rebellious iden- tity, characterized by a bellicose tone and incendiary rhetoric. Chapters 3 and 4, moreover, address the impact on Mavo of the Great Kanto Earthquake, which devastated Tokyo on September i, 1923. In a sense, the upheaval immediately following the earthquake allowed the Mavo movement to flower, for Mavo artists were presented with an unprecedented op- portunity to participate in the physical and intellectual reconstruction of the Japanese capital. In chapter 5 , 1 address Mavo artists’ active participation in the construction of a Japanese mass consumer culture as a defining element of their strategy to integrate art and daily life. Group members exploited new technologies and market systems at the same time that they openly mocked and perverted them. Although the arenas of fine art and mass culture are of- ten seen as discrete or even adversarial, they in fact influence and often sustain each other. For example, the growth in culture-related publishing enterprises in Japan created a profitable market for art criticism and generated a new category of art writing focused on the activi- ties and personalities of artists. The “art journalism industry” provided a forum for theatri- calizing artistic practice and performing the artist’s public persona. In examining Mavo art practice, I reveal the fluid boundaries between flne art, mass circulation print culture, com- mercial design, and the new consumer spaces of modern Japan. Chapter 6 examines the inherently theatrical and performative nature of Mavo’s artistic activity, focusing on the strong connection between Japanese modern dance and theater and Mavo’s public “happenings,” demonstrations, and stage performances. Mavo artists saw daily life as an arena that could be manipulated or “staged” like theater; they turned the popular press and the street into stages for their actions. In this chapter, I also explore the relation- ship between theatricality and the modern Japanese artist’s cultivation of a public persona. Mavo’s theatrical expressionism was significant socially and politically because it served as a means for asserting desire and seeking self-satisfaction, flying in the face of critics who deemed any kind of exptessive individualism symptomatic of a rampant hedonism. Mavo artists employed the body as an expressive tool linking art and desire. Through INTRODUCTION their theatrical gender-blurring eroticism and association of art making with autoerotic ac- tivity, they resisted the Japanese state’s zealous efforts to anathematize desire by sanctioning sex only as a procreative act. By claiming the right of self-definition, the group exposed the hegemonic impulse underlying the state’s designation of what was normal and what was perverse. In rhis book the construction ol Japanese national culture is seen as a bartleground, both in discourse and in praxis. Arrists and those who dealt with art — educators, bureaucrats, dealers, collectors, and publishers — were agents in the formation of modernity in Japan. Al- though artists are roo often omitted from sociopolitical studies of the Japanese intelligentsia, here they gain their rightful place in the debates of the early twentieth century. We$t0rn«Styl# Painting In Japan MIMESIS, INDIVIDUALISM, AND JAPANESE NATIONHOOD M AVO’S PREDECiSSORS HAD BEEN ENGAGED IN A DISCOURSE ON WESTERN-STYLE painting (yoga) even before the inception of the Meiji state. Two core issues in this half-century-long debate were how to define the purpose of art and what role to assign the artist in modern Japanese society. These were not isolated issues; art and the artist were seen as deeply engaged in evolving conceptions of individualism, national identity, and culture, as well as the concerns more specific to Western-style painting, such as mimesis. Mavo joined into a complex and ongoing dialogue of artists, art theorists, and art bureaucrats, all trying to adapt to the rapidly changing sociopolitical context of Japanese culture. By the early 1920s, when Mavo artists stepped into the fray, the Japanese state had at- tained sufficient stability and international economic parity to allow its intelligentsia to fo- cus on more personal concerns. Mavo’s project built on this emerging affirmation of the au- tonomous and unfettered individual, inherently a social being but nonetheless obliged to put the self first. By emphasizing self-awareness as an integral part of social awareness, Mavo inextricably linked individual and social concerns. Because “society” and the state were in- creasingly seen as distinct and sometimes even at odds, the artist was encouraged to main- tain a critical stance toward both domains, thus allowing, it was thought, a more discrimi- nating assessment of modernity in Japan. Mavo group members, following the anti-academic trend of a preceding generation ol artists, eschewed the mimetic representational function of Western-style art. They seized in- WESTERN-STYLE stead on expressionism, dadaism, and constructivism as tools to revolutionize Japanese artis- tic production and practice — their goal was to connect art more directly to everyday mod- ern lile. Yoga in the Meiji Period In the immediate post-Restoration period, with its “sell-improvement movement” and credo of risshin shnsse (success in life), the Meiji government sought to develop Japan technologi- cally and economically by encouraging individual achievement in the service of the nation.* Many early Meiji artists and bureaucrats actively promoted art for its practical, educative, or commercial value; officials in Kyoto, for example, introduced the slogan “Enrich the coun- try through the arts” (bijutsii fiikoku)} Already in the late Tokugawa period, yoga had been identified as a potentially useful tool for government purposes. Because it represented the nat- ural world more “accurately” than traditional Japanese art forms, yoga appeared to be more scientihc and utilitarian. To support the study ot Western-style art along with other practical subjects, the Tokugawa government established the Institute for Western Learning (Yogakusho) in 1855, renaming it the Institute for the Study of Barbarian Documents (Bansho Shirabesho) the following yeat.^ Artists were able to examine reproductions of Western works of art in an institutional setting, albeit without guidance or instruction. Preeminently concerned with transforming Japan into a modern nation, the Meiji oli- garchy loLinded the Technological Art School (Kobu Bijutsu Gakko) in 1876 as the first official art school in Japan for the study oi yoga. According to its constitution, the art school was founded “for the purpose of transplanting the techniques of modern Western art to original Japanese art as an aid to Japanese artists”; its mission was to teach “theoretical and technical aspects of modern Western art in order to supplement what is lacking in Japanese art and to build up the school to the same level as the best art academies in the West by studying the trends of realism.”^ Three Italian artists were hired to teach at the new art school: Antonio Fontanesi (paint- ing), Vincenzo Ragusa (sculpture), and Giovanni Cappelletti (drawing and the principles of geometry and perspective). Most yoga artists had their first experience with Western artis- tic pedagogy at the Technological Art School. The driving force behind the curriculum was Fontanesi, a well-known landscape painter in Italy and professor at the Royal Academy of I’urin. He admired the Barbizon school, particularly Jean-Baptiste Corot, Charles Francois Daubigny, and August Francois Ravier. Even more than in the work of the Barbizon painters, Fontanesi’s paintings relied heavily on somber pigments and indistinct delineation of forms; he transmitted these qualities to his students, who worked in resin-colored tones, often pro- ducing solemn and even lugubrious works. Fontanesi defined the academic terms for “Western art,” stipulating a uniform technique applied to predetermined pictorial and thematic paradigms, with little stress on innovation and originality. Fontanesi emphasized naturalism, like that in the works of Jean-Fran^ois Millet and Jules Breton, along with conventional portraiture and landscape painting. Aca- demic training at the Technological Art School conditioned Japanese artists to seek similar teaching environments when they traveled abroad.^ This unilateral introduction to academic Western-style painting reinforced the already strong Japanese valuation oi yoga for its verisimilitude. One of the most influential propo- nents oi yoga in the early Meiji period, Takahashi Yuichi, explained its appeal: “I happened to see a Western lithograph in the possession of one of my friends and found it so astonish- ingly lifelike and attractive that I made up my mind then and there to study the Western style ol painting.”^ Takahashi believed that Western-style painting’s shashin (representation of truth) allowed the painter to grasp and thereby comprehend the “substance” and “logic” of the material world, which in turn provided access to “the secrets of creation.” But, as Taka- hashi stated in his memoirs, in order to yoga, he needed to “cleanse [his] dirty spirit” and, Flaga Torn surmises, “cut away within himself whatever had gone bad in traditional aesthetics. . . . [This was] a conscious, radical remaking of himself Thus Takahashi expressed the partial self-repudiation implicit in the Westernizing impetus propelling social and cul- tural development in the early Meiji period. During the first decade following the Meiji Restoration, there was a torrent of enthusi- asm ior yoga, as for many new things from the West, such as pocket watches and bowler hats. But countermeasures to Western influence arose with the growing fear in the i88os that in- discriminate importing of things Western would efface Japan’s “national culture.” The Dragon Pond Society (Ryuichikai), founded in 1879, promoted connoisseurship of traditional Japa- nese arts and inaugurated the system of designating national cultural treasures that is still in place today. The society’s members included the president of the National Industrial Arts Exhibition, Kawase Flideharu, and the vice president, Sano Tsunetami, as well as the promi- nent bureaucrat Kuki Ryuichi, who later became head of exhibitions at the Imperial Mu- seum (Teishitsu Flakubutsukan), which was established in 1889. The society was named the Japan Art Association (Nihon Bijutsu Kyokai) in 1887 and continued to be a major force in the Japanese art world on and off well into the postwar period. The hostility engendered among nationalist-oriented intellectuals spilled over into the public debate about the value of a Westernized culture versus an “authentic” Japanese culture and eventually played a major role in the configuration of the art establishment. In the late 1870s, a group of artists and art connoisseurs, concerned by what they saw as a pre- cipitous erosion of Japanese culture, sought to revitalize so-called traditional forms. One of their proposals was to adopt chiaroscuro shading and perspectival rendering in traditional WESTERN-STYLE PAINTING IN JAPAN styles of painting with ink and opaque pigments. Called nihonga (Japanese-style painting), the new movement vied with yoga for cultural preeminence, members of each group argu- ing that they alone worked for the good of the nation. Okakura Tenshin, a prominent ide- ological leader of nihonga, established the Japan Painting Association (Nihon Kaiga Kyokai) in 1896; two years later, the membership of this artists’ group became the core of the Japan Art Academy (Nihon Bijutsuin), opened under Okakura’s direction as the central institu- tion for instructing and promoting nihonga.^ By the 1880s, the radical change in the political tide had also altered the balance of power between yoga and nihonga. Yoga became increasingly suspect and after 1882 was excluded from Japanese pavilions at international expositions. Moreover, the great popularity of “tra- ditional” Japanese crafts (kogei) that began with the 1873 Vienna exposition led bureaucrats to emphasize crafts and painting in ink and opaque pigments owev yoga. While was ex- hibited at domestic fairs sponsored by the Ministry of Industry and Agriculture, these na- tional industrial arts expositions were designed to promote Japanese industry and treated painting and crafts like other industrial products, not like cultural artifacts.^ In 1882 the gov- ernment sponsored its first national painting exhibition, but yoga was intentionally omitted and nihonga promoted. Only in 1900 at the Paris exposition wzs yoga fully introduced into international exhibitions. In 1887, the newly founded Tokyo School of Fine Arts (where Okakura served as director) initially refused to include in its curriculum. Although West- ern-style painting persisted in private studios, the official art establishment began to recog- nize the movement only when xheyoga artist Kuroda Seiki returned from France in 1893. In 1894, the Tokyo School of Fine Arts began teaching two years later, a full section de- voted to Western-style painting was added, with Kuroda in charge. Before Kuroda’s return, the majority oi yoga painters justified their own work and West- ern-style art by defending its accurate portrayal of the external world. Kuroda was one of the first artists, and certainly one of the most influential, who tried systematically to com- municate some of the philosophical underpinnings of Western painting to Japanese artists. Having studied with Raphael Collin at the Academie Colarossi in Paris, Kuroda was exposed to a strong dose of French academicism. But unlike some of his academic colleagues who pursued allegorical historicism, Collin stressed painting en plein air {gaiko in Japanese) and integrated into academic representational modes an impressionist’s response to the outdoors. At the same time, he explored a contemplative realm and a lyrical response to nature.*® The powerful political position of Kuroda’s family and the more receptive mood of the Japanese art establishment by the early 1890s enabled Kuroda to launch a full-scale re- naissance in Japan.** In addition to teaching at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, Kuroda, with his distinguished social standing, helped legitimate painting as a vocation for the intelligentsia. As Kitazawa Noriaki has argued, Kuroda, inspired by the high social standing of artists in 1 Kuroda Seiki, Maiko Dancing Girl (Maiko), 1 893, Oil on canvas, 80.5 x 65.4 cm. Tokyo National Museum. France, was instrumental in transforming the social identity of modern Japanese artists from artisans with technical skills (gako) to fine artists (geijiitsuka/bijutsuka), full-fledged intellec- tuals who could express their individual impressions of the world. In the early Meiji period, being an artist was not considered a valid vocation for the intelligentsia. The Meiji elite, feel- ing that their sons should pursue a more dignified and serviceable profession, endorsed artis- tic activity and study abroad only insofar as they “civilized and enlightened” the nation, thereby facilitating Japan’s campaign for national development. Art work produced during study abroad was categorized as belonging to practical studies (jitstigaku), along with other technical skills, and was not appreciated for its inherent philosophical or aesthetic value. The work of Kuroda, because of his lyrical approach to painting, which matched tradi- tional Japanese poetic sensibilities, was particularly well received at home (Fig. i). The lighter, purplish palette of the works of Kuroda and his followers, exhibited in the newly founded White Horse Society (Hakubakai), appealed more to Japanese viewers than the darker, resin- 2 Asai Chu, Harvesf (Shukaku), 1890. Oil on canvas, 70 x 98.3 cm. Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. colored hues of the joga artists who exhibited with the Meiji Art Society (Meiji Bijutsukai), who were predominantly heirs to Fontanesi’s method (Fig. 2).^^ True to his classical academic training, Kuroda depicted mythological or allegorical scenes that departed sharply from the images of modern life favored by the European impression- ists. FFis pastoral genre scenes acknowledge a psychological interiority and a poetic yearning for Arcadia, and are differentiated from the classical Western academic landscape only be- cause the figures are transmuted into Japanese women in kimonos. Kuroda’s paintings have been credited with stimulating a psychological introversion (naikoka) that came to be specifically associated with the Western-style artist ( yogaka)}^ Idis “dreamscape” images bore no resemblance to the reality of his urban surroundings, nor did they address daily life in the rapidly changing Tokyo environment. Instead, Kuroda adopted themes from Japanese history and legends, set in familiar landscapes, in an attempt to naturalize his French aca- demic style. He considered his main mission to civilize and enlighten Japan in the image of French high culture for the benefit of the Japanese nation-state (kokka). Kuroda’s attitude was reinforced by his experiences in France where, as Miriam Levin has pointed out, ideo- logues of the Third Republic viewed art and art pedagogy as means to foster national edu- cation and ensure industrial prosperity. In 1907, a group ol concerned Japanese bureaucrats, led by the just-appointed Minister of Education Makino Nobuaki, convinced of the educational value of art and art exhibi- tions inspired by contact with European state cultural policies, established an officially spon- sored national exhibition based on the French Salon. The Bunten, destined to be a strong force in the development of Japanese modern art, exhibited three categories of art: yoga, ni- honga, and sculpture. (The term “Bunten” is an acronym for the title of the Ministry of Ed- ucation’s art exhibition, Monbusho Bijutsu Tenrankai.) Through official use at the Bunten the term bijutsu (fine arts) came to designate painting and sculpture as the specific realm of the visual arts (shikaku geijutsu). A neologism, bijutsu had come into common use only at the time of the 1873 exposition in Vienna; the term distinguished fine arts within the broader category oi geijutsu (the arts), which included crafts and the decorative arts.^^ The inaugu- ration of the Bunten marked the beginning of a national art collection. By supporting those artists recognized by the exhibition judges, the Bunten would serve as the central institution for evaluating and sanctioning art as well as educating the public. From the onset, the exhi- bition, held in Ueno Park, drew tremendous crowds. In 1912, attendance reached an un- precedented 161,805; most other public exhibitions of the time drew attendance only in the thousands. Kuroda Seiki’s views were consonant with the bureaucratic, nationalist social agenda rep- resented by the Bunten and other state initiatives, but his influence was not due solely to this similarity in ideology. Aesthetically, his dreamy and sentimental tableaux also struck a chord with the Japanese public. ITis work harmonized with and promoted the romanticism that emerged in Japanese art and literature in the late 1880s. It peaked with the nationalis- tic fervor roused by the Sino- and Russo-Japanese wars (between 1894-1895 and 1904-1905). Kuroda’s students from hisTenshin Academy (Tenshin Dojo) were inspired by romanticism; the paintings they exhibited with the White Horse Society were sentimental genre and his- torical scenes evoking strong emotions.'^ But then many nihonga painters associated with Okakura’s Japan Art Academy (most notable was Hishida Shunso) also injected a strong ro- mantic emotionalism into their work, paralleling the developments in the White Horse So- ciety even though the two societies were often at odds institutionally. Reproductions of works by Western artists involved in symbolism and art nouveau clearly encouraged this trend. Among Kuroda’s students, Aoki Shigeru (1882-1911) crystallized the romantic movement in the visual arts, according to Kawakita Michiaki.'^ Like Kuroda, Aoki employed a soft pas- tel palette, but rendered his forms indistinctly, like blurry, academic underpainting (Fig. 3). Aoki took up history painting and, fueled by his intense interest in Japanese romantic liter- ature, adopted Japanese myths and legends, such as those in the eighth-century Kojiki 3 Aoki Shigeru, The Tenpyo Era (Tenpyo jidai), 1 904. Oil on canvas, 46 x 76.5 cm. Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo. 4 Aoki Shigeru, Self-Portrait (Jigazo), 1 903. Oil on canvas, 80.5 x 60.5 cm. Ishibashi Museum of Art, Ishibashi Foundation, Kurume. (Records of Ancient Matters), to express his emotional response to Japan as a nation and the abundance and beauty of nature itself Aoki’s depictions of heroic Japanese historical figures lauded the Japanese nation-state and the achievements of the Japanese people. But unlike Kuroda, whose main mission was to serve the nation and communicate an all-embracing philosophy, Aoki emphasized individual artistic expression and personal identity. His fasci- nation with subjectivity and interiority, and decidedly secondary concern with realistic rep- resentation, are eloquently expressed in his many haunting expressionistic self-portraits (Fig. 4). In this respect, his work, and that of the other romantic artists, served as a bridge to the postwar era of individualistic expression. Art, Individualism, and Self-Expression In the late Meiji period following the Russo-Japanese war (1904—1905), Japan experienced what Jay Rubin has identified as a “release from a total devotion to the national mission.”^® Economic hardship plus disappointment with the Treaty of Portsmouth, which stripped Japan of some of its war-won territory in northern China, inflamed a resentful and disillusioned populace that expressed its indignation at an antipeace demonstration in Hibiya Park.^^ De- spite this discontent, however, the general sentiment was that Japan had achieved its goal of national independence, and the sense of urgency over achieving parity with Western pow- ers abated. This trend had profound implications for the intelligentsia’s perception of what should be the individual’s social role. Gradually there was a shift from the early Meiji con- ception of the link between individual success and familial and national prosperity to an emphasis on individual concerns with personal, social, and economic success, irrespective of family or state. Moreover, the emphasis on inward directedness that developed sanctioned the cultivation of the “autonomous self” An individual’s exploration of psychological inte- riority, subjectivity, and self-expression was now acceptable. In order to distinguish these new attitudes from nationalistic individualism, Henry Smith calls the postwar shift a move- ment of “self-concerned” individualism.^^ In the 1890s, a loose association of writers began to explore a new discursive space, defined by the individual’s putative daily experiences. These writers, referred to as the naturalists, cham- pioned an unmediated presentation of the experience of the individual — in an “authentic” voice. A strong sense of the oppressiveness and conformity of Meiji society also surfaced, prompting a retreat to a more private arena of greater sexual and emotional autonomy.^^ Although the novelist and renowned proponent of individualism Natstime Soseki re- mained on the periphery of the naturalist movement, he addressed many of the questions raised by naturalism. Like the naturalists, he found the promotion of mans individualism deeply alienating. He saw this cultural shift as precipitating a collective nervous breakdown among the Japanese intelligentsia, rather than offering freedom from social constraints. Like other intellectuals of the late Meiji period, Soseki recognized the problem ol the individual’s alienation in modern society but felt that the trend was irreversible and that there was no returning to a premodern consciousness. Soseki came into public conflict with the govern- ment in 1911 because of his negative response to the Ministry of Education’s establishing a Committee on Literature, which he criticized as the state’s unprogressive attempt to counter naturalism so that it could promote its own view of a “wholesome” (kenzen) literature. State authorities were troubled by the natutalists’ assertion ol individual autonomy, see- ing the social consequences and political ramifications as potentially dangerous. Japanese na- tionhood was predicated on a tacit agreement by individuals, society, and the state to main- tain consistent goals. The thought of each imperial subject establishing goals separate from those of the state seriously threatened national security. Bureaucrats, who had warily sup- ported the liberation of the individual in the hope of harnessing the resulting energy tor official objectives, could not sanction a divisive movement promoting absolute individual autonomy. The total retreat from society proposed by the naturalists threatened the very fabric of Japanese nationhood. Eventually, Japanese authorities allowed naturalist writers to retreat into an apolitical realm, warning them to avoid in their works any criticism of daily life that might be construed as an indictment of the state. Censors remained alert to any- thing socially subversive or inconsistent with the moral imperatives of the state. The issues that had prompted intense soul-searching by writers evoked a similar response among visual artists. Influenced by information about anti-academic trends in France brought back by traveling artists after the turn of the century, younger Japanese artists began to per- ceive academicism as passe. They searched for a new, more relevant mode of artistic expres- sion and questioned the pedagogical and aesthetic foundations of academic training and the art establishment. An appreciation of post-impressionism and expressionism in Europe, com- bined with the pervasive influence of the naturalists, inspired a new individualism that as- serted the primacy of self-expression ( jiko hyogen) and the centrality of the autonomous in- dividual in art. Some intellectuals, profoundly influenced by the naturalists’ advocacy of individualism and individual experience, strongly criticized their relentless preoccupation with the dark side of human experience as well as their refusal to attempt to improve their lot. The artists and writers associated with the White Birch Society (Shirakaba-ha), which published the general arts periodical Shirakaba, epitomized this more positive attitude, and their opinions resonated widely.^^ While the naturalist writers were perceived as retreating from public life and social responsibility into a morass of negativity, Shirakaba-ha members were generally more optimistic about the individual’s ability to improve society. Undoubtedly, class differences affected the outlooks of these two groups. Unlike the nat- iiralists, who for the most part were second sons of former samurai who themselves had been displaced socially and financially by changes during the Meiji Restoration, Shirakaba-ha mem- bers were all from privileged aristocratic families and had attended the elite Peer’s School (Gakushuin). Buoyed by the advocacy of individual rights in the Western theories of democ- racy and liberalism, though equally disenchanted with political realities, Shirakaba-ha mem- bers, unlike the naturalists, espoused personal cultivation as a legitimate social goal."^ Be- lieving that all could better themselves through education, Shirakaba-ha members viewed individual growth as a means to a more et]uitable society. In the work of the Shirakaba-ha, the struggle for self-cultivation was transformed from a retreatist, world-denying attitude to a heroic gesture of the individual genius to improve society. Shirakaba-ha members emphasized the expression of emotion and intuition, par- ticularly in response to nature. Their goal was to extract and express the aesthetic qualities of life. Both the neo-Kantian thought popular in Japan at the time and the Japanese Chris- tian movement fueled their conceptions. Several members were initially involved with Chris- tianity as followers of Uchimura Kanzo (1861—1930), one of the foremost Christian thinkers in Japan. Uchimura developed the concept of a “non-church” ( miikyokai) form of Chris- tianity and combined neo-Confucianism and bushido (the way of the warrior) morality with libertarian individualism to produce a deeply ambivalent philosophy that oscillated between nationalism and pacificism, fatalism and free will.^'* Christians among the Shirakaba-ha claimed that through Christian dogma and its definition of the relationship between God and man they had discovered a new psychological and spiritual interiority.^' Their particu- lar Christianity included an element of utopian socialism, which was adopted into Shira- kaba-ha thought as an egalitarian ideal, as well as an antagonism toward militarism and state imperialism abroad. Not only was Shirakaba the organ for a wide-reaching and influential literary movement, but it also played a major role in introducing and disseminating information about Euro- pean art. The magazine strongly encouraged the shift already under way from an interest in academicism to a new preoccupation with impressionism, post-impressionism, and expres- sionism. The Shirakaba-ha supported artists rejected from the Bunten by sponsoring its own yoga ^dalon des refuses’ (rakusenten) in 1911. Many of the rejected artists had recently returned from study in Paris and were working in nonacademic styles. The following year, a number of these same artists were accepted into the Bunten, where the display of their work expanded that organization’s aesthetic boundaries. C. Louis Hind’s widely read book The Post-Impressionists (1911), with its explication of post-impressionism under the rubric of expressionism, shaped the way Japanese thinkers viewed Cezanne, Gauguin, Rodin, and Van Gogh, to name just a lew of the most popular European artists. No longer concerned with mimetic representation or historical and al- WESTERN-STYLE legorical themes, the post-impressionists were viewed as the consummate icons of the cult of the self The subjective vision in their work appealed to Japanese artists also struggling to- ward self-expression. These European artists became heroes to the Japanese, for they exem- plified a heroic struggle similar to that expressed by the Shirakaba-ha theorist Mushanokoji Saneatsu: “I only understand myself 1 only do my work; I only love myself Everyone else, even my parents, my brother, my master, my friends, my beloved, are enemies to my grow- ing self Hated though I am, despised though I am, I go my own way.”^^ The Shirakaba-ha had several counterparts in the visual arts. A short-lived gathering of artists under the title of the Fusain, or Sketch Society (Fyuzan-kai), was among the first pub- licly to assert the philosophical and stylistic imperatives of individualism, generally oppos- ing Bunten institutionalism.^^ Resenting the authoritarianism of official public exhibitions, Fusain artists demanded greater stylistic and thematic autonomy and the ability to judge their own works. Similarly, in 1914, a group oiyoga artists formally withdrew from partici- pation in the Bunten after unsuccessfully petitioning to divide the yoga section into two cat- egories, called ikka and nika (for older and newer artistic idioms); they wanted what they perceived as different stylistic trends to be judged separately. Called Nika-kai (the Associ- ation of the Second Section), the secessionist group went on to become the largest and most influential independent exhibiting society of so-called progressive artists. A number of other similarly minded coteries also formed around this time, and artists often exhibited in sev- eral different groups at once. A strong autobiographical quality characterized the work of many Nika artists. Art and art making had become a mirror of the individual’s spirit and personality, and a means by which artists could analyze themselves as the subject. The striking preponderance of self- portraits produced by such artists as Kishida Ryusei, Arishima Ikuma, Umehara Ryuzaburo, Yamashita Shintaro, and Yasui Sotaro, among others, attests to their great “self-concern” (Figs. 5—6). Many Nika artists believed the viewer could judge the artist’s personal authenticity based on the art works’ expression of sentiment and experience. Like the naturalist writ- ers, Nika artists believed in the need to reveal the truth of one’s experiences — no matter how painful the result — a belief that left the artist to contend with the dual “burden of authen- ticity and individuality.”^^ Nika artists, like members of the Shirakaba-ha, implicitly grappled with the problem of uncoupling the individual from the state, seeking to establish the primacy of subjectivity and self-expression in the arts as well as promoting their social value. Responding to the still dominant discourse of academicism and representational art in yoga circles, Shirakaba-ha member Takamura Kotaro, a well-known artist, poet, and critic, articulated a credo that echoed the sentiments of his contemporaries. In line with Soseki’s statement that “art begins with the expression of rhe self and ends with the expression of the self,”^^ Takamura penned 6 Umehara Ryuzaburo, Self-Portrait {J'lgazo), 1911, Oil on canvas, 72.7 x 60.7 cm. Collection National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. 5 KIshIda Ryusei, Self-Portrait {Jlgazo), 1913. Oil on canvas, 44.5 x 36.5 cm. Collection National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. ii.Mov ' l< 1 M WESTERN-STYLE PAINTING IN JAPAN the now famous essay “Green Sun” (Midori iro no taiyo), published in Subaru in 1910.^° Takamura took Kuroda’s lyrical response to nature one step further by arguing for an en- tirely expressionistic response that need not relate to the appearance of the natural world: I am seeking absolute freedom in art. I recognize the infinite authority of the artist’s personality. In every sense I want to think of art from the viewpoint of one single hu- man being, and I want to evaluate a work by starting horn consideration of the person- ality as it is and not to admit a great number of doubts. If I tbink of something as blue and someone else sees it as red, criticism should start from the point of view that this person sees the object as red and then confine itself to the question of how the red is treated. I see no reason to go on complaining because the artist sees the object differ- ently from the way 1 do. Instead, I consider it a pleasant surprise to find a different view of nature from my own. I prefer to consider how this artist has arrived at the nucleus of nature and how he has fulfilled his personal feelings. It does not matter to me if two or three people paint something called a “green sun,” because I might from time to time see the same thing myself^* Takamura’s criticism of art’s slavish attachment to mimetic representation and his champi- oning of unfettered self-expression was a rallying call for many artists ultimately categorized as “post-impressionists” (koki inshd—ha) and “expressionists” (hyogenshugisha). These terms, used broadly and sometimes indiscriminately, came to encompass all art work centered on self-expression, regardless of social, political, or artistic attitude. Hence, the Japanese futur- ists and Mavo were both termed expressionists. Mavo and Late Taisho Japan By the end of World War I, in the middle of the Taisho era, artists had entered a new ideo- logical landscape, and the discussion of individualism took on stronger sociopolitical over- tones. Nationally, there was guarded optimism and confidence about Japan’s situation vis- a-vis the European powers. Japan had experienced rapid industrial expansion as a wartime supplier to the allies, and the re-opening of China after the war bolstered the Japanese im- perialist project. The postwar reordering of social and economic structures resulted in a steady migration of workers to urban areas and the emergence of both a sizable industrial working class and a new middle class of civil servants, white-collar workers, and professionals. Little of the national prosperity, however, trickled down to the working classes. In fact, wartime inflation had reduced the value of wages, which, combined with crowded urban living conditions, exacerbated feelings of discontent. Moreover, although Japan had suffered no physical destruction during the war, afterward, as a participant in the world economy, it experienced a severe postwar depression. This abrupt economic downturn caused high un- employment, which increased the social unrest. Historians have written of a crisis in political and social consciousness among the intel- ligentsia in this period.^^ The same forces that were acting to “democratize” and “liberalize” Japan’s historically rigid social system were also generating incendiary political conflict and social upheaval. Peter Duus has noted that by the mid-Taisho period many liberal intellec- tuals had turned from a “consensus model” of Japanese society to a “conflict model” — that is, from a belief in the shared values of state and society with the ultimate goal of equal op- portunity achieved through constitutional government, to a conviction that social conflict was linked to poverty, itself rooted in class inequity. This shift was a response to increas- ing signs of social strife, starting with the anti— Portsmouth treaty demonstrations, escalat- ing with the 1912 rallies against the Diet in Hibiya that resulted in the mass resignation of the cabinet, and culminating in large-scale urban and rural strikes after 1918.^^ In response, many intellectuals, including artists and writers, began to look to leftist political thought, seeing “struggle between interest groups or classes as the central motif of human history, and . . . ascrib[ing] the existence of social conflict in Japan not to transient maladjustments in the social mechanism but to deep-seated imperatives of social life.”^^ Fueled by this new social awareness, intellectuals turned their search outward to locate a means by which the individual could be more actively engaged with society. Many liberal and leftist-oriented intellectuals condemned the Shirakaba-ha’s elitism and focus on inner cultivation. After World War I, the intelligentsia came to share the long-stand- ing concerns of the novelist and Shirakaba-ha member Arishima Taken about the social im- potence of the intellectual and his call for a stronger link between thought and action. Like the naturalists, Arishima was intensely distressed and anxious about the modern condition. A strong believer in individualism, Arishima was also concerned about the working classes and the need for action on their behalf In the end, he gave up his property to a collective of tenant farmers, a gesture mirrored in Mushanokoji’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to set up an experimental utopian community in Hokkaido called “New Village” (Atarashiki Mura). Morbidly disillusioned, Arishima made a socially symbolic act of his despondency: he committed suicide in June 1923. A month later Mavo publicly announced its formation. The artists of Mavo’s generation, most of whom came of age in the late Taisho period, were confronted by the same tumult that so troubled Arishima Takeo. They felt it imperative to respond with social action. To cultivate subjective interiority now seemed inadequate. Yet, although the works of Mavo artists attest to the group’s strong commitment to social revolution, Mavo members always considered themselves artists first. They consistently concerned themselves with the formal qualities of their work, attempting to innovate within the field of art. Seeking a new defini- WESTERN-STYLE PAINTING IN JAPAN tion of the artist and a new role for art, they questioned the validity of existing artistic meth- ods and the exclusivity of the gadan. Reforming art had to begin with restructuring its in- stitutions. By the 1920s, xhegadaii consisted of a number of exhibiting societies and art schools (in effect, institutional cartels) that greatly influenced the development of the art world aes- thetically and professionally. Yoga artists considered the Tokyo School of Fine Arts the best training ground for professional success. Following close behind were the private ateliers affili- ated with teachers at the school, particularly those associated with Kuroda’s White FForse So- ciety, which helped successive generations of artists pursue studies abroad and reestablish themselves upon their return to Japan. Despite criticism, the Bunten, under the watchful eye of its sponsoring agency, the Min- istry of Education, remained the most prominent and prestigious state-sponsored public art exhibition venue. Just before World War I, the return from their studies abroad of a host of younger well-connected White Horse Society— trained painters, such as Fujishima Takeji, Yamashita Shintaro, Shirataki Ikunosuke, Yuasa Ichiro, Tsuda Seifu, and Arishima Ikuma, exerted pressure to change the stylistic boundaries of rhe official exhibition. These painters had studied together in Europe, often becoming friends, and they shared an interest in the new modernist styles of post-impressionism. While some continued to support the Bunten, others remained dissatisfied with the organization’s lack of stylistic diversity and exclusivity, prompting them to form the putportedly more progressive Nika art association. Within sev- eral years of its founding, however, the Nika exhibition and its various smaller spinoffs, the Sodosha and the Shun’yokai, had themselves become exclusive organizations, though still open to a much greater diversity of formal styles than the official salon. In fact, by comple- menting the Bunten, these groups reinforced the existing structures of the art establishment. In 1918, the Bunten was renamed the “Exhibition of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts,” orTeiten (Teikoku Bijutsuin Tenrankai), and came under the purview of a newly appointed governing body of established artists, the Imperial Art Academy (Teikoku Bijutsuin), which, while opening its ranks to modernist painters, notoriously engaged in cronyism by promoting its own academy members and their students. Unaffiliated artists or those who sought to circumvent the seniority system had little hope of recognition from the Teiten. Moreover, the vast majority o{ gadan artists were dedicated to the production of autonomous fine art, and unconcerned with the issues of praxis emerging in artistic discourse in the Soviet Union and Weimar Germany. Mavo artists, attuned to these Western debates, believed that by revolutionizing artistic practice they would also revolutionize Japanese society. Unable to break into the exclusive sphere of the gadan, they instead opposed it, as disaffected youths contemptuous of the na- tion’s moral and sociopolitical agenda. Feeling deeply alienated, they chose to be intellectual dissidents or social bohemians, gravitating to various strains of socialist thought, most promi- nently anarchism, as an alternative to state-promoted capitalism. In the process, they ap- pointed themselves spokesmen for the disenfranchised, speaking out against social inequity. Originally emerging out of the rebellious and anarchist-inclined Futurist Art Association (Miraiha Bijutsu Kyokai), Mavo artists emphasized the anarchist tenor of their work. How- ever, like the multifaceted anarchist movement, the group expressed many ambivalent attitudes — social and antisocial, political and antipolitical, egoistic and collectivist — so that they left a dialectical rather than a programmatic legacy. A Prehistory of Mavo M avo was formed when two new forces in western-style art converged in Japan: Murayama Tomoyoshi (1901-1977), self-proclaimed interpreter of Eu- ropean modernism, and the Japanese futurist art movement. This convergence took place soon after Murayamas return from study in Berlin, at a time when the Japanese futurists were retrenching for a second wave of assaults on the Japanese art establishment following a busy year of public events. Murayama achieved celebrity status through a flurry of publications in the popular press, including his dramatic proclamation of his theory of conscious constructivism. A series of high-profile exhibitions quickly established him on the Japanese art scene as an important arbiter of new cultural knowledge from abroad. His star power was just what was needed to shape the enthusiastic but ragtag futurists into a full- fledged movement. Murayama Tomoyoshi at Home and Abroad Murayamas role as a cultural pundit demands a bit of explanation, for his point of depar- ture and his chosen route were somewhat unusual. He came from a highly educated but not wealthy family of doctors and academics. After the death of his father when Tomoyoshi was ten, he and his younger brother were supported by their mother, Motoko, a zealous Chris- tian and follower of the Christian philosopher Uchimura Kanzo, an important spiritual leader for a number of prominent Japanese intellectuals from the late Meiji to the early Showa pe- riod. Included in his congregation were members the of Shirakaba-ha. Murayama had ex- perienced a period of intense religious fervor as a boy but gradually moved away from Chris- tianity in his teens.' Uchimura, already infamous as an iconoclast, had been accused of lese- majeste when he refused to perform the customary deep bow to the posted text of the 1891 Imperial Rescript on Education; Uchimura said that obeying this custom amounted to the worship ol the Japanese emperor, which conflicted with his religious beliefs. His teachings had an inherently anti-institutional, almost anarchic element. In Ishida Takeshi’s words, he was “a heretic ... in relation to the imperial orthodoxy and . . . the Christian church.”^ Ac- cording to many of his contemporaries, Uchimura suffered from “discontent disease” { fiiheibyo), outraged by and dissatisfied with everything. A criticism of his work in Chud Koran from 1901 stated: Whatever [Uchimura] sees and whatever he hears breeds in him discontent and dissat- isfaction, and he spends the whole day giving vent to his anger and discontent. From such a person we can expect only attacks, destructive criticisms — in short, what, at best, helps to destroy what should be destroyed. For the work of construction he is utterly unsuited. ^ In addition to an enormous ego, Murayama, like Uchimura, had a critical, disgruntled demeanor — the dialectical correlative to his constructive zeal. For Murayama, destructive acts were literally forms of constructive criticism. Uchimtira’s extended tutelage of Murayama in his mid-teens had a decisive impact on the youth’s character development. Uchimura also helped the struggling Murayama family in pragmatic ways, calling on his influential network of followers to find steady employment for Murayama’s mother. She went to work for Hani Motoko (1873—1957), publisher of the women’s magazine Fujin no tomo (Women’s Companion), later joining the magazine’s per- manent editorial staff and becoming a regular contributor of short stories.^ As a journalist and publisher, Hani was a prominent activist in the early stages of the Japanese women’s lib- eration movement. Fiijin no tomo issued a loud call for the legitimation of women’s roles in the family as economic managers and instructors in ethics and morality. Growing up in the orbit of two such powerful social reformers and outspoken individuals as Uchimura and Hani undoubtedly inclined Murayama toward social activism, although he took a decidedly more radical turn than Uchimura could have foreseen, or Hani condoned. Hani helped the Murayama family by providing jobs at her company, Fujin no Tomosha. While still in school, Murayama produced his first work as a professional artist, doing illus- trations for stories in Hani’s expanding list of publications, particularly the popular chil- dren’s magazines Kodomo no tomo (Children’s Companion) and Manabi no tomo (Learning Companion). His pen-and-ink illustrations for The Castle (Oshiro), a volume of translated stories including “Robin Hood,” “Rip Van Winkle,” and “William Tell,” attracted consid- erable attention and earned him a loyal lollowing. These activities gave birth to the artistic personality “Tom” (a distinctly Western sounding nickname forTomoyoshi), the name with which Murayama signed his graphic art work from that time forward. Hani’s patronage con- tinued during Murayama’s study abroad when she commissioned him to write reports from Berlin, which were published in Fujin no tomo. The personal entanglement between the two families went even deeper. Hani’s daughter Setsuko, later a distinguished social critic, married one of Murayama’s schoolmates from the Tokyo First Higher School — Hani Goro, who also became a renowned social critic and his- torian.^ And it was at Hani’s progressive girls’ school, Jiyu Gakuen, that Tomoyoshi met his luture wife, Okauchi Kazuko (1903— 1946).*^ After his return from Germany, Murayama was using the school facilities to practice his dancing when he caught Kazuko’s eye. Their love affair began soon after. Murayama Kazuko became a prominent poet and children’s story writer, collaborating with her husband on many projects published by Fujin no Tomosha. The support system among the Japanese intelligentsia (as in most intellectual communities) functioned along acquaintance lines as much as according to ideology. Association with the Japanese Christian movement gave Murayama, from an early age, sustained exposure to Western culture, especially Western art forms available in reproduc- tion. No doubt this exposure contributed to his interest in European visual culture and, at least indirectly, stimulated his decision to go abroad. Murayama became an avid art viewer, thereby gaining his most powerful early artistic inspiration. He frequented official art exhi- bitions held in Ueno and deeply admired the work of the established academic artists shown there. Murayama grew up during the heyday of the Bunten, which mounted some of the best-attended exhibitions in prewar Japan. It retained its government-sponsored sta- tus until 1947, at which time it came under private control, renamed the “Japan Art Exhi- bition,” or Nitten (Nihon Bijutsu Tenrankai). Murayama had little formal artistic training. He was an autodidact. And it is precisely his status as a self-taught amateur that afforded him an outsider’s perspective on the insti- tutionalized system of professional artistic training practiced in private ateliers and state-spon- sored academies. This system functioned as a powerful legitimating agent, conferring pro- fessional status on artists in Japan. Murayama was acutely aware of the role these institutions played in sanctioning particular forms of art production and rigidifying art practice. Because he circumvented this system — or perhaps it is more accurate to say he chose not to partic- ipate in it — Murayama could gain none of the access the system afforded, either exhibition opportunities or patronage. He fended for himself — a situation that necessitated his inves- tigating alternative art exhibition venues and new means of financial support. A PREHISTORY OF MAVO Despite his lack of formal instruction, Murayama was artistically inclined from a young age. In lieu of an atelier experience, he cobbled together a hodgepodge of artistic training, from outdoor sketching trips to occasional lessons with a Japanese pastor who was also a skillful watercolorist. (Watercolor painting was classified in Japan as an amateur medium and therefore not part otjoga atelier training a.nwng ga^/an artists.) But Murayama’s artistic skills did not go unrecognized. In 1917, one of his watercolors was accepted for exhibition by the Japan Water Color Painting Association (Nihon Suisaigakai). fde notes that at this time he also learned how to apply traditional Japanese opaque pigments such as were used in nihonga painting, although none of his adult work employs this method. Not until his fourth year at the Kaisei Middle School, however, did Murayama begin experimenting with oil painting, which was to become one of the principal media of his professional art work. Later, before his departure for Europe in late 1921, Murayama spent three months at the con- servative Pacific Western-style Painting Studio (Taiheiyo Yoga Kenkyujo), run by artists for- merly associated with the Meiji Art Society. There he did life drawing from models, work- ing mostly in charcoal.^ Murayama’s educational pedigree was as important in shaping his worldview as his un- conventional art background. An exceptional student, always involved in a variety of artis- tic and literary activities, he attended the prestigious Tokyo First Higher School, one of the academies in a national system designed to prepare an elite corps of students for the impe- rial universities. A member of the intellectual in-group, Murayama was a prime example of someone who self-consciously moved back and forth between insider and outsider status, effectively using these positions to his advantage. He was accepted into the philosophy de- partment at Tokyo Imperial University but, despite his mother’s protestations, decided af- ter a year to drop out and study Christianity and philosophy abroad — a bold move that ir- revocably rerouted his future. Soon after his arrival in Berlin in February 1922, however, he was forced to abandon any hope of gaining entrance to a university philosophy department because he could not read Latin. Instead, he became engrossed in the city’s vibrant cultural activities. The capital of Weimar Germany, Berlin was experiencing a devastating postwar economic recession that precipitously devalued the mark. Discontent and political dissension fostered a broad range of cultural experimentation in the artistic community, beckoning artists in- terested in the avant-garde from both East — primarily Russia and eastern Europe — and West.^ It is noteworthy that Murayama’s European experience was in Berlin — not Paris, the more common destination for Japanese artists. Berlin in the 1920s was the locus for a dis- tinctive intellectual milieu, characterized by the intense sociocultural criticism of such activist- artists as George Grosz, John Heartfield, Otto Dix, and their dadaist-expressionist colleagues. Dadaist anarchism was in the air. Berlin was also, in Beeke Sell Tower’s words, a “laboratory of Germany’s Americanization.” Yet while the United States was lauded as a purveyor of mod- ern technology, it was also vilified for its dehumanization and denial of individuality for the sake ot efficiency. German intellectuals expressed a profound ambivalence about whether modernization (read Americanization) would produce a utopia or a dystopia.^ Still, the rapid infusion of rationalist materialism inherent in American industrialism had its impact on artis- tic production, prompting the dadaist Hannah Hoch to declare, “Our whole purpose was to integrate objects from the world of machines and industry into the world of art.”^*^ During his stay in Berlin, Murayama became involved with other expatriate Japanese artists and poets, most significantly Wadachi Tomoo (1900—1925) and Nagano Yoshimitsu (1902— 1968), who in tutn introduced him to many central figures in the European avant-garde. An artist-poet, Wadachi had arrived in Berlin in August 1921, four months ahead of Mutayama, and became an invaluable companion in his escapades. He and Mutayama were friends from both the Kaisei Middle School and the First Higher School. Wadachi had studied in the lit- erature department at Tokyo Impetial University before leaving to pursue German literature in Berlin. Particularly interested in expressionist poetry, Wadachi struck up a friendship with the wife of the poet Fred Antoine Angermeyet, who worked at the Galerie Det Sturm, a strong- hold of expressionism run by Herwarth Walden. Through the Angermeyers and Walden, Wadachi and Murayama came to know a host of influential Berlin intellectuals.'^ Herwarth Walden (1878-1941) was one of the central ideologues of the German expressionist move- ment, advocating a synthesis of avant-garde styles under the rubric of “expressionism.” In addition to running the gallery, he published from 1910 to 1930 the eponymous journal Der Sturm (The Storm) with his wife, Nell, and the writers Rudolf Blumner, Lothar Schreyer, and August Stramm. The group of expressionists affiliated with Galerie Der Sturm believed that the legacy of nineteenth-century positivism and industrialism was mutilating the hu- man spirit (which they termed Geist). To reclaim the Geist of humanity, they championed subjectivity, intuition, primal instinct, spirituality, and emotion over the rationalist intel- lectualism of modetn society. They believed in the supremacy of pure artistic creativity, as- serting the vital role of the attist in society. While the group strongly identified with the pro- letariat, during the 1920s they still maintained a largely apolitical stance vis-a-vis the government. Walden insisted that an ethical community had to be predicated on each in- dividual’s voluntary actions.'^ Walden continued to be a guiding force in the expressionist movement, which had flout- ished initially in the decade preceding World War I. After the war, a second generation of artists, including those affiliated with dadaism, took the movement in a more explicitly po- litical direction. Their work also began to show strong religious and apocalyptic elements.'^ The Russian expressionist-constructivist sculptor Alexander Archipenko exhibited at the Galerie Der Sturm, along with Franz Marc, Heinrich Campendonck, Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka, August Macke, and Kurt Schwitters. His metal sculpture and mixed-media assemblages greatly appealed to Murayama as well as to other Japanese artists interested in European modernist styles. Archipenko’s work moved away from mimetic representation toward an abstracted, non-naturalistic style that emphasized the expressiveness of the material itself Writing for Child bijutsu about his visit to Archipenko’s Berlin studio, Murayama praised the Russian’s work as beautiful and masterly, acknowledging it as one of his earliest inspirations for experimenting with assem- blage.'^ Yet he expressed concern about Archipenko’s overemphasis on luxuriousness, crit- icizing the extravagance, the overrefined surfaces, of his metal sculpture and comparing it to a Rococo vase. While Wadachi was instrumental in establishing Murayama’s network of acquaintances within the Berlin art community, Nagano Yoshimitsu (1902-1968) propelled him into ex- hibiting there. Nagano was the brother-in-law of the already well established yoga artist Togo Seiji (1897-1978), who was studying in Paris. Nagano left Japan in the summer of 1921 and visited his brother-in-law in Paris before arriving in Berlin. Prompted by Togo’s works from the late 1910s, Nagano began creating large oil paintings in a dynamic cubo-futurist style, featuting interwoven curvilinear and geometric shapes echoing the movement of a semi-figu- rative subject in the center.'*^ Through Walden’s good graces, Murayama and Nagano were able to debut three pieces at “The Great Futurist Exhibition” (Die Grosse Futuristische Ausstellung) in March 1922 at the Neumann Gallery in Berlin. Walden and the Sturm group played a critical role in pub- licizing Italian futurism in Germany before and after World War I, mounting the first fu- turist exhibition there in 1912.'^ The 1922 exhibition included wotks by both younger and older artists from Italy, Germany, Russia, and Japan, including posthumous works by Um- berto Boccioni and pieces by Enrico Prampolini, Alexander Mohr, and Vera Steiner. Mu- rayama’s painting Aiigsburgerstrasse (Fig. 7) is known through a monochromatic reproduc- tion published by Walden’s acquaintance Ruggero Vasari, the Berlin representative of Italian futurism, who was introduced to the Japanese artists at a Sturm gathering.*^ Murayama’s painting depicts an urban street scene, probably the view out the window of his Berlin lodgings on Augsburger Street. Murayama employed a distorted, non-naturalis- tic sense of space and perspective to bring his forms into the foreground, bending them into an arched shape so that they leaned precariously on one another. The overall effect was one of tutbulence and deformation, as the undulating street appeared either to give birth to or to swallow up the writhing buildings and street lamps. This painting is the earliest example of Murayama’s interest in the expressionist techniques of pictotial distortion. A similar sty- listic inclination is revealed in his diminutive painting fot the cover of Nagano’s Berlin photo 7 (RIGHT) Murayama Tomoyoshi, Augsburgerstrasse (Aukusubu- rugagai), 1921. Oil on canvas, presumeid lost. Photograph courtesy of Omuka Toshiharu. IR'i 8 (LEFT) Murayama Tomoyoshi, Portrait of the Father (Bildnis des Vaters), on the cover of Nagano Yoshimitsu’s photo album, ca. 1921. Oil on paper, 26 X 32 cm. Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura. album (Fig. 8). Entitleri Portrait of the Father, it displays a distorted geometricized human face colored in purplish hues. The abbreviated physiognomy of the figure is strongly accen- tuated by black and white brushstrokes giving an overall eerie impression.'^ In Diisseldorf in May, Murayama and Nagano participated in the “First International Art Exhibition” (Erste Internationale Kunstausstellung) and the concurrent Congress of Inter- national Progressive Artists (Kongress der International Fortschrittlicher Kiinstler), which PREHISTORY OF MAVO included artists from eighteen different countries working in a myriad of artistic styles. The two Japanese artists were grouped with the Italian futurists and showed the paintings they had exhibited two months earlier in Berlin. The Diisseldorf congress marked the hrst joint conference of dadaists and constructivists, practitioners of two modes that were already be- ing fused, particularly by artists based in Berlin (who were often labeled “international con- structivists”). This hybrid of dada and constructivism, together with elements of expres- ^ sionist painting, would appear prominently in Murayama’s subsequent work. > The Congress of International Progressive Artists attempted to establish an international union of artists regardless of political or national affiliation, with a representative in every country. Its objectives were pragmatic, including the elimination of customs tariffs on art shipped internationally and the publication of a periodical. The desire to break down na- tional borders represented the spirit of internationalism that prevailed in the artistic com- munity between the two world wars. Murayama later wrote that the congress first brought to his attention the commercial nature of the art world as well as art’s inextricable connec- tion with the capitalist system.^' Nonetheless, the heady sense of camaraderie inspired Mu- rayama, who reported in an article covering the event that he had volunteered to become the Japanese representative.^^ Though the international union of artists never fully materi- alized, Murayama maintained contact with foreign artists and avant-gardist art magazines, corresponding with editors and exchanging copies. An ever-expanding list appeared on the back cover of each issue of Mavo magazine to promote these sister journals and to show that Mavo saw itself in the company of avant-gardists worldwide. In September, Murayama and Nagano were offered a joint show at the Twardy Gallery, a little-known bookstore and exhibition space across the street from Galerie Der Sturm. The next month, the first major exhibition in Germany of postrevolutionary Russian mod- ernist art opened at the Galerie van Diemen. Titled “The First Great Russian Art Exhibi- tion” (Erste Grosse Russische Kunstausstellung), the show heralded the new modes of Su- prematism and constructivism. Although Murayama does not explicitly mention having seen this exhibition (he only noted vaguely that he had “close contact” with constructivism while abroad), a number of the artists he met in Germany were actively involved in the Russian art world, like Archipenko and the Ukrainian Xenia Boguslawskaja, wife of the prominent Russian constructivist Iwan Puni.^"^ Furthermore, Walden, an early supporter of Russian mod- ernist art in Germany, was directly involved with the project. Thus even if Murayama did not attend, he was undoubtedly well aware of the exhibition and its reception in Berlin.^^ Personal contact with performing artists was an incomparable source of inspiration for Murayama. The long history of cross-fertilization of the theatrical arts and the fine arts in Europe and Russia continued among the avant-garde. Whether it was the futurists with their language of urban dynamism and irrational provocation, the expressionists with their em- phasis on human subjectivity and primal emotion, or the constructivists with their postrev- olutionary glorification of labor and machine technology, proponents of all the new aesthetic modes could be found on the stage, as well as in performances of music and dance. Mu- ravama was enthralled by the performing arts and chronicled his attendance at numerous dance concerts and stage productions.^*^ The dynamic expressionist playwright-dramatist Georg Kaiser (1878—1945) was a particularly powerful influence. Having written more than twenty highly acclaimed plays, Kaiser experienced a surge in popularity during Murayama’s stay in Berlin. Equally celebrated was the expressionist playwright Ernst Toller (1893-1939), who had been a central player in the brief outbreak of leftist revolutionary activity that pre- ceded Murayama’s arrival. The first of many plays that Murayama saw at the Berlin Volks- biihne was Toller’s (Maschinenstiirmer); in 1922, the year after he returned to Japan, Murayama translated Toller’s collection of poems written while in prison. Swallow Book (Das Schwalbenbuch; published in Japanese as Tsubame no sho in 1925). Murayama later credited Toller, along with the artist George Grosz and the Volksbirhne producer Max Reinhardt, with inspiring him to become a socialist. On an emotional level, Murayama was profoundly affected by dance. He extolled the moving performances of the German dancer Niddy Impekoven, who worked with the cel- ebrated theatrical producers Reinhardt and Felix Hollander. Memorabilia from her perfor- mances and references to her dances appear repeatedly in Murayama’s works. Impekoven’s highly expressionistic, ethereal dancing style resonated with the emotive, anti-academic in- clinations of the German expressionist dance movement known as “Ausdruckstanz” (inter- pretive dance) and had a widespread impact on the viewing public.^® In his eleven-month sojourn in Berlin, from February to December 1922, Murayama ex- perienced a staggering diversity of artistic activity.^^ These varied experiences later inspired some distinctive interpretations of Western modernism as Murayama selectively introduced to the Japanese art community what he had learned abroad. Murayama’s Return to Japan: The Ascent to Celebrity Within a few weeks after his return from Germany, Murayama was writing for Japanese art publications and, soon after, began exhibiting his work. His first exhibition was held in May 1923 at the Bunpodo art supply store in the Kanda section of Tokyo. It was titled in two languages, Japanese and German, as “Murayama Tomoyoshi’s Gonscious Constructivist Exhibition of Small Works — Dedicated to Niddy Impekoven and Obtrusive Grace. In a review of his own exhibition, Murayama lashed out at the Japanese art world, stating that the Bunpodo show was dedicated to “obtrusive grace” as a demonstration of his opposition to the “preference for dry copies of French art” among Japanese artists. The review goes on A PREHISTORY OF MAVO to express Murayama’s dislike tor Japanese artists’ “corrupt state of complacency and stag- nation.”^^ According to the illustrated exhibition pamphlet (Fig. 9), the show consisted of fifty small-scale works that Mtirayama personally had carried back from Germany, his shipped luggage not having arrived. The works he exhibited, many of which no longer sur- vive, ranged widely in style, subject, and medium. Some were similar to the works he had exhibited in Germany, figurative oil paintings in an expressionist style. But he also showed works from the latter half of his stay abroad, when his style had become increasingly ab- stract. Goncurrently, he had begun to experiment with mixed media, combining oil paint- ing with collage. The only work extant from this show is Dedicated to the Beautiful Young Girls (Plate i). It is composed of abstract, overlapping rectilinear and rounded forms rendered in predom- inantly somber earthtones with an occasional shock of red pigment. The representation of shading on the edges of the forms is highly stylized and non-naturalistic. Neither the shad- ing nor the cast shadows suggest a consistent light source but appear as decorative elements. Two pieces of cotton material with padding were originally affixed to the surface, but now only one remains. Unlike some of the other works in the show, this one was entirely non- referential. The title makes no allusion to a particular theme or subject, except to indicate a dedication. On top of the abstract forms are inscribed words and numbers. They read “Mad- chen,” “Nummer,” and “Nr.15,” with a seemingly random series of numerals lined up along the upper edge of the image. On the left border is a sentence fragment in German Gothic script giving the name of the piece. Now available only in a color reproduction, Murayama’s abstract collage “As You Like It” Danced by Niddy Impekoven (Fig. 10) consisted of dance performance tickets, postmarked stamps, and irregularly shaped paper detritus affixed to the middle of a wood plank, painted over with abstract shapes, letters, and numbers. This was one of many works Murayama ded- icated to the dancer. Two additional works are now known only through the illustrations in the exhibition pamphlet: Still life with Bottle (Fig. ii) and Picture without a Title (Fig. 12).^^ The still life combined painting with collage, displaying nonobjective overlapping shapes painted over with randomly placed words, letters, and symbols. It purported to be repre- sentational but was not mimetic. The work “without a title” was a collage made entirely of photograph fragments, mostly displaying images of European women. Also noteworthy in this exhibition were the numerous titles for stage designs, indicating Murayama’s early in- clination toward working in the theater. Following the Bunpodo show, Murayama had three works accepted for the fourth “Gen- tral Art Exhibition” (Ghuo Bijutsu Tenrankai) held at Takenodai Hall in Ueno Park in June 1923 (Fig. 13).^“^ Two more solo exhibitions followed, one at his home in Kami-Ochiai and another at the Cafe Suzuran in Gokokuji.^^ Murayama’s use of his home as a public ipn|,\\ uinz [3)A uaqB GSD2iE3upci,\,’ uaqas'i iiaiiozsjapaqsijiOjX •s^^llaa^\. seu ''^v iiAcipjiBci mill nip3i 9 Cover of exhibition pamphlet for Murayama Tomoyoshi's first solo exhibition, “Murayama Tomoyoshl no IshikitekI koseishugiteki shohin tenrankal— NiddI Imupekofen to oshitsukega- mashiki yublsa to nl sasagu” (Murayama Tomoyoshi’s conscious constructivist exhibition of small works— Dedicated to Niddy Impekoven and obtrusive grace), Bunpodo, May 15-19, 1 923. Photograph courtesy of Omuka Toshiharu, 10 Murayama Tomoyoshi, “As You Like It" Danced by Niddy Impekoven (Niddi Imupekofen ni yotte odoraretaru “Gyo-I no mama”; in German, “Was Ihr wolit" getanzt von Niddy Impekoven), ca. 1 922- 1 923. Mixed media on wood plank, 455 x 380 mm., presumed lost. Reproduced in Murayama Tomoyoshi no shigoto (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1985). 11 Murayama Tomoyoshi, Still Life with Bottle (Bin no aru seibutsu; in German, Stilleben mit Flaschen), ca. 1 922-1923. Mixed media and oil on canvas (?), presumed lost Photograph in Murayama Tomoyoshi solo exhibition pamphlet Tsuchioka Shuichi collection, Fukui. 12 Murayama Tomoyoshi, Picture without a Title (Dai no nai e; in German, Bild ohne Titel), ca. 1922-1923. Photomontage, presumed lost. In Murayama Tomoyoshi solo exhibition pamphlet, Tsuchioka Shuichi collection, Fukui. 13 Imperial Prince Chichibunomiya (left) viewing Murayama Tomoyoshi's work, perhaps Beatrice (Beatoriche), at the ChOo Bijutsuten, Takenodai Hall, June 1923. Photograph In “Chuo Bijutsuten e onari no Chichibunomiya” (Prince Chichibu's visit to the Central Art Exhibition), Kokumin shinbun, June 4, 1 923 (p.m. ed,), 2, PREHISTORY OF MAVO exhibition space was extremely unusual for a professional artist. A review in Kokumin shin- bun remarked that Murayama’s dramatic debut on the Japanese art scene greatly impressed the viewing public. The reviewer particularly noted how the work Beatrice (shown at the “Central Art Exhibition” but now lost) skillfully incorporated collage elements — a woman’s shoe, a pillow, thread to symbolize the woman’s hair, and a tin board to indicate her body — to express a woman without directly depicting her. The reviewer labeled Murayama an “ex- pressionist painter” (hydgenha gaka) and emphasized that the artist’s stated theory of “con- scious constructivism” (Bewusste Konstructionismus or ishikiteki koseishugi) applied not only to fine art, but also to music and dance.^*^ Aided by considerable publicity, these exhibitions reverberated throughout the Japanese art and literary communities.^^ Artists and poets alike found Murayama’s work intriguing, and a steady stream of curious visitors dropped by his atelier to discuss his ideas. The Theory of Conscious Constructivism Murayama’s theory of conscious constructivism was first introduced in his April 1923 article “Stigiyuku hyogenha” (Expressionism expiring). In his theory, Murayama insisted on the negation of traditional realistic modes of representation, advocating the expression of mod- ern life through abstracted or entirely nonobjective forms. Like many of his contemporaries in Europe and Russia, he used the metaphor of construction to disavow both mimetic re- production and the romantic subjectivity associated with expressionist abstraction. His con- structivism was expressed in object-like assemblages that combined painting and collage, as well as in abstract paintings and prints. Murayama’s theory became the guiding principles of Mavo’s collective work.'^’^ Even as they maintained their own distinct agendas, all the artists involved with the group exhibited under this banner. Undoubtedly, Murayama’s advocacy of stylistic pluralism helped bring the original Mavo members together. Yet even while affirming and reinventing the theory of conscious constructivism, some Mavo artists continued to critique it. Group members had no pretensions about ideological or stylistic unity, although all championed individual expression, the liberation of the self, and the fundamental imperative to expand the sphere of artistic practice. And all sought to reintegrate art and daily life by eradicating the rarefied domain of “fine art” (bijntsu ot geijntsu) constructed during the late Meiji period when the professional artist’s social status rose and art became an official institution. In his earliest statements about conscious constructivism, Murayama was mostly preoc- cupied with abstract philosophical issues, and his assertions were vague and confusing. He championed an expansion of the subject of art to incorporate “the entirety of life” (zenjin- sei) and referred to the full range of human emotions inspired by modern experience, writ- ing, “All of my passions, thoughts, ballads, philosophy, and sickness take concrete form and boil over in a search for expression. But he was most preoccupied with the aesthetics of ugliness. He opposed the underlying motivations of traditional and contemporary Japanese and Western art, all of which he felt were overly concerned with a quest for beauty. Murayama asserted that because it was impossible to transcend subjectivity, all evalua- tive criteria were arbitrary, based on aesthetic prejudice and preconceprions. He questioned whether so-called objective evaluation could be employed in comparing individual subjec- tivities as constituted in art, thereby undermining the basis for the authority of the major gadan exhibiting societies. At the same time, he believed that art was inherently a means of communication (dentatsu), and that the artist must labor, albeit somewhat in vain, to find a mode of expression meaningful beyond purely subjective experience. Therein lay the oblig- ation and paradoxical dilemma of art making. Since Murayama’s theory of conscious constructivism is based on his own convoluted cri- tique of expressionism, it often reads more as an injunction of what not to do than as a free- standing and affirmative conception. By expressionism, Murayama specifically meant the German movement, which in his mind was linked with Herwarth Walden, the group Der Sturm, and Wassily Kandinsky (curious targets of criticism because their ideas so clearly per- vaded Murayama’s own concepts of art). Still, his comments were broadly applicable to all new expressionist “isms,” including Japanese post-impressionism, which was commonly in- cluded under the expressionist rubric. Still, many contemporary Japanese reviews referred to Murayama as an “expressionist” (hydgenha or hyogenshugisha) artist. Undeniably, his theory of conscious constructivism called for the total emancipation of individual expression. And despite his criticism of the Sturm credo, Murayama’s statements on the purpose of his art reveal many rhetorical simi- larities to the pronouncements of Walden and his followers. Murayama’s advocacy of anti- naturalism, his great faith in the transformative and revolutionary power of art, and his con- ception of the artist as a kind of prophet or philosopher to lead the people were all elements fundamental to Sturm expressionism. While impugning the stagnation and “mannerism” of expressionism as a movement, and Walden’s idealistic “optimism” in particular, Murayama clearly did not reject the centrality of the autonomous individual in art or the importance of self-expression, two hallmarks of the Sturm credo. Conscious constructivism repudiated slavish copying, venerating the practice of original creativity, which Murayama conceded was a heroic endeavor requiring the capability of the Nietzschean Ubermensch (chojin).^^ Inspired by Nietzsche, whose writings he began reading during his freshman year at the First Higher School, Murayama believed in the preeminence of individual will, the individual self as source of all values, and the dissolution of true knowl- edge. He and his contemporaries received a strong dose of antiestablishment, antibourgeois PREHISTORY OF MAVO sentiment from Nietzschean philosophy, which they often expressed in iconoclastic, provoca- tive behavior, intended to shock those with more conventional values. It is clear that Niet- zsche’s ideas had already permeated many areas of contemporary philosophical, artistic, and political thought in Japan. For Nietzsche, no fact was separate from interpretation. Histor- ical and moral judgmenr were relative, as each individual actively produced his own reality. This attitude helped shape Murayama’s belief in the necessity of absolute freedom for the individual as a first step toward effecting genuine social change. It also led him to conceive > of his own role in constructing a new vision of modern life. This constructive process re- quired that he criticize and tear down existing sociocultural conventions to make way for the new, an endeavor that corresponded with anarchist revolutionary strategies. Murayama wrote on Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) more than any other artist whose work he encountered abroad, hence his nickname of “the Kandinsky of Japan. The term “conscious constructivism” itself was derived from Kandinsky’s writings, and Murayama adapted many of the Russian painter’s ideas, principally his emphasis on breaking down the boundaries between art and other areas of life. Though he often quoted from Kandinsky, Murayama also harshly criticized the ambi- guity and optimism of Kandinsky’s ideas. Of particulat note is an excerpt from Kandinsky’s 1922 preface to the catalogue for Diisseldorl’s “First International Art Exhibition”: We are born under the sign of synthesis. We — men on this earth. All the paths we trod until today, divorced from one another, have become one path, on which we march united — whether we want to or not. The walls that hid these paths from one another have fallen. All is revealed. Everything trembles and shows its Inner Face. The dead ha[ve] become living. The realms of those phenomena we term art, without knowing what art is, which yesterday were clearly divided from one another, today have fused into one realm, and the boundaries separating it from other human realms are disappearing. The last walls are falling, and the last boundaries are being destroyed. The irreconcilable is reconciled. Two opposing paths lead to one goal — analysis, syn- thesis. Analysis + synthesis = the Great Synthesis. In this way, the art that is termed “new” comes about, which apparently has nothing in common with the “old,” but which shows clearly to every living eye the connecting thread. That thread which is called Inner Necessity. Thus the Epoch of the Great spiri- tual has begun. Like Kandinsky, Murayama argued that the “inner necessity” (naimenteki hitsuzensei) of his new art theory demanded a connection between the internal and external worlds. Content and form were intrinsically linked and must not be divided. In other words, the inner ne- cessity of the work should manifest itself in its external form.^^ But for him, the idea of in- ner necessity was not the same as Kandinsky’s notion that the artist’s spirituality, if perfectly harmonized with its external form, ultimately would produce an object of beauty. Rather, Mtirayama believed that raw emotions and the experiences of daily life, both positive and negative, more adequately expressed the modern condition even though they produced art that was often frank and disagreeable. In this respect, Murayama and Mavo’s absorption with “the reality” of daily life has to be seen in relation to the Japanese naturalist movement in literature. The naturalists were among the first modern writers in Japan to concentrate on the conditions, especially the negative elements, of everyday life. Yet Murayama did not believe, as the naturalists did, that the experiences ol everyday life could be “objectively” or “scientifically” reproduced. He was always aware of the mediation of the subject (the artist/ writer) in the production of “reality,” an issue that kept him focused on the fundamental struggle between transcending and being bound by the subjective. Kandinsky claimed that replacing subject matter with construction (the work itself) was the first step toward achiev- ing pure art.^^ While Murayama repeatedly disavowed any belief in a pure art, instead ad- vocating an art integrally linked to daily life, he did take up the Western modernist charge to replace the representational objective of artistic production with the act of art making and the formal qualities of the art work itself Murayama felt that doing so gave him access to the intangible qualities of life. He argued that the reproduction of external appearances could not get at the motivations and underlying “realities” (genjitsu) of life in the modern period. If anything, mimetic reproduction of the natural world impeded an accurate view of the contradictions of daily experience. It presented wholeness where there were only frag- ments. It offered harmony where there was only chaos. Therefore, the artist needed “con- sciously” to manifest the construction or artificiality of the work of art to break through this image of totality. Murayama’s turn to abstraction, like the expressionist declarations of the Shirakaba-ha artist Takamura Kotaro, was aimed directly at the heart of Western-style painting in Japan. Despite a decade of experimentation with subjective expression in painting, yJ^Ts legacy of realism still persisted, particularly at theTeiten. Even artists inspired by the modernist pro- clivities of post-impressionism had great difficulty divorcing themselves completely from mimetic reproduction of the natural world. Artistic skill was still gauged in part by the abil- ity to portray a subject accurately. In his newly defined artistic categories of “constructive” art (keisei or kosei geijutsu), Mu- rayama rejected technical mastery as irrelevant in an age of subjectivity, when absolute stan- dards of criticism had been discredited. And he encouraged artists to push the boundaries of art itself, to experiment with different idioms and media, rather than try to develop a deeply personal style for the expression of an inner world. For Murayama, the important hinction ot art was to observe and communicate contemporary experience. He felt that art should not be wedded to any one style; it should be stylistically and thematically pluralis- tic. This pluralism is evident in the work of all Mavo members, each of whom worked in a variery of visual languages simultaneously. > ■0 a: I CO H o as O Mavo’s Immediate Forerunner: The Futurist Art Association As a new luminary in the Japanese art world, Murayama was invired to give public lectures on his theories of: modern art. One such invitation came from the artist Kinoshita Shuichiro (1896—1991), a principal figure in a group of artists known as the Futurist Art Association (Miraiha Bijutsu Kyokai; hereafter referred to as FAA).^^ Four of the five founding mem- bers of Mavo were participants in the FAA. This invitation initiated the relationship.^^ Many other artists involved in the expanded Mavo movement were also first active in futurist ex- hibitions. While Mavo incorporated artistic concepts from many movements into its own, the groups relationship to futurism, particularly in the initial stages, was foundational. In fact, futurism was the matrix for a considerable portion of contemporary avant-gardist ac- tivity in Europe and Russia as well.^^ This connection has led many Japanese scholars and some of the artists themselves to identify Mavo as an extension of Japanese futurism. Indeed there were many correspondences between the work of FAA artists and the stated principles of Murayama’s conscious constructivism.^^ The futurists were drawn to Murayama’s advo- cacy of a new art idiom to suit the conditions of modern life because it satisfied their quest for an innovative “art of the future” (mirai no bijutsu). Murayama’s experimentation with new materials and nonobjective art accorded with FAA forays into collage and abstraction. His condemnation of the mindless copying of Western art was also echoed in FAA writings. But perhaps what most drew the futurists to Murayama was his oppositional stance vis-a- vis the gadan. He publicly positioned himself as an outsider, standing in judgment of the situation of modern art in Japan. While making an intellectual impact as Japan’s new theo- rist of artistic modernism, Murayama attracted equal attention for his rebellious showman- ship. The FAA, fundamentally a secessionist movement, also cultivated an attitude of rebel- liousness. The two postures fit well together. Since all Japanese adaptations of modernist idioms were fundamentally interpretive, how- ever, the use and meaning of the term “futurism” in Japan must be analyzed in its historical conrext. Although futurism came to the fore in Japan when it was already on the wane in Europe, Japanese artists had initiated contact with the movement in Italy from its inception and continued that connection after the end of World War I and into the 1920s. While fully aware of Italian futurism’s nationalisric militarist component, Japanese artists chose to emphasize the movement’s internationalism and cosmopolitanism. They interpreted it pri- marily as a technological, formally dynamic “art of the future” that championed unfettered self-expression, basing that selective interpretation of futurism in part on their experience of it in Japan, where it was first exhibited together with German expressionist art, blending them stylistically and ideologically. Futurism was often included under the catchall term “ex- pressionism” (hydgenshugi or hydgenha), reflecting the not uncommon conflation of distinct European styles into new admixtures in Japanese modern art. In this case, the presentation of futurism was Altered through the philosophy ofWalden and the Sturm group of German expressionists, which played a decisive role in the merging of these two movements. The Japanese futurist movement in the 1920s attempted to differentiate itself from other, more lyrical, expressionist tendencies in Japan by asserting its strong iconoclastic rebellion against established social conventions, the past, and the art establishment. Kinoshita Shuichiro wrote extensively on futurism, distinguishing it from other artistic movements, in hopes of remedying the Japanese public’s lack of familiarity with futurist thought. Briefly chronicling the history of impressionism and post-impressionism, he re- lated cubism to this chronology through the work of Gezanne, not unlike the teleological histories of modernism written in the West. He asserted that futurism was outside the stan- dard art-history chronology, however, because it denied history and destroyed the past. While recognizing the mutual formal influence of cubism and Italian futurism, Kinoshita still as- serted that futurism had a different ideology, based on nihilism and a belief in the end of history.^® These concepts resonated deeply with the Japanese futurists, who felt their own histori- cal past a burden. They saw their mission as particularly urgent in light of Japan’s fully in- dustrialized modern economy. Using the pseudonym Gokuraku Ghosei, one writer linked anarchism to the revolutionary nature of the futurists, particularly their revolt against the past: “It is not viable for modern men, who breathe chaos, to live in a [sentimental and pas- toral] fairy-tale land.” He goes on to quote the futurists’ saying that “beauty does not exist outside strife” and counseling that “the masses who scream for the labor, pleasure, and re- volt alive in the new era . . . must glorify and sing the praises of the beauty of the factory, steam train, and airplane. By mid-1920, when the Futurist Art Association was formed, futurist art, while still con- sidered new, was not deemed stylistically radical in Japan. It had been officially acknowl- edged when Togo Seiji won the Nika art association prize in 1916. Like many of the seces- sionist impulses in modern Japanese art, the FAA evolved out of personal discontent with the art establishment; in this case, two disaffected individuals stimulated the urge for a new association: Fumon Gyo (1896—1972) and Odake Ghikuha (1878— 1936). Both Fumon and Odake were well-established artists when they became involved in their respective protests. Fumon’s work had been accepted by Nika in 1917 and 1918, and its re- jection in 1919 was a surprise and a disappointment. In light of the cronyism prevalent in all the official Japanese exhibiting societies in t\\Qgadan, Fumon had every reason to expect that the inclusion of his work in previous years meant it would always be included. When he was rejected from the 1919 show, Fumon, feeling that Nika had a stranglehold on the official ex- hibition and the sanction of modernist decided to go outside Nika. At the same time, Odake, an eclectic and highly innovative nihonga painter, as well as a longtime member of the Japanese Art Academy (Nihon Bijutsuin) who had exhibited regularly at the Inten (Japan Art Academy Exhibition), withdrew from the Academy after an altercation with the promi- nent nihonga painter Yokoyama Taikan. He formed the group Hakkasha (the Association of Eight Flames).*^' Fumon happened to know two of the artists involved with the Hakkasha, Ito Junzo and Hagiwara Tokutaro, and invited them to join him in forming the Futurist Art Association. The first FAA exhibition was held in September 1920 atTamekiya, a small frame shop in the Ginza-Kyobashi area. It was intentionally scheduled for the same time as the Nika ex- hibition to emphasize the groups opposition to Nika. The FAA advertised for submissions and accepted twenty-one artists and a total ol thirty-eight works. Ten works were by Fumon himself — eight paintings and two pieces of sculpture. Most of Fumon’s work was roundly criticized as derivative and garish, but his sculpture Labor Hedonist (Kodo Kyorakusha), which no longer exists, was highly regarded in the press reviews and is now considered the first piece of futurist sculpture in Japan. Generally, critics were baffled by the exhibition, com- plaining that it showed little jiko hyogen (individual self-expression). In keeping with new trends in individualism and self-expression, critics at the time were most concerned that artists be able to express their own subjective experience, even if they were painting in Western styles. One reviewer, however, noted that the group expressed great passion and showed signs of developing a vital new art movement. Kinoshita Shuichiro, among the artists who exhibited with the FAA, soon became an in- valuable presence in the group. He was a medical student but had a strong side interest in art, having painted in oil since middle school. He was from a wealthy family in Fukui city and helped finance the group’s exhibition in Osaka in December 1920. Kinoshita’s great skill as an organizer and his driving entrepreneurial spirit guided the trajectory of the futurist movement. Events between the first FAA exhibition in Tokyo and the second a year later in October 1921 transformed the group. Fumon abruptly decided to return to Osaka to teach at the Osa- ka Institute of Art (Osaka Geijutsu Gakuin), leaving Kinoshita responsible for the group’s activities in Tokyo. And the celebrated Russian futurist David Burliuk came to Japan, stay- ing from October 1920 until August 1922. Burliuk arrived with two other artists, the Ukrain- ian Viktor Palmov and the Czech Vaclav Fiala. They brought with them over three hundred modern Russian paintings, which were exhibited at the Hoshi pharmaceutical headquarters in Kyobashi shortly after their arrival. The review of the exhibition, written by manga (comic) artist Okamoto Ippei, described astonishing works with dangling socks and matchboxes affixed to the paintings’ surfaces, as well as paintings rendered on cardboard. Okamoto was incredulous at the presence in the middle of the gallery of a bed upon which two artists were continually waking up and going to sleep. Burliuk’s striking appearance — he was dressed in a frock coat, a brightly colored silk vest, and top hat and had colorful abstract designs painted on his face — made a lasting impression on viewers. Burliuk is often referred to as “the father of Russian futurism,” which after World War I had a cast distinctly different from that of prewar Italian futurism. Stylistically, it too had developed out of cubo-futurism, and Russian futurists shared the Italians’ concern to express the dynamism of modern life; but at the same time the Russians glorified a highly primi- tivized rural folk culture. Burliuk told the Japanese press that “Russian futurism combines the dogma of Italian futurism, the ideology of Kandinsky, symbolism, and cubism. Ba- sically, it was a melange. After attending the Russian exhibition, Kinoshita maintained close contact with Burliuk in Japan. In February 1923, they published together Miraiha to wa? Kotaeru (What is futurism? An answer), which integrated the explication of many of Burliuk’s artistic theories with Kinoshita’s conception of futurism.® Around the same time, Kinoshita had begun planning the second FAA exhibition, to be open during the afternoon and evening at Seiyoro, a Western-style restaurant in Ueno Park.^® It was at this time that many of the participants in Mavo first came together. Although records of the show vary, it contained about seventy-one works, a significantly larger showing than at the first, and one requiring greater financial support. Kinoshita turned to many of his per- sonal friends for help, including a relative by marriage, Ogata Kamenosuke (1900—1942). Ki- noshita encouraged Ogata to exhibit with the group, partly with the ulterior motive of get- ting Ogata to help sponsor the exhibition since he was from a wealthy family. Born in Miyagi prefecture, Ogata had come to Tokyo in 1919 and had begun painting. In addition to his artistic activities, he was also a poet and is better known for his literary works. Ogata did make a significant financial contribution to the group and, after the exhibition, as Kinoshita had hoped, he continued to play an active role in the FAA and was a founding member of Mavo. Kinoshita also invited his hometown acquaintance Shibuya Osamu (1900—1963) to par- ticipate. Shibuya became a powerful spokesman for the group, lecturing on futurism back in Fukui after the exhibition and writing numerous articles elucidating the group’s tenets. His article “Sankaten no miraiha” (The Futurists at the Sanka exhibition), clearly explained the FAA’s interpretation of futurism in terms of expressionism and the individual’s subjec- tive perception of the modern: A PREHISTORY OF MAVO In futurist paintings, the artist is not merely satisfied with form. He probes deeply into the study of color, line, composition, and form. . . . With this attitude, he attempts to paint the “soul” {kokoro\ of modern man — the entirety of modern daily life, which is constantly in flux. ... As seen up until now, futurist painting is not simply a descrip- tion or reproduction of the forms and colors of nature. Descriptive and reproductive paintings (past-ism) are simply no more than objective, superficial “close resemblance.” Our futurist paintings are subjective. . . . They are not words of “explanation.” They are the direct manifestation of the inner “soul,” not the “thing.” “Directness.” Constant change! Quickness! These are the distinct “material and spiritual” directions of the mod- ern. That which directly expresses this is futurism and its offshoots. Shibuya and Kinoshita also referred to this version of futurism interchangeably as “compo- sitionism” or “freedomism” (jiyiiha). Only a handful of reproductions survive of the works from the second FAA exhibition. Further hampering any assessment are the press reports, which concentrated rnore on works by foreign artists than by Japanese. Only Kinoshita’s Dancing Girl Hitting a Hand Drum (Tsuzumi o utsu maiko) was reproduced in contemporary publications. The painting por- trays a maiko (young dancing girl), a subject Kinoshita took up on several occasions. But de- spite the seemingly traditional theme, the figure in the work looks more like a helmeted space traveler caught between time dimensions than a dancer. Other artists who exhibited include Oura Shuzo (1890—1928); Asano Kusanosuke (bet- ter known as Asano Mofu, 1900—1984); Shigematsu Iwakichi (dates unknown), who had just returned from an extended stay in the United States and Mexico; and Fdirato Renkichi (1894—1922), the only self-proclaimed futurist poet in Japan. Oura was slightly older than the others. Born in Tokyo, he studied yoga at the White Idorse Society atelier in Tameike (Hakubakai Tameike Kenkyujo), which was associated with the group started by the pre- eminent yoga academic painter Kuroda Seiki. Oura had already exhibited with Nika through the introduction of his close friend Arishima Ikuma. At the same time, he was designing show windows for the bookstore Maruzen, the largest importer of Western books at the time. Along with show windows, Oura also designed advertisements for Maruzen consumer prod- ucts. In 1924, he helped establish the Maruzen gallery. Of the other artists in the second FAA exhibition, Shigematsu is little known, but his piece Hut of a Mexican Native (Mekishiko dojin no koya) was well reviewed. Critics felt that its dark and sinister quality suited the tu- multuous, impassioned tone of the FAA.^^ Another vital addition to the group was Yanase Masamu (1900—1945), who submitted two works to the FAA’s second exhibition. Yanase was born in the city of Matsuyama in Ehime prefecture on the island of Shikoku. ITe soon moved, however, to the town of Moji 14 Yanase Masamu, Mountain in Winter (Fuyu no yama), 1917. Oil on canvas, 23.9 X 33.1 cm. Musashino Art University Museum and Library. in Kitakyushu. Yanase was recognized early on as an artistic prodigy: though he only began studying art at the age of fourteen, by age fifteen he was exhibiting in Moji and had attracted the support of a fan club known as the Brazil Club (Burajiru-kai). He started his training in watercolors and twice had work accepted for the Fusain Society catalogue/*’ In 1914 his wa- tercolor Afternoon Company (Gogo no kaisha) was chosen for the second “Association for Japanese Watercolor Painting Exhibition” (Nihon Suishikigakaiten). A year later, Yanase had his first solo exhibition, and his work River and Cascading Light (Kawa to oriru hikari to), which had been reproduced in the Fusain Society catalogue, was accepted into ihtydga sec- tion of the Inten. In his early work, Yanase experimented with a variety of late-impressionist and post- impressionist techniques. Many of his paintings were light-drenched pastoral landscapes ren- dered in large pointillist-style paint dabs, or mountain views delineated by large brushstrokes, some of which were composed to create cubistic, geometricized forms like those of Cezanne (Fig. 14). His palette consisted largely of pastel blues, greens, and purples. Around 1920, Yanase PREHISTORY OF MAVO 15 Yanase Masamu, River and Bridge (Kawa to hashi), ca, 1921, Oil on canvas, 24 x 33 cm. Musashino Art University Museum and Library. incorporated elements of futurism into his style, using dynamically swirling brushstrokes that further abstracted the forms and ran them together in long sweeping motions across the canvas. In these works, Yanase was less concerned with the light and atmosphere of the landscape than with the animated and expressive nature of the brush (see Plate 2 and Figs. 15-16). By 1922, he was actively involved with the FAA, producing wholly abstract paintings incorporating elements of cubism, futurism, and expressionism. Yanase’s intellectual life and artistic career were shaped by a series of powerful mentors, beginning wirh Matsumoto Fumio (1892—?), who was born in Fukuoka and met Yanase at one of the artist’s exhibitions in Kyushu around 1915. Matsumoto’s familiarity with literary trends in Europe and his textual translations played a critical role in introducing and inter- preting new work from abroad. FFe is well known for his translation from the French of Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger’s treatise “On Cubism” from 1912.^^ By the time he met Yanase, Matsumoto, himself a protege of Sakai Toshihiko, was already committed to dis- seminating socialism, and he ignited Yanase’s interest in leftist political theory.^^ 16 Yanase Masamu, Cliff and Grass (Gake to kusa), ca, 1921. Oil on canvas, 24 x 33 cm. Musashino Art University Museum and Library. Another of Yanase’s mentors was the eminent journalist and social critic Hasegawa Nyo- zekan (1875—1969), whom he met in 1919/^ Hasegawa was impressed by Yanases painting ability and decided to take him under his wing. Through the journalists extensive network of social connections, Yanase was able to work with some of the most renowned political thinkers of the day. He also provided illustrations for Hasegawa’s influential magazine of so- cial and cultural criticism, Warera (We), which began publication in 1919, was renamed Hi- han (Criticism) in 1930, and continued until 1934. Hasegawa established 'Warera after re- signing from the Osaka asahi shinbun in protest over newspaper censorship. The magazine attracted many prominent social critics, especially Marxist social scientists from Tokyo and Kyoto universities. Warera writers were dedicated to combating the government’s increasing restriction of “dangerous thought.” Hasegawa saw Warera, which championed the “new ideal of ‘social reconstruction’ ” (kaizo), “as both a product and creator of social consciousness.” The magazine soon became even more politically radical and began to voice concern over class conflict in Japanese society under capitalism. Hasegawa also criticized state attempts PREHISTORY OF MAVO to impose harmony on Japanese society, deeming them, in Andrew Barshay’s words, “a bu- reaucratic illusion, and at worst a prettified form of militaristic coercion. Hasegawa em- ployed many well-known artists to do illustrations for his magazine. The illustrations Yanase provided to Warera, primarily pen-and-ink landscape sketches in a highly abbreviated style, were his principal source ot income at this time. At Warera Yanase became acquainted with the prominent director and playwright Akita Y” Ujaku (1883—1962),^' who introduced him to the young leftist writers Komaki Omi and > Kaneko Yobun, founders of the new leftist literary journal Tanemakn hito (The Sower). Yanase began writing regularly for this publication, as well as providing it with political car- toons. He continued this work while he was with Mavo, even after the magazine shut down and restarted again under a new name, Biingei sensen (Literary Front), in June 1924. When Yanase approached FAA members and asked to be admitted to the group, he chose to par- ticipate under his Tanemakti hito pen name, ‘Anaaki Kyosan” (also read as “Kyozo”), which combined the sounds of “anarchy” with the sound of the Japanese word for “commune,” kyosan (from kyosanshugi, meaning “communism”). He also took the opportunity to dis- tribute copies of Tanemakti hito at the exhibition hall. To promote their second exhibition, FAA members took to the streets every day hand- ing out fliers. Because Ueno Park was still under the direct control of the Imperial House- hold Agency and uniformed guards patrolled the area, however, the artists were forbidden to hand out fliers within a delineated sector and were forced to stay outside the line that di- vided the imperial precinct from the sector governed by the city.^^ Not easily dissuaded — and inclined toward provocation — FAA artists arranged a continuous row of fliers on the ground leading from the front of the Ueno police box all the way across the central square of the park. Kinoshita notes that the authorities were already concerned about the exhibi- tion because of the use of shngi (or, “ism”) in the title, which to their minds linked the event with the subversive socialist activity prevalent at the time. This concern prompted the Spe- cial Higher Police to investigate.^^ Critics covering the event remarked on the suspicion of the authorities, noting that the futurists were perceived as radicals. The threat of subversive activity was considered particularly great because of the sixteen works by Russian artists that Burliuk contributed to the show. Continued border disputes and diplomatic tension between Japan and Russia made both Burliuk’s and Palmov’s activities suspect to the Japanese au- thorities. They were treated as potential subversives and constantly followed by local and military police.®^ FAA’s second exhibition drew a much larger crowd than the group had expected, although it elicited little response from the gadan. The exhibition was enthusiastically and sympa- thetically advertised in advance in the Nichinichi shinbun, the Tokyo asahi shinbiin, and other newspapers but was greeted with mixed reviews. One reviewer objected to Kinoshita stand- ing at the door of the exhibition explaining to viewers the meaning of each work (as had been explained to him by the artists themselves), stating that this insulted the art and did not speak well tor the artists, who should be able to explain their own work. The reviewer chided the futurists for revering wild unfettered originality as a new god that compelled them to renounce imitation, harmony, and refined tastes as if these were the devil, though doing so failed to lend their work passion or power. Revealing his own artistic biases, the reviewer criticized them for “poisoning their art with social consciousness,” arguing that the libera- tion of the individual in modern life was a deeply personal issue upon which, in his opin- ion, the futurists offered no real self-reflection or self-awareness, even though they claimed to be revolting against the primitivizing escapism of the pastoral in post-impressionism. Coun- tering the futurists’ claims that they had overthrown the art of the past, the reviewer quoted Henri Matisse as saying, “Art does not progress, it just changes. By this point, Fumon Gyo had ceased his active role in the FAA, largely because Ishii Hakutei, an important member of Nika, had approached him, assuring him that he would be accepted in the next Nika exhibition if he would return to the fold. Nevertheless, Fumon submitted two works to the FAA exhibition in absentia. Later, he requested that Kinoshita send the exhibition to Osaka, whete it was mounted at the textile union hall. Kinoshita and Burliuk attended but were annoyed to find that Fumon had modified the exhibition to fea- tute mostly his own work. Fumon’s insistence on the spotlight caused an irreparable rift be- tween him and the FAA, and he was not included in any succeeding activities of the group. The third FAA exhibition took place in October 1922, at the same venue as the second. Kinoshita devised the name “Sanka Independent” (literally. Third Section Independent) to furthet emphasize the group’s opposition to Nika (Second Section), as well as theit sense of having superseded the official society. The name change also signified FAA’s stylistic broad- ening to embrace a range of expressionist works under the rubric of futurism. The term “in- dependent” was taken from the French independmit, which was applied to an unjuried pub- lic exhibition and in the Japanese mind was associated with nonacademic, modernist artistic tendencies. As Japanese artists increasingly moved to more abstract styles and based their work more and more on individual subjective experience, there was a general sense that theit att could not be judged by any single criterion that would be univetsally applicable. Thus the FAA organized the “Sanka Independent” as an open exhibition, soliciting submissions from the artistic community at large, although they still maintained the right to choose which wotks would be exhibited.®^ Although Kinoshita was solely responsible for organizing the exhibition, the sudden out- break of an infectious disease in Fukui prefectute, where he was employed as a doctor in the Division of Public Hygiene, forced him to return to the provinces. He had to leave the in- stallation of the Sanka exhibition to Ogata and Shibuya. The work accepted included pieces A PREHISTORY OF MAVO 17 Kinoshita Shuichiro and his paintings, in “Miraiha no bijutsu undo o okoshita Kinoshita ShuichirO-shi” (Kinoshita ShuichirO who brought about the futurist art movement), Asahi graph, October 15, 1924, 1 1. 18 Kinoshita Shuichiro, Autopsy (Kaibo), ca. 1 922. Photograph of oil on canvas, presumed lost; exhibited at the "Sanka Independent.” In Shibuya Osamu, “Sankaten no miraiha” (The futurists at the Sanka exhibition), Chud bijutsu, no. 87 (December 1922): 23. from members and friends of the FAA, as well as submissions from the general public, with styles ranging widely even within the work of a single artist. Kinoshita himself submitted two distinct styles of work. One was entirely abstract, employing Burliuk’s theories of color dissonance, as in the work displayed in a photograph of the artist that ran in the popular pictorial Asahi graph (Fig. 17). Kinoshita’s works Autopsy (Fig. 18) and Woman repre- sented his other style; these pieces are akin to work Burliuk showed in Japan, in which figu- 19 Oura Shuzo, Cup with Foam and the Smell of Meat (Awadatsu koppu to niku no kaori), ca, 1922. Photograph of oil on canvas, presumed lost; exhibited at the “Sanka Independent." In Shibuya, “Sankaten no miraiha,” 19. rative scenes were rendered in a murky cubistic mode often employing radiating force lines to indicate dynamic motion.®^ Oura’s painting Cup with Foam and the Smell of Meat (Fig. 19) was reminiscent of works by contemporary German expressionist artists. A dissolute central figure was shown loung- ing in a cafe with his bony hand languorously holding a cocktail. He was surrounded by im- ages of prostitution, indicated by the randomly placed and sometimes inverted fragments of nude female body parts. The work strongly expressed the dual sentiments of angst and ennui, which plagued many Japanese intellectuals who were coping with strong feelings of social alien- ation in newly industtialized and modetnized Japan, like their counterparts in Europe. In Ger- many, this was referted to as Zivilisationsmiidigkeit (the weariness of civilization).^^ In his review of the “Sanka Independent,” Shibuya Osamu registered disappointment that the exhibiting artists had largely been unable to abandon their dependence on the ap- peatance of natural forms. He felt that they needed to move more toward pure expression. 20 Shibuya Osamu, Woman (Onna), ca. 1922. Photograph of oil on canvas, presumed lost; exhibited at the “Sanka Independent." In Shibuya, “Sankaten no miraiha,” 21 . 21 Ogata Kamenosuke, Conductor (Kondakuta), ca. 1922. 011 on canvas, presumed lost; exhibited at the “Sanka Independent." Photograph in Shibuya, “Sankaten no miraiha,” 17. 22 Yanase Masamu, Nap (Kasui), ca. 1922. Oil on canvas, 23.7 x 23.7 cm.; exhibited at the “Sanka Independent.” Musashino Art University Museum and Library. In this respect, he praised the highly abstract compositions of Kadowaki Shinto, a new par- ticipant who had been invited by Ogata. Unfortunately, almost nothing is known about Kado- waki, except that he worked selling tickets to theatrical performances in Asakusa. Shibuya’s Woman (Fig. 20) portrayed a female figure in the center of the composition with a hat cocked suggestively over one eye as she stared enticingly out at the viewer. The figure’s limbs and breasts were displaced from her form, swirling around her. Shibuya affixed pieces of fabric with a floral print on the upper and lower areas around the figure. He wrote that painting would increasingly project into three-dimensional space and would employ more machine-made elements (he referred to the bits of fabric). Similarly, Ogata Kameno- suke’s Description of the Appearance of a Murderer (Aru satsujinhan no ninsoga), a frenzied abstract composition of haunting forms, appears to have incorporated bits of fabric and pa- per collage elements.^* Ogatas other known work. Conductor (Fig. 21), an entirely abstract composition of geometric forms, also appears to have employed collage and surface textur- ing through either affixed materials or the use of paint itself. Of the two works submitted by Yanase, only Nap (Fig. 22) has survived. Nap is a small- scale painting with irregular, geometricized, almost crystalline, abstract forms overlapping as they dynamically project out of the center of the composition. The painting is rendered in pinkish purple tones, with occasional areas of light blue and green. Yanase displays strong brushwork, leaving clearly articulated strokes in the middle of his outlined forms; his care- ful application of pigments to blur the tones gives the work a gouache-like impression. Burliuk was not the only Russian to contribute to Japanese futurist activity. Another, the artist Varvara Bubnova, came to Japan in June 1922 and remained until 1958. In Russia, Bub- nova had been affiliated with the Union of Youth and had become involved in the debate on constructivism taking place in the Institute of Artistic Culture in Moscow in the early part of 1921. Among her friends were the prominent Russian avant-garde artists Alexandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, and Liubov Popova. Bubnova published two influential ar- ticles in Japan in 1922 explaining the current situation in the Russian art world. In the first, she examined the ramifications of the Russian Revolution on art and the artist, including individual analyses of illustrated constructivist works. In the second, she discussed the broader sociocultural implications of constructivist ideology, stressing the need to shift from aes- theticism to political action, to replace painting with real objects, and to transform art into industry through construction.^^ She supported what came to be known as productivist con- structivism. Because she was not inclined toward the provocative tactics of FAA and Mavo artists, however, Bubnova generally remained on the sidelines of Japanese avant-garde artis- . . 92 tic activity. Although no other works or reproductions from rhe “Sanka Independent” exhibition sur- vive, the exhibition pamphlet lists three addirional artists who would become key players in Mavo: Takamizawa Michinao Chutaro, 1899-1989), Okada Tatsuo (fl. ca. 1900-1935), and Kato Masao (1898—1987). Takamizawa later became narionally known as a tnangaka (comic artist) for his comic strip called Nora kuro (Stray Black), which he drew under the pseudonym Tagawa Suiho. Takamizawa was from Tokyo; his father’s family, originally samu- rai retainers before the Meiji Restoration, ran a textile manufacturing business. He attended the privately run Japan Art School (Nihon Bijutsu Gakko), where he had hoped to study with the main instructor Sugiura Hisui, a popular illustrator and graphic designer of the time. But he ended up taking classes from a junior professor of architecrure at Waseda Uni- versity named Imai Kenji, who lectured enthusiastically on architecture and craft design. Takamizawa also studied with the Nika-affiliated painter Nakagawa Kigen, who had re- cently returned from srudying with Matisse in France. Murayama described Takamizawa as a prankster, always telling jokes and making people laugh, and displaying the playful, slightly irreverent attitude that infused his art work.^'^ Okada Tatsuo and Kato Masao are less well-known but were also important contributors to the FAA and Mavo. Okada was probably from Kyushu and is thought to have died in Manchuria or to have remained there after arriving sometime in the late 1930s. Knowledge of his artistic training and personal acquaintances is scant, but according to his later remi- niscences he was an art student when he participated in FAA-Mavo activities. He also was employed in the delivery section of a newspaper company in Kyobashi, hence the title of his now-lost “Sanka Independent” work, Rotary Press Factory (Rintenki kojo).^^ Okada’s few ex- tant works reveal a talented, innovative printmaker aesthetically and politically dedicated to anarchism. Okada represented a tadicalizing force in the FAA-Mavo coterie, consistently level- ing harsh criticism at the group, prodding them toward more violent and extreme actions. In many ways, he was a divisive force in the group, eventually dtiving them into opposing factions. As lor Kato, he is presumed to have been Okada’s ftiend. Originally from Tokyo, Kato graduated from the architectute section of the engineering department of Waseda Uni- versity in 1922 and later went to work for the Ministry ot Armed Forces. On May 17, 1923, the FAA publicly announced that it was temporarily disbanding to re- consider the group’s aims after the excitement of the last two exhibitions and to overhaul the organization. The member artists still felt compelled to demolish and rebuild the gadan to better suit the needs of young artists. But, unappreciated, misunderstood, and in the end unable to sell their works, they were finding little encouragement in the Japanese art world, much less a viable means of financial support. Ogata wistfully admitted the group’s failure to garner the sympathy of the viewing public and vowed to redouble the group’s efforts. Mem- bers had come to feel that “futurism” was too confining a category. They sought a more uni- versal and inclusive framework for the group — as they had demonstrated in using the name “Sanka.”®^ With Kinoshita still in Fukui, the FAA was stalled without its organizational leader. The May 1923 announcement of FAA’s disbanding set the stage for the appearance of Mavo. I N JULY 1923, JUST TWO MONTHS AFTER THE FUTURIST ART ASSOCIATION HAD DISSOLVED, the debut of Mavo was announced in the newspaper Jiji shinpd — the FAA had been “re- born as Mavo,” according to Kinoshita Shuichiro in his 1970 history of new art move- ments of the Taisho period.' A cartoon by Yanase Masamu, published in the second issue of Mavo magazine, memorializes an early gathering of Mavo members (Fig. 23). Shown sitting casually around a table, with art works leaning against the wall and empty liquor botrles and glasses strewn about, are MurayamaTomoyoshi, Oura Shuzo, Ogata Kamenosuke, and Kad- owaki Shinto; Yanase, pen in hand, sits with his back to the viewer, and on the floor between him and Murayama is a pig-shaped incense burner with smoke wafting out of its snout — an altogether unusual public caricature of artists. Mavo group members have offered accounts of the origin of the name Mavo that differ from one another on key points. The most widely disseminated story is a dada-like tale that recalls Hans Arp’s experiments with automatism. It claims that the five original members cut up pieces of paper with their names spelled out in romanized letters, scattered them around the room, and then chose the four remaining letters (or the ones farthest away, depending on the version) to make up the random word “Mavo.”^ Besides being implausible, this story trips on the problem of the letter “v,” which is not part of the native Japanese syllabary and rherefore is not a constituent letter of any Japanese-style name. The artist-critic Kawaji Rtniko in the June 1925 Chiio bijutsu explained away this problem by claiming that Varvara Bub- ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT 64 23 Yanase Masamu, Mavo Gathering, cartoon (manga), mid- 1923. In Mavo, no. 2 (August 1 924). The artist sits with his back to the viewer, and clockwise to his left are Murayama, Ogata, Kadowaki, and Oura, nova was included in the original gathering, even though there is no indication that she was involved with the group at the time.^ In his autobiography, Murayama explained that the “u” from Oura’s name was converted to a “v” and the combination MV was meant to allude to a popular contemporaneous term for a man and woman. In his diary, Yanase claimed credit for choosing the name but offered no explanation of its meaning.^ Yanase’s Tanemakii hito colleague Sasaki Takamaru recounted an elaborate explanation in Bungei sensen (September 1925). He wrote that the letters M-A- V-O were chosen to stand for masse (mass), vitesse (speed), alpha (the beginning), and omega (the end), which, he explained, incorporated the concepts of time and space and the entire span of the universe from start to finish.'^ Though appealing, this highly intellectualized ex- planation has never been conclusively verified. The questions surrounding Mavo’s naming, nonetheless, reveal several important issues. First, the members were vying to establish the group’s identity from its inception until well after its dissolution. Second, the artists were keenly aware of the marquee value of a name and, to enhance the group’s appeal, allowed the accretion of mystery around it. In this respect, the more far-fetched the explanation, the better. After all, avant-garde groups were supposed to be enigmatic. The boundaries of Mavo membership are similarly difficult to ascertain, since many artists associated with the group as friends, and the group released no official lists of newly added members. Kinoshita Shuichiro is a good example. Although he was instrumental in the found- ing of Mavo, actively participated in the group’s activities, and wrote ior Mavo magazine, he is not listed as a founding member. His absence from the roster is perplexing. It may result in part from his sporadic trips back to Fukui. Or it may indicate that he kept his distance from the group. Suffice it to say that Mavo “membership” was fluid. Thus 1 choose to in- clude in it all the artists who I believe had a significant impact on Mavo and contributed to defining its artistic posture. Primarily, these were artists who exhibited under the banner of Murayama’s conscious constructivism, and who identified themselves or were recognized con- temporaneously as “Mavoists.” Mavo opened its first exhibition at the Buddhist temple Denpoin in Asakusa in late July 1923 (Fig. 24).^ The “Mavo Manifesto” (Mavo no sengen), written by Murayama and stating the group’s eclectic credo, was first published in the exhibition pamphlet: 1 — |g| 1 ^ ^ ^ fap 5 ^ iJj Y ^ 2.8 s ^ lal jE- 8 ^ ^ B St/ ^ ^ M' M 24 Cover of the pamphlet for Mavo's first exhibition, Denpoin Temple, Asakusa, July 28-August 3, 1923. Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT 1 We are forming a group which is (mainly) concerned with constructivist art [keisei geijutsti] . We call our group Mavo. We are Mavoists. The principles or inclinations expressed in our works and this manifesto is Mavoism. Therefore, we have chosen the mark MV. We have gathered together because we share the same inclination as constructivist artists. However, we definitely did not gather because we have identical principles and beliefs about art. Thus, we do not aggressively try to regulate our artistic convictions. We recognize, however, that when looking out over the general world of constructivist art, we are bound to each other by a very concrete inclination. Because our group is formed thus, it is a matter of timing, a thing of the moment. We, each one of us, of course, possess assertions, convictions, and passions that we feel we must elevate to the level of objectivity and appropriateness. However, as long as we are going to form a group, we respect one another. Furthermore, while recognizing what we inherently possess may be exclusive at times, we acknowledge the fact that we could not form a group without it. In short, in terms of organization our group is a negative entity. 2 Next we would like to look at the nature of our Mavoist inclination. We do not subscribe to the convictions or “outward signs” of any existing groups. (It is not necessary to interpret this strictly. You can think of it as the “color of a group.”) We stand at the vanguard, and will eternally stand there. We are not bound. We are radical. We revolutionize/make revolution. We advance. We create. We ceaselessly affirm and negate. We live in all the meanings of words. Nothing can be compared to us. We cannot help but acknowledge that what ties us together is the approximation of the forms of constructivist art. However, we do not think it is necessary to explain the “what” or “how” of this. That is something you will understand by looking at our work. 3 We have exhibitions from one to four times a year. We also call for works from the general public. Works from the general public must be judged by a variety of conditions. Ideally speaking, there is no restriction on our judging method. However, we must be forgiven for accepting our own work at the present time. As for judging standards, we are concerned with the two points of scope and merit. To restrict the scope of works to those with the character and power of the formation of our group. However, this should be understood as being extremely broad. In regard to the matter of merit, there is nothing left to do but trust the value judgment represented in our work. We also experiment with lectures, theater, musical concerts, magazine publishing, etc. We also accept posters, window displays, book designs, stage designs, various kinds of ornaments, architectural plans, and so forth. If you give one yen per person per month, you will be called Mavo’s F (friend, mcinm^ freimd) . This entitles you to enter exhibitions and other sponsored events for free. Mavoists will probably eventually increase, but for now they are the five people indicated below: Kadowaki Shinto, Murayama Tomoyoshi, Oura Shuzo, Ogata Kamenosuke, Yanase Masamu® Unlike the powerful manifestos of European artists, Mavo’s statement presented little in the way of a cohesive group platform or even a clear objective. While drawn together be- cause of a “constructivist inclination,” the Mavo artists did not assert ideological solidarity. Rather, they maintained distinct convictions, respecting each other’s personal goals. This po- sition was probably adopted as a comment on the perceived “coercion” and “tyranny” of gadan societies, who, according to the Mavoists, preserved consistency in the group by ex- cluding all who would not conform. As section two of the manifesto says, the group mem- bers saw themselves as ahead of their time, rebelling against established artistic practices, and having a mandate to revolutionize art. An advertising flier for the first Mavo exhibition further reinforced this avant-garde iden- tity: “How disgraceful it is for anyone who does not see this astonishing exhibition!! Futtir - ism Expressionism Dadaism There is nothing newer than this, there is nothing as frighten- ing as this, there is nothing truer than this.”^ In this statement, the group boldly asserted that it had superseded other modernist styles by literally crossing out their names — a con- frontational gesture of public erasure. This is one example of Mavo’s skillful deployment of a rhetoric of provocation akin to that of the FAA. Both groups portrayed their members as romantic heroes of the modern, as avant-garde artists intervening to revolutionize culture and to discard the useless, indeterminate past. The FAA text “Friends! Wake up!” (Tomo yo same yo), most likely written by Kinoshita Shuichiro, reveals a similar activist posture: ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT Friends! Wake up! Come, new young, healthy artists! Come to the new epoch of creation! Friends! Wake up! Escape from all copying! Take your penetrating mind, your sensitive psyche, and your centripetal nerves; seize the connection between nature and complicated, real daily life. Make large numbers of new works! All at once break and extinguish the subject you are using in order to express the passion and the speed of life in flux. Nature never shows you falsehood. It’s all the truth. While you feel this love, paint! . . . Restriction is bad. We must be free in all situations. Restrictions (rules) are one of the greatest annoy- ances. . . . Progress and freshness cannot be expressed in the traditional background which is full of rules. . . . Flash! Scream! Leap! Sorrow! Wild Joy! We have and observe the same amount ot love for mechanical movement and sensual excitement. . . . We are not crip- ples. . . . All the stagnation, shame, jealousy, hesitation — foster mold on the human spirit. Futurism is constantly changing — fresh — dashing forward — collision — destruction. . . . Energy conquers the cold. Energy melts steel. Euturism has the passion to melt steel.*® Whereas futurist statements were an optimistic call to action, an affirmation of man and na- ture, Mavo’s writings were more negative, and became increasingly so. This negativity was rooted in the group’s perception of widespread social unrest and the sense of crisis produced both by the dizzying conditions of life in the modern age and by the pervasive inequities of Japanese society. Mavo members responded to these conditions by casting themselves as so- cial critics, constructing innovative and often outrageous aesthetic and poetic modes to frame their critique, which focused on the problems of the present and expressed little confidence about the future. At the Denpoin exhibition, Murayama displayed a number of three-dimensional and low-relief constructions made of industrial, photographic, and textual collage bits. His Work Employing Flower and Shoe (Fig. 25) combined images and text fragments with real objects, such as a woman’s seductive high-heeled shoe and synthetic flowers, some atop the box con- struction and others in a glass vase around which a ribbon was tied in a delicate bow. A sug- gestive jumble of modern commodities, the work was unlike anything Japanese audiences had ever seen. Murayama’s single extant piece from this exhibition is tentatively dated to 1921-1922, when he was still studying in Germany. Executed entirely in oil. Sadistic Space (Plate 3) is stylisti- cally comparable to Murayama’s Portrait of a Yoimgjewish Girl (Plate 4), also produced while the artist was abroad. Both paintings are abstract compositions, employing rounded forms and gently contoured but discontinuous outlines. And both have incomprehensible frag- ments of Hebrew text inscribed on the surface. Sadistic Space, however, incorporates none of the collage elements or surface impasto of the portrait, which is painted in somber tones 25 Murayama Tomoyoshi, Work Employing Flower and Shoe (Hana to kutsu no tsukatte aru sakuhin), ca, 1 923. Mixed media construction, presumed lost Photograph in the first Mavo exhibition pamphlet Photograph courtesy of Omuka Toshiharu. directly on a German railway baggage shipment form. In contrast, Sadistic Space is rendered on a rhomboid-shaped canvas in sharper, brighter hues, giving the work an overall decora- tive and playful quality that belies its enigmatic and illogical spatial relations and its taunt- ing use of shading for both illusionistic description and purely decorative purposes. In the portrait Murayama experiments with the image’s surface, but in Sadistic Space he is more concerned wirh the manipulation of pictorial space. Creating and at the same time denying spatial recession, he probes the relationship between surface and void, plane and volume. Other works displayed in the first Mavo exhibition varied widely in style and content, ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT 26 Ogata Kamenosuke, Hill on a Mud Road and the Head of a Cow (Doromichi no saka to ushi no atama), early 1 923. Oil on canvas, presumed lost. Photograph in first Mavo exhibition pamphlet and also in Mavo, no. 3 (August 1924). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. many still retaining strong formal correspondences to the futurist work the artists produced for the FAA. Ogata Kamenosuke’s Hill on a Mud Road and the Head of a Cow (Fig. 26) is a highly abstracted composition, employing sketchy geometric forms, almost like symbols, floating on an undelineated, monochromatic background. Yanase Masamu’s works differed significantly from one another as the artist experimented with a number of styles at this time. A Morning in May and Me Before Breakfast (Plate 5) distinctly revealed the influence of Ital- ian futurism, particularly the work of Carlo Carra. Compositionally an animated spiral with multiple pictorial planes, it expresses notions of simultaneity and dynamism in what appears to be an urban landscape. Yanase’s use of bright pigments, especially red, green, and purple, contributed to the work’s ebullience. To intensify the dynamic effect, the artist built up the surface with multiple layers of alternately opaque and translucent pigment; he then scraped zigzag and linear patterns into the impasto. Oh, Excuse Me! (Plate 6) was among the first of Yanase’s works to show the influence of Murayama’s conscious constructivism. Though rendered entirely in oil, the painting shows Yanase’s attempts to mirror the collage aesthetic of constructive art. Two-dimensional ab- stract forms overlap, and floating letters are meant to stand for text fragments. A large “R” looms in the middle of the composition, surely inspired by the many designs incorporating the same letter in Russian and eastern European graphic designs, particularly those by El Lissitzky, familiar from avant-garde magazines. The four works in Yanase’s TffR series show distinct stylistic traits.'^ The work (Plate 7) relates to Murayama’s constructivist explorations of material and pictorial surface and space. But in this piece, Yanase takes the constructivist inclination even further, attempting to sim- ulate the formal and architectonic qualities of industrially produced materials by represent- ing steel rivets, as if pieces of the composition had been welded together. The second and third works in the series are abstract compositions dynamically rendered in an emotive and exuberant painterly style. MV 2 (Fig. 27) displays a massive tadpole-shaped form surging from the lower left of the composition and shooting off into the upper right, surrounded by abstract lines and dots. It is especially reminiscent of a Kandinsky landscape from the Blaue period, although there are no residual figurative elements. (Fig. 28) is more closely akin to the abstract expressionist mode of Kadowaki’s 192} No. ^4 (Fig. 29). The palette of both MV I and MV 1 is predominantly pastel, with pinkish hues and purplish reds; MV 3 is rendered largely in blue. The remaining work in Yanase’s series, MV 4 (Fig. 30), departs from his previous styles. It too is an abstract composition, but this time with wholly static forms, sharply delineated by strong black outlines and rendered in earthy tones probably with black underpainting. Among the works known from the exhibition, Oura Shuzo’s Two People Talking (Fig. 31) was the only actual “construction” by a Mavo artist other than Murayama. Oura assembled text fragments and real objects, affixing them to the pictorial surface to create a collage in low relief Fie combined postage stamps and printed forms with carved pieces of wood and cut fabric. From the extant photograph it is difficult to discern which elements were actual collage materials and which were forms painted to look three-dimensional. A small L-shaped tube that sat on the lower left of the composition, however, was clearly painted in an illu- sionistic manner to give a sense of volume, with a shadow added behind the form for greater sculptural effect. Ogata wrote about Mavo in the Tokyo asahi shinbun to advertise the exhibition. Using inflammatory language to both confront the readers and lampoon Mavo itself, he reinforced the irreverent, impulsive, and slightly irrational tone of the group, tie unabashedly hawked the exhibition (which was free) and exhorted readers who were interested in understanding “Mavo’s art and life” to buy its art work, donate money to the group, and promote Mavo at every chance possible. Sounding like a circus barker, Ogata betrayed his poetic aspirations with his self-consciously absurd and convulsive prose. But despite the fanfare, Mavo works did not sell, nor would they during most of the group’s existence.’^ The critic Asaeda Jiro, although a close acquaintance of Yanase, gave the exhibition a mixed review. FFe criticized the group’s use of eclectic materials and rejected Murayama’s as- sertion that collage elements could evoke “psychological associations” in the mind of the viewer. Instead, he proposed that art progressed not through the introduction of external el- ements to painting — the integration of art and daily life that Mavo sought — but through 27 (LEFT) Yanase Masamu, MV 2, 1 923. Oil on canvas, 1 6.9 x 1 6.9 cm. Musashino Art University Museum and Library. 28 (BELOW) Yanase Masamu, MV3, 1 923. Oil on wood, 33 x 23.7 cm. Musashino Art University Museum and Library. 29 (RisHT) Kadowaki Shinro, W23 No. 34, 1923. In first Mavo exhibition pamphlet. Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. 30 (FAR RIGHT) Yanase Masamu, MV 4, 1923, Oil on canvas, 22.7 X 1 5.4 cm. Musashino Art University Museum and Library. ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT 74 31 Oura Shuzo, Two People Talking (Futari wa hanshite iru), early 1923. Mixed media collage, presumed lost. Photo- graph in Mavo, no. 1 (July 1924). Museum of Contem- porary Art Tokyo. the total elimination of everything extraneous to painting itself — in other words, “pure paint- ing.” The purpose of this pure art, Asaeda wrote, should be to create “something that di- rectly excited the emotions. Murayama wasted no time in responding. He ripped into each of Asaeda’s comments, mocking the critic as he carefully enumerated his points. In his now well-known statement ol purpose, Murayama wrote: What I am trying to make and am asking for is not something that can fit into the nar- row category of art. . . . criticizing my, or our, work from this point of view is terribly misguided. In regard to Mr. Asaeda’s assertion that he would like art to directly stimu- late his emotions, this is exactly the position which I am opposing, since when you are stimulating the emotions and having the emotions stimulated, you have not departed from impressionism and early expressionism. If I were after that kind of thing, why would I be suffering and what need would there be for me to be a Mavoist? Because I disap- prove of pure art, in its positive and negative effects ... I would cry if our, or at the very least my, work were viewed with pleasure or became a mediator for directly aesthetically stimulating the emotions. For me . . . constructive art [keisei geijutsu] knocks down and destroys the interior boundaries between the other arts and between other areas of life. . . . Along with Mr. Asaeda, the vegetative art of the majority of the world and the crippled pale beings who advocate it, the slavering aesthetics, and sleepy art criticism are all com- pletely putrefied! . . . My work is not an after-dinner tea. I have no time to get involved with the trivial matter of “taste.” My works do not demand appreciation; they demand understanding.'^ The inauguration of Mavo at Denpoin enraged many artists who had been involved with the FAA but were now excluded. To protest theit exclusion, Okada Tatsuo and Kato Masao mounted a concurrent exhibition at the Cafe Italy in Ginza. Okada not only confronted Mavo through this exhibition, but also assaulted the group in the press, writing a scathing commentary directed primarily at Murayama: If intentionally creating enemies and fighting them is an idea and a pastime of you con- scious constructivists, and if destruction is your single self-vindication, Nietzsche, your principal guardian, is a frightening egoist and a hateful tyrant. As for whether the actual is an eternally unavoidable thing . . . nay, what is the point of the love of the so-called superman of “Zarathustra” for our life, which is bound by the heavy iron chain of the present capitalist social system to the extent that it tenders us immobile? Who is the per- son at this late hour bringing up such a stubborn (close-minded) philosophy and mak- ing such a pompous fuss? . . . Or are you just drunk on the pleasant feeling of threatening and upsetting Japan’s mediocre artists and prostitute wtiters?! It is obvious that any effort to give a foundation to the contradicting self, as you recognize yourself that your movement runs counter to your thought (I assume that’s the case), will end up being a vain struggle. ... I am say- ing this because for many years, I myself harbored the same suicidal truth as you. Lose no time in shaking off such exclusive, sequestered art; and to create a free life, to un- dertake enthusiastically the liberation ol the wotld, move away horn the dubious temp- tation of the magic philosophy.*^ Okada chastised Murayama for creating an exclusive, egoistic, and overly philosophical ap- proach to art that he felt was out of touch with the real social and political battle being waged against capitalism. He worried about the danger of a purposeless egoism encouraged by an undirected expansion of the self. The artist, rather than being concerned with the triumph of the elitist Nietzschean superman against a herd mentality through heroic genius and will, should devote himself to addressing the crisis of the quotidian.*^ Yet despite his expressed ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT disdain tor Mavo’s work, Okada eagerly participated in Mavo when offered the opportunity to join the group soon after. Membership did not temper his demeanor, however, and he continued to criticize Mavo from within. Even before incurring Okada’s wrath, Mavo artists had publicly stated their intention to open up group activities to anyone who wished to participate, as indicated in their printed postcard announcement for the first exhibition as well as in their manifesto.'^ True to their word, they greatly expanded their ranks between this first show and the group’s second ex- hibition in November. In addition to Okada and Kato, the artists Takamizawa Michinao, Yabashi Kimimaro, and Toda Tatsuo showed work at Mavo’s second exhibition. Little is known about Yabashi Yabashi Jokichi; 1902—1964) except that he arrived in Tokyo from his hometown Uryu in Hokkaido in December 1920 at the age of eighteen and worked at an educational publishing house. A devout adherent of Pyotr Kropotkin’s the- ories of anarchism and later a follower of the prominent anarchist Osugi Sakae, Yabashi chose the aristocratic-sounding pseudonym “Kimimaro” to mock Konoe Fumimaro, a powerful member of the House of Peers. Murayama later described Yabashi as “a man with a shad- owy and violent personality,” and noted that he went on to become the head of a commer- cial design firm after his involvement with Mavo.^^ Toda Tatsuo (1904—1988) was an acquaintance of Ogata, whom he met during the lat- ter’s involvement with the FAA. He describes Ogata as extremely charismatic and recalls fol- lowing him around, almost sycophantically, when group members went out carousing. Toda was familiar with Mutayama’s work from the first exhibition at Bunpodo, which he had stum- bled upon while buying art supplies. Originally from Maebashi in Gunma prefecture, Toda was forced to drop out of middle school and seek work in Tokyo in 1917 because of family financial problems. He immediately entered the Lion dentrifice company, where he worked as a commercial designer. Like many other contemporary Japanese artists, including Mu- rayama, he also provided illustrations for children’s books and periodicals. These activities led to a lifelong career in commercial design and eventually to the formation of his own de- sign company.^^ The majority of artists in the Mavo movement were involved in commer- cial design. Oura produced design work at the bookstote Maruzen, and both Murayama and Yanase did commercial illustrations lor magazines, books, and posters. The addition of these new members shilted Mavo’s posture to the radical left, linking it strongly with anarchism and dadaism. Okada and Yabashi in particular were dedicated to social revolution through anarchist means. Their attitude emerged in Mavo’s rhetoric and art work as an intense expression of pessimism, destruction, and violence. It also introduced a new tension into the group, setting the original, more moderately rebellious members against the new members, with their more extreme and militant tendencies. Sympathetic to both sides, Murayama maintained a precarious position in the middle. Mavo’s Anti-Nika “Moving Exhibition” Mavo continued the FAA’s practice of protesting against Nika. Their “Moving Exhibition Welcoming Works Rejected Torn Nika,” mounted outside the tenth Nika exhibition in Au- gust 1923, was a highly calculated public protest that effectively used the power of the pop- ular press to great advantage. While Mavo artists were planning this demonstration, they learned that Nika had accepted a work by the young artist Sumiya Iwane (1901-1997).^^ Sumiya submitted two paintings inspired by the burned-out factories and deserted houses around Higashi Nakano, the neighborhood where both he and Murayama lived. His paint- ing Daily Task of Love in the Factory (Plate 8), an abstract work that referred to the daily meetings of a couple employed at a nearby factory, was accepted even though it bore a strik- ing resemblance to Mavo works that had been rejected. Fond of Russian literature, Sumiya had submitted his work under the Russian-sounding pseudonym Iwanov Sumiyanovich, and in the announcement of acceptances he was listed as a foreign artist. Mavo artists, quickly concluding that the Nika jury members had mistaken Sumiya for a foreigner, created an up- roar about Nika’s favoring foreigners. They visited Sumiya at his home that evening, ap- pealing to him to join Mavo and support their protest by withdrawing his work. Somewhat baffled by the sudden attention, Sumiya agreed, perhaps under duress, and went off to the Nika office.^^ By that time, a number of artists had already gathered outside to set up their works in the park.^® When Sumiya emerged from the Nika office with his work, Murayama and Yabashi im- mediately thrust a triangular Mavo flag in his hands and began screaming, “Success! Suc- cess!” Caught up in the moment, Sumiya climbed to the top of the exhibition hall and draped the flag from the roof Not to be outdone, Takamizawa began to lob rocks onto the hall’s glass roof, shattering the glass, which fell into the building. The Nika jury rushed outside to see what was going on. Takamizawa recalls that his former teacher Nakagawa Kigen, af- ter admonishing him for this violent behavior, went back inside when Takamizawa refused to cease. The protest ended in a confrontation with the police but garnered Mavo a great deal of free publicity and demonstrated the group’s savvy use of the mass media as a public forum to promote its cause. Mavo and the Great Kanto Earthquake Just as Mavo’s activities had begun to gain momentum, an earthquake registering nearly 7.9 on the Richter scale devastated Tokyo on September i, 1923. The Great Kanto Earthquake and the ensuing fires killed upward of 100,000 people and injured an additional 50,000. The homes of more than 70 percent of the two million people living in metropolitan Tokyo were ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT damaged or destroyed. With communications cut off, public utilities not functioning, and the government in chaos, a newly formed cabinet under Yamamoto Gonnohyoe established martial law, sending 35,000 troops to the city to maintain order.^^ Rumors proliferated after the quake that Koreans and communists were working in tan- dem to destabilize Japan by igniting fires and sabotaging well water. These rumors incited uncontrollable violence and indiscriminate murder. Before the government could regain con- trol, roving bands of civilian vigilantes had murdered thousands of Koreans, Chinese, and suspected or proven communists. Their rampage confirmed the state’s worst fear of immi- nent anarchy and led to increased suppression of political freedom — a tremendous setback for the program of technological advancement and social improvement that had been fore- most on the national agenda. While authorities attempted to curtail the violence, certain individuals took the oppor- tunity to root out potentially subversive parties. It was at this time that the metropolitan po- lice murdered many of the principal Japanese anarcho-syndicalist labor leaders. First, seven members of the Nankatsu Labor Club (Nankatsu Roddkai), considered anarchist extrem- ists, were killed by ultranationalisr police at the Kameido police station in what is now known as the Kameido Incident. Around the same time, the anarcho-syndicalist leader Osiigi Sakae and members of his family were also murdered. As a mournful tribute to their slain col- leagues, former members of the magazine Tane?naku hito's coterie published Tanemaku za- kki (Miscellaneous Notes of the Sower) in January 1924, describing the post-earthquake slaughter of leftist sympathizers.^^ Not only did the earthquake have profound intellectual and psychological ramifications for the general artistic community, but there were also particularly harrowing repercussions for artists even thought to be involved in socialist activity. The authorities quickly identified them as seditious. Those suspected were questioned, beaten, and sometimes incarcerated, and their personal properry, including art works and memoirs, was confiscated by a gov- ernment that considered them political subversives. As the artist most openly involved with leftist political activity, Yanase undoubtedly experienced the most traumatic treatment. He was arrested by the military police (kenpeitai) and imprisoned for five days, where he was repeatedly beaten and bayoneted by soldiers. When he was finally released, his friends urged him for his own safety to leave Tokyo. He returned to his home in Kyushu, remaining there for over a month. His work was exhibited at the second Mavo exhibition in his absence. Despite the oppressive police surveillance, Mavo artists took advantage of the disarray of the art establishment after the earthquake. In mid-October, they mounted the “Antism Show at the Ozaki Trade Company. Although the contents of this exhibition are not known, it is clear that three of the five artists participating were from Mavo: Murayama, Takamizawa, and Ogata.^^ Also in October, Sumiya mounted a show in his hometown, Maebashi, called “Conscious Constructivist Solo Exhibition” (Ishikiteki koseishugiteki kojin tenrankai).^^ A month later, Mavo launched its most ambitious project to date, an exhibition that trav- eled to surviving or rebuilt cafes and restaurants throughout the city.^^ Most of the sites were in the Yamanote area (known as the “high city”) because vast portions of the lower-lying city had been destroyed."^® Cafes had mushroomed throughout the city as part of the new leisure economy serving the burgeoning urban middle class. They were now crowded with home- less refugees seeking a momentary respite from the grim reality of the earthquake, and Mavo artists sought to inject their work into these popular gathering spots. The pamphlet for the traveling exhibition was printed on pink paper and displayed the words “Mavo” and “Brot und Zirkus” (bread and circus) along with an abstract design and the image ot a corkscrew- shaped pig’s tail (Fig. 32). Murayama wrote in his autobiography that around this time the image of a pig and the pig’s tail became his signature and “pig” became associated with Mavo both in illustrations and in print.^' The group also printed more than 3,000 promotional fliers (reproducing the text from the advertisement flier for the first exhibition); in typically provocative Mavo fashion, Murayama, Sumiya, and Takamizawa glued strands of their hair to the fliers before distributing them.^^ ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT Very few of the more than 129 works displayed at the second Mavo exhibition are still extant or even known through photographic reproduction. Several pieces had been shown in previous exhibitions. One ol Kato’s series of wall hangings (kabekake) was reproduced in the first issue of Mavo magazine (Fig. 33). It consisted of large overlapping rectilinear ab- stract forms, some painted and others from actual collage elements, probably fabric, affixed to the surface. Murayama later recalled that the artists, while moving from cafe to cafe, would olten pause and display some of their works on benches in Hibiya Park. The Mavo artists called these their street exhibitions (gaito-ten), but they did not last long. Police soon or- dered them to remove their works to restore the benches to their intended use.'^^ Like many other artists at the time, Mavo members became swept up in a movement for the rebuilding of the city, summarized by the rallying cry “From the atelier to the streets” (atone kam gairo e). As one reporter noted, artists felt that “the first step toward reconstruc- tion was to relieve the damaged spirit [of the city and its people] through art. To Mavo artists, the post-earthquake conditions symbolized the coming social revolution: the clear- ing of damaged structures offered unprecedented opportunity to rebuild the capital physi- cally and the country ideologically. Mavo’s post-earthquake work included the decoration of the temporary structures known as “barracks” (barakku) that were erected in the wake ol the disaster. The term was used broadly alter the 1923 quake for diverse structures that included tent-like shelters and huts of sheet metal for refugees and businesses, as well as sturdier and sometimes elaborately decorated wooden edifices designed to stand for several years until permanent reconstruction could be completed. Barrack projects were concentrated in the lower-lying areas of the city most heav- ily damaged by the earthquake, known as the low city (shitamachi). This area included what had been the commercial center of Tokyo as well as several working-class residential neigh- borhoods adjacent to sizable industrial developments: Hibiya, Ginza, Kyobashi, Nihonbashi, Kanda, Asakusa, Fukagawa, and Honjo. For Mavo, the barrack projects became both a symbol and a site for the generation of a new art intrinsically linked to daily life. Many Japanese proponents of socialism saw the bar- racks as representing the emergence ol a truly proletarian consciousness. The makeshift and extemporaneous structures, and the new social formations they constituted, signified the pos- sibility ol complete freedom from conventions and institutional powers. The barracks offered the prospect of social regeneration along different, egalitarian lines. Mavo artists also saw their barrack projects as a step toward artistic renewal. Just as art designed daily life, so daily file would revivify the arts (geijutsu fukko). The theme of “re- vival,” often iterated in the post-earthquake reconstruction period in the expression teito fukko (revival of the imperial capital), referred to both physical and spiritual renewal. In Japan, earthquakes historically have been considered transformative, even numinous events, hav- 33 Kato Masao, Wall Hanging (Kabekake), Mixed media construction, probably exhibited at the second Mavo exhibition, November 1923. Photograph in Mavo, no, 1 (July 1924). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. ing liberating effects as well as destructive repercussions. Some artists and writers, mourn- ing the loss of the last vestiges of Edo Japan in the quake, sought renewal in a recuperation of the past. Others compared their situation with the turmoil and subsequent sociocultural reordering brought on by World War I and the Russian Revolution. The barracks — and the reconfiguration of the urban landscape — were emblematic of this moment of change. Much of the work on the barracks took the form of “signboard architecture” (kanban kenchiku): facades of buildings were painted and decorative signboards for businesses were created. Soga Takaaki, who has documented several of Mavo’s barrack-related projects, identifies the painting of a signboard for a bookstore in Kanda as the group’s first commis- sion.'^^ Located diagonally across the street from Bunpodo, the bookstore was owned by Haga Takeo, one of Murayama’s schoolmates from the Kaisei Middle School. While it is known that Murayama designed and painted this sign himself, nothing is known about the ap- pearance of the project. Another signboard designed by Mavo for the front of the Morie bookstore is identifiable ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT 34 Murayama Tomoyoshi and Mavo, Mode bookstore signboard (Morie shoten kanban). In “Morie shoten kanban" (The signboard for the Morie bookstore), Kenchiku shincho 5, no. 7 (July 1 924). in a photograph in Kenchiku shincho (Fig. 34).'^^ Hung above the shop’s ground floor awning, it displayed the English words “Buddhistic Bookseller” in a large faceted typeface, gently arching to mirror the upper contour of the sign. Below, in Japanese characters, were the lines “Buddhist books, publication and sales” and “Morie Bookstore”; the store’s name was writ- ten in large characters with fringes along the left edges, as if the wind were blowing them from the right. Finally, at the bottom of the sign was the signature and dare: “Mavo, Jan. 1924.” Surrounding and overlapping the lines of writing were rectilinear and rounded ab- stract shapes organized in a free-form composition, giving an overall sense of animated play- fulness. The irregularly protruding profile and unusual composition made for a highly con- spicuous billboard. One ol the major barrack decoration commissions reliably attributable to Mavo is the Hayashiya restaurant (Fig. 35).'^^ It is not known who designed the building itself; it was a diminutive two-story structure with sliding glass doors opening to the street and providing easy access to the dining area. Photographs of the facade reveal two large abutting windows in the center of the second story. The building’s decorations worked in opposition to its phys- ical structure, actively denying the rhythm of the fenestration and entirely redefining the composition of the facade. On it large abstract patterns with jagged edges were playfully jux- taposed so as to create dynamic shapes between the forms. This composition was reminis- cent of the illustration on the cover of the pamphlet tor Mavo’s first exhibition (see Fig. 24). Although the original coloring of the building is unknown, it is plausible, given the nature of the group’s paintings, that the artists employed a colorful palette here as well. The build- ing was capped with Mavo’s trademark slanted sign, which in this case extended beyond the top of the facade and the roof Although the extant photograph is murky and difficult to read, the letter “M” is clearly evident on the left side of the facade over the window. Mavo artists often inserted initials from the group’s name into their designs. Also, the characteris- tic Mavo image of the corkscrew tail of a pig is plainly visible on the right side of the sec- ond-story windows. Mavo’s anarchic aesthetic celebrated the possibility of radical renewal — a reconceptual- ization of the present as well as an implicit and explicit critique of the so-called progress of Japanese modernity. The group’s barrack projects constituted a language of resistance against the forces that sought to rebuild on the old model. As Soga has correctly noted, for Mavo artists the barracks were life-size assemblages more than architectural spaces. This attitude led them to put forth the alternative concept Soga has termed “anarchic urban plastic arts” (anarukikku toshi zokei), differentiating their expressionistic, design-oriented work from the more spatial and structural concerns of practicing architects. Mavo’s colorful designs pro- duced a vibrant backdrop to the street’s activity, transforming the urban space ofTokyo into a public stage and drawing passersby into a relationship with the outlandishly decorated struc- tures. By activating the building facade, the artists gave viewers an interactive experience not unlike that of the group’s provocative street actions prior to the earthquake.^^ Mavo artists wanted to extend the theory of conscious constructivism to architecture well beyond their barrack projects. They felt that their constructivist art works already had a strong 35 Mavo, Hayashi restaurant (Hayashiya shokudo, at far left), barrack decoration project, early 1924. In “Shinsaigo no shinshokugyo: Ude 0 furu zekko no kikai" (New occupations after the earthquake: They skillfully display their abilities, the best machine). Chuo shinbun, March 6, 1 924 (a,m. ed,), 3. ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT architectonic or architectural bent because of the incorporation of machine-made, non-art materials inherently associated with buildings. This architectural aesthetic is also evident in Mavo’s stage designs. The group’s integrative, all-inclusive attitude is indicated by the state- ment of an unidentified Mavoist, most likely Murayama, quoted in Child shinbim: Our work is not something that can be simply summed up by the term “barrack deco- ration.” Until now, architecture has been treated as craft art [kogei bijutsu], but in our “Conscious Constructivism” it is seen as pure art [ jun geijutsii\. Therefore, we are not limited to barracks, but design permanent architecture as well. We started this work be- cause we think that this is the time to get out of the studio and into the city. While we were left rather powerless in getting to work in conventional (regular) architecture, this earthquake has created an opportunity for us actually to show our work. . . . Until now, in painting it was fine if you expressed color and forms and rays of light, and people cre- ated works with just art materials. In “Conscious Constructivism,” the sphere of ex- pression has been expanded to include color, form, force, time, sound, thought, and so forth. Thus art materials alone are no longer sufficient to express this. So we also use real things [ jitsubutsii], like metal wire, cloth, pieces of wood, newspaper. We believe it is not an overstatement to say that no matter what “isms” appear next, there is nothing newer than this.^^ The use of the term “pure art” here implied something different from rhe pure art to which Murayama objected when responding to Asaeda’s criticism. Here “pure art” signified a merg- ing of the functionality of architecture as craft and the realm of artistic expression, an ap- proach to architectural design markedly different from that of most Japanese architects of the time. Mavo received several commissions from private individuals and businesses for buildings after the era of barrack construction had ended. The group also designed other architectural strticrures for commercial purposes and for exhibition displays. Murayama’s personal in- terest in architecture extended to his own immediate environment. Around June 1924, he designed an irregularly shaped two-srory studio as an addition to his house in Kami-Ochiai (Fig. 36). The distinctive structure, designed to be lived in, soon became famous as the “Tri- angular Atelier” (sankaku no atone) and was a popular gathering place for artists and writ- ers as well as an exhibition space. Not everyone warmly welcomed artists into the realm of architecture. Some harshly crit- icized their activities. By December 1923, a debate had begun in the popular press over the value of barrack decoration designed by non-architects. Supporters hailed the “beautification” and “artification” of the city, and detractors, mostly architects, flatly rejected their design concepts as being structurally impractical and overconcerned with subjective expression. Endb ^ f t £ It CD ^ P Modern Japanese Life. 36 Murayama Tomoyoshi, plan for Triangular Atelier, Kami-Ochiai, mid-1924. In “Higasa no ryuko to shinjutaku (Modern Japa- nese Life)" (Trends in parasols and new housing [Modern Japanese Life]), Asahi graph 2, no, 24 (June 11, 1924): 22. Arata, for example, a protege of Frank Lloyd Wrighr, publicly criticized the work of anorher artists’ group involved in barrack projects, the Barrack Decoration Company (Barakku Soshokusha), organized by the Waseda University architecture professor Kon Wajiro (1888-1973).^^ A graduare of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, Kon had trained in design and architecture. Prior to the earthquake, he and his partner, the artist Yoshida Kenkichi, were developing a strong interest in documenting the changing practices of daily life (seikatsii); it motivated them to bring their art work to the streets with the Barrack Decoration Com- pany.^^ In fact, an important element of Kon’s barrack-related work was the preparation and publication of detailed field notes on the location, condition, population, and specific con- struction designs of various barrack settlements throughout the city.^^ Yoshida Kenkichi (1897—1982) was a multitalented artist, graphic designer, and stage designer who was a grad- uate of the design section of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. In addition to his work with Kon, he was a founding member, with Osanai Kaoru and Hijikata Yoshi, of the Tsukiji Lit- tle Theater (Tsukiji Shogekijo), where he produced highly acclaimed stage designs for Japan’s modern theater (shingeki), particularly the proletarian theater movement. Kon and Yoshida also later became well known for their ethnographic studies of Japanese modern life, termed ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT “modernology” (kogengaku), in which they recorded the everyday life and practices in urban Tokyo from the mid-ipzos into the early 1930s. They developed an elaborate and distinctive style of pictorial notation to record their data, and attempted to quantify and qualify the cultural ramifications of capitalism and industrialization.^^ Their activities in the immedi- ate post-earthquake period reinforced their documentary interests and can be considered a galvanizing experience for their succeeding work.^^ Architects in the Secessionist Architecture Association (Bunriha Kenchikukai) opposed the Barrack Decoration Company’s work most adamantly. Takizawa Mayumi, in particular, argued that those who disregarded the true nature of architecture had to be considered en- emies of the field. He and Kon engaged in a lengthy public debate on the merits of artist- designers involved in architecture. In the end, the dispute hinged on the definition of ar- chitecture itself For Takizawa and the Secessionists, architectural structures were meant to express the true spirit of the individual architect as well as a universal human spirit, an atti- tude that resonated with the aesthetic theories of the Shirakaba-ha, a standard-bearer of the Taisho movement of subjective individualism. Takizawa called for a “naive,” intuitive response to structure. He argued that the richness and beauty of a wall could not be achieved by merely decorating it with paintings. He concluded that “when bohemian geniuses, under the good name of art, but not knowing the pure borders of architecture, rampantly spread madness and selfishness, all that appears is a pointless chimeric world. Kon responded by arguing that architecture was more than a material expression of the human spirit. It also expressed real life and the modern social condition. Thus the everyday environment needed to be incorporated as well. He stated that his company’s animated de- signs were often chance effects produced during emotional surges of excitement in response to the space itself. Kon felt that this playful, effervescent aesthetic was a legitimate response to the liberated space of the barracks. Barrack Decoration Company artists and many of their architect colleagues saw the bar- rack as a new building type not beholden to any previous architectural conventions. The collaboration of artist-designers with architects and engineers on the barrack projects con- tributed to a major shift in architectural practice in the post-earthquake period — away from stalwart institutional structures toward more individualized, expressive forms with playful facades and interior ornamentation. The architectural historian Fujimori Terunobu has ar- gued that a great sense of liberation after the earthquake offered a new generation of archi- tects the opportunity to indulge in and enjoy design, something the previous generation would not countenance.^^ The natural progression of reconstruction, however, eventually quelled this debate. Ac- cording to Kon’s private notes, in early 1924, about five months after the earthquake, the Tokyo municipal government and certain state agencies began seriously considering plans for the permanent reconstruction of the city.^® The Home Ministry had already established the Imperial Capital Reconstruction Agency (Teito Fukkoin), with the Home Minister, Goto Shinpei, a former mayor of Tokyo, in charge.*^' Around this time, the Citizens’ Art Associ- ation (Kokumin Bijutsu Kyokai) decided to solicit proposals from the art community at large for an “Exhibition ol Plans for the Reconstruction of the Imperial Capital” (Teito fukko scan tenrankai) to be held April 13-29, 1924. In its official announcement of the exhibition regulations, the association opened the show to any architectural project, including what they considered craft works (most likely refer- ring to projects not technically categorized as fine art); a panel of appointed judges would evaluate the submissions, which could be large-scale urban plans, single architectural mod- els or drawings, or any kind of interior decoration. Submissions included designs for streets, public squares, canals, bridges, gardens, commemorative sculpture and towers, fountains, graves, window decorations, wall paintings, wall reliefs, paintings, sculpture, and furniture. The association disttibuted a catalogue of the exhibited work, but unfottunately no copies appear to have survived. The catalogue’s stipulations about customer payment procedures and the statement that the sponsor would receive 10 percent of the attisfs selling price in- dicate that all the works were for sale, although there is no evidence of what was actually sold. In addition to the general exhibit, there was also a special competition for a memorial of the eatthquake. Designs were solicited in the following categories; stele, sculptute, build- ing, street plan, gate, fountain, btidge, public square, and garden. Eager to patticipate in the reconstruction plans, Murayama, Sumiya, and Takamizawa went directly to the home of the newly appointed president of the association and director of the exhibition, the architect Chujo Seiichiro, to request space. Impressed by their zeal, Chujo granted them two rooms.*’^ All together over 1,500 works were exhibited. Many artists and architects banded together in special groups just for the show.*^"^ Although the sixty-seven works shown in Mavo’s two rooms were, according to reviews, among the most interesting and amusing displays, the individual buildings Mavo proposed were, like their barrack decorations, more anarchic expressions of the chaotic city than re- alistic plans for rebuilding, as shown by the few projects represented in surviving photographs. Among the most visually striking projects was Murayama’s Architectural Idea for Mavo Head- quarters (Fig. 37), primarily because it was extremely large, measuring close to 2.5 meters wide. It consisted of a large tower with Mavo’s “MV” logo clearly displayed on top. The back area also projected vertically, with twine dangling Irom the extensions top and wire coiling inside. The flat, slightly undulating base of the model had photographs, mainly of women, from popular magazines affixed to the surface. The front section displayed small rows of trees and an eclectic agglomeration of materials. The artists of this period had a limited choice ol materials, particularly after the earthquake. Although Mavo artists always advocated the use ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT 37 Murayama Tomoyoshi, Architectural Idea for Mavo Headquarters (Mavo honbu no kenchikuteki rinen). Model exhibited at the “Exhibition of Plans for the Reconstruction of the Imperial Capital” (Teito fukko soan tenrankai), April 1924, presumed lost. In “Teito fukko soan tenrankai shuppin shashin jusanshu" (Photographs of thirteen kinds of works shown at the exhibition of plans for the reconstruction of the Imperial Capital), Kenchiku shincho 5, no, 6 (June 1 924). Photograph courtesy of Omuka Toshiharu. of everyday objects in lieu ol conventional art materials, they were further restricted by the funds and the materials available, so that they had to be resourceful and frugal and to ex- periment with found or discarded objects. Sumiya Iwane’s Model for a Shop (Fig. 38), with its irregular structure and free-wheeling, probably colorful, surface patterns of abstract shapes that dramatically contrasted light and dark forms, was closely related to Mavo’s collaborative barrack designs. Takamizawa Michi- nao’s plaster model Cafe (Fig. 39) was a box-shaped building with a hand-modeled, uneven surface interrupted by large irregular-shaped windows gouged out across the front and sides. This was the architectural correlate to Murayama’s experiments with pictorial deformation. Takamizawa’s favorably reviewed construction Model for the Kant 200-Year Memorial Tower (Fig. 40) patalleled Murayama’s constructivist technique; it was assembled from such dis- parate items as metal rods, machine parts, cogwheels, wood planks, and a metal hoop, re- sulting in a tower that commemotated industrial technology while mocking notions of ra- tionality. A rare photograph ofTakamizawa on a ladder constructing the tower gives a sense 38 Sumiya Iwane, Model for a Shop (Shoten no tame no mokei). Mixed media construction exhibited at the “Exhibition of Plans for the Reconstruction of the Imperial Capital,” April 1924, presumed lost. Photograph in “Teito fukko soan tenrankai shuppin shashin jusanshu," Kenchiku shincho 5, no. 6 (June 1 924), 2. 39 Takamizawa Michinao, Cafe (Kafe). Plaster model exhibited at the “Exhibition of Plans for the Reconstruction of the Imperial Capital," April 1924, presumed lost. Photograph in “Teito fukko soan tenrankai shuppin shashin jusanshu," Kenchiku shincho 5, no. 6 (June 1 924), 40 Takamizawa Michinao, Model for the Kant 200-Year Memorial Tower (Kanto nihyakunen kinento mokei). Mixed media construction exhibited at the “Exhibition of Plans for the Reconstruction of the Imperial Capital," April 1924, presumed lost. Photograph in “Teito fukko scan tenrankai shuppin" (Works shown at the exhibition of plans for reconstruction of the Imperial Capital), Kenchiku shincho, 5, no. 5 (May 1 924). 41 Exhibition view. Takamizawa Michinao on a ladder constructing Model for the Kant 200- Year Memorial Tower, at the “Exhibition of Plans for the Reconstruction of the Imperial Capital,” April 1924. In Tagawa Suiho and Takamizawa Junko, Nora kuro ichidaiki (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1991). of its large scale (Fig. 41). The tower referred to, and most likely parodied, the Russian avant- garde artist Vladimir Tatlin’s famous Monument to the Third International, which by that time was well known in Japan (the frenetic structure of the Kant Tower cannot be read as a serious homage to Tatlin or his tower). In Miyako shinbun, Mavo’s work was described as “bizarre” { kaiki, fushigina) and “un- precedented” (hatenko); the journal also included a photograph of the exhibition space. Yorozu choho noted that there were many spectators at the show, largely people who had come to Ueno to stroll and view the flowers. The Tokyo asahi shinbun reviewer simply stated that “among the exhibited works, Mavo’s were the ones that most caught the [viewer’s] eye.”*^^ And a reviewer for Atelier enthusiastically described the curious display: [There is] the work called Man [Otoko], in which the artist has hoisted the axle of a newspaper roll, and gone so far as to paint on top of a flagstone. There is Rain Shelter [Ame yadori]. Design for a Beautifid Young Girl [Utsukushii shojo no tame no sekkei], and The Artification of a Toilet [Benjo no geijutsuka], and so forth, unbelievable curiosities that made the submissions ol all the other groups look merely academic. On the other end of the spectrum, Kishida ITideto, one of the lounding members of the architecture group called Meteor, chided artist-designers who, like Mavo, were working in a free-form manner, for violating architectural morality by “abusing intense curved lines” (kodokyokusen). Kishida admitted that anyone might experience the beauty of curved lines “once” — but, like alcohol, “it will become a drug.” “Like sleepwalkers and sexual perverts, architecture is something that anyone can think is a little interesting,” he continued, “how- ever, what is necessary in Japan now is not that kind of ‘temporary gratification’ [shunkan kofun] architecture. I think a forceful primitivism [chikaratsuyoki genshisei]\s lacking in Japa- nese architecture now.” FFe concluded, “Cursing polish and running away to intense curved lines and toystore architecture is the same as being led up with the princess and running to • ”70 a prostitute. In numerous critical responses to Mavo’s work, the group’s spontaneous and anarchic ex- pressionism is equated with immorality. The metaphor of drunkenness was often used to describe their projects, as if the works were created in alcohol-induced revelry. Many intel- lectuals feared that the liberation associated with modernity — symbolized to them in its most extreme form by Mavo — would lead to uncontrollable hedonism. Disapproval of Mavo’s earthquake-related work was also motivated by the group’s attempts to highlight and pro- mote, rather than abate, the disorder produced by the calamity. Though Mavo artists rel- ished chaos as a necessary first stage ot any substantive renewal, most others just wanted a quick and orderly resolution to the situation. Murayama’s expressionist-dadaist approach to architecture can be linked to the work of the Dutch artist-architect Theo Van Doesburg. In a discussion of Van Doesburg, Murayama stated that “one could not be an architect without being a dadaist.” In the same essay he claimed that he himself loved architecture because it was made of unlimited forms, materi- als, sensations, movements, and ideas, calling it a “theatrical art exposed to the street.”^’ One of the two architects involved with the group, Kato Masao, called architecture the art that had the greatest potential for communicating to the general public. At the same time, he believed that architecture could be an effective medium for self-expression.^^ Murayama echoed Kato’s sentiments and, in the spirit of the constructivists, added that architecture was the “ultimate art” because it intrinsically embodied the forms and actions of modern industrial society. Kato also felt that the spatial and constructive elements introduced into painting could be applied to architecture as well. For him, the rhythms created in three-dimensional space could transform a building from a static to a dynamic structure. The increasing centrality of architecture to Mavo’s work is evident in the final issue of Mavo magazine, dedicated to “Architecture and Theater.” Like most constructivist theorists, Mavo artists broadly defined “architecture” to include architectural and architectonic com- positions. The Hungarian constructivist Lajos Kassak, for example, designated his work Ke- parchitektura (pictorial architecture), where in fact real space was replaced by the abstract, flat plane of the picture. Kassak stated, “Constructive art is the art of building; not of ar- chitecture, but of New Man’s constructive world concept, as manifested in new objects and in new deeds. The Russian El Lissitzky defined his concept of “Proun” as “the interchange station between painting and architecture.”^^ The language of architecture was used both literally and metaphorically everywhere in constructivist theories at this time. Attempting to clarify further Mavo’s attitude toward architecture at the “Reconstruction” exhibition, Murayama wrote: Anyone who visits the exhibition will notice that there is a large gap between the work by Mavo and that by other groups displayed in the national [Reconstruction] exhibi- tion. What has created this large gap? It is due to the three vital forces specifically as- serted by Mavo: 1. To destroy previous conceptions of “architecture” and recognize it as a form of pure art [ junsui geijutsu] . 2. To secure for architecture recognition as pure art that embodies the industrial character of contemporary times. 3. To make architecture express the vision of a communist era by discarding [forms of] architecture that express the contemporary notion of “industry” controlled bv capitalism. . . . Until now, even pure art has been subjected to various practical limitations, but from now on pure art will increasingly leave the realm of compo- sition and rush toward the constructivist will. Furthermore, because practical use will be an indispensable part of its objective, architecture should not be prohib- ited from being called pure art. At the same time, if one considers “architecture” an artistic solution to the problem of [synthesizing] unlimited form, materials, and practicality, conventional means and aspects need to be swept away in one fell swoop.^^ Kon Wajiro supported Murayama’s assertion that Mavo’s art was an expression of the spirit of the day, although he felt that the group’s works at the “Reconstruction” exhibition should be considered poetic spatial constructions (shi no koseibntsu) rather than architecture. He even went so far as to call Mavo assemblages a true art of the people, a proletarian art, be- cause their use of everyday, cheap materials concretized the consciousness and experience of the propertyless. In the end, however, little actually came from the multitude ot architectural solutions presented at the exhibition. The city was never systematically rebuilt along any full-scale Haussmannian urban plan.^° In spite of Home Minister Goto Shinpei’s comprehensive plans for the state to buy large portions of the destroyed areas of the city to widen major arteries and increase the amount of public space, only a fraction of his vision was ever realized be- cause of the cost as well as significant resistance ftom the local populace, who would not part with their land. Instead, Tokyo was rebuilt piecemeal, largely without government planning, and the city that resulted was configured essentially as it had been prior to the earthquake.^' Following the “Reconstruction” exhibition, Mavo mounted a serial show. Called the “Se- rial Conscious Constructivist Exhibition” (Ishikiteki koseishugiteki renzokuten), the show at the Cafe Suzuran near Gokokuji in Koishikawa displayed members’ works in succession and lasted for over a month, from mid-June to late July 192.4. The artists exhibited were Toda Tatsuo, Yamazato Eikichi,''^ Takamizawa Michinao, Yabashi Kimimaro, Sawa Seiho,^^ OkadaTatsuo, and Iwanov Sumiyanovich (Sumiya Iwane). A photograph of the sixth exhibition in the series, entitled “The Exhibition Space and Me” (Fig. 42), shows Okada’s display. Presumably taken either while the artist was installing the works or during some kind of performance in the cafe, the photograph captures Okada posing in a loincloth (fundoshi) with his back arched as if he was about to do a back flip, his gaze provocatively meeting the viewer’s. Works displayed include the wall construction K.KL (also called kk.L) on the far right, which was reproduced in the first issue oi Mavo (Fig. 43). Several other assemblage-style wall constructions are visible though unidentifiable, includ- ing one that appears to incorporate an oil painting of a scowling face. Among the art works 42 “The Exhibition Space and Me" (Kaijo to watashi), Okada Tatsuo at Cafe Suzuran during his exhibition in the “Serial Conscious Constructivist Exhibition” (Ishikiteki kdseishugiteki renzokuten), July 6-15, 1 924. Photograph in Mavo, no. 2 (August 1924). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. 43 Okada Tatsuo, K.KL (also called kk.L), ca. 1924. In Mavo, no. 1 (July 1924). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. hangs a long banner reading Shinko (new), probably an abbreviation of the popular term shinko geijutsii (new art), used to refer to the artistic avant-garde. Mavo artists were more determined than ever after the earthquake to disseminate infor- mation about their work. They organized study groups, mounted an exhibition of stage de- signs, and even composed a Mavo song, which they went about singing in the street. Doc- umentary evidence also indicates that Murayama gave lectures on constructive art, such as the one titled “The Principles of the Constructivists and Their Development” (Koseiha no genri to sono shinten), presented at the first meeting of the Russo-Japanese Art Association (Nichiro Geijutsu Kyokai).^^ Mavo’s strong desire to promote the group was further motivated by the need for money. Not only did the artists vigorously publicize the group to try to stimulate interest in their work, but they also diversified their artistic production to widen the group’s commercial ap- peal. With this in mind, they tried to launch “Mavo Graphic,” mail-order portfolios of work by group members. In hopes of heightening the allure of this product, they advertised that strands of an artist’s hair would be included with each portfolio, allowing the consumer to make a fetish of the object while fantasizing about the artist. But among Mavo’s many ac- tivities, undoubtedly Mavo magazine most broadly heralded the group’s art work and dis- seminated its artistic credo to the public. The magazine also helped preserve the move- ment for posterity. The Inauguration of Mavo Magazine Mavo’s shift toward increasingly more violent and anarchistic tactics was explicitly demon- strated in Mavo magazine, which the group saw as a form ol bomb or explosive disruption. Publication began in July 1924 and ran just over a year, until August 1925.®^ Mavo was pub- lished out of Murayama’s house; his home address also served as Mavo headquarters. The group distributed an announcement of the magazine’s publication (Fig. 44), its tone noticeably more violent and oppositional than previous Mavo writings, and made more explicit refer- ence to the group’s allegiance to anarchism. In a playful typographic mix of large and small characters, some sideways and others completely inverted, the statement read: Mavo is a group of completely blue criminals {hannin\ who wear completely black glasses on their completely red faces. Lazily, like pigs, like weeds, like the trembling emotions of sexual desire, we are the last bombs that tain down on all the intellectual criminals (including the bourgeois cliques) who swim in this world. With its left eye, Mavo stares at XX; with its right eye, it charges into the eternal XX and XX. But the bottom half of our body is a vehicle of fire, a locomotive that runs off ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT 96 44 Announcement flier for the publication of Mavo magazine used in a collage in Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924). the tracks. Because of this, we defy any value judgments, wade through all class divi- sions, and praise all kinds of universal techniques for rationally marching according to the union of the complete contents of life and clamorous sounds. Daringly we declare — bold and dauntless — that [we are] the first and will be the last to appear in the [entire] history of human beings, thoughts, societies, and art movements. Try reading Mavo magazine; [you will see rhat] through architecture, thearer, poetry, dance, painting, sculpture, and so forth, how freely rhe moving body, itself perfectly [syn- thesizing] peculiar elements, is combining all the pulsing arms of life to the utmost limit of human knowledge, passion, and will power. In addition, [you will see] how firmly and strongly it is constructed by consciousness and desires. Try reading A/iaw magazine.^® An additional sentence running sideways and upside down along one of the borders of the announcement declared, “People! Let’s live Mavo spirit, it is unlimited, absolute perfection.” The entire text was signed the “Mavo publishing division” (Mavo shuppan bu).^' Mavo incorporated many new and innovative typographical designs, and brilliantly dis- played the group’s interest and experimentation in the graphic arts. The contents were the- matically diverse and included essays on art (which often touched on sociocultural issues), poetry, and short theatrical texts. Throughout the pages were original linocuts and photo- graphic reproductions of assemblage, painting, and graphic works. Oftentimes, these pho- tographs were incorporated into new collages in the magazine itself A Mavo trademark was the group’s recycling of materials and elements from other projects in a continuous effort to refer back to their own artistic production. By the publication of the third issue oi Mavo in September 1924, however, certain Mavo members were beginning to drop out of the group . Mavo no. 3 reported Oura’s depar- ture; “Surprised by the revolutionary cast of Mavo, Oura withdrew [from the group]. [Be- coming involved] without knowing what Mavo was about, Oura felt like he had jumped into the midst of a fire.”^^ Echoing the sentiments of Ogata, who had already quietly ex- tracted himself from Mavo activities sometime after the group's second exhibition, Oura did not support Mavo’s increasing radicalization. Ogata’s biographer, Akimoto Kiyoshi, at- tributes his withdrawal, never formally announced, to the increasingly anarchistic turn, ar- guing that despite the common perception of Ogata as an anarchist, he was in fact more concerned with aesthetics than politics and rejected the violence Okada and his sympa- thizers advocated.^^ It is not surprising that Ogata and Oura left in light of the group’s drastic shift in tone, illustrated by this excerpt from “On the Day of the Final Proof of Issue No. 3” by K. Y. (prob- ably Yabashi Kimimaro): Boom! Bursts a bomb. Scream “You jerk!” Mavo is that which repeatedly slaps the cheek of everything that one must get revenge against. . . . Mavo screams for revolution. It is the preparatory basis for the relentless revenge of the proletariat on the bourgeoisie, as well as (if we may brag about our own actions) being the most advanced destroyers. Mavo got into trouble when the group affixed a firecracker to the cover of the third is- sue, which appeared in September 1924 (Plate 9); the censor, provoked, banned the issue. The confiscation caused Mavo tremendous financial strain since the group worked on an extremely tight budget and the revenues from each issue were essential to support publica- tion of the next. This explains why the foutth issue, which appeared a month later, was markedly thinner than the third one.^^*^ Unable to recover its momentum, the magazine tem- porarily ceased publishing and did not appear again until the following year.^^ Mavo owed its revival (fukkatsu) to the financial patronage of the publisher Choryusha. Little informa- tion survives on this small publishing house, but it is clear from advertisements in Mavo magazine that it specialized in publications related to agriculture and also dabbled in the publishing of experimental poetry.^^ Mavo reappeared in June 1924, but with some significant changes on the masthead. Okada Tatsuo and the poet Hagiwara Kyojiro (1899-1938) were now listed with Murayama.^® Al- though Hagiwara did not join Mavo until mid-1925, he had been involved with the group earlier.'®^ A prominent anarchist /neo-dadaist poet, Hagiwara had joined with well-known poets such as Tsuboi Shigeji and Okamoto Jtin to form the writers’ circle that published the anarchist literary magazine to kuro (Red and Black), founded in January 1923. Described later by Murayama as a band of “plunderers” (ryaku) because they were so violent, Hagiwara ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT and his anarchist coterie infused Mavo with their radical aesthetic and political concerns, bolstering the sell-described “terrorist” faction in Mavo.'*^' Hagiwara probably had known Okada before joining Mavo. In any case, it was through their relationship that Mavo artists came to illustrate Hagiwara’s poetry anthology, Shikei senkokii (Death sentence), which was published by Choryusha in October 1925 (Plate 10). It is possible that Hagiwara was responsible for Mavo’s connection with Choryusha since Mavo shifted its publishing operation from Murayama’s house to Choryusha’s offices at the time Hagiwara joined the staff. But Murayama may already have established this rela- tionship with the publisher, which had issued his collected essays Genzai no geijutsu to mi- mi no geijutsii (Art of the present and art of the future) in November 1924. Murayamas translation of Ernst Toller’s Swallow Book, with illustrations by Okada Tatsuo, was also pub- lished by Choryusha in April 1925.^^^ Many scholars have noted that Mavo magazine took on a different character after its re- vival in mid-1925. The sheer number of Hagiwara and Okada’s contributions made a strong impact on the magazine, which became distinctly more literary with a marked decrease in visual material. An extraordinary number of new people began writing for the magazine, many of them probably not members of the group. There was a noticeable increase in ex- plicit references to class conflict, social revolution, and Bolshevism, reflecting a heightened interest in leftist political theory. Omuka Toshiharu has gone so far as to consider the sec- ond run of Mavo, the three issues published between June and August 1925, as an entirely distinct, second phase of the group. Rather than divide Mavo, however, I believe that it is more informative to compare the two phases and evaluate the connection between them to understand how and why the group evolved. Mavo and Sanka: Taking Off the Glasses One of Mavo’s most important post-earthquake endeavors was the formation of the collab- orative artistic venture known as the Third Section Plastic Arts Association (Sanka Zokei Bi- jutsu Kyokai), later shortened to just Sanka. Sanka’s principal goal was to provide a new, unjuried, all-inclusive forum for artists outside the. gadan to exhibit their work. Kinoshita explained: Sanka’s existence signifies uniting to reject the contemporary art establishment where we cannot pursue our goals. With the birth of Nika, the [nature of the] “Teiten” became clear, and similarly, with the birth of Sanka, [the nature of] Nika will become clear. How- ever, we look forward to the time when young artists will form Shika [the Fourth Sec- tion] and crush us underfoot as they advance. 1 Murayama Tomoyoshi, Dedicated to the Beautiful Young Girls (Utsukushiki shojo ni sasagu; in German, Schonen Madchen Gewidmet), ca 1 922. Mixed media and oil on canvas, 93.5 x 80 cm. Private collection. 2 Yanase Masamu, Mq// (Moji), 1920. Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 60.8 cm. Musashino Art University Museum and Library. 3 Murayama Tomoyoshi, Sadistic Space (Sadisutisshu na kOkan), ca. 1921-1 922. Oil on canvas, 92.5 x 72.3 cm. National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. ielflW i: e^kj^ '-, - So?fft^cr^ b*C M eiif^iSB-ajiHiciigoi* ^ — iU (in< 'JnUd)d^.^ u|jla^t». )^^ab(kin:p oon ^nli!^(n nuug 411; ^oMun^ oitg(n'irf(i!(t: :«g tr {ii. ?*'uir.wa 4. ®i hiiibtSan'fJiing 4 Murayama Tomoyoshi, Portrait of a Young Jewish Girl (Aru yudaiyajin no shojo z6), 1922. Oil and mixed media on canvas, 40.2 x 26.8 cm. Collection National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. 5 Yanase Masamu, A Morning in May and Me Before Breakfast (Gogatsu no asa to asameshi mae no watashi), 1 923. Oil on canvas, 44 x 44 cm. Musashino Art University Museum and Library. Yanase Masamu, Oh, Excuse Me/(Ya shikkei!), 1923. Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 37.8 cm. Musashino Art University Museum and Library. 7 Yanase Masamu, MV 1 , 1 923. Oil on canvas, 52.5 x 42.5 cm. Musashino Art University Museum and Library. 8 Sumiya Iwane, Daily Task of Love in the Factory (Kojo ni okeru ai no nika), 1 923. Oil on canvas, 65 x 53 cm. Collection National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. 9 Cover, Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924). Collage consisting of human hair, product labels, and price tags; the firecracker originally attached to the cover was removed by censors. Private collection; photograph courtesy of the Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts. 10 Okada Tatsuo, cover design for Hagiwara Kyojiro, Shikei senkoku (Death sentence) (Choryusha, 1 925), 22.3 x 1 5.7 cm. Private collection; photograph courtesy of the Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts. 11 Exhibition flier, “Sanka Members Plastic Arts Exhibition" (Sanka kaiin sakuhin zokei geijutsu tenrankai), Matsuzakaya, Ginza, May 20-24, 1925. Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. V.'S.'ii.'i.'WJ'lU! S=- ^ -Si'-asaosr.BM •=-r.iia?f.'S . ■■.■ -. jj-c-:-; SBi sa- N - -;';0<-iE~aSSSV jst^n ' .r72-!:c:il -;ltOU .^.P-.Wl P\ j,:. J-l-3=:>:SS!SrACl i -sanr:' ;3fSi ->;.•? 0(' ac«3= = «t.i,i =-.-^^c-i; V* Sr, nssg^'g ' ,ii nissoj;^^?.®*® 0-4=SMS;«S^J5iS& -A .'>‘S‘'jvJ \-S!^'*}.V rs-;|3S;.-‘gj:S«o.-v^^<' -t-='«r=S0- • -■ .^c..y^^rrrea^;-lf£ .mTi^: ■ ffis S r = so-V 33 ma< 5:3^ rO.- wm-'* .C«.4 a;.»sSS53giMP9i^dS ->-45?nS3i o ..X^ 12 Sumiya Iwane, Construction of Movement and Machine (Undo to kikai no kosei), ca, 1924. Linocut In Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924). Private collection; photograph courtesy of the Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts. 13 Murayama Tomoyoshi, Construction (Kosei or konsutorakuchion), 1925. Oil and mixed media on wood, 84 X 1 12.5 cm. Collection National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. 14 Cover, Mavo, no. 4 (November 1924). Inset linocut by Toda Tatsuo, Prophesy {Yogen). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; photograph courtesy of the Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts. 15 Murayama Tomoyoshi, cover design for Bungei jidai 2, no. 4 ( 1 925). 22 X 1 4.7 cm. Museum of Modern Japanese Literature, Tokyo. f92S^ (fMiH-s-BBr *MeBlft)IHaiB+E* ititwiwsses R R h3f m X 4 16 Yanase Masamu, cover design for Fujimori Seikichi, Nani ga kanojo o so saseta ka?(What made her do what she did?) (Kaizosha, 1 930). 1 8.9 x 1 2.9 cm. Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. The initial Sanka membership list was as follows: Murayama Tomoyoshi, Kinoshita Shuichiro, Oura Shuzo, Shibuya Osamu, Asano Mofu, Varvara Bubnova, KambaraTai, Naka- hara Minoru, OkamotoToki, Tamamura Zennosuke, YabeTomoe, Yanase Masamu, Yoshida Kenkichi, and Yokoi Hirozo.^®® A number of the non-Mavo participants had been mem- bers of the group Action, whose activities had ceased several months earlier. The "'Action Co- terie Manifesto” {Akushon dojin sengensho), penned by Kambara Tai (1898-1997), one of the most vocal members, clearly articulated the group’s avant-garde position: We are young men who lead with a clear conscience and a rigorous conviction, who want to walk on the front line of art with free and sure steps — with audacity and gaiety. . . . We are not slaves of the history of art. . . . We are young men who do not hesitate to take the cross and follow the way of difficulty according to our own opinions and the freedom of our lives. . . . We know we are but beginners. But if we do not stand up here and now, the birth of the new era will be even more painful ... up until now artists have sat in silence, suffering from a false humility where they say that it is enough to just move forward along their own paths. They have hesitated for much too long. But now the time has come for us to arise. We bravely stand up according to our own beliefs. Action was a much publicized splinter group of the Nika association and showed primarily fauvist-, cubist-, and futurist-style works. Member Yabe Tomoe (1892—1981) was a graduate of the nihonga section of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts who had studied Western modernist painting, most notably cubism, in France from 1918 to 1922 with Maurice Denis at the Academie Ranson and also Andre Lhote. When he and his friend Nakagawa Kigen, another yoga painter who had studied in France from 1919 to 1921 under Matisse as well as Lhote, first returned from abroad, they exhibited with Nika. But their advocacy of the new styles they had learned abroad caused tension within the group and led to the secession of several artists under the name Action (supposedly the name refers to the artists’ activist posture). Despite the group’s protestations to the contrary. Action members maintained strong ties with Nika, and Nika continued to recognize the work of Action artists.* In fact. Action disbanded the month Sanka was formed because the inclusion of only five Action members for the eleventh Nika exhibition caused an irreparable rift in the group. **^ The eccentric nihonga painter Tamamura Zennosuke (1893—1951), better known by his artist’s name Idokuto, had studied at the Japan Art Academy but was forced to leave because he did not get along with Yokoyama Taikan. Two years earlier he had organized a radical ni- honga group called the First Artists’ League (Daiichi Sakka Domei, or DSD), dedicated to opposing the gadan, establishing social equality, and integrating stylistic and theoretical de- velopments in European avant-garde art into Japanese-style painting to make it more ap- ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT plicable to modern daily Together with other DSD artists he published the arts mag- azine Epokkii (Epoch), putting out five issues from November 1922 until February 1923. His company (named Epokku-sha) also launched the dadaist magazine Ge gimgigam prrr gimgem, which had a two-year run (from June 1924 to 1926) and was co-edited by the now celebrated avant-garde poets Nogawa Ryu and Hashimoto Kenkichi (better known as Kitasono Katue). It is important here to reemphasize that ties between artists in the “new art movement” (shinko geijutsu undo) crossed and nihonga lines. Allegiances were based more on similar atti- tudes toward the art establishment than on categorical divisions defined by use of materials. The “Sanka Rules” (Sanka kisoku) stated that the association planned to organize a yearly exhibition every tall to show work submitted by members as well as by the general public, although Sanka artists reserved the right to mount members-only exhibitions. Sanka exhi- bitions were open to all artists of all nationalities, and the number of works accepted or ex- hibited per artist was limited only by the size of the exhibition space. Sanka members them- selves were restricted to around three works each, depending on exhibition conditions, in the hopes of downplaying their presence. All submitted works were to be in the category “plastic art” (zokei bijutsii), and the criterion for acceptance was simply endorsement by a Sanka member. Early withdrawal of works was not allowed. Display order and position ol works were to be decided by lottery. Exhibitors were responsible for pricing their own works, with the association receiving 10 percent of the selling price to cover administrative fees.'^^ Kinoshita was responsible for organizing Sanka, even though as he himselt noted at the time, the Sanka that he initially envisioned was markedly different from the “Sanka” (Ki- noshita’s quotation marks) that eventually emerged. In fact, he felt compelled to print a pub- lic apology to all those artists, apparently a considerable number, who had responded to his initial call for an open exhibition. Although Kinoshita does not elaborate on the specifics of the shift in Sanka’s mandate, it seems that the other Sanka artists saw the group’s mission ex- tending beyond the opening of an unjuried exhibition. Artists who were invited to join but refused included the ex-Mavoist Ogata Kamenosuke and three Nika artists: Nakagawa Ki- gen, Yokoyama Junnosuke, and Yorozu Tetsugoro. Kinoshita states that economic and so- cial considerations made Nakagawa unwilling to relinquish his hard-won position as a Nika judge, particularly since Sanka, which had no exhibition venue of its own, offered little promise of remuneration, and joining would unequivocally alienate him from Nika. This threat of such a consequence was explicitly demonstrated when Yokoyama expressed avid interest in joining Sanka and then, under pressure from Nika, reneged the following day. Ogata replied to the Sanka invitation by simply declining, saying that he did not want to be restricted by group activities."^ Kambara was especially motivated to join Sanka when he realized that Action was dissolving. He wrote, “Why did Action disband? The answer is sim- ple. Part of the membership were people who felt that Action’s existence was not [contributing to] their own personal profit. Part thought that Action’s existence was passively or actively an obstacle to their own personal gain.” He continued: Why was Sanka born? It is probably more correct to ask, “Why didn’t Sanka appear be- fore this?” It is that much in demand in the world now. . . . Sanka creates a new era. Fi- nally we are raising a giant who will completely crush and destroy things with a single blow. There are people who say that this is a group centered on Kinoshita and Shibuya, but that is a misunderstanding. There has been a great change in the members’ program for the Sanka Zdkei Bijutsu Kydkai and that of Sanka. People who think this is an ex- tension of Action are also mistaken.^ After consulting with many of the other prospective participants, Kinoshita decided that certain members of Mavo would be excluded from Sanka, particularly the more radical in- dividuals such as Okada, Hagiwara, Yabashi, and Takamizawa.'^^ In addition to Kinoshita and Shibuya, the only Mavo or ex-Mavo artists included were Murayama, Yanase, and Oura, perhaps because they took more moderate stances. With these decisions on membership, however, Sanka in effect re-created the exclusive attitude of Nika, undermining Sanka’s proj- ect for an open association and revealing a profound hypocrisy, which Okada Tatsuo did not fail to bring to the public’s attention. From the beginning, Action and Mavo had a love-hate relationship. Or rather, some mem- bers of Mavo got along with Action artists and others did not. Through Sanka they managed to bond in a joint protest against the gadan, but there were still tensions. In fact, Murayama launched a brutal attack on Action after the group’s second exhibition, berating the members for being merely derivative of contemporary French art and for refusing to give up the rep- resentation of phenomena of the natural world, as he had done, along with other artists who were moving toward non-objective art.^^^ Action responded in print, and the two parties continued to view each other with mistrust. Nevertheless, the Sanka alliance managed to mount two exhibitions in 1925 in addition to putting on a theatrical extravaganza, called “Sanka in the Theater” (Gekijo no Sanka”), performed on May 30, in conjunction with the first exhibition. The first Sanka exhibition, “Sanka Members Plastic Arts Exhibition” (Sanka kaiin sakuhin zokei geijutsu tenrankai), was held at the Ginza branch of the Matsuzakaya de- partment store in May 1925 and consisted of work by group members only. A short state- ment on the exhibition flier read: “To the world of plastic arts [we offer] an exhibition of heartfelt works by this group, who stride powerfully, [displaying] original content based on an extremely new point of view, and based on an equal and free organization” (Plate ii). Generally the exhibited work fit into two categories: oil paintings of conventional format 1 0 1 ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT and constructivist work (keisei geijutsu) made largely of non-art materials. Each artist sub- mitted an average of five works — a total of sixty pieces. Despite having worked solely in oil painting prior to their participation in Sanka, many Action artists began to get caught up in Mavo’s constructivist-dadaist fervor, and they too produced works in a Mavo construc- tivist idiom. Critics like Kawaji Ryuko immediately remarked that Sanka’s work and attirude more closely resembled Mavo than Action. He also noted that Sanka was by far the most radical of the Japanese leftist art groups and speculated that the art by its members represented a climax of left-wing activity evident worldwide. Focusing on the Mavo-inspired construc- tions and seizing on one of the central issues of Mavo’s artistic project, Kawaji brought up the question of the definition of art, wondering if art should of necessity be defined by its materials or should be determined by the consciousness of the creator. He vacillated in the article between a grudging respect and appreciation for Mavo’s constructivist work and frus- tration over the inscrutability of their nonrepresentational expression. Gently mocking the artists, Kawaji described the bewildered, amused, and sometimes pained expressions on the faces of the viewers as they attempted to make sense of Sanka’s bizarre display: “Well, if art (or whatever it is) is something that has the wonderful power to stimulate ‘irritation,’ then this work has really succeeded. But then he asked, “Who, how, and why would anyone try to understand these works?” He questioned viewers’ willingness to attempt to comprehend what seemed incomprehensible. He disavowed the critic’s re- sponsibility to explain such anarchic, nihilistic work, which, in his estimation, so clearly ex- ceeded the conventional bounds of: art.'^' Still, Kawaji tried to contextualize Mavo’s constructivism by situating it in relation to fu- turist collage. He recounted futurism’s harmonious use of real objects in conjunction with art materials in an effort to “convey the feeling of reality,” “replacing the representation of things with the things themselves. But he asserted that in the work of the dadaists and the constructivists these materials were intended to violate the domain of painting, not har- monize with it. In their work, materials jumped off the surface into three-dimensional space; thus dadaists and constructivists were creating pure plastic arts (zdkei), a unified combina- tion of painting, sculpture, craft, and architecture. Kawaji went on to explain that the fu- turists, and by extension the dadaists and constructivists, worshiped artificiality (man-made things) and rejected nature, engaging in an extreme, glorified materialism, which he dubbed “the ideology of worshiping materials” (busshitsu shinkashngi) or “the ideology of admiring materials” (yuibutsu siihaishugi). For Kawaji, this ideology stemmed from respect for the fun- damental power of machines and approval of machine-made objects, gradually leading to a consciousness that distinguishes the plastic arts from the fine arts. And the constructivist works at the Sanka exhibition, in Kawaji’s words, “jump out of the frame, and . . . try to scream out to people. In other words, it is active expression, impulsive expression. Before trying to explain something, . . . this [work] first hits people — all of a sudden you are hit in the head from behind! Anyone would be surprised by this.”^^^ Though Kawaji was dubious about it, he eloquently articulated one of Mavo’s primary artistic aspirations — the creation of seikatsu no geijutsu (the art of everyday life): The reality of this expression has already become part of our daily lives. We face our- selves when we look at paintings within a frame. That is to say, we and the Irame both go out in our best clothes to see and be seen. But to make this relationship more inti- mate, think about a form where you yourself become embedded in the painting, or a condition where the painting is absorbed into you. [Sankas] plastic art . . . jumps out of the frame and seizes us. We think of plastic art as a real object in the same way as we view a utensil on the table or a part of a wall, or a part of a column supporting a room. In other words, we consider it a real thing that relates to and exists in our everyday lives. It is not simply expression. In a word, it has an organic relationship to daily life. No, rather, it is an art that possesses a part of daily life. This is probably the intention of the constructivists. Making art real [geijutsu no jissaika] and transforming it into [a part of] daily life [seikatsuka] is the result of this abstract, machine-like, impulsive form of art. If you agree with this, then you must also acknowledge that the artist and art have a utilitarian function. You must grant that “art is a material object necessary to daily life.” This forces you to abhor the hanging scroll that adorns the tokonoma (alcove). You think of the oil paintings that are gently hung in frames on the wall as [just another version] of someone’s best clothes. Several works in the Sanka show are identifiable in the installation photographs that ac- companied reviews. Despite the greater attention paid to constructivist works, oil paintings constituted a considerable portion of works exhibited. All the paintings were heavily ab- stracted, some entirely non-objective. Kambara Tai’s Subject f-om “The Poem of Ecstasy” by Scriabin (Fig. 45) employed a brilliant palette and an abstract composition to express the painter’s impassioned and exuberant response to Aleksandr Scriabin’s highly emotive music. Okamoto Toki’s Pessimist’s Festival (Fig. 46)^^^ and Asano Mofu’s Gentle Composition (Otonashiki kdzu) show none of Kambara’s emotionalism, but instead are crisper and more technological. Okamoto displayed depersonalized mechanical human figures surrounded by mechanistic environments. Asano’s faceless schematic figures stood in a cubistically rendered environment with a classical column in the background, making reference to the metaphysical paintings of Giorgio de Chirico. Taking Okamoto’s theme one step further, Nakahara Mi- noru created a new artistic concept called “rational painting theory” ( riron kaigaron), upon which he based his snoxV Atomic Straggler No. 2 (Fig. 47).^^^ 1 03 45 (RisHT) KambaraTai, Subject from “The Poem of Ecstasy” by Skryabin (Sukuriabin no “Boga no Shi” ni daisu), 1 922, Oil on canvas, 117x91 cm. National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. 46 (BELOW) Okamoto Toki, Pessimist's Fesf/Va/(Peshimisuto no shukusai). Oil on canvas, presumed lost. Photograph in Nakada Sadanosuke, “Megane o suteru (Sanka kaiin tenpyo)” (Throwing away the glasses [Sanka members exhibition review]), Chub bijutsu, no. 1 16 (July 1925): 56. 47 (BELOW RIGHT) Nakahara Minoru, Atomic Straggler No. 2, 1 925. Oil on canvas, 53 X 33.5 cm. Museum of Contempo- rary Art Tokyo. Nakahara, in his theory of rational painting, affirmed nature in a new vision of the world supported by scientific invention and discovery. He wrote: Science, there is nothing other than science. All human things are founded upon sci- ence: walking, eating, sleeping, resting, all the aspects of living are founded on science. In science are the three elements of mathematics, physics, and chemistry that constitute the earth that human beings must stand upon.*^^ Yokoi Hirozo’s (his name also reads as Kozo; 1890—1965) ink paintings stood alone in their style and subject. Repeatedly described as a modern-day Henri Rousseau, Yokoi produced modernist ink paintings that seem entirely incongruous — both with his artistic rhetoric and with other works in the exhibition. His handscroll Small Paradise (Chiisai rakuen) was a pas- toral landscape rendered with lightly dabbed ink brushstrokes in a somewhat literati (bun- jinga) mode. Nothing about it suggests why it would be included in an exhibition of ab- stract and constructive work. Yokoi’s self-consciously unrefined style, however, was seen as a departure from the emphasis on technique in gadan painting, and reviewers singled out his work as highly innovative. Like the abstract works, the “constructivist art” (keisei geijutsu) at the Sanka exhibition also ranged in style and format. Some works were “practical art” (jitsuyd geijutsu), a loose designation for objects or images of objects that had some utilitarian function. Examples are Yanase’s schematic drawing for a truck entitled Rental Car (Kashimono jidosha) and Yoshida’s sculptural arrangement of the shop signs he had created soon after the earthquake for the Imperial University Settlement. Yoshida’s project was referred to as Signs in Honjo Oshiage Dedicated by the Young Sociologist Mr. H from the Tokyo Imperial University Settlemetit (Tei- dai setsurumento ni okerii wakaki shakai gakusha H-shi o tsujite sasaguru Honjo Oshiage no kanban) and consisted of five individual signs executed in different playful typographi- cal styles for stores that sold paper lanterns, geta (Japanese wooden clogs), dry goods and textiles (tanmono), kitchenware and sundries (aramono), and tobacco. Another category of constructivist works also incorporated everyday material elements, but with the intent of referring to the conditions of daily life. The mixed-media collages in Oura Shuzo’s “Proun” series, indebted to El Lissitzky’s work by the same name, linked im- ages of machine production and social revolution. PROUN. D. II 48) showed fragments of Russian and German magazine texts, making both explicit and implicit reference to the Russian Revolution; these fragments were integrated with illusionistically rendered images of cogwheels and tubing. Murayama’s monumental sculpture Brave Statue (Isamashiki ritsuzo) was a departure from these categories of constructivist work. It consisted of two large stuffed elements hanging from 105 48 Oura Shuzo, PROUN.D.II. Mixed media construction, presumed lost. Photograph in Kawaji Ryuko, “Hyogen geijutsu yori seikatsu geijutsu e" (From expressionist art to the art of daily life). Atelier 2, no. 7 (July 1925): 175. a ceiling-high wooden post, with a barber shop sign and an unraveled coil attached to the back, perhaps harkening back to Murayamas Reconstruction exhibition design for Mavo head- quarters. Yoshida’s Rococo-Style Work F Presented to the Modern Girl “Small Table!” (Modan garu ni okuru rococofu no sakuhin F “Chichai teburu desu koto!”) took Murayamas early constructive style to a new scale. An altar-like structure suspended from the wall, Yoshida’s construction had material items, presumably associated with the “modern girl,” affixed to its surface. The self-described “rococo” work displayed lavish decoration, including entwined (dried or fake) flowers on the structure, a candle on top, a photograph of a face under the table, and many other elements that are not identifiable in the photograph. One reviewer, who remarked that Yoshida’s work resembled an advertisement, praised it as a paean to consumerism.^^® Generally, the reviews of the Sanka exhibition were supportive, although critics diverged widely on their assessment of individual works. The artist Tada Saburo unequivocally praised Sanka artists for their clarity and willingness to reveal themselves in their work, as well as the group’s impressive vehemence (gekietsu). Tada saw Sanka’s work as a liberation of Japa- nese art from a long-standing subservience to nature — a celebration of humanity and its power to create. While acknowledging that the Sanka association was largely defined by its reactive stance toward the gadan, he emphasized the transformative potential of its ideas for the Japanese art world and considered its existence justified if it only shocked the “stag- nant, dozing” art world. Minegishi Giichi, who later submitted work to Sanka’s second exhibition, concurred with Tada that for “those [like himself] who [were] poisoned by an overabundance of the taste of painting and nature,” this was a revitalizing and “ferocious scream. Nakada Sadanosuke, an artist-critic who had just returned from study in Germany and also joined Sanka’s second exhibition, wrote: When viewing the “Sanka Members Plastic Arts Exhibition” one must take off one’s glasses. Whether it’s the gold-rimmed glasses transmitted from the olden times of the Renaissance or the celluloid-framed glasses now popular from France, looking through the lenses of these periods you can find many people’s yearning for “beauty” derived from artistic color and form. However, when we contemplate Sanka’s work we must not for- get to remove these glasses of ancestral transmission. This is because the vision [of Sanka’s members] is already not conforming to the angle of that lens, and they are not search- ing for “art.” . . . Sanka is honest. Sanka does not apply the title of “art” to its work. [Sanka artists] do not fake and deceive by making a gold sign of “art.” They do not go so far as daring to profane the “sacred art” of the solemn and severe classical imperial palace and the brilliant palace academy by treating it as something commonplace and dragging it into this mundane, earthly realm. [Instead,] they decline the beautiful name of “art” as it is and do not receive [its associated canon]. . . . [Sanka’s] work cannot be judged by 107 ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT the aesthetics of yesterday. These constructive works, a departure from the art of former times, should be called “anti-art” (ban geijutsu)}^^ Despite the slightly hyperbolic tone of Nakada’s article, his description of Sanka’s work as “anti-art” was taken up by a number of the group’s supporters and has continued into present- day art historical scholarship. But the issue requires some clarification. As Nakada clearly indicated in the first part of his statement, he considered Sanka’s work to be opposed to traditional conceptions of art, particularly yoga. Nonetheless, what Sanka artists were con- structing was art, if not “art” as defined by aesthetics transmitted from other times and places, and this identity was reinforced by the works themselves and the context in which they were displayed. Moreover, Murayama and other artists continued to apply common terms for art ( bijutsu and geijutsu) to their own work and that of others. Therefore, rather than call Sanka’s work “anti-art,” I believe it is more accurate to say that Sanka artists were interested in re- interpreting art to better address the conditions of modernity. In other words, they sought to transform artistic practice by integrating modern life into art. Yet while Sanka was universally described in the press as a radical leftist faction, leftist sympathizers generally did not appreciate the group’s turn to “the art of daily life” (seikatsii no geijutsu). The first Sanka show went largely unreviewed in leftist periodicals except for a few brief comments by Matsumoto Koji in Bungei sensen. Matsumoto was openly skeptical about Sanka, and like other Bungei sensen writers, he doubted the seriousness of the group’s artistic project. He objected most strenuously to Sanka’s “nihilistic pessimism,” identifying it with hopelessness in Germany after World War I. In that context he could understand the emergence of dadaism and feelings of desperation, but he felt that artists in Japan, no mat- ter how much they loathed the social system, affirmed their belief in the future by produc- ing art. Thus, all that could come out of Sanka’s oppositional stance was a depressed feeling leading nowhere. Hayashi Fusao saw Murayama as a nihilist, caught up in European fin-de- siecle despair and fighting the past without any intention of producing a new future. Hayashi harshly labeled Murayama as a fatally flawed model of the bourgeois intelligentsia. Matsumoto and Hayashi’s criticism reflected a widening fissure after the earthquake between the pessimism of Japanese anarchists and the more sanguine approach of pro-Bolshevik supporters. But where Sanka was too nihilistic and melancholic for proletarian writers, it was too am- bivalent and acquiescent for diehard anarchists like Okada Tatsuo. Clearly feeling slighted after his exclusion from the association, Okada expressed his indignation in a deeply criti- cal account of the exhibition for Mizue, writing in a derisive and patronizing tone. He called Sanka an “opinionless, playful impulse” and lambasted everyone, especially Murayama, for the meaninglessness of their work. While Murayama bore the brunt of Okada’s rancor, oth- ers received their share. Yokoi and Tamamura were referred to as trivial, “picked up” (hirotta 49 Works submitted to the second Sanka exhibition, Jichi Kaikan, Ueno, September 1 925. Photograph in “Kiso tengai no shuppin totemo menkurawaseru sakuhin: Sankaten chinretsu” (Strange outdoor exhibition works. Totally confusing work: The Sanka exhibition), Tokyo asahi shinbun, August 28, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 6. mono) as if off the street, implying that they had been discarded. Kambara’s and Okamoto’s first names were condescendingly written in a diminutive form appropriate to children. Yanase was accused of sewing toy bombs and toy engines, his activities likened to a domestic exer- cise at a women’s school. Sanka artists, originally allied with the people, had become elitists, according to Okada. He accused the group of being debilitated, of lacking any explosive po- tential. He concluded by declaring anarchists the only artists of any significance.*^^ Responding to Okada’s criticism and following their initial promise to hold an open ex- hibition, Kinoshita and the Sanka organizers issued a public call for submissions to the sec- ond Sanka exhibition, to be held three months after the first, closed, exhibition. Called the “Sanka Publicly Advertised Exhibition” (Sanka koboten), the ambitious enterprise was scheduled to coincide with the major gadan exhibitions and was held in Ueno at the Jichi Kaikan assembly hall in mid-September 1925. It included 122 works, many by artists outside Sanka (Fig. 49).'^^ Murayama bemoaned that the group would have to charge a high en- trance fee because it had no money and had to pay an exorbitant rental charge for the hall. Originally he had hoped to organize an exposition (hakumnkai) where viewers could freely walk around looking at such attractions as theater performances, movies, music, and vari- ous exhibition apparatuses that would better engage the spectators. But the exhibition followed more conventional practices. 1 09 1 1 0 Works at the second exhibition varied greatly in style, medium, and scale. The asso- ciation membership let it be known that “practical” constructions would be given priority. And trom all accounts, constructive art wotks lar outnumbered paintings. The constructive works were impressive in scope and idiosyncrasy of their materials, and unlike previous ex- hibitions, this show included several large-scale works: Lmnpen Proletariat A and B (Run- pen puroretaria A to B) by Okamoto Toki and the two works Sanka Exhibition Entrance Tower (Sankaten monto) and Gate Light and Moving Ticket Selling Machme (Monto ken ido kippu Liriba), collaboratively constructed by Okada, Takamizawa, andToda. These three artists formed a new group within Mavo alternately called the NNK (believed to stand for Japan Nihilist Association, Nihon Nihiristito Kyokai) or the Urban Power Construction League (Toshi Dotyoku Kensetsu Domei).^^^ Headquartered at the artist Nakahara Minoru’s Gallery Ktidan, the artists of the NNK proclaimed themselves “neo-mavoists” or “neo- dadaists” who were also “constructivists, industrialists, substantialists” (koseiha, sangyoha, jit- taiha). The group was devoted to architecture-related construction, and its announcements list an array ol fanciful projects including everything from moving and submerged houses to aerial toilets. Several contemporary newspaper photographs showed Okada outside the Gallery Ku- dan leaning dramatically against the half-completed mobile ticket-selling machine naked ex- cept for a loincloth — clearly a favorite costume of his (Fig. 50). He explained that the con- traption would play music and would have wheels so that it could be moved around. When visitors approached the machine, the occupant’s black hand would suddenly appear and sell them a ticket. He added that when this nearly invisible seller became hot, he could remove his clothing, standing there naked, his face painted black and white but his body obscured inside the box. The box on wheels was designed to be tipped on its side or stationed upright. During breaks in the exhibition, the moving ticket machine could circulate through the ex- hibition space or sit out front next to the Sanka entrance tower. Okada stated in the same interview (a claim that has never been confirmed) that four of these ticket-seller machines had been completed and would be used at the exhibition. He also predicted that in the fu- ture the group would make thirty of them to take into every neighborhood in the city to advertise exhibitions and sell tickets. Okada was photographed seated in the mobile ticket booth (Fig. 51), which displayed a profusion of words: “entrance,” “exit,” “Mavo,” and “ticket- selling place.” Located outside the exhibition hall, the Sanka exhibition tower was an assemblage of util- itarian and industrial objects, recognizable, but deformed, with long coils and tubes snaking in and around its citcular openings (Fig. 52). In addition to a bulky metal cooking range, burned steel wire, and tall wood and metal beams, decorative diamond-shaped patterns con- structed of an unidentifiable material were placed along the exterior. A small sign on the 50 Okada Tatsuo constructing the Gate and Moving Ticket-Selling Machine (Monto ken ids kippu uriba), in front of Gallery Kudan. Later exhibited at the second Sanka exhibition, September 1925. In “The Pictorial Art Review: Sankaten no shuppin o seisakucho no Sanka no Okada Tatsuo-shi” (Sanka's Okada Tatsuo in the process of constructing a work for the Sanka exhibition), Atelier 2, no. 1 0 (October 1 925): 5. lower portion of the edifice reads “joint work” (godo sakuhin). Another tall bent sign, this one vertical, reads the “Second Sanka Exhibition” (Sanka dainikai tenrankai). NNK artists were not the only ones to show strongly architectural works. Most of the works addressed architectural and structural issues, but in diverse ways. Some projects were abstract architectonic constructions, while others were actual plans for buildings or large-scale struc- tures that defined architectural spaces. Okamoto Toki’s Lumpen Proletariat A and B, for in- stance, was a massive project consisting of rope ladders with pieces of newspaper affixed to them and hung from the ceiling over the assembly hall chairs, creating an environment around the viewer. The little-known architect Maki Hisao, who joined Mavo around this time, pre- sented Draft for an Outdoor Theater According to Only a Stage Design (Fig. 53) , a model some- what resembling a sailboat with a tall mast and a flag projecting over an assemblage of ver- tical and horizontal fragments of materials. In an even more frenzied style, Kinoshita’s 1 1 1 51 Okada Tatsuo seated in the Gate and Moving Ticket-Selling Machine, second Sanka exhibition, September 1925. In Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Sankaten no ben” (The diction of the Sanka exhibition), Chuo bijutsu, no. 1 1 9 (October 1 925): 1 89. 52 NNK, Sanka Exhibition Entrance Tower (Sankaten monto), exhibited outside the second Sanka exhibition, September 1925. In Murayama, “Sankaten no ben," 189. 53 Maki Hisao, Draft for an Outdoor Theater According to Only a Stage Design (Butai sochi nomi ni yoru okugai gekijo soan), exhibited at the second Sanka exhibition, September 1925. Mixed media construction, presumed lost. Photograph in Mavo, no. 7 (August 1925). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. 54 Nakada Sadanosuke, Bubikopf Venus (BOben- koppu no vuinesu), 1925. Mixed media construction, presumed lost. Photograph In Murayama Tomoyoshi, Koseiha kenkyO (Tokyo: Chuo Bijutsusha, 1926), ill. 19. One Part of the Internal Organs of the Facilities for a Modern Urban Organization (Kindaiteki toshi soshiki no ichibu zoki shisetsu) was constructed of wood, paper, and other materials in an expanding vortex. In contrast, Yanase’s Architectural Element (Kenchikuteki yoso) was a somber study of a purely geometric three-dimensional structure. Other large-scale works included more practical items, such as the large banner promot- ing Japanese labor unions, submitted by the non-Sanka unknown artist Mokube Masayuki and ztiutlzdAdvertisingSlogan for Labor Unions (Rodo kumiai senden hyogo). Paintings also reached a new monumental scale, typified by Nakahara Minoru’s Heaven and Earth (Kenkon) , which measured close to two meters high and depicted various scientific and astrological phenomena including X-rays, prisms, nebula, and comets. Perhaps most significant among the new Sanka members was the accomplished artist and art critic Nakada Sadanosuke {1888—1970).^^'^ His BubikopfVenus (Fig. 54) captivated many reviewers and was featured in several illustrations of the exhibition. The German page-boy hairstyle (Biibikopf) became associated with the popular bobbed haircut (danpatsn) worn by many young Japanese women, commonly known as o-kappa. This haircut came to symbolize the “modern girl” (modan garu) and all the trappings associated with her. Nakada’s work was a conical object constructed out of sleek metal and glass elements. The surviving photographs reveal how the work reflected light, emitting an incandescent glow. Sanka’s second exhibition was unquestionably one of the most heavily reviewed artistic events of its time, and while attendance figures are unreliable, the exhibition clearly drew a large audience. Every major news organization in the city ran commentary on the show, and several papers had articles on various individual Sanka artists. The sustained atten- tion of the press generated enormous curiosity among the public, greatly contributing to the expansion of Sanka’s audience. Reviews described the exhibition as “a manor of beasts” (kemono noyashiki), “a fantastic idea” (kiso tengai), a “strange world” (kii no sekai), and “many dirty works skillfully gathered together in a dim exhibition space. Several reviewers noted that the chaotic appearance of the works was reminiscent of the frightening state of Tokyo immediately after the earthquake. But it was not only the unusual works and colorful array of artists that attracted the no- tice of the press. Sanka was also newsworthy because of the altercations between exhibition participants and the forced withdrawal of certain works by the authorities. First, Kambara was unceremoniously dismissed by the group, by all accounts because his attitude was too romantic — not sufficiently negative and anarchistic.'"^^ Newspapers sardonically suggested that any association bringing together so many “courageous war heroes” (presumably in the battle against the gadan) was bound to have trouble getting along. Some reports in the press attributed Kambara’s dismissal and the group’s internal strife to Sanka’s anarchist fac- tion. Reports also began to mention that the Sanka anarchists were being viewed suspiciously 1 1 5 ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT by the police.*^' Eventually, Kambara felt compelled to respond to this professed concern, denying that Sanka had too many “leaders” and reiterating that the group -was made up of equals, none more powerful than the others. He stated that he simply came to realize that Sanka’s tone was overly negative and left the group to pursue a more affirmative course of action. But the remaining members had decided to announce his withdrawal as an expul- sion in an attempt to promote the group. Soon after, Okamoto and Asano were also “ex- pelled,” leaving the impression that Sanka was in a state of chaos. The day after the exhibition finally opened, there was an official inspection by the chief of the Public Security Office. “I don’t understand what they’re doing, but they’ve done some- thing quite horrible,” he told the press. The censors returned twice more with a repre- sentative of the Special Higher Police: four works were eventually deemed “seditious” (fuonto) and ordered removed. These were works that directly or obliquely referred to topics like anarchism or bombs, which the officials saw as attempts to instigate antisocial, illegal be- havior. Kinoshita Sh.\x\c\iiros Psychological Portrait of an Anairhist of Decisive Action (Fig. 55 ) was considered particularly threatening because of the explicit mention of anarchism in the title and because the work itself incorporated a rifle and a scythe-like implement with a blade. 156 After this commotion, the press turned to another series of incidents at the exhibition. It was widely reported that a band of Mavo members forced their way in and occupied the hall until they were given the money they demanded from Sanka’s exhibition revenues. This incident was referred to as Mavo’s “hijack plan” (nottorisaku)}'^^ Reports stated that Yokoi immediately reacted to this intrusion by withdrawing from the group. The Sanka member- ship, excluding Murayama and Yanase, called an emergency meeting at which the group de- cided unanimously to disband and, despite the popularity and success of the exhibition, to close it prematurely. 15® Four days later, the Mavo-NNK contingent, including Murayama, Hagiwara, Yanase, and others, staged a Sanka “disbandment announcement ceremony” at the Jichi Kaikan hall, with dancing, theatrical performances, and other generally clamorous activities. ^ To set the record straight and clarify several misconceptions concerning this series of events, Yokoi published a detailed account of Sanka’s final days in Mizue, carefully explaining the causes of the group’s internal problems and its dissolution and illuminating Mavo’s role in Sanka’s development. Yokoi described Mavo’s history and its split into two distinct factions: the moderates (onkenha; those in the middle class, chusan kaikyu seikatsusha) and the radi- cals (kytishinha; those in the proletarian class, musan kaikyu seikatsusha), with the radicals eventually predominating. The moderates joined with former members of Action to found Sanka. Thus from the very beginning, the remaining radical Mavoists found Sanka “un- pleasant” (fuyukai) and heavily criticized Murayama, who stood in between these factions. 55 Kinoshita Shuichiro, Psycho- logical Portrait of an Anarchist of Decisive Action (Kekkoseru anaruhisuto no shinriteki zo), 1925. Mixed media construc- tion, presumed lost. Withdrawn by official order from the second Sanka exhibition, September 1925. Tsuchioka Shuichl collection, photograph courtesy of Omuka Toshiharu. for collaborating with the association. Yokoi resolutely denied, however, that Mavo had co- erced money out of Sanka during the much reported sensational visit to the Sanka exhibi- tion. What had happened, in fact, was that some of the Mavoists had visited the exhibition while inebriated and had proceeded to offer drunken and inappropriate commentary on all the works. Yokoi described how he and Murayama had felt fundamentally dissatisfied with Sanka for its inability to break away from the classic jury system; the group had simply duplicated 1 1 7 ANATOMY OF A MOVEMENT the gadan structure against which it had initially fought. Moreover, the group had heatedly debated whether Sanka should present an exhibition prize. Several artists, Yokoi among them, rejected the idea of such an award as characteristic of the gadan. But Tamamura and Naka- hara were strongly in favor. This disagreement became another major source of contention. Finally, wholly dissatisfied with the direction of the group, Murayama and several Mavo mem- bers demanded that all the works submitted to Sanka be exhibited and that all Mavo mem- bers be admitted to Sanka. This demand caused a crisis among Sanka’s members, who de- nied admission to the full Mavo group because they worried that Mavo would take over the entire enterprise along with projected revenues. Murayama proclaimed that Sanka’s money was to be used for the social movement, not for the artists themselves, but he did not pre- vail. Instead, feeling embattled, the Sanka membership announced their decision to disband. Yokoi concluded that the group’s breakup was a quintessentially Sanka event since it exploded like the bomb the group purported to be.^*^® He wrote wistfully, “Sanka used explosions to destroy others, but eventually the bomb exploded in our own hands. The group published a joint statement acknowledging that in uniting artists from so many discrete backgrounds they had indeed formed an “unnatural” (fushizen) alliance that was bound to disintegrate, particularly since many members did not entirely agree with the ni- hilistic tendencies of the Mavo faction. They noted that even though Murayama, Okada, and other central figures in Mavo intended to form the Japan Nihilist Party (Nihon Ky- omuto), and perhaps mount exhibitions under the name Sanka, it was not true that Mavo had “occupied” (senryo) Sanka, since many of the Sanka members planned to pursue their own concerns and to continue exhibiting their own work individually or perhaps in a new group arrangement.''^^ The overall tensions within Sanka were prompted by the new ideologies crystallizing among the members: in particular, there were rifts between artists increasingly inclined to- ward Marxism and proletarian art, those staunchly dedicated to anarchism, and those who wanted to concentrate their efforts more within the artistic realm, seeing their mission as confined to revolutionizing art and the art establishment. Around the end of 1925, follow- ing the second Sanka exhibition, certain former members of Action involved in Sanka re- organized to create the group Zokei (Plastic Arts).'*^^ Ichiuji Giryo, a zealous supporter of the proletarian arts movement, observed in his review of the second Sanka exhibition that Sanka had opened people’s eyes to proletarian art and proletarian consciousness and cleared the path for the establishment of Zokei. Zokei was dedicated to the notion of art in the service of proletarian revolution, and by 1927 was advocating painting in the style of social realism as the clearest mode of agitprop. In the group’s manifesto published in the Yomiiiri shinbun, Zokei announced that “art” was negated and the period of grimness and destruc- tion over. While at the time of its formation Zokei artists were still continuing their ex- perimentation in abstract painting and expressionism, their rhetoric was strongly indebted to Ichiuji’s forceful proletarian convictions. In December, Murayama became involved in a public debate with Okamoto Toki, one of the founding members of Zokei. Murayama responded to Zokei’s statement with great skepticism, basically calling the group’s optimism foolish and deluded. He argued that mem- bers ignored the grim conditions right in front of their eyes and that social revolution was not going to be achieved merely by subordinating traditional paintings to a Marxist politi- cal agenda. He mocked their faith in Marxism’s determinism, declaring his unwillingness to give up his faith in art and his belief that destruction needed to precede construction. By the time Murayama was engaging in this debate with Zokei, however, he had already quietly withdrawn from Mavo. In fact, the announcement of his resignation appeared on September 22, right after the end of the Sanka exhibition. But even before this, it is clear that Murayama was beginning to distance himself from the central role he had played in the group, leaving the gap to be filled by Okada, Hagiwara, and others. So clearly Murayama’s decision to leave Mavo was not brought about by the disagreements that plagued Sanka. A principal impetus was undoubtedly his intense interest in the theater. While Murayama had concentrated most of his efforts prior to 1925 on the plastic arts, as time went on, he grad- ually became more involved in stage design, theatrical production, and writing for the the- ater. His set for Georg Kaiser’s From Morning ’til Midnight (Von Morgens bis Mitternachts; in Japanese, Asa kara yonaka made), produced by the Tsukiji Little Theater in December 1924, marked the introduction of constructivist aesthetics into the theater in Japan. It was widely heralded as a landmark in Japanese stage design. This project launched Murayama’s career in the theater, which eventually eclipsed all of his other work in the visual arts. Many Mavo artists shared his interest in the theater and concurrently worked with some of the small theatrical groups being established around this time, the Tsukiji Little Theater being the most central. Theatricality and the mutually influential relationship between art and the modern Japanese theater (shingeki) were integral to Mavo’s attistic project from the outset, playing an important role in the group’s activities. By late 1924, Murayama also had become active in several literary coteries and eclectic publications. He published short stories in several magazines, including Btingei shijo (Liter- ary Market), Btingei jidai (Literary Age), Sekai sbijin (World Poet), the arts magazine AS, and Hidoropasu, based in Osaka. Along with Yoshida Kenkichi, Murayama, in about April 1925, began doing design work, principally linocuts, for Btingei jidat. Mavo linocuts and col- lages had already appeared in previous issues of the magazine as margin designs. During this time, Murayama became closely involved with a group of writers who had broken away from the bundan coterie of Btingei jidai because of the group’s elitism and apolitical stance. He joined them in establishing the Bunto (Literary Parry) movement and its eponymous mag- 1 1 9 m z azine, conceived around May 1925. This movement was announced a month later, with great public fanfare and boisterous street rallies. As a founding member of the Bunto group, Murayama wrote regularly for the magazine and designed its covers. Murayama did not leave Mavo for ideological reasons, though 1925 did represent an im- portant ttansitional stage in his intellectual development that profoundly affected the group. He shifted away from aesthetic and philosophical issues to a concern for the social nature of art, including an interest in destructive, anarchistic tactics. As is evident in his writings, how- ever, by the latter half of 1924 he was already starting to consider more affirmative, constructive strategies. Essentially he vacillated between these two poles even after his departure from Mavo. Although he joined the proletarian arts movement with Yanase at the end of 1925, gradually shifting to a position more sympathetic to Marxism, it is clear that he did not en- tirely disengage himself from his Mavo posture. At the time Murayama was making torays into the literary world, Yanase had already re- joined his Tanemaku hito colleagues, who had regrouped to form Bungei semen in June 1924. He also continued to do illustrations for Warera (We), Kaihd (Liberation), AotJM rodo (Trans- portation Labor), Bungei shijo (Literary Market), Choryu (Current), Kusari (Chain), Nobi (Lield Lire), Bungei hihyo (Literary Criticism), and many other publications. More dedicated than ever after the earthquake to leftist political action, Yanase had also gradually distanced himself from Mavo to devote his time to directly promoting a socialist revolution. Thus he concentrated on his graphic art work to reach a broader audience and participated in found- ing the Proletarian Arts Association (Puroretaria Geijutsu Renmei) in December 1925. Yanase also became a principal illustrator for the Musamha shinbun (Proletarian Newspaper) in 1925. His book and magazine designs as well as his political cartoons were featured prominently throughout the leftist literary world until it was suppressed in the mid-i930s. By the time of Sanka’s second exhibition, most of the original Mavo members were no longer directly participating in the group. After Murayama’s departure, Okada, Takamizawa, and the architect Maki Hisao tried to continue activities under Mavo’s name. In September 1925, they organized a performance called the “Mavo Creative Dance Announcement Con- ference” (Mavo sosakti btiyo happyokai) at the Kyoto Seinen Kaikan (Kyoto Youth Hall).'^*^ Even as late as April 1926, Okada and Yabashi were trying unsuccessfully to restart the group, issuing their call tor the “Reconstruction of the Great Alliance of Mavo” (Mavo dairenmei saiken). In appealing to new members, they stated that Mavo’s first and second stages had employed destructive means to address the effect of bourgeois culture on proletarian cul- ture; the new third phase of Mavo, however, no longer concerned with this, would be ded- icated to concrete plans for reconstruction. Okada and Yabashi called for an all-new prole- tarian culture of “comprehensive construction” to bring the daily lives of artists and those in the intelligentsia closer to the reality of the proletariat, separating the former two groups once and for all from the privileged classes into which they had been absorbed. Okada and Yabashi claimed that it was the responsibility of artists to make art industrial, mechanical, practical, and akin to daily life. They planned to achieve these goals by first establishing an all-inclusive proletarian magazine for mass distribution and then by setting up a small the- ater, a mobile research center, and a permanent exhibition space to communicate the mes- sage of revolution to the people.'^' In spite of these steps toward a more affirmative stance in line with the proletarian arts movement, however, the new group offered only rhetoric, with little substance behind it. Without Murayama’s driving personality and with the mem- bership already splintered and fractious, the reconstruction league failed to arouse much sup- port, and Mavo faded permanently. P ROTRUDING METAL WIRE, WOMEN'S SHOES, SWATCHES OF BURLAP, CUTOUTS FROM popular magazines — skeptics asked whether this was really art. Clearly it was the stuff of Mavo constructivist assemblages and, by all standards of the day, represented a radical approach to the use of art materials. Murayama had claimed that “the materials in my pictures show an energetic tendency toward infinity.” Indeed, Mavo artists employed a myriad of different collage elements to serve thematic and referential as well as formal func- tions. The multiple psychological associations (rensoteki shinri) of each material — its origi- nal function, context, and social connotations — became integral to the work. Industrially produced objects were used in combination with painting or prints to evoke seikatsii no kanjo (the feeling of daily life), tangibly linking art and the materiality of everyday experience.' This expansive approach to materials was one expression of Mavo’s determination to pro- mote social revolution by means of a revolutionary artistic practice. Another was the group’s rebellious attitude toward their Japanese predecessors — a highly calculated stance for the sake of self-definition and one that highlighted generational tension between Meiji intellectuals and their Taisho successors. By about 1920, when Mavo artists were reaching adulthood, Japa- nese discourses on individualism had come to focus on a new objective: a means by which the autonomous individual could engage and affect society. A formidable current of leftist political thought among the Japanese liberal intelligentsia stimulated this project. Mavo artists absorbed socialist ideas, both anarchist and Marxist, from a wide circle of progressive Japa- nese thinkers as well as a small but dynamic domestic leftist political movement. They also THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION encountered the transformative theories of socialism implicit in the art, literature, and philosophy of Europe and Russia. They responded by asserting the intellectual’s social re- sponsibility and themselves took on the task of social criticism, speaking out in the public lorums of the mass media. First and foremost, they confronted the gadan, whose institu- tionalized inequality they saw as one of the greatest impediments to the development of the unfettered creative individual. Murayama, by disavowing absolute truth and objectivity, had questioned the basis oi gadan authority as well as the validity of established social practices. Yet his theory of conscious constructivism also addressed the inherent limitations of sub- jectivity. Murayama felt that for art to function as both a meaningful and an expressive mode of communication, the artist must turn interior, subjective experience outward, using per- sonal vision to critique the incongruous social conditions of modernity. Mavo artists con- ceived of their art and poetry as sociocultural criticism — a form of aesthetic intervention or cultural rebellion, designed to subvert the status quo. Conscious constructivism was the seed of an anarchist consciousness made socially and politically more explicit through the influence of other Mavo members, particularly Yanase Masamu, OkadaTatsuo, and Hagiwara Kyojiro. Through its implementation in Mavo’s col- lective artistic practice, Murayama’s theory was substantiated, transformed, and quickly taken from the philosophical and artistic realm into the world of radical politics. The disjunctive, turbulent compositions that many Mavo artists employed in their constructions metaphor- ically expressed the sense of crisis and anxiety produced by life in the modern age. Mavo’s works were simultaneously utopian and dystopian, typifying the two interconnected modes of resistance that Susan Napier identifies in her 1996 book, The Fantastic in Modern Japa- nese Literature. Mavo’s dystopian visions were “warnings, fantastic extrapolations of alarm- ing trends that [were] meant to disturb, shock, and ultimately move the reader [or viewer] to action.” At the same time, they presented utopian worlds, “fluid, heterogeneous, and united only in opposition to hierarchy and the central establishment. . . . [They were] notably pro- gressive, even radical . . . , highlighting movement ovet stasis, anarchy over control.”^ Mavo’s rebellious activities constituted a realm of what I am calling cultural anarchism. Critics in the 1920s referred to Mavo’s disorderly conduct with a range of indefinite terms, such as anarchism (anakizumu or mnseifushugi), nihilism (nihiriuztimu or kyomushngi), rad- icalism (kagekiha or kyushinha), dadaism (dadaiztimii), hedonism (kyoraktishugi), and ego- ism ( jigashngi, egoiziimn, ot yniitsushngi). As often as not, these terms were employed deroga- torily. Mavo’s cultural anarchism was characterized by a general antagonism to the Japanese state and authority, a sense of alienation from party politics and political representation, and a fundamental belief in the autonomy and free will of the individual. The group’s ambigu- ous utopian vision of the future included a preparatory stage of radical and violent cultural and sociopolitical activism. I argue that this conception of cultural anarchism, which can also be called a dadaist or dystopian impulse, was adopted by a wide range of intellectuals in Japan and abroad in dialectical relation to utopian notions of construction. In other words, destruction of the old was seen as a necessary precondition for construction of the new. Mavo artists had profoundly conflicted feelings about the impact of industrialization on culture and society, and a deeply ambivalent attitude toward society itself, which they viewed both positively, as constituted by “the masses,” and negatively, as constituted by restrictive bourgeois mores and conventions. Moreover, commitment to leftist political thought and practice varied greatly among individual Mavo members as the group became increasingly more radicalized after the Great Kanto Earthquake. This rapid recasting of the aesthetic into the political eventually contributed to the group’s unraveling. Art, Industrialism, and Daily Life Writing in the Yomiuri shinbun, Okada Tatsuo announced that “art is now separated from what is called ‘Art’ and is something with direct meaning for our daily lives. In other words, it demands more practical content.”^ This statement ttumpeted an emerging interest in “mod- ern daily life” (kindai seikatsu oi gendai seikatsu) among intellectuals from the late Meiji pe- riod on. The term seikatsu appeared frequently in both popular and scholarly publications. It was used so widely in the prewar period that seikatsu was often synonymous with the prac- tice of modern life itself, with all its psychological and material implications.^ Around the end of the Taisho period, a new held of cultural inquiry was developed around the notion of seikatsu, which Miriam Silverberg has termed the “ethnography of modernity.” Accord- ing to Silverberg, this was a new “ethnographic conception of culture determined by indus- trialism, social conflict and the rise of mass culture.”^ And “culture,” in her analysis, was constituted by “a series of practices [read seikatsu] being constructed in the streets.”*^ She de- velops this theoretical framework based on an examination of the statistical and analytical work of Kon Wajiro and Yoshida Kenkichi, who collaboratively launched a large-scale pro- ject to document, quantify, and qualify the new mood in daily life {seikatsu kibun)? Mavo artists were equally concerned with these new practices and the material conditions of daily life. They attempted to engage them by linking art and individual expression with seikatsu. But daily life in a rapidly industrializing society like Japan’s was constantly in flux. From the period of 1885 until 1920, Japan’s gross domestic product increased by 2.8 times and significant economic development was evident in all sectors. The Japanese government ac- tively tried to spur growth, because the country’s leaders felt that a state policy toward in- dustrial development would best achieve the national objectives of catching up with the West and becoming a world power. The withdrawal of the major industrialized nations from world and Japanese markets during World War I enabled Japan to establish its modern industry.^ THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION This surge in industrialization produced a sense of both excitement and anxiety among the populace. Many people had to search for work far from home, separated from their fam- ilies and communities. Artists and writers were among the many who immigrated from rural to urban areas. Over two-thirds of Mavo’s members were originally from provincial house- holds. The vitality and shock of the Tokyo urban experience was a defining factor in their work. Hagiwara Kyojiro’s attitude perhaps represents the most extreme response. Hagiwara’s wild poetry expressed an internal sense of isolation, partly a response to leaving his rural hometown, according to Okamoto Jun, Hagiwaras colleague on the anarchist literary mag- azine to kuro. For Hagiwara, the countryside was pastoral and humanistic, the city, me- chanical, clamorous, and inhumane. He believed the city was morally condemned because of the inhumane conditions of the modern urban environment and felt a need to address these conditions in his work to reassert his own humanity in the face of modernization.^ High levels of unemployment and economic hardship continued for the lower classes who flocked to cities only to live in cramped and unsanitary conditions. The government had lit- tle concern for ameliorating the harsh, even subhuman, conditions of the industrial work- place. Left-leaning intellectuals, moreover, were profoundly disturbed by the militaristic colo- nial expansionism of Japan’s economic policy after the turn of the century, the dark underside of the state’s development strategies. The disjunctive and turbulent visual language that many Mavo artists employed in their constructivist collages, paintings, and prints was partly a response to the new social condi- tions produced by industrialism. They created images that conveyed the feelings of crisis, peril, and uncertainty that characterized daily experience. They also countered state au- thoritarianism and rationalization by expressing irrationality, melancholy, and pessimism.''^ In his linocut Self-Portrait (Fig. 56), Yabashi Kimimaro transforms the genre most symbolic of subjective individualism into a strident statement about the predicament of the individ- ual and his environment. A stick figure sits in a composition of abstract, seemingly unre- lated swirling forms, surrounded by characters reading “kill,” “death,” “pig,” “idiot,” and “drug.” The individual is presented as deformed. He has become a “cripple” { ftigusha), a “pig” (biita), or a “madman” (kyogusha), pejorative terms akin to “criminal” and “terrorist” that Mavo artists adopted to symbolize their empowerment in a hostile environment.' ' While Mavo artists believed that technological development was a defining factor of modernity, and therefore should be a central subject for art, many were not convinced when the state glorified the progressive, rationalizing force of technology, at least as it was used in a capitalist system.'^ In Napier’s words, “Taisho was a time when the roseate dreams of Meiji were beginning to show a nightmare side.”'^ Mavo artists addressed mechanization in daily life in ways that reveal their strong sense of ambivalence. Some Mavo art works thematically and spatially expressed a sense of crisis, such as Murayama’s Sadistic Space (see Plate 3), Yanase’s 56 Yabashi Kimimaro, Self-Portrait (.S\gazo), ca 1924, Linocut, In Mavo, no. 2 (August 1924). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. ki - 57 Yamazato Eikichi, Standing Man (Tatte iru otoko), ca. 1924. Mixed media construction, presumed lost, Photograph on the cover of Mavo, no. 1 (July 1 924). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. 58 Kinoshita Shuichiro, Record I of the Negative Destructive Act of Every Conceptual Indication (Arayuru gainen no hyoji no hiteiteki hakai koi no kiroku I), 1924. Linocut, In Mavo, no. 1 (July 1924). Museum of Contempo- rary Art Tokyo. MV I (see Plate 7), and Sumiya Iwane’s Daily Task of Love in the Factory (see Plate 8). They employed intertwined and overlapping but seemingly disjunctive forms to produce illogical (and in the case of Sumiya’s work, forbidding) labyrinthine spaces. All of these works al- luded to mechanical environments, using abstracted machine imagery such as interconnected tubular forms and shapes reminiscent of riveted steel girders. In its cold starkness, Sumiya’s dark and serpentine imagery was particularly evocative of a factory interior. As disorienting as these spaces, the convoluted images of machines in Mavo works im- plicitly question the equation of mechanization with rationalization. Yamazato Eikichi’s Stand- ing Man (Fig. 57) was made up of a frenetic assemblage constructed out of illogically com- bined, deformed machine-made elements such as tin cans, metal wires, and a glass bottle. This work mirrored Sanka’s wild exhibition tower, described in chapter 3. Similar imagery was also evident in Mavo’s print work. In his linocut Construction of Movement and Machine (Plate 12), Sumiya Iwane associated his mechanistic forms visually with the chain, a com- mon symbol of authoritarianism, implicating technology in the perpetuation of an oppres- sive system. Several works reproduced in Mavo, such as Kinoshita Shuichiro ’s Record I of the Negative Destructive Act of Every Conceptual Indication (Fig. 58), displayed nonsensical math- ematical equations that were in express opposition to the new state credo of scientific ratio- 1 29 THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION nalism espoused by many intellectuals. This subversive act was derived from the futurist call for the destruction of rational symbology. At the same time, many Mavo members presented technology and mechanization in a neutral or even positive light. Takamizawa’s PrOtestO (Fig. 59) displayed a large machine cog, a ubiquitous sign of industrial labor, generally asserting an oppositional presence without specifically designating a stance toward the technology itself Oura Shuzo’s constructions represented the most optimistic stance toward technology and mechanization among the works of Mavo artists. He produced a series of constructions under the rubric of El Lissitzky’s “Proun” that affirmatively employed technological and industrial imagery. Most of the “Proun” series and Oura’s other works are no longer extant and their appearance is unknown, but Proun D (ca. 1924) and Construction F {¥\g. 60), known through photographs, give some sense of the artist’s fascination with a machine aesthetic. Their overall crispness of line de- nied the hand of the artist, emphasizing instead the machine-made quality of the image, re- inforcing it further by incorporating fragments of machine-printed text, mechanical com- ponents such as half of a jagged circular saw blade, and interconnected abstract rectilinear forms with mechanical hinges, all of which evoked the image of machine production. The pervasive presence of machines and the concomitant ideology of rationalization were not the only effects of industrialization on Japanese culture, for the growth of industry also altered the material culture of daily life. From the mid-Meiji period on, people had increased access to an array of consumer goods and new machine-made materials, both foreign and domestic. Personal consumption nearly tripled between the 1880s and 1920s. The replace- ment of traditional art materials with machine-made objects or images tangibly linked the new art to the material realities of everyday experience. For Mavo artists, constructivist as- semblage reflected the new conditions of life in a technological and industrial society. Fur- thermore, the incorporation of reproductive fragments (that is, replicated items produced and marketed for mass consumption) served Mavo’s central aim of desegregating so-called high and low art. The photographs from popular publications and advertising frequently used in Mavo’s art made reference to the ubiquitous presence and increasing social force of mass culture. The numerous images of Western women in Mavo collages, for instance, portrayed them as eroticized, fashionable symbols of modernity in the marketing of commodities. For both Japanese men and women the image of the Western woman symbolized desire. Advertisers sought to encourage the desire of males to possess her sexually and of females to emulate her by means of beauty products and fashionable goods that could transform the body, and pre- sumably daily life as well. Many periodicals promoted a change to modern Western fashions as a part of the rationalization project, even explaining and illustrating how these garments were properly worn. 59 Takamizawa Michinao, PrOtestO (Protest), ca 1 924. Mixed media construction, presumed lost Photograph in Mavo, no. 1 (July 1924). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. 60 Oura Shuzo, Construction F (Konsutorakushion F), ca. 1 924. Mixed media collage, presumed lost Photograph in Mavo, no. 1 (July 1924). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. 61 Shibuya Osamu, Construction of Artificial Flowers Lacking in Sympathy (Kyokanse'i no toboshii zoka no aru konsutorakushon), ca, 1925. Mixed nnedia construction, presumed lost. Photograph in Okada, “Sankaten endokuhyo,” 38. 62 Kinoshita Shuichiro, Organization of Tin (Buriki no oruganizachion), ca. 1924. Tin construction, presumed lost. Photograph in Mavo, no. 2 (August 1924). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. References to the economy of desire represented by the Western female — the non-Asian Other — went hand-in-hand with recurrent images of Westernized Japanese women, disem- bodied and eroticized women’s legs, and women’s shoes, all of which pointed to widespread social changes in Japan that were gradually altering traditional gender roles, the division of labor in the Japanese family, and the concept of the family itself Starting in the late Meiji period and gathering force during theTaisho period, Japanese women were joining the work- force in increasing numbers, and many were donning modern apparel and beginning to as- sert theit right to greater social, political, and sexual autonomyd'^The apprehension and en- thusiasm aroused by this transformation created a discursive battleground upon which the image of the socially liberated “new woman,” and the sexually liberated “modetn gitl,” was constructed and continually renegotiatedd^ Mavo artists’ frequent incorporation of images associated with the fetishized female body (women’s legs and high-heeled shoes in particu- lar) in their assemblages, such as Shibuya’s Construction of Artificial Flowers Lacking in Sym- pathy (Fig. 6i) and Murayama’s Work Employing Flower and Shoe (see Fig. 25), referred to these abundant visual and textual representations of women in Japanese pictorial weeklies, graphic illustrations, and popular literary texts. For example, an entire section of the popu- lar women’s magazine Fujin koron (Women’s Review), to which Murayama also contributed an article, was devoted to the topic of legs. Mavo artists drew on both the erotically charged and socially symbolic character of these images. The ever-expanding realm of commodity cultute also provided many new industrially produced materials that were frequently incorporated into Mavo constructions. The metal tin, for example, was used prominently in Yamazato’s Standing Man and in Kinoshita Shuichiro’s Organization of Tin (Buriki no oruganizachion), an absttact three-dimensional assemblage of intertwined strips of the metal (Fig. 62).'^ Tin had become a populat pack- aging material, predominantly associated with “high collat” (haikara) fashionable consumer items like Western-style sweets and cosmetics.'® The use of this metal in Mavo art works forged a direct link to mass culture while alluding to the industrial production that sup- ported it. Combining swatches of fabric, bits of wood and metal, human hair, and other common materials with painting, Murayama often juxtaposed the handmade with the industrial, the human with the mechanical, offering surfaces rich in texture, all fashioned into highly ex- pressive and frenetic compositions. In Seated Prostitute (Fig. 63), probably produced while he was still abroad and now known only in reproduction, Murayama combined oil paint- ing and collage. By affixing fragments of lace and a bit of German paper money to the painted sutface, he suggested the feminine-gendered and commodified identity of the abstracted sub- ject. The romanized word “eksta’se” (ecstasy), painted in the lower left-hand quadrant of the work, explicitly refers to the sexual content of the piece. The image was composed of nu- THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION 134 63 Murayama Tomoyoshi, Seated Prostitute (Zaseru inbaifu; in German, Sitzende Dime), ca. 1 922. Oil and mixed media on canvas, presumed lost. Photograph in Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924). merous irregularly shaped, abstract painted forms, interconnected and overlapping, all of which appeared to spiral out of a central vortex. The torn and seemingly haphazard appli- cation of the collage elements made the design more frenzied. Even after returning from Germany, Murayama continued to use collage materials, such as newspapers, fragments of clothing and textiles, and memorabilia from his activities abroad. In Japan, such foreign ob- jects had an exotic appeal. Mavo artists used their diverse materials to create textural and visual effects on the pic- torial surface, and to engage the body physically with the work. This concept was commonly referred to as “tactilism” (shokkakiishugi) in Western art theory, and could be achieved through either painterly or collage techniques. In a brief interview with the Yomiuri shinbiin shortly after his return from Berlin, Murayama discussed Marinetti’s futurist theory of tactilism. which, as he explained, juxtaposed various tactile materials, eliciting the response of other senses through touchd^ Murayama had met Marinetti in Germany, and the Italian artist had given him a copy of the futurist “Manifesto ofTactilism,” first presented in 1921 at the Theatre de L’Oeuvre in Paris and the World Exhibition of Modern Art in Geneva. In May 1923, Murayama translated this manifesto and further explained Marinetti’s theories in Child bi- jutsu. Marinetti defined tactilism as a visual sense formed on the fingertips. His emphasis on the sense of touch appealed to Mavo artists, and they incorporated it as a fundamental element in their work. Furthermore, Marinetti explicitly linked tactile elements in art with the sensual and sexual. Murayama gives a somewhat mystifying example of the link: the use of tactilist techniques to express the simultaneous necessity for sound sleep and the satis- faction of sexual desire in the bedroom. According to Murayama, Marinetti was express- ing abstract experiences through tactile sensations and suggesting how artists could bring everyday bodily sensations into the rarefied realm of high art. Shibuya Osamu elaborated on Murayama’s explanation of tactilism. Using terms clearly derived from the theories of David Burliuk, who pioneered the exploration of the material qualities of painting, Shibuya referred to tactilism as taktism or taktimatism (takiitiziimiisu), explaining that his coinage takutora meant the sense one got when touching something di- rectly with one’s skin, whereas fakutora (from the Russian term faktura) was “the visual tac- tile sensation of light — color, line, mass, concave and convex surfaces.” Burliuk conceived of the elements “surface-plane,” “texture” ( faktura), and “color” as tangible painting mate- rials, asserting the sensuousness of the two-dimensional picture surface. To this end, he also began incorporating collage elements into his work.^^ Reviews and descriptions in memoirs have confirmed that several of the Russian art works Burliuk brought with him (which were exhibited at the Hoshi pharmaceutical firm in October 1920) also had collage components, most notably work by Viktor Palmov and by Vladimir Tatlin, who experimented with fak- tura in his “culture of materials. Shibuya echoed Murayama’s sentiments when he stated that tactilism was significant because it brought “the lowest physical senses” (saika no kankaku) into the elite realm of art.^’^ Shibuya’s construction titled Taktimatism (Takutimatizumusu) displayed an intricate as- semblage of cut cloth and paper fragments, metal rings, spools, various unidentifiable ma- terials, and what appeared to be a large patch of hair. The artist juxtaposed dark and light areas in the composition, experimenting with the dimensionality of the picture surface. Strands of hair often appeared in Mavo constructions. In some instances the work implies that the hair belonged to the artist, tangibly connecting the work to the artist’s body. Hair could also imbue a work with a personal sensual quality. In another of Shibuya’s construc- tions, entitled Constructivist Stage Design (Fig. 64), hair was whimsically stuck, like a droop- ing mustache, into the sides of a small light bulb. Erotic allusions were then reinforced 135 metonymically through the titillating photograph of a naked Western woman with her back to the viewer. Murayama’s surviving Construction (Plate 13) from 1925 exemplifies Mavo’s innovative use of collage to produce a tactile surface. Consisting of wood, metal, and textile fragments of varying shapes nailed to a wooden plank and combined with a photo-collage of newspaper and advertisement clippings. Construction invites the viewer to reach out and run a hand across the surface. The varied tactile and visual sensations create a dynamic rhythm mirrored by the interplay of images in the photo-collage. Kato Masao also experimented with tactil- ism. A reproduction of a work no longer extant, his (Architectural) Picture on the Theme of Destruction (Fig. 65), illustrates the artist’s ability to modulate surface texture through the use of painterly impasto and collage elements. A glistening piece of metal screwed to the pic- ture plane curls in on itself, encircling a metal wire that runs through a mounted hinge and is attached to the upper border of the work. The bottom section of the construction displays a ribbed metal band. And two swatches of thick, heavily textured woven fabric adorn the surface, producing a visible contrast with the patterns and textures. Murayama’s exhortation to use discarded, found, and disparate objects, even human hair and high-heeled shoes, related closely to the German artist Kurt Schwitters’s theories about his Merz assemblage. Schwitters described his “MERZ-stage” in early 1921: “Take petti- coats and other similar things, shoes and artificial halt, also skates and throw them in the right place, where they belong, and always at the right time. ... In short, take everything from the emperor’s screw to the fine lady’s hairnet. Schwitters, like Murayama, combined these collage elements with an expressive, painterly use of oil, sometimes completely paint- ing over his assemblages. Schwitters, however, repeatedly emphasized that he chose the col- lage fragments he employed solely for their formal qualities, that removing them from their context and inserting them into an art work denuded them of their former meaning and as- sociations and gave them a new, purely artistic, significance. Schwitters wrote that “all ma- terials have to be used on an equal footing and all lose their individual character, their own essence, by being evaluated against each other; by becoming dematerialized they become material for the picture. While it is questionable whether Schwitters ever successfully stripped his collage elements of their contextual associations, it is significant that this was his stated purpose. He valued artistic purity. Murayama, in contrast, rejected pure art. He advocated collage precisely because the material fragments retained their association with their former contexts, bringing psychological associations of the material world into the construction. Still, Murayama’s philosophy bore a striking resemblance to Schwitters’s definition of his work in his Merz assemblage: Schwitters maintained that he had no desire to reproduce na- ture, which he said, “limit[ed] one’s force and consistency in working out an expression.” 64 Shibuya Osamu, Constructivist Stage Design (Koseishugi no butai sochi), ca 1924. Mixed media construction, presumed lost Photograph in Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924). National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. 65 Kato Masao, (Architecturai) Picture on the Theme of Destruction (Hakai o tema ni motsu ga [kenchiku no]), ca 1 923. Mixed media construction, presumed lost Photograph in Kenchiku no fukyO 4, no. 8 (August 1923): ill. 1 1. THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION He deemed his pictorial abstractions “a view to expression” and stated that Merz stood for absolute freedom. He also declared that his “ultimate aspiration [was] the union of art and non-art in the Merz total world view [Merzgesamtweltbild],” which also attempted to efface the boundaries between the arts.^^ Murayama’s assertion of his role as an artist, and his con- cern with the formal and expressive qualities of his work in an artistic context, were similar to Schwitters’s. In conscious constructivism, Murayama argued for individual expression with- out the constraints of mimetic representation. He maintained the central importance of art, and affirmed the socially transformative potential of innovative aesthetics. Numerous artists throughout the world at this time were experimenting with collage, sur- face texture, and abstraction, and it is quickly apparent that Mavo artists found inspira- tion in the work of a great many of them. It is also clear that Murayama did not create any of the stylistic idioms he employed; he and the other Mavoists instead adapted current ideas selectively. In Japan, Western modernist styles functioned as prefabricated signifiers from which Japanese artists chose, often combining the disparate and seemingly contra- dictory at will. John Clark has referred to this process as a “conscious redeployment of ‘West- ern’ styles,” where the Japanese artists “placed their own self-consciousness at the center of their creative process. When evaluating Mavo works, it is important to remember that because Japanese artists employed the collage/ assemblage/ constructivist idiom after it had been fully conceived in Europe and Russia, it was grafted on to art in Japan as a reified style. For Japanese artists, collage and assemblage came to symbolize the notion of “radi- calism” and implied the destruction of tradition. At the same time, the modish Western origins of this modern idiom conferred on the artists with access to it both cultural parity with “the West” and cultural superiority over other Japanese Western-style artists who were less up-to-date. Mavo artists consciously employed the disjunctive collage idiom, with its combination of disparate, cast-off, and juxtaposed elements, to express their generation’s sense of the rup- ture between the past and the present. The government’s inexorable push for modernization had left many intellectuals feeling culturally disenfranchised as they confronted a world in constant flux, where values, life goals, and morality were changing daily. For Mavo artists, the collage technique symbolically expressed both maximum freedom and extreme chaos and randomness. Mavo, Social Criticism, and the Gadan The use of innovative aesthetics and poetics in Mavo artistic production constituted an im- portant practice of social criticism. The group’s members felt an urgent need to critique the gadan and current modes of artistic practice. In an interview, Murayama stated that Japan did not have an adequate level of critical commentary in relation to the gadan (art estab- lishment), the bundan (literary establishment), or the. gekidan (theater establishment).^*^ Mavo artists treated their constructions, poetry, and straight art criticism as an important subcat- egory of social and cultural criticism, and their objective was to address the broader devel- opments of critical thought. Both Murayama and Yanase came to revere the German-born artist George Grosz as a paradigm of the artist— social critic. Grosz consistently charged his work with social satire, dishing out brutal commentary on current political issues. Murayama noted in his autobi- ography that Grosz’s critical stance opened his eyes to societal inequities and hypocrisies.^^ Grosz’s work also clearly pointed out the important role of art in communicating these con- ditions, hence the need to break down the boundaries of art and life, and reconnect artistic practice with daily experience. But perhaps most significant, in contrast to the utopian in- clinations of other artistic movements that tended to romanticize the modern condition, Grosz’s work, indelibly scarred by the carnage of World War I, continually reminded Mu- rayama of the ugly side of life and the great potential for social oppression and mass de- struction in the modern age. Murayama and Yanase believed that a critical approach to art practice was essential. And the newly emerging mass media gave them a forum and an expanded audience. Around this time, the major Japanese press organizations were beginning to display greater professional- ism, earning a new respectability that encouraged many intellectuals to undertake the writ- ing of joutnalistic essays. The press was the most autonomous of the public media and es- tablished the bounds of “permissible public debate. Mass circulation newspapers came to play a major role in shaping public perceptions of contemporary social and political issues. With a circulation reaching close to one million around 1920, the Osaka asahi shmbun, ac- cording to Gregory Kasza, started to think of itself as the “conscience of the nation” and “acted as an advocate of society to the state.” By the mid-iqios, prominent newspapers such as the Asahi shinbun and general interest magazines like Chuo koron and Kaizo were com- bining political and social criticism with contributions related to the arts, often overlapping these two areas. Gradually less able — or less willing — to enter the officially sanctioned realm of public life represented by the state and its bureaucracy, young intellectuals increasingly chose to work for the improvement of society by participating in the public discourse car- ried in the mass media.^^ Mavo artists participated in this critical discourse through their own art work and writing, and through coverage of their activities in the press. Andrew Barshay has argued that criticism confronted the “interlocking set of identities” that characterized the relationship between state and society, “where personal, official, and national identity were intertwined with a powerful sense of mission — to civilize the people, to acquire learning for the sake of the nation, to raise Japan’s status in the world.” Japanese THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION critics instead posited a “public” realm that was predicated on the pursuit of individual and social good, uncoupled from state imperatives. This public realm, coterminous with neither official nor private interests, instead carved out a forum for negotiation between the rwo.^*^ As both Barshay and H. D. Harootunian have shown, however, in entering the public arena, intellectuals risked conflict with the state by showing its expectations and needs were not al- ways in accord with those of society.^^ In Mavo’s case, they also risked conflict with estab- lished social practices, conventions, and mores. By criticizing others Mavoists took an alternative stance, but they protected themselves from the consequences of that stance by presenting their ideas ambiguously and only im- plicitly in their disavowals of others. This tactic has led scholars like OmukaToshiharu and Mizusawa Tsutomu to conclude that Murayama and other Mavo artists left only a negative legacy, but in doing so they disregard two important points. Criticism, negativity, and de- struction were significant expressive aims in and of themselves. And as a tactic, critique was highly effective in anarchist terms because it created an outside sphere from which to lob vi- sual or verbal grenades at the establishment, without requiring the creation of a new establishment. Mavo members integrated poetry and criticism, experimenting with the structure of their texts as well as the content. The form of the text itself conveyed the content. Thus they con- sciously and selectively used jarring and unconventional grammar, aphorisms, and generally offensive and combative terminology. The words botsuraku (ruin), hakai (destruction), bakn- dan (bomb), bakuretsu [explosion), fukushu (revenge), dind shototsu (collision) appeared re- peatedly. Moreover, Mavo writings maintained a high pitch: people did not “say,” they “screamed” (sakebu), intensifying the sense of anxiety and crisis. This language of violent protest was indebted to a broad discourse of cultural anarchism evident worldwide and in Japan in all the arts. Mavo artists also often expressed their criticism in scatological terms. Language about vomit, diarrhea, and feces as well as other bodily elements appeared re- peatedly. In addition to its purely grotesque and rebellious impact, this strategy served to ex- press Mavo artists’ gut-level emotional and physical reactions. The deliberately indecent vo- cabulary escalated the discussion and deployed the artists’ personal emotions as a weapon. As the most immediate form of authority in the daily lives of young artists, the gadan, especially as represented by large-scale official and nonofficial juried exhibitions, symbolized coercive state and social power. An outgrowth of Murayama’s questioning of the arbitrary standards of aesthetic judgment and Mavo’s collective anti-authoritarianism was a deep-seated disdain for gadan structures and activities.^® As hierarchical, exclusive, authoritarian insti- tutions, gadan societies were direct obstacles to the artists’ new credo of free will and unfet- tered self-expression. Mavo’s posture paralleled that taken previously by the Futurist Art As- sociation and was an important basis for the group’s formation. One could go so far as to say that Mavo and the FAA gained their identity only in relation to the purported ortho- doxy of the gadan?^ Thus while Mavo protested gadan practices and professed to seek the destruction of the major exhibiting societies, the relaxation of the boundaries of institutional art would have meant the death of the group (as it almost meant the death of the FAA when Fumon Gyo was taken back into Nika). Mavo’s existence was predicated on the existence of the gadan. And it is no coincidence that many of Mavo’s defining activities were directly aimed at gadan representatives, for only by forcing their way into gadan consciousness or publicly opposing themselves to the gadan did they feel they could achieve recognition. One of Mavo’s typical provocations was to single out prominent personalities and level critical insults at them. Writing in Mavo, Shibuya Osamu aggressively criticized Nak- agawa Kazumasa, a popular and successful Nika artist, who had recently written in Atelier on the topic “Mono to Bi” (Things and beauty), arguing that beauty was a naturally oc- curring quality in things themselves that caused people to perceive them as beautiful. Shibuya wasted no time in lambasting Nakagawa as a “middle-aged and mid-career” artist, implying that his senses were dulled and calling the ideas he expressed foolish, idiotic nonsense. Fie corrected Nakagawa’s assertion by stating that beauty was not an external tangible quality but an internal emotion produced in the mind of the artist and the viewer. It was not some- thing that rested within the object, but rather within the subject. Thus, the designation of something as beautiful constituted a subjective value judgment, not a statement of fact. The standards by which beauty was evaluated were neither fixed nor universal. Shibuya further criticized Nakagawa’s assumption that necessarily the subject or object of art had to be beauty, calling this notion passe. Okada was a master of provocation and elevated it to a grotesque art form. For example, in his essay “Zesshoku” (Fast), he referred to the well-known artist and art essayist Moriguchi Tari as “Moriguchi Diarrhea Inducer” (Moriguchi gerizai). Moriguchi, wrote Okada, “eats expressionism, hurts his stomach, and squirts out from his ass Tari’s ‘12 lectures’ and A De- sign Collection,’ which ruin the intestines and destroy the stomach, [leaving one to] vomit on the street corner and annoy the proletariat.” Leaping disconnectedly from one subject to the next, Okada castigated the leftist art critics Ichiuji Giryo and Flayashi Masao, claiming, “If you take out the proletarian bones of expressionism, you get the mummy of the literary and poetry establishment. If you soak that and dtink it, you will probably get Louvre [?] shit.” He continued, “many cars came to the ‘French Contemporary Art Exhibition’ in Ueno. On Mavo’s opening day only a beggar, a robber, a prostitute, and an escaped murderer came.” He then concluded in a violent and somewhat incomprehensible crescendo screaming, “Children of the devil! Children of the devil! While the bomb is being held. Drop dead! Children of the devil! Children of the devil! Leave a huge smile . . . heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.”^^ Yanase’s indictment of the art establishment was equally caustic, if less scatological. But 1 4 1 for him, x}nt gadan was just one manifestation of a broader condition of social corruption. He spoke about the transformation of people into “things” (mono) through the commodi- fying and denaturing processes of capitalism, which rendered them devoid of social con- sciousness. As far as Yanase was concerned, the art produced by artists who subscribed to this system was entirely worthless. He wrote: [People who have become “things”] totally unconsciously reflect the bad social elements of the modern period. Due to this, the organ of the gadan, which sits outside the problem, is a lump of poison that should be detested as it reflects this evil. How- ever, this mirror of commodification [the gadan] is of course nothing more than a seg- ment of a bad society.^^ Many artists were displeased with the official exhibitions. In fact, dissatisfaction with the Bunten started soon after its inception, particularly among the “individualist” artists, who were stylistically inclined toward the work of European post-impressionism and rejected Bun- ten-supported academicism. The Fusain Society artist Saito Yori, a critic as vociferous asTaka- mura Kotaro, wrote about the uselessness of public exhibitions in Waseda bungakti in March 1910.'^^ Mavo’s dLun-gadan sentiments were echoed by a range of young artists, as evidenced in an article surveying opinions on the exhibition system, though most were not nearly as critical as Mavo.^"^ Murayama was given pride of place among those interviewed. His vocif- erous criticism of gadan catapulted him into celebrity. In his article “Tenrankai soshiki no riso” (The ideal exhibition organization), Murayama systematically expressed his frustration with the monopoly and nepotism of Japan’s entrenched exhibition system. He began his essay by posing rwo questions: Why were Japanese artists slaves? And why did modern Japanese art only take the form of “picture billboards” or “emo- tional artistic reproductions”? He concluded that three conditions had contributed to this “pitiful” situation: (i) Japan did not have ready access to information; (2) Japanese artists were ignorant and had no clear life-view (seimeikan) of their own; and (3) the Japanese art system was bad. Resignedly, he stated that nothing could be done about the first condition. To remedy the second, all Japanese artists had to study hard and teach one another. And the third condition he saw as the easiest to rectify if everyone focused on the problem, which, in his view, stemmed from the juried exhibition system. This system relied on a small group of judges, arbitrarily selected, often self-selected, to assess diverse works, many of which they summarily dismissed because they did not accord with the judges’ personal interests. Fur- thermore, they refused to even consider work that they did not readily understand, thus com- pletely stunting the development of art in Japan. Murayama asserted that while this juried exhibition system might have seemed civilized and enlightened in the Meiji period, it had no advantages in the present era. Rather, it was a symbol oi the retarded development of the Japanese art establishment and generated the “slavishness” (dorei konjo) of most Japanese artists. It castrated them, producing desiccated “mummies” (miira) without a life-view of their own. TheTeiten was thus merely a “storage unit for mummies” while societies like Nika and the Shun’yokai were “production sites for mummies.” Murayama argued that the exhibition judges worked solely to strengthen their own fac- tions within xhcgadan and to expand the commercial profitability of the exhibitions by sell- ing their own works and the works of their students. Unconscious bourgeois gentlemen that they were, they had no idea of the cruelty of their actions for those scrambling at the bot- tom. While exhorting readers to change the system, Murayama stopped short of offering a comprehensive solution to the problem, stating simply that he would soon publish a “Man- ifesto of ‘Conscious Constructivism’ ” that would solve the problem by again asserting the philosophical negation of absolute value. He added that while people did not need to be communists to implement these changes, they should base the new organization of xdvzgadan on the egalitarian social organization of communism. Some of the suggestions he offered in- cluded a total conversion to un juried exhibitions, free admission all year long, unrestricted opportunity for all artists to exhibit, and the elimination of commissions. These changes could be implemented only if exhibition spaces were created and sufficient funding allo- cated. They also required dissolving the Imperial Art Academy (Teikoku Bijutsuin) and sim- ilar institutions.^^ Established in 1918, the Imperial Art Academy was the most powerful and prestigious art institution of its time. Its members, according to Kawaji Ryuko’s survey of the art world in 1924, were “treated like imperial messengers,” and even though they were artists, they had the same status as bureaucrats. The academy’s mandate under the auspices of the Ministry of Education was the general “development of art.” Because of continued difficulty in choos- ing judges for the Teiten, the education ministry administrators felt that there needed to be a supreme body to supervise and referee the process. To Murayama, the academy and all such organizations were the principal impediments to liberating Japanese exhibiting practices. The Radicalization of Mavo The Great Kanto Earthquake fueled the developing social concern among Mavo artists and expanded the focus, as well as the intensity, of their activities. It also illuminated the great incongruity between high art and modern experience, reinforcing the urgency of Mavo’s call for an art integrated with daily life. In an article on the hastily constructed barrack towns, Hagiwara Kyojiro elaborated: 143 THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION It is obvious that our art must come out of the very deprhs of our lives. There is no ques- rion thar life and art should be intimate. But it is more than just that. The stages of art and life are so close together, that it is impossible to draw a line of separation between them. If there is anyone who says that life and art can be [separately] categorized all the time, he is an idiot who should be scorned. Art is life. . . . [as] when we have to ride on desperately crowded, noisy trains, scattered with yellow dust, lull of germs, feeling afraid of the conductor who is screaming hysterically, approaching this dear capital Tokyo that is like a bride who is having a miscarriage. The ride will rell us about so many things. Gentlemen, try to visualize a canvas, where you see a whole lot of people with in- nocent rosy cheeks moving around without knowing when they will get a shower ot dust, in a place where there are some military policemen with guns on their shoulders stand- ing at the corners of town, where there are no roadside rrees, no policemen for traffic, no women with jobs, no bicycles, no children, no carts to carry lumber, no shabby look- ing cabs, no state-owned cars looking like trucks, no omnibuses like a woman in the month of childbirth. The unhappily unburned towns like Koishikawa, or Hongo ward, these are like places where slugs live compared to the lively barrack towns. A new art must at least survive in such a confused place [like the barracks], right?^^ Hagiwara felt that the work of art (geijutsuhin) should not be created apart from the act of living itself.^^ The sheer physical damage and loss of life caused by the 1923 earthquake triggered a range of responses among the intelligentsia. Many magazines carried essays on the earthquake or devoted entire issues to its ideological consequences. A significant portion of the essays that were published soon after the tremor dealt with the emotional and psychological experience of the event itself, the shock upon viewing the damage and loss of life, and the ensuing panic- stricken search for family and friends among the streams of survivors. Other articles ques- tioned the imposition of martial law and the frightening potential for a continued militarist presence antithetical to social freedom. Kambara Tai eloquently describes the impact of the event on young artists: We, self-satisfied young artists who didn’t know the world, believed that the more won- derful our work and the more active we were, the more we could generate a new epoch and bring it to life through our artistic movement alone. However, as expected [after the earthquake], we came to reflect upon everything ourselves. Artists groups that did not directly relate to politics, economics, or production [created] wonderful but empty works. There were several other common responses, nostalgia being a principal sentiment. The earthquake had essentially destroyed all remnants of the Edo past that had still been visible under the veneer ot modern Tokyo. The low-city area, which was the center of the vital ur- ban culture of the Edo merchant class, was most heavily damaged. Shinbashi station and Nihonbashi, considered the heart ot the low city, were also leveled. After this, the high city (or Yamanote), which had been less seriously damaged, became Tokyo’s new nerve center, and Marunouchi replaced Nihonbashi as the main financial district. There was a whole segment of Taisho writers and artists, exemplified by such individuals as Nagai Kafir and Kishida Ryusei, who publicly expressed their longing for the vestiges of Edo.^^ The earth- quake, having effectively closed off the physical path of this return, left only the road of the imagination. Among the general public, however, the response was quite different. Many saw the earth- quake as “divine retribution” for the sins of modern life or deviation from tradition. The “anger of the earth” was a common expression for the earthquake among farmers. There was a sense of having returned to a primitive state, pre-civilization, and that even with all the technological advances of the modern period, nothing could rival the ultimate force of nature. People experienced a profound sense of disorientarion and instability, with the sym- bols of the past and the established order no longer around for guidance. In contemporary accounts, the sense of utter ruin and demoralization was often compared with the situation in Germany after World War I. Undoubtedly, the financial repercussions, and the estimated cost of rebuilding, were also weighty considerations in regard to the future of the city. Despite, or perhaps because of, these bleak circumstances, Mavo flourished. The mem- bers responded to the mass destruction of the capital’s institutional infrastructure with a ma- niacal euphoria, seeing this eradication of structures as an unprecedented opportunity to re- build Japan physically and, by extension, ideologically. Released by the police after several days of interrogation and beatings because of his affiliation with leftist organizations, Yanase considered his experience of the earthquake as pivotal in transforming his vision of his role as an artist:^^ “In the midst of the burned ground of the earthquake, [my] reformed mission was . . . the organized proletarian class liberation movement. Yanase’s numerous pencil sketches depicting the devastation of the city and the groups of temporary barrack struc- tures in which people were living attest to his preoccupation with the earthquake’s effects. Many images of rubble and half-destroyed buildings appear. People with their salvaged be- longings strapped to their backs are seen walking down the street (Fig. 66). Crowds are shown thronging the streets in search of water and supplies (Eig. 67). While the sketches empha- size the massive destruction, they also assert a bustling, resurging metropolitan life as people began immediately to rebuild. Many of Yanase’s drawings also focused on the widespread presence of the authorities with the imposition of martial law (Figs. 68—69). Having per- sonally experienced the ire of the military police while incarcerated, Yanase turned a critical eye to the official use of the post-earthquake conditions to intensify social control. 1 45 66-67 Yanase Masamu, sketches of Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake, late 1923. Pencil on paper. Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. 68 Yanase Masamu, sketch of military police in Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake, late 1 923. Pencil on paper. Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. 69 (BELOW) Yanase Masamu, sketch of military police in Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake, late 1923. Ink on paper. Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION Hagiwara wrote a series of articles published in 1924 in the Child shinbiin on the impact of the earthquake and the meaning of the barrack towns for art. In the barracks, he located a new affirmation of daily life and a true revelation ol the proletariat — the potential for a new beginning: People who live in barrack towns are . . . proletarians. If in a new art, you seek a new color or a new mood, our sense is that the first place this emerges from is the barrack town. It is full of the spirit of affirmation that glitters in delight. You find liberty and freedom there. In an article published four days later, he continued: No one can stop the emergence of the demand for a new art as a new life starts to de- velop. Where then would the new life and art have its start, grow, and flourish? One has to recognize how appropriate the whole scenery of the barracks is for the styles of to- day’s modern art. I believe that this phenomenon is noteworthy and will draw the at- tention of new artists. For Hagiwara, and for many Mavo artists, the barracks embodied the coming social revolution. After the earthquake, Mavo’s collective posture began to radicalize. Many members of the group felt an even more pressing need to intervene in the conditions of modern life. Through anarchism, Mavo artists found empowerment. As part of a young generation with fewer career opportunities than their parents, and with a limited prospect of upward social mobility, they found in anarchism’s doctrine of free will a remedy to their hopelessness and a means by which the individual could control his destiny and affect society. While certain Mavo artists continued to espouse a fundamentally futurist outlook and were generally sanguine about the future, Mavo’s radical faction saw progress as much more ambiguous, if not negative. They violently disavowed rationalist conceptions of progress and fiercely protested the restrictions of social convention. The experience of the earthquake that had increased their sense of urgency also offered them an opportunity — albeit short-lived — to implement ideas that they could not ignore. Anarchist political thought first appeared in Japan around the 1880s, but it was not ac- tively taken up by Japanese intellectuals until after the Russo-Japanese war, with the writ- ings of Kotoku Shustii.^^ Kotoku was influenced primarily by the thought of Kropotkin and the labor organization theories of American syndicalism. He advocated ‘direct action (chokusetsu kodo) as a means of bringing about radical social change. Kotoku was convicted and executed in 1911 for his purported involvement in a plan to assassinate the emperor that came to be known as the Great Treason Incident (Taigyakii Jiken). His ideas aroused the gov- ernment’s great fear of radicalism, which at the time was intimately associated with anar- chism.^^ The subsequent suppression of studies of anarchism and anarchist political orga- nization led to what has been called the “winter period” of the Japanese anarchist movement. Not until the 1920s, mostly through the activities of Osugi Sakae, did anarchism come to the fore again. Judging by what came to be known as the Morito affair, Japanese authorities still considered anarchism a political threat: in 1920 a professor at Tokyo Imperial Univer- sity, Morito Tatsuo, was censured and imprisoned for an article explicating the theories of Kropotkin.^® The second phase of anarchist political activism was the most influential, particularly be- cause it was intimately tied to labor union organization. Japan’s rapid industrialization and mass migration from rural to urban areas caused a tremendous population surge in Tokyo and other major Japanese cities. This marked increase in the nonagrarian workforce precip- itated a general awareness of and interest in labor conditions and the effective organization of laborers. New opportunities to organize laborers stimulated an influential anarcho-syn- dicalist movement that eventually predominated among leftist political factions and actively steered the direction of labor unions until late 1922. Advocating the principles of individual liberty, free association, and decentralized government, anarcho-syndicalists concerned themselves mainly with social action through labor union organization. While a great deal has been written on tbe subject of anarchism from historical and po- litical perspectives, scholars have given much less consideration to its cultural impact. Only a handful of anarchists have been studied from a cultural perspective: prominent among them is Osugi Sakae (1885-1923), one of the most popular and charismatic theoreticians of anar- cho-syndicalism in Japan. Osugi appealed to both workers and young members of the in- telligentsia, particularly university students, because he conceived of revolution as a kind of personal emancipation. Osugi was inspired by elements in the writings of Kropotkin, Max Stirner, and Georges Sorel. Unfettered “expansion of the ego” ( jiga no kakuju), central to Stirner’s concept of individualistic anarchism, was a strong element of Osugi’s thought. Osugi’s conception of absolute individual autonomy included sexual freedom, a topic I con- sider in chapter 6 of this study. Through their mutual association and identification with the worker, Osugi’s young fol- lowers among the intelligentsia were able to conceive of themselves as a political “vanguard” and thus to transcend their own elite class associations. Futthermote, Osugi believed that one must begin anew with a “clean slate” (haknshi), achieved through the complete destruction of all that preceded it.*^^ His sentiments were shared by many Mavo members. Writing on the necessity for rebellion against the oppressive social conditions in modern Japan, Osugi stated: 1 49 THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION I see the supreme beauty of life today only in . . . tebellion and destruction. Today, when the reality of conquest [opptession] is developed to its utmost, harmony is not beauty. Beauty exists only as discord. Harmony is a lie. Truth exists only in discord. Now the expansion of life can only be gained through rebellion. Only through re- bellion is there creation ot new lile, cteation of a new society. In a similar effort to shatter the illusion of harmony, Okada Tatsuo proclaimed a “con- sciousness of contradiction” (miijun no ishiki). The brief statement published in the pam- phlet for his exhibition with Kato Masao at Cafe Italy heralded “creation and rapid progress, a symphony of despair and wild joy, rapid, destructive passion which proclaims itself from the very end of the century. We praise the eternal flow ot life. Hypocritical harmony has been destroyed. Because it gave voice to their own escalating sense of disjunction between the reality of social strife and the state-generated image of domestic harmony, many mem- bers of the late Taisho intelligentsia responded emotionally as well as intellectually to the cultutal anarchism expressed in Mavo art work and writing. Increasingly, Mavo artists came to feel that harmony was a myth and modern life was actually chaotic. Class conflict led them to see social relations as characterized more by contention than by accord. Yanase and Okada were the two major forces in Mavo that stimulated and pressured the group toward a more socially and politically engaged stance. Gradually, Mtirayama came to agree with Yanase’s long-held belief that revolution could occur only if each individual re- jected the unconsciousness induced by capitalism and developed a social consciousness. The leftist poet and critic Kato Kazuo distinguished between a notion of individualism like Yanase’s (which concentrated on individual social consciousness) and the conventional conception of subjective individualism, designating the former jigashugi (egoism) and the latter kojinshugi (individualism).'^^ In jigashugi, the artist as an autonomous individual played a central role in influencing the development of society through art. Moreover, by constructing art, the artist could awaken a similar consciousness in the viewer. While artists, as part of the intelligentsia, could never be truly proletarian, they were important members of the po- litical vanguard and responsible for awakening the consciousness of both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.*^*^ The theory of conscious constructivism expanded to incorporate a more politically relevant consciousness into the social nature (shakaisei) of art. Almost from Mavo’s inception, Yanase and Murayama had debated the engagement of the intellectual in sociopolitical affairs. Yanase began working as a critic upon arriving in Tokyo, directly engaging contemporary social and political issues in his ynanga and caricatures. He produced a series of scathing political comics for the relatively conservative intellectual jour- nal Nihon oyobi Nihonjin (Japan and the Japanese) in 1920, in which he berated the govern- ment, artists, and society in general for a multiplicity of perceived deficiencies. He pointed out the rampant censoring of publications, and the willing participation of writers in their own suppression (Fig. 70). He also repeatedly castigated the capitalist system for its social oppression. Capitalism was often represented by the image of a callous cigar-smoking busi- nessman unconcerned by the hardships of the struggling masses, from whose labor he profited (Fig. 71). But more than any other topic, Yanase’s political cartoons criticized the ever-in- creasingly militarist policies of the Japanese government, both domestically and internationally. And a number of images in this series portend the devastating consequences of these poli- cies. One shows three figures, labeled “militarism,” “capitalism,” and “industrialism,” all rac- ing toward a flag-holding skeleton standing by a gravestone at the finish line (Fig. 72). An- other image, of a figure of death dressed in military garb in the midst of a field strewn with skeletons, is captioned “Peace and Tranquillity in the World” (Tenka taihei) (Fig. 73). Yanase’s work with Tanemaku hito gave him another outler for social and political con- cerns.*^" He was first drawn to anarchism, writing under the pen name Anaaki Kyosan (“an- archy commune”), although he later admitted that he had not initially distinguished between anarchism and Marxism, a common confusion at the time.*^^ Then through the course of the Mavo movement, Yanase gradually shifted to a more dogmatic Marxist position, fully concretized around 1927. Many of the writings published in Tanemaku hito, a magazine devoted to “action and criticism,” had strong anarchistic underpinnings. Of particular note is an article entitled “Ji- gashugisha no techo kara” (From the notebook of an egoist), written “from the standpoint of the anarchist XYZ,” which, though anonymously submitted, was written by Yamakawa Ryo.*^^ The article contends that They [Russian Bolsheviks] will most probably say, “The chain is broken. We are liber- ated. Let us create our own new world.” And thus they shall become a new chain them- selves and bind other people. They began their strife in order to bring down capitalism, and they were successful. However at the same time, they created a second capitalist hierarchy. . . . I am me. I am no one but me. This very simple philosophy is the philosophy of anarchism. Anarchic strife is the attempt to sever oneself from all kinds of chains [of authority]. This is far from creating a “dream-like world.” Theoretically, when each of us awak- ens to “ourselves,” and when all social power is chased away from this earth, a life based on free will will be created for human beings. It is so easy. The time is now. [One should] be oneself at all times! The perfect individualists are the perfect anar- chists. . . . Anarchic movement is, in short, the philosophical life itself and nothing else.^® 1 5 1 70 (BELOW LEFT) Yanaso Masamu, cartoon on the theme of censorship, 1921. Ink on paper. In Yanase Masamu, ‘Uiji manga gojO(tai" (Fifty cartoons on current affairs), Nihon oyobi Nihonjin, no. 81 8 (September 1921): 127. Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. 71 (BELOW RIGHT) Yanase Masamu, cartoon satirizing the management of labor unions by their capitalist employers, 1921. Ink on paper. In Yanase, 'Uiji manga," 234. Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. 72 (ABOVE) Yanase Masamu, cartoon on the theme of industrialism and militarism, 1921. Ink on paper. In Yanase, ‘Uiji manga,” 223. Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. 73 (RIGHT) Yanase Masamu, cartoon on the theme of militarism, 1921. Ink on paper. In Yanase, ‘Uiji manga,” 121. Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION Like Yamakawa, Yanase opposed the “slave mentality” of capitalism, believing that un- der capitalism people were ruled by things and insulated from social conflict because of their bourgeois values, and he rejected Marxism’s scientific determinism/' The Tanemaku hito members believed that each individual had the ability to develop social conscious- ness, but that he or she had to choose to be enlightened/^ Revolution was not inevitable. “Self-awareness” or “sell-consciousness” { jikaku) was an essential ingredient of the Tane- maku hito “proletarian consciousness.” In this respect, the group’s ideas closely resembled those of Ostigi Sakae, who based his opposition to dorei konjo (slavishness) on the phi- losophy of Nietzsche. Like Osugi, the Tanemaku hito coterie were not willing to subordinate the liberation of the individual to the revolutionary cause. They were adamant about the affirmation of the self and self-awareness as a necessary first step toward social liberation. In this respect, they resembled liberal humanist thinkers such as the Shirakaba-ha members, who also champi- oned the liberated individual self as essential to the betterment of society as a whole. The considerable financial sponsorship of Tanemaku hito by Arishima Takeo, Mushanokoji Saneatsu, and Hasegawa Nyozekan was not coincidental. But in the case of the Shirakaba- ha, this cultivation was predominantly internal and psychological. Shirakaba-ha members, with the exception of Arishima Takeo, generally believed that all people had equal oppor- tunity and that the chance to cultivate the self would open unlimited potential for everyone. Tanemaku hito writers were not nearly this quixotic in their prognosis. They related their “self-awareness” to society; individuals had to recognize the inequalities and constraints — the false consciousness — created by society before they could free themselves; and only then could they begin to free others. Yanase’s belief in the individual’s need for complete autonomy naturally extended to his conception of the artist. Art was solely the product of the individual, and the value of art was in direct proportion to the social and self-awareness in the artist’s individual consciousness. Komaki Omi affirmed the value of individual, self-aware artists working for the revolution: “We believe that no matter how much the artists’ movement may be regarded as something worthless, when it is seen as one division in a full frontal assault and viewed as a tactic in a collaborative battle, the mobilization ot self-aware artists will not always be ineffectual.”^'^ The varieties of cultural anarchism practiced in Japan continued to transform Mavo s pos- ture. The more radical anarchist faction in Mavo (Okada, Yabashi, Takamizawa, and later Hagiwara) came to be the guiding force in the group. They identified with the proletariat and began to articulate clearer anarchist revolutionary goals and an active posture to achieve them. Unlike the Marxist art theory, anarchism preserved the centrality of individual ex- pression (deemed bourgeois by Marxists) and emphasized revolutionary artistic practice as a means to social revolution. Mavo’s use of “direct action” tactics derived from anarchism. In the anarchist theory of “direct action,” or “propaganda by the deed,” strikes and terrorism were fundamental polit- ical strategies. Kotoku Shusui had already advocated “direct action” early in the Taisho pe- riod. Mavo “acted directly” as a provocation: members staged events to get attention; sought to incite their viewers and readers, particularly their detractors, by being deliberately provocative; and aggressively engaged well-known art world personalities by publicly insulting them in the press. In fact, Mavo artists often referred to themselves as terrorists (terorisuto) or black criminals (kuroki hannin). Fully committed to anarchistic radicalism, Okada took Yanase’s social and political en- gagement one step further toward militancy. His attitudes were reflected in a range of anar- chist artistic and literary publications that had begun to appear in the early 1920s. Whereas Tanemaku hito straddled the anarchist-Marxist divide and published a range of socialist re- sponses to contemporary sociocultural problems, these new coterie magazines took more ex- treme positions in reaction to what they considered the overintellectual approach of Tane- maku hito, which was being severely criticized from within as well as from outside. One of the most influential anarchist poetry magazines was Aka to kuro (Red and Black), which published four issues from January 1923 to June 1924.^*^ Members included Hagiwara Kyojiro, Okamoto Jun, and Tsuboi Shigeji, three poets whose names became synonymous with avant-garde experimental anarchist poetry. Aka to kuro\ now infamous manifesto was published on the cover of the first issue: What is poetry? What is [a] poet? We abandon all the ideas of the past and boldly pro- claim that “Poetry is a bomb! the poet is a black criminal who throws his bombs against the prison’s hard walls and doors. Aka to kuro poets expressed a profound isolation from bourgeois social conventions and the poetry establishment. Through a conscious use of a hyperbolic language of radicalism, they forced their way out of this isolation and got the attention of the literary establishment.^^ Hagiwara Kyojiro ’s writing and visual works represent a significant and potent radical an- archist response to the conditions of modernity. In this respect, Hagiwara and Okada Tat- suo were ideologically sympathetic. Another to kuro manifesto, “Red and Black Move- ment Manifesto Number One” (Aka to kuro undo daiichi sengen), published in 1923 and presumably written by Hagiwara, states, “Our existence is negation itself Negation is cre- ation. Creation is nothingness. . . . Let us devote ourselves entirely to negation! Only by do- ing so can we exist. This statement corresponds to a passage from the Mavo manifesto that reads, “We are not bound. We are radical/violent. We make revolution. We advance. We create. We eternally affirm and negate.” 1 55 THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION The tumbled head, The white bones, remaining from the fire. The remaining life? Lick the blood and blood. Comrades!*^ Mavoists repeatedly called for a conscious and violent shattering of past conventions, which they deemed unsuited to modern experience. Only through the destruction of the old could a new vision emerge and something affirmative be constructed. Murayama often attributed this attitude to the Hegelian dialectic. Hence, destruction would produce construction. Mavo’s advocacy of construction as the language for the present presupposed a destructive stage, fol- lowed by a restructuring or reconstruction of the ruins and fragments. Mavo artists asserted that their creating fragmented, frenetic, and illogical visual imagery and repeatedly using vi- olent language constituted the artist’s active and essential role in the destructive process. In essence, Mavo’s “anarchistic impulse” served the same purpose as dada for the constructivists in Europe. As Dawn Ades states, for the constructivists dada functioned as an “enema — a de- structive but cleansing convulsion preceding the great task of reconstruction.”^^ Anarchism, Dadaism, and Constructivism Although Murayama declared early on that dada meant nothing to him, he later came to identify his “anarchistic impulse” as neo-dada.^'^ Hagiwara also equated the radical element of Mavo with neo-dadaism.^^ Dadaism was itself profoundly influenced by anarchism and nihilism, and in its original contexts abroad was at once highly political and antipolitical. Dada’s rejection of all establishment practices, often including rationality itself, was a con- spicuous expression of protest. Like Mavo, dada was elusive, and the two movements shared many ambivalences and contradictions. From the 1920s, when newspaper articles in Yorozu choho introduced dadaism to Japan, it was embraced predominantly by the literary com- munity.^^ The first person to proclaim himself a dadaist was the poet Takahashi Shinkichi, and it was he andTsuji Jim who most strongly championed dadaism. What appealed to Taka- hashi about dada was its notion of nothingness, as well as its discrediting of words and logic and its anticonventionalism. In his 1922 work Dangen wa dadaisto (Assertion is dadaist), Takahashi identified the attitudes that represented dada: boredom, sentiments against the bourgeoisie, antihypocrisy, antidogmatism, and destructiveness. Many of these attitudes were found in the work of Tristan Tzara, a dadaist who worked in Paris and Zurich, but Taka- hashi probably first learned of the range of dadaist ideas from the article “A Study in Dadaism” by Katayama Koson in Taiyd magazine. Katayama’s work, largely based on Richard Huelsen- beck’s En Avant Dada, contrasted all the major dada factions and explained dadaism’s three essential principles; bruitism, simultaneity, and the use of new materials.^® The similarity between anarchist and dadaist rhetoric, poetics, and aesthetics led crit- ics in Japan to lump the two groups together. It is clear, however, that certain avant-garde literary magazines that were innovative and revolutionary in artistic terms refrained from any involvement in social or political action. In lact, they were decidedly against this ac- tivity. Tsuji Jun and Takahashi Shinkichi were certainly among the apolitical dadaist po- ets in Japan. The diversity of opinions within the European dada movement has been well studied.®^ But to briefly summarize here: the dada movement incorporated two distinct camps, one, based in Zurich, Paris, and Hanover, that was inclined toward aesthetic issues (although it was not apolitical), and the other, based in Berlin, that was overtly political. The writings of dadaists from Zurich and Paris, particularly those of Tristan Tzara, were most influential among the apolitical dadaists in Japan. Muravama, having studied in Berlin and having been an admirer of Grosz (a central figure in the Berlin dada movement, along with Raoul Hausmann and Huelsenbeck), had en- countered the more political wing of dada. By the time Murayama was in Europe in 1922, however, German dada itself had changed significantly and was merging with constructivism in innovative ways.^^ Murayama’s stance, especially as he developed greater social con- sciousness, seems most like that of international constructivism, represented by a range of artists, mostly in Berlin. By 1923, Murayama stated that “ ‘Conscious Constructivism’ [was] what temporally and logically follow[ed] dada and constructivism.”^^ Later he related dada and constructivism explicitly, enumerating several links between the two theories: “Con- structivism as an ethical response to dada. Constructivism as the most direct slap in the face. Constructivism as dada.”^^ These statements acknowledge the dialectical link between the destructive, irreverent impulse of dada and the affirmative strategies of constructivism. Mu- rayama went on to proclaim that the perfect synthesis of these two opposites would bring the transcendent, utopian moment of true “Conscious Constructivism.” Murayama’s conception of conscious constructivism was in some respects strikingly sim- ilar to that of the Hungarian constructivist Lajos Kassak, who published the magazine MA (Today). Kassak felt that the “the task of the new artist was to awaken oppressed human- ity to self-consciousness, because only the liberated soul could prevent the liberated body from falling under the new yoke.”^^ Like Mavo artists, he based his notion of a “revolution of the spirit” on an anarchist ideal. He advocated the destruction of bourgeois ethics, which in his mind was tantamount to a destruction of the capitalist system. Kassak encouraged his followers to question all values, particularly bourgeois moral values. They sought the disso- lution of state power; were decidedly antipolitical, in the sense that they did not support en- gagement in party politics; and were hostile to traditional notions of the family and pre- 1 59 THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION The tumbled head. The white bones, remaining from the fire, The remaining life? Lick the blood and blood. Comrades!®^ Mavoists repeatedly called for a conscious and violent shattering of past conventions, which they deemed unsuited to modern experience. Only through the destruction of the old could a new vision emerge and something affirmative be constructed. Murayama often attributed this attitude to the Hegelian dialectic. Hence, destruction would produce construction. Mavo’s advocacy of construction as the language for the present presupposed a destructive stage, fol- lowed by a restructuring or reconstruction of the ruins and fragments. Mavo artists asserted that their creating fragmented, frenetic, and illogical visual imagery and repeatedly using vi- olent language constituted the artist’s active and essential role in the destructive process. In essence, Mavo’s “anarchistic impulse” served the same purpose as dada for the constructivists in Europe. As Dawn Ades states, for the constructivists dada functioned as an “enema — a de- structive but cleansing convulsion preceding the great task of reconstruction.”®^ Anarchism, Dadaism, and Constructivism Although Murayama declared early on that dada meant nothing to him, he later came to identify his “anarchistic impulse” as neo-dada.®'^ Hagiwara also equated the radical element of Mavo with neo-dadaism.®^ Dadaism was itself profoundly influenced by anarchism and nihilism, and in its original contexts abroad was at once highly political and antipolitical. Dada’s rejection of all establishment practices, often including rationality itself, was a con- spicuous expression of protest. Like Mavo, dada was elusive, and the two movements shared many ambivalences and contradictions. From the 1920s, when newspaper articles in Yorozu choho introduced dadaism to Japan, it was embraced predominantly by the literary com- munity.®^ The first person to proclaim himself a dadaist was the poet Takahashi Shinkichi, and it was he andTsuji Jun who most strongly championed dadaism. What appealed to Taka- hashi about dada was its notion of nothingness, as well as its discrediting of words and logic and its anticonventionalism. ®^ In his 1922 work Dangen iva dadaisto (Assertion is dadaist), Takahashi identified the attitudes that represented dada: boredom, sentiments against the bourgeoisie, antihypocrisy, antidogmatism, and destructiveness. Many of these attitudes were found in the work of Tristan Tzara, a dadaist who worked in Paris and Zurich, but Taka- hashi probably first learned of the range of dadaist ideas from the article “A Study in Dadaism” by Katayama Koson in Taiyd magazine. Katayama’s work, largely based on Richard Huelsen- beck’s En Avant Dacia, contrasted all the major dada factions and explained dadaism’s three essential principles: bruitism, simultaneity, and the use of new materials.*^ The similarity between anarchist and dadaist rhetoric, poetics, and aesthetics led crit- ics in Japan to lump the two groups together. It is clear, however, that certain avant-garde literary magazines that were innovative and revolutionary in artistic terms refrained from any involvement in social or political action. In fact, they were decidedly against this ac- tivity. Tsuji Jim and Takahashi Shinkichi were certainly among the apolitical dadaist po- ets in Japan. The diversity of opinions within the European dada movement has been well studied.®^ But to briefly summarize here: the dada movement incorporated two distinct camps, one, based in Zurich, Paris, and Hanover, that was inclined toward aesthetic issues (although it was not apolitical), and the other, based in Berlin, that was overtly political. The writings of dadaists from Zurich and Paris, particularly those of Tristan Tzara, were most influential among the apolitical dadaists in Japan. Murayama, having studied in Berlin and having been an admirer of Grosz (a central figure in the Berlin dada movement, along with Raoul Hausmann and Huelsenbeck), had en- countered the more political wing of dada. By the time Murayama was in Europe in 1922, however, German dada itself had changed significantly and was merging with constructivism in innovative ways.^^ Murayama’s stance, especially as he developed greater social con- sciousness, seems most like that of international constructivism, represented by a range of artists, mostly in Berlin. By 1923, Murayama stated that “ ‘Conscious Constructivism’ [was] what temporally and logically follow[ed] dada and constructivism.”^^ Later he related dada and constructivism explicitly, enumerating several links between the two theories: “Con- structivism as an ethical response to dada. Constructivism as the most direct slap in the face. Constructivism as dada.”^^ These statements acknowledge the dialectical link between the destructive, irreverent impulse of dada and the affirmative strategies of constructivism. Mu- rayama went on to proclaim that the perfect synthesis of these two opposites would bring the transcendent, utopian moment of true “Conscious Constructivism.” Murayama’s conception of conscious constructivism was in some respects strikingly sim- ilar to that of the Hungarian constructivist Lajos Kassak, who published the magazine MA (Today). Kassak felt that the “the task of the new artist was to awaken oppressed human- ity to self-consciousness, because only the liberated soul could prevent the liberated body from falling under the new yoke. Like Mavo artists, he based his notion of a “revolution of the spirit” on an anarchist ideal. He advocated the destruction of bourgeois ethics, which in his mind was tantamount to a destruction of the capitalist system. Kassak encouraged his followers to question all values, particularly bourgeois moral values. They sought the disso- lution of state power; were decidedly antipolitical, in the sense that they did not support en- gagement in party politics; and were hostile to traditional notions of the family and pre- 1 S9 THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION scribed gender roles. As Esther Levinger has pointed out, Kassak identified with anarchism and syndicalism. He kept his hair long, as a symbol of his identity as a poet, and wore the “black shirt” of the Russian anarchists: “For Kassak anarchism signified eternal dissatisfac- tion, the artist’s total freedom from all conventions, his privileged position above groups and political parties. Murayama and Kassak shared an elitist conception of the artist, insofar as they primarily wrote for an artistically inclined middle-class audience and made little effort to clarify their writings to make them understandable to proletarian readers. Whether or not Murayama wanted to admit it, his theory of conscious constructivism was an invocation to the middle class. Kassak was part of a diverse constellation of constructivist artists active throughout Ger- many and eastern Europe from whom Mavo drew inspiration. In this respect, the work of Theo Van Doesburg deserves particular consideration. Van Doesburg was active with the dada artist Hans Richter and the constructivist El Eissitzky in the International Faction of Constructivists (IFdK), which is best known for its vocal protest against, and eventual de- fection from, the Congress of International Progressive Artists in Dtisseldorf. Members of the IFdK were often irreverent. They staged protests and called for the violent eradication of social and artistic institutions. They continued to have faith in art as a revolutionizing force, but their attitude differed from the more utilitarian approach of certain constructivist artists in Russia.®^ Van Doesburg maintained a separate dada persona as “I. K. Bonset,” the name under which he published the dadaist magazine Mecano. Eike Murayama, he believed that “opposites must be considered parts of the same whole.” Therefore, his dada activities did not negate his affirmative theories of neo-plasticism, even though by his own admission they were “diametrically opposed tendencies.” Van Doesburg simultaneously affirmed these opposites because he subscribed to the widespread conception of dada as “part of the re- newing attempt of modern art, which had to destroy before it could build.” Dada was not nihilism for its own sake. It employed negativity as a means to interrupt the present to make a new future possible. Van Doesburg’s understanding of the relationship between negation and affirmation was mirrored in the dialectical basis of conscious constructivism and the symbiosis of destruc- tion and construction fundamental to Mavo’s work. Murayama acknowledged his debt to Van Doesburg in two geometric, abstract constructions (inspired by the neo-plasticism of De Stijl) entitled Construction Dedicated to Dear Van Doesburg /— //(Shinainaru Vaan Desub- urugu ni sasagerareta konsutorukushion I— II).^^ Murayama cemented the connection be- tween Mavo’s “anarchistic impulse” and I. K. Bonset’s dada-constructivism by using Toda Tatsuo’s print Prophesy (Yogen) for the cover of Mavo no. 4. Todas print prominently dis- plays a portion of a large circular saw blade (Plate 14) — which is the central logo on the cover of Van Doesburg’s magazine Mecano}^^ The Anarchist-Bolshevik Debate and Mavo’s Dissolution The flurry of anarchistic cultural activity after the earthquake would prove short-lived. Al- though Japanese socialists had often indiscriminately blended elements of anarchism and Marxism, a sharper division between these camps began to emerge with the founding of the Japanese Communist Party in 1922. Many political theorists who had considered anarchism an effective method of social critique began to feel that it failed to offer any constructive so- lutions once institutional authority had been destroyed. Instead, Marxism’s programmatic social project, with its claims of the universal validity of the laws of historical materialism and its argument for the scientific predictability of social revolution, gained popularity. Al- ready significantly set back when the study of anarchism was proscribed after the Morito censorship affair in January 1920, the anarcho-syndicalists continued to engage in a heated debate with advocates of Marxist communism, in what came to be known as the ana-bom (anarchist-Bolshevik) controversy.''^' Despite their antagonism, however, members of both groups continued to collaborate on a range of literary journals. In Takayama Keitaro’s view, these two gtoups did not split irreparably until 1926.'*'“ One of the fundamental differences between the anarchist and Marxist factions, as ar- ticulated in the public debates, revolved around the Japanese anarchists’ suspicion of and antipathy toward the increasingly authoritarian and oppressive proletarian state newly es- tablished in Soviet Russia. Japanese anarchists felt that Marxism was just a new mode of au- thoritarianism, which would eventually oppress the autonomous individual. They still sup- ported direct action, unrestricted individualism, antistatism, and a generally antisocial stance. These concerns also characterized anarchist literature. Takami Jun has argued that in their quest for political engagement with the working class, Marxist proletarian writers attempted to negate the self, seeing it as a sign of elitist egoism. Thus they were fundamentally opposed to the notion of the liberated self that was central to anarchism.'"^ Still, even Marxist ad- herents argued among themselves about the role of art and aesthetics in revolutionary politics — whether art had to be good or aesthetically innovative to be effective, or whether the only requisite quality for proletarian art was a clear message. Many artists and writers still strongly believed that if art were not aesthetically and formally engaging, revolutionary from within, it could not be an effective tool. Others argued vigorously that anything be- yond direct social realism and propaganda was obscurantist — merely bourgeois adornment that detracted from the essential role of bringing about a proletarian revolution.'"^ The Marxists, seizing the tactical advantage after the earthquake, when the anarchist lead- ership was eviscerated and there was a growing sense of pessimism among anarchist sympa- thizers concerning the disorganization and unproductiveness of their program, began to dom- inate the larger leftist movement.'"^ Murayama, though still devoted to the anarchist cause. THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF REBELLION clearly felt the force of Marxism at this time. It influenced his decision to question the effec- tiveness and relevance of the destructive and expressionistic elements in his work. By mid- 1925, he had begun to concentrate on the affirmative side of constructivism.**^^ This shift in Murayama’s thinking must be seen as part of a larger trend in leftist politics. Murayama’s initial conception of constructivism was largely informed by his experiences in Germany and the ideas of international constructivism with their still strong residual ele- ments of dada.***^ But by the end of 1925, Murayama was becoming more positive about the effects of technology and the benefits of machines. His transformation was due partly to contact with newer and more complete information about Russian constructivism and partly to a greater sympathy for the affirmative, utopian side of the work ofTatlin, Lissitzky, and Kassak. He had previously criticized the inability of proletarian artists to resolve the prob- lematic relationship between popular art and avant-garde art; and he had analyzed the conflicted relationship between revolutionary art and art for the revolution.***^ But in his article of August 1925, “Koseiha ni kansuru ichi kosatsu” (Thoughts on constructivism), he gave precedence to the political effect of art for the first time. Constructivism was no longer just a revolutionary art form but rather, and most important, a socialist art form for the build- ing of a new society. Omuka has speculated that this sudden turnaround was prompted by increasing criticism from the Zokei artists and Murayama’s growing sense that he needed to propose something less destructive and more constructive.***** Undoubtedly the dominance of Marxian socialists in Japanese leftist politics and their intolerance toward anarchism were also influential factors. While the majority of Mavo’s radical faction continued with their anarchist tactics even after the group disbanded, Murayama moved toward an affirmative, proletarian-oriented stance. Around the time he left Mavo, he wrote a book entitled Koseiha kenkyu (A study of constructivism). Published early in 1926, it traced his evolution in attitude toward the utopian optimism of Russian constructivism.**** The Russian-born American print artist Louis Lo- zowick sums up this new conception of construction and materials in the magazine Broom in 1922, writing about Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Thij-d International. Murayama quoted these words in Koseiha kenkyu'}^ * Construction and not composition teaches the new Gospel. Why? Because composition is inspired by the past, looks toward the past, and therefore, be- longs to the past; because composition means ornamentation, decoration, romanticism, prettiness; because composition stands apart from life, serves as illusion to exhausted men- tality, acts as stimulant to enervated organism. And construction? Construction is inspired by what is most characteristic of our epoch; industry, ma- chinery, science. Construction borrows the methods and makes use of the materials com- mon in the technical process. Hence iron, glass, concrete, circle, triangle, cube, cylinder, synthetically combined with mathematical precision and structural logic. Construction scorns prettiness, seeks strength, clarity, simplicity, acts as stimulus to a vigorous life.’^^ In Koseiha kenkyu, Murayama relinquished his former notion of conscious constructivism to support a proletarian-informed view of constructivism. After joining the proletarian art movement at the end of 1925, he converted to the notion that art served a proletarian revo- lution. He argued that industrialism, from which constructivism was born, was a total dec- laration of war on pure art. It was based on a collectivism that would bury artistic individ- ualism. He claimed that art’s manifestos against itself were ultimately ineffective and that communist art first and foremost had to have a “social nature.” Contradicting his original theorization of conscious constructivism, Murayama now expressed a strongly critical view toward the human element in the arts, seeing machines as necessarily compensating for hu- man deficiencies. He intoned that “machinery, industry, chemistry” were the new icons of the revolution. Quoting from Natan Altman’s article “Fundamental Point of View,” published in Hans Richter’s magazine G (Gestaltung), Murayama wrote, Formal art of the present is in danger. Individualism, which has anarchistically split so- ciety, in art gave birth to: cubism, Suprematism, expressionism. These works are clearly purposeless. They are isolated from reality and have created form from subjectivity. The inclination to promote aesthetic formalism and abstraction to the absolute is a fantasy. These artists make their existence the entire focus and consciously turn their back on society. The merits of each group are based on their solutions to formal problems. The use of “pure painting” to solve social problems, however, is farcical. . . . The issue of art that is closely fused with the realities of society should not be bothered by the randomness of individual selfish emotions and subjective interests that don’t answer the needs of the whole of society. ["We need] the creation of functional social forms which are born of a purely objective method. . . . Respect the rules regulated according to the peculiarities of the nature of the materials, and create art which is based on forms that achieve a so- cial function.' Murayama had come a long way from where he had begun just three years earlier. He con- cluded, “constructivism is cooperative art. It is a kind of social organization. It is the food and drink of the people.” 163 1 HE HEADLINE IN THE PICTORIAL WEEKLY ASAHI GRAPH EXCLAIMED, “CHAMPIONS OF the So-called ‘Pro Literature’ in Japan,” alongside a photograph of Murayama and his wife, Kazuko, seated in their studyd Murayama is posed with a brush in his hand, as if working on a manuscript. Kazuko is sitting demurely beside him, dressed in a stylish West- ern sweater and skirt, her hair cut in the modern danpatsu (bobbed) style. The caption (in English) reads, “Mr. and Mrs. Tomoyoshi Murayama are shown in their study. Mr. Murayama is wellknown [sic] among the lovers of pictures, dramas and novels of new type.” Four more photographs on the newspaper page show leftist intellectuals, including Aono Suekichi, Hayama Yoshiki and his wife, Hayashi Fusao, and Maedako Koichiro with his children at home (see Fig. 74). As this news spread in Asahi graph demonstrates, the intellectual was now a media celebrity in Japan, photographed in the formerly sacrosanct precinct of the home and displayed for public consumption. There was a widespread tendency in the Taisho period for all forms of culture to be “massified” (taishuka sareru) and commodified. Beginning in the Meiji period, the new technologies imported from Europe and the United States sparked a momentous change in the relationship between culture and industry in Japan. Innovations such as the rotary press, the wireless, photography, movies, recording technology, and railroads en- abled the publishing, media, and entertainment producers to disseminate their items of culture, in cheap and easily reproducible forms, throughout the nation. The modern “cul- 165 + a ^ A » THE ASAHIGRAPH fi h OifiSSXiJSgS Champions of Ihe So-Called "Pro Literature" ii c ^ n R.‘.,v-icu A ftp. 5 A 731R ' JD ' 'r^ta 0,^ iliCftA-, 2lst?gigi; ■c tn ?c r - ... LE^l K?»ua-as3SL5' Si'H/jXI; ' ^ '5 •rVC.'j^fHABI^n '^T ■■ JKW<;>T:PiR’ Tsp-L*f •tnd; Mr. Miita/uim U wf|lkoii>ni (uncn; itto Inverx n( jpietuir-. ilnrsat scd nf pfw lyfio. U«r<-C«'l»rt ilr, F'jki') Uanulii, wl.i I* fiiiipo«ed to liO rtw of ilio m •■; imrraUlng aiiie. Tep-Pi£hi t Mr. Siokidu Ason. ufiD k cM-eihlly ai'lIVnonn at an tncTfoiw aaJ untinng triSn; and r»- Tce»pr. Hight-Ctnltr r Mr. ami Mfn. YotUki nntaim aro on the voiaodah el llicir Itoiiio. 8tla<»i Mr Kulchiro Slacdak'}. whu U •aid to Iw iho j lynttr and rfnooeh loodar of "Pin I.lTuintufo’' ttfivTmTita la lOiiijani da]«n. llarn U oven niiti Uu chllilreii at hutno. 74 Murayama Tomoyoshi and his wife, Murayama Kazuko, at top left, along with other leftist intellectuals pictured in "Musanha bungei undo no toshi" (Champions of the so-called Pro Literature in Japan), Asahi graph, March 9, 1927, 9. ture industry” (bunka sangyd) depended on the new technologies imported from the West.^ Moreover, the “massification” of culture was predicated on the expansion and cultivation of a literate consumer public extending beyond the elite classes of society. While there were still great disparities in wealth among the Japanese populace, the standard of living rose for most sectors during the interwar period,^ especially the expanding middle class and those who had become noiiveaux riches (narikin) with the boom economy of World War I. In- creased prosperity provided many middle-class Japanese people with extra money and time to spend on recreation. An urban leisure economy had been developing since Tokugawa times. But while Meiji and Taisho leisure activities were in many ways a continuation of Edo prac- tices, the introduction of new technologies along with increased access to education, mass migration to the city, increased social mobility, and the growth of the middle class changed the nature and scope of modern entertainment.^ Mavo art activities and production must be understood within the context of a growing middle-class consumer demand for enter- tainment (gorakii). An examination of Mavo artists’ interaction with new forms of consumer culture reveals the mutually influential and often reciprocally sustaining relationship between fine art (bi- jutsii) and so-called mass culture (taishu biinka) in modern Japan. The bond between att and the culture industry was abundantly evident in the complementary affiliations of art pro- duction, art exhibition, commerce, and entertainment that first emerged in the seventeenth century. Public exhibitions such as misemono (freak shows and street entertainment), kaicho (temple exhibitions displaying images and religious treasures), and shogakai ox shoga tenrankai (calligraphy and painting exhibitions) were consolidated, their sponsorship largely taken over by the state or local government, and replaced by domestic and international fairs (hakn- rankai)? Official art exhibitions (kanten) such as the Bunten were adjuncts of this phe- nomenon, with an emphasis in the modern era on cultivating a refined artistic sensibility in the viewing public as a means of asserting Japanese civilization. These cultural venues be- came intimately linked with the ideology of nation building. At the same time, private consumer-oriented businesses, which had increased in scale and number from the late Meiji period, also fostered new urban spaces that combined commerce, art, and entertainment. These private-sector venues for culture and entertainment were seen as autonomous, market-driven, and in many respects socially liberated. Mavo artists, look- ing for ways to reimbue art with a sense of daily life, exploited the new exhibition venues presented by cafes, department stores, and private industry. To group members, these sites were less hierarchical and more accessible. People could interact with art in the course of their daily activities, rather than in specifically designated institutional art environments. Employing the power of the media to great effect, Mavo artists devised their strategies of provocation with a mass audience in mind. Mavo magazine was one element of the group’s effort to utilize the language and techniques of mass media for artistic and sociopolitical pur- poses. At the same time, many artists, MurayamaTomoyoshi being a prime example, began actively marketing themselves and their -work through mass-circulation publications. Not unlike the books that circulated during Edo times with evaluations of popular actors and courtesans (known as hydbanki), this new print forum provided an arena for theatricalizing artistic practice and performing the artist’s public persona. In turn, artists were commodified by the media as fashionable personalities and amusing products of the modern age. In addition to engaging the commercial realm in their art work by incorporating mate- rial and reproductive fragments from mass culture and industrial production, Mavo artists also worked in advertising and commercial design. Indeed, their work in these fields, which constituted a major portion of their artistic production, had an enduring legacy in the newly emerging field of shogyo bijutsic (commercial art). The dynamic relationship between text and image evident in Mavo magazine’s animated pictorial and typographical compositions inspired innumerable Japanese contemporary artists working in the design field. The group members who were employed as commercial artists forged links between fine art and design by adopting interchangeable aesthetics and art practices. The Mavo group designed its logo for promotional purposes, just as advertising used catchphrases and company trademarks. The “Mavo Manifesto” explicitly stated that the group’s mark was MV; stamped in bright fuchsia above the artists’ names at the end of the manifesto was a carefully designed emblem with “Mavo” written in the katakana syllabary and the two letters “MV” encased by an irregularly shaped abstract composition of jutting diagonals and shark fin protuberances (Fig. 75).*^ The group also printed envelopes with its name on the front using the same bold typography as on the cover of Mavo magazine (Fig. 76).^ Taking its cue from a combination of the international avant-garde and contemporary commercial practices, which were already blurred, Mavo packaged and marketed itself to the public. Everything about the group’s public face was intentionally designed to be fash- ionable and modern. Mavo art work, as well as that of many of the group’s contemporaries, laid the foundation for commercial art as a category of artistic production. In the Showa pe- riod, the link between commercial art and “art” became a topic of serious systematic study. For Mavo artists, commercial art had the potential to promote social change through inno- vative forms and new functions. Their design work created a fashionable, modern visual lan- guage for a new lifestyle. Many modern Japanese artists, like their contemporaries abroad, employed avant-garde styles and techniques in their commercial work as a means to redesign daily life and the general perception of everyday experience. This chapter explores how Mavo artists exploited the new technologies and market sys- tems even as they openly mocked and perverted them. Consequently, Mavo’s commercial 75 “Mavo manifesto" with Mavo logo on far left. MTS 1 . Murayama Ado collection, photograph courtesy of OmukaToshiharu. & 0 m fL i V, m n ^ tt • ■ 5 ^ t rc 1 -c o ” JC — c # #t o ir ;© ic J5- 94c fe ic i ■C i >[» ii ;i dZ‘ $ ® 5 a 7 - ju 71 I *» 7* O l± c ^ i to 5: ji a& d < • • X mitt ft 1 , i' h t. -C L ft CO a a v> i » ac'W L tt tt » i ;5 ft « 0 ?? 5 tt t i' ff!i u. 0 ' i: ic i c Si ^ ^ i: o ft fc # L R- m ic X ’f to a ® ^ i: ft «• L ^ i ■?: IV L ft ft -C a » ^ j* -c fV }• L i CO tt ft ft 5 i'’ ft ' nn as « fe ft 2 > s >f a p} > a. tt t a ^ iS! •y !) (0 1 IC i ^ 'Ji “ ^ II a z ti i£ < ft li i ?fe -r 4 36 >y *;!«=*■ fl) ?4 T \ 5 *y ' •’9 ic <0 fe \ •' (0 T ffi O 4 >4 2 £ 4 -»■ P 5 iiij -y ' ft' ;»■ i 6 It w « a s •y ft ,ir * IC % m -e ffl ffi -c fft ^ m o ' < » & i tJ <0 ' tiS » 5: « <> E ^ It « i ?c a CO L it O If i‘ O Z §1 RK U 14 K 4 0 C K c s i 5 H- ± S It ft li ' tt a v> » 5 c It i9» a ^ i£ U li 4 ic ai ^ .[?. -f 5: 11 5 P 3 Qi “ < ft if W IC tff ij li L & a *< i* -rf C ffil ?i ^ K| CD O II IC c f! K ft a tis i 5 IC ft ^ (D •C' £• R T? ic ft 5 ^ a • • m a a li ••• ijc cfc i£ ft ft ir tr -1 c o in i -c 1^1 5: to ft m Z ^ it> O >- ft ft t V> i U l3 IC t It -1 IC IS in ft S (Si vt m * ft ft 5 e> m v' • !«' -5 ' i • a L a a ie X 94c i£ ft ^ rc ft 4 a A R » it IC X i. ft 4ic ft. t* • «S t. ■«• a IC X. £ 1C ft. L ft O ft X i‘ O 76 Mavo envelope, MTS 1 . Murayama Ado collection, photograph courtesy of OmukaToshiharu. »'^50 I ^-VSrl(r THE MAVO ARTIST AND JAPAN'S CULTURE INDUSTRY activities may seem contradictory or tinged with ambivalence. How did the group reconcile its leftist sympathies with the capitalist context in which consumer culture was produced? I argue that there was a fundamental tension in the group’s work — an increasing incongruity between their leftist idealism and the realities of a rapidly modernizing bourgeois culture. On the one hand, Mavo attists involved with consumer culture expanded the realm and rel- evance of their artistic practice, connecting art with daily life and helping to shape the so- ciocultural developments of their time through innovative design techniques. On the other, participation in consumer culture directly contradicted the group’s proletarian and revolu- tionary sympathies. How did Mavo members separate their criticism of the exploitative nature of the major bourgeois industrialists from theit support for what they felt was a more autonomous realm of mass culture, seemingly Ireer, more market-driven, and independent of the state? To an- swer that question, it is necessary to examine why the forms of consumer culture were so compelling. When writing about Sanka, Murayama stated, “The old art aesthetic was that poster art is the prostitution of painting; journalism is the prostitution of literature; moving pictures are the prostitution of the theater.” He sought to replace this elitist notion by mak- ing “the practical” ( jitsuydteki) an integral component in Sanka and Mavo art wotk. Mu- rayama’s use of the term “practical,” however, connoted art formally or thematically linked to daily life.^ His emphasis on such a broadly construed notion of practicality directly op- posed “art fot art’s sake” (geijutstishijoshugi). Writing in Bungei sensen in late 1925, Yanase stri- dently criticized the validity of even producing “art” and took Murayama’s position one step Ititther: I have gradually become dissociated from the field of literature and art. Why is that? For me, everything is irritating. Paintings that fit in a frame, trends in essays that are like black tea, all of them are just little arts for the living room. Decorations for capitalist 9 society. Yanase instead chose to create mass-produced prints, posters, and manga for the proletarian movement because of the great communicative potential of these media. He ceased othet modes of attistic production. Most other Mavo artists, however, continued to work simul- taneously in a variety of areas, such as fine art, commercial art, and the theater. For them, commercial art and consumer culture satisfied the desire to integrate modern aesthetics with the practical elements of daily living, all the while enabling the cultivation of a much ex- panded audience. Many scholars see mass culture and mass consumption through the critical lens of Marx- ist scholarship; this slant is particularly evident in the writings of the early Frankfurt School critics who, from the vantage point of the 1930s, saw in these developments the origins of the mass spectacle of fascist culture. Theodor Adorno, for example, argued that the culture industry fundamentally transformed the superstructure of capitalist societies. According to Andreas Huyssen, Adorno felt that this transformation led to a reorganization of “cultural meanings and symbolic significations to fit the logic of the commodity,” where eventually “all culture is standardized, organized and administered for the sole purpose of serving as an instrument of social control.” Countering this opinion, however, Huyssen contends that Adorno’s critique only allows for a passive viewer or consumer, when in fact individuals should be seen as more active agents in cultural consumption. Miriam Silverberg agrees and has pursued this point in the Japanese context by attempting to position the Japanese consumer- subject, who “challenges the official state ideology of national polity through articulations of class identity, gender identity, and cultural cosmopolitanism.”'' I follow a similar tack, arguing that while mass culture does preserve capitalist systems, it is also, to borrow Huyssen’s words, “a locus for struggle and subversion.” As it “articulates social contradic- tions in order to homogenize them,” the very process of articulation itself “can become the field of contest and struggle.”'^ Even within the Frankfurt School there were widely diverging attitudes toward this is- sue, as is evident in the writing of Walter Benjamin, who did not believe that mass culture necessarily had a particular character, good or bad, and saw mass production as “fundamentally politicizjing] communication.” Building on the work of Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse and Jurgen Habermas have argued for the revolutionary communicative possibilities of mass cul- ture.'^ Many artists working in the 1920s, both in Japan and in Europe and the United States, perceived mass culture optimistically, as an autonomous realm generated neither by the state nor by any individual entity in it, a perception that had seemingly endless potential for rev- olutionizing artistic practice and allowing a broad dissemination of ideas and aesthetics. Con- sumer culture provided new media and venues for communication, even if it threatened to commercialize and assimilate the avant-garde into the mainstream, thus dulling the impact of the message. In the end, this tension in Mavo’s work can perhaps never be resolved, as the artists’ practice simultaneously sustained the very systems they wanted to subvert. Print Culture, Art Publishing, and the Commodification of the Artist The development of a mass publishing industry in Japan was due primarily to three factors: major technological advances in printing technology, the emergence of a mass literate audi- ence, and a growing demand for information and entertainment among an increasingly con- sumeristic Japanese populace.'^ The importation of the rotary press in the Meiji period en- 1 7 1 THE MAVO ARTIST AND JAPAN'S CULTURE INDUSTRY abled newspapers to produce issues more quickly and efficiently. The rotary press also proved important in package design and book printing. Around World War I Japanese printing tech- nology took another leap forward, under the impetus of the rotary photogravure press (or, rotogravure), which printed from an intaglio plate prepared by photographic methods.'^ Such a press could print in three colors, eventually paving the way for the cheaper and faster offset printing process.**^ Concurrently, the implementation of a nationwide education sys- tem significantly increased literacy in Japan. By 1930, over 90 percent of all Japanese sub- jects, male and female, were enrolled in the compulsory education system, and it is assumed that all achieved some degree of literacy.’^ These two factors, combined with a greatly increased demand for communications dur- ing and after the Russo-Japanese war, encouraged the establishment of a mass newspaper publishing industry in the Taisho period. Information from the front was in great demand in Japan, and newspapers competed to cover the events and disseminate information to a broad readership back home. Newspapers also became active players in domestic social is- sues such as the movement for universal suffrage. But to maintain and expand market share, they positioned themselves as sources of both news and entertainment. Since the major news agencies competed fiercely for readers, there was a vigorous and continuous search for mar- ketable news. Information on culture and cultural personalities came to constitute a significant and profitable area of commodifiable news.^^ Further reinforcing the connection between journalism and entertainment, many newspapers began to sponsor cultural and sporting events in conjunction with other new businesses, which they would then cover in their papers.'^ The rising demand for information and entertainment meant that magazines prolifer- ated as dramatically as newspapers, their number soaring in the years from 1918 to 1932. During this boom in the publishing industry many new and influential art-related period- icals were established. They provided information on artists and cultural activities in Japan and abroad.^' Numerous “literary arts” (bungei) journals also contributed to the dissemina- tion of information about art. Moreover, many of the same companies producing these mag- azines founded full-scale art publishing houses such as Ars and Atelier-sha, which offered important venues for artists and art critics to publish their work.^^ The growth in art publishing expanded the market for art criticism and generated a new category of art writing focused on the activities and personalities of artists. IwamuraToru, an artist, critic, and professor at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, started a fad of reporting on art and artists, planting the seeds of an “art journalism” industry. Around the turn of the century, when he was in France studying at the Academic Julien, Iwamura wrote novels about artists’ lives abroad, stirring up great interest in their activities and personalities.^^ At the same time, a flourishing movement of quasi-autobiographical and confessional literature de- veloped in which the protagonist, the author’s double, revealed intimate and often scandalous details about his personal life. The romantic and sensational image of the artist grew even stronger through the Taisho period as the attention of the mass media transformed individ- uals involved in everything Irom the imperial household and academia to motion pictures into instant “stars.” The Japanese media actively constructed an image of the celebrity-artist, whose public persona was defined by individual “personality” rather than the morally de- rived Meiji notion of “character” based on action and public service. Donald Roden has ar- gued that this shift was predicated on an increasing emphasis on “consumption over pro- duction, feeling over doing, the idiosyncratic over the normative, [and] self-expression over self-restraint.” He concludes that in the Taisho period, “the mysteries and ambiguities of per- sonality superseded the hollow and straightforward formulas of character.”^^ From the late Meiji period on, a spate of publicity on artists appeared prominently in newspapers, popular magazines, women’s journals, and pictorial weeklies. There was also a marked increase in the general coverage of artistic events, major gadan exhibitions, and ex- hibition prize selections, with winning works photographed and reproduced next to pho- tographs of the artists who had painted them. Photography greatly enhanced the appeal of these publications and was employed to great effect in the presentation and promotion of celebrities. By 1920, major newspapers like the Osaka Mainichi shinbiin 2,n(iAsahi shinbun were even adding full Sunday photographic supplements. The Tokyo paper Jijishinpd quickly followed with a two-page Sunday graphic supplement. In January 1923, because of the tremen- dous popularity of these supplements, Asahi shinbun launched a fully photographic journal called x\\e Asahi graph {ox Asahi gurafu: itwas titled in both English and Japanese). A large- format, sixteen-page news magazine, Asahi graph carved out a market niche for itself by con- centrating on individual human interest stories, heavily promoting the modern and the hu- morous, complementing the stories with many photographs and manga?'^ Asahi graph is a prime example of how news and entertainment coalesced. This graphic impulse was also ev- ident in women’s magazines such as Fujingaho (Women’s Pictorial Magazine) and Fujin graph (The Ladies’ Graphic, also titled Fujin gurafu)., as well as other mass circulation publications that increasingly incorporated photography. Images of Mavo and Sanka activities appeared in these periodicals on a regular basis. Both Asahi graph and Fujin graph devoted a large amount of space to culture-related in- formation. Photographic images of famous literary or artistic personalities frequently graced the pages of these publications as well as appearing regularly in newspapers. Photographs gave readers a sense of immediacy and the sensation that they were actually peering into the lives of the subjects. Asahi graph, for instance, published an entire issue on the Teiten in Novem- ber 1925, with two full pages presenting a “Portrait Gallery” of members of the Imperial Art Bureau. Specialized magazines such as Atelier began publishing photographic sections to 173 THE MAVO ARTIST AND JAPAN'S CULTURE INDUSTRY compete with the visceral and immediate impact of newspapers and the new photo weeklies. Ateliers “Atelier Graphic” (Atorie gurafu) section displayed photographs of artists and exhi- bitions, as well as art works. Art organizations and individual artists were prominently fea- tured. The notable increase in photographs of artists’ groups spoke of an active artistic com- munity where individuals were banding together to take action, whatever that action might be. For instance, a photograph in Asahi graph of Action’s first exhibition showed members of the group standing in the center ol the gallery at the Mitsukoshi department store with viewers milling about them. The caption identified shinbun as a co-sponsor of the ex- hibition.^^ Newspapers and department stores often collaborated, sponsoring and promot- ing cultural events to attract both customers and newspaper readers. The mass media covered a broad range of artistic events. Murayama’s brief involvement with Nagano Yoshimitsu in the formation of the August Gruppe was captured in Asahi graph?^ Similarly, Mavo’s first exhibition at Denpoin and OkadaTatsuo and Kato Masao’s two-man protest exhibition at Gafe Italy in Ginza were pictured.^^ Mavo’s “Moving Exhi- bition Welcoming Works Rejected from the Nika Exhibition,” including Sumiya Iwane and the work he withdrew from Nika, appeared several times in Asahi graph, as well as being cov- ered in illustrated reports by numerous other newspapers. Sanka’s two exhibitions received much press attention, particularly the second exhibition in Ueno, which was often portrayed in highly sensationalized terms. Asahi graph published a photograph of group members (see Fig. 49) carrying in and inspecting their art work for the second exhibition with a caption designating Sanka as “one of the most advanced” art societies in Japan. In their coverage of individual artists, Japanese publications often pictured the artist at home with his or her family — usually the artist with his wife, because the vast majority of professional artists were men. These photographs indicated a new kind of fashionable do- mestic situation — a highly romanticized conception of daily life — that appealed to an ur- ban middle-class readership. Throughout the late Meiji period, artists were increasingly viewed as members of the intelligentsia (chishiki kaikyu), and they came to be championed in the media as new heroes of modern life, asserting their individuality, and often their dazzling intellect. Intellectual and physical charisma were very important elements in the construc- tion and marketing of the artist’s public persona. Murayama Tomoyoshi’s pervasive presence in the media is a telling example of how cer- tain artists marketed themselves and publicly performed their personas in the popular press at the same time they were commodified by it for public consumption. The presentation of Murayama’s artistic activities changed in subtle but significant ways as he pursued his artis- tic career. What did not change, however, was the constant attention that he received from the time of his return to Japan in January 1923 until the close of the decade. Murayama ac- tively maintained this level of coverage by manipulating the media and by thrusting himself into the limelight. He participated in public protests against xhe. gadan, such as the anti-Nika exhibition, and later against the biindan, in the publicly enacted movements surrounding the founding of the literary journals Bunto and Bungei shijo. He also garnered attention by constantly promoting himself as a central and critical voice on cultural issues. He was often quoted, and his name frequently appeared when newspapers and magazines canvassed art world personalities for opinions on various issues. He became a professional pundit. Murayama achieved notoriety from the moment he returned from Berlin. But the press coverage changed over time, first praising him as a member of the intellectual elite who had gone abroad and gleaned important information for the nation, then emphasizing two new, seemingly contradictory, aspects of his persona: his radicalism and his representativeness as the modern man.^^ Murayama was first identified in the press with a caption reading “Mr. Murayama from the First Higher” (Ichiko no Murayama-kun). The coverage focused on his educational pedigree, presenting him as a native son, a member of the intellectual elite. Not coincidentally the photograph over the caption showed the imperial prince Chichibunomiya carefully viewing one of Murayama’s constructions at the “Central Art Exhibition,” imply- ing that the artist’s actions somehow contributed to Japan’s cultural improvement as sanc- tioned by imperial authority.^^ Soon after, however, articles about Murayama began to con- centrate on his radical Mavo and Sanka activities. The clothing and flamboyant personal styles of artists became recognized as signs of cre- ativity, and sometimes radical values. Murayama and Takamizawa, for example, often ap- peared in a Russian-style high-necked shirt known as a rupashka, commonly associated with pro-Soviet leftist sympathizers (Fig. 77).^*^ Photographs of Murayama show him in a variety of hairstyles and hats (Figs. 78-79). Photographs in the private collection of Sumiya Iwane show several Mavo members donning overalls in a deliberate attempt to associate themselves with factory workers. Mavo and Sanka artists used the press to publicize their activities, believing that even neg- ative publicity was better than being ignored. And the press obliged, both covering and sen- sationalizing the groups’ happenings to sell newspapers. Coverage ranged trom approving the groups’ activities to reporting their use of scandalous or provocative language and anar- chistic rhetoric. A blurb in the Yomiuri shinbim described Murayama as a “sadist” who looked as if he ran around the streets and subways of Berlin clipping off bunches of hair from the heads of un- suspecting bystanders. Murayama’s sexuality and stylishness were repeatedly emphasized, for example in a photograph of the artist striking a dance pose, dressed in a revealing and distinctly feminine-looking tunic (Fig. 80).^^ The Nichinicbi shmbiin quoted Murayamas reference to his performances as a “grotesque” form of dance that he called “dirty dance” (ki- tanai odori). The reporter stated that while Murayama’s technique was not good, beautiful 77 Murayama Tomoyoshi dressed in Russian-style shirt. Photograph in “Gosshipu: kankyu suru shojo 0 yume ni: ‘Kitanai Odori' o odoru Mavo no Murayama-kun" (Gossip; Dreaming of young girls brought to tears: Mavo’s Murayama who dances the “Dirty Dance"), Nichinichi shinbun, September 25, 1 925, 7. 78 Murayama Tomoyoshi with distinctive haircut, and his wife. Photograph of Murayama Tomoyoshi and Murayama Kazuko in “Fufu doto” (Couple with the same heads), Fujin koron, June 1 926; MTS2. Murayama Ado collection. It ? 7 h; < ' ^r' *7 ^ uK ^ h y <0 AS = O A- > mim-y r « mi-f- It 79 Murayama Tomoyoshi, ca, 1925-1926. Original source unknown, MTS2, Murayama Ado collection. 80 Murayama Tomoyoshi in dance pose wearing tunic, ca. 1925. Photograph courtesy of Omuka Toshiharu. THE MAVO ARTIST AND JAPAN’S CULTURE INDUSTRY women seeing his mysterious dance might be so overcome by emotion that they would be brought to tears. Murayama’s appearance became a significant focus of press attention, principally his bobbed, o-kappa hairstyle and his modern, often theatrical, clothing.^® The haircut became Murayama’s trademark, and he was repeatedly referred to as the “handsome o-kappa (ut- sukushii o-kappa). Responding to the strong reaction by the public to his haircut, Murayama explained in print that he kept his hair long because it was more useful for dramatic effect when dancing, because he was a neo-dadaist, because his hair was generally appreciated by his dadaist colleagues, and because it made him feel a little less trivial.'^' As a sign of com- radeship, several Mavo artists adopted the same hairstyle (Fig. 8i), further solidifying their distinctive public identity and setting them apart from conventional society as “personalities.” The media promoted Murayama’s personal style as indicating his status as a “modern man”; his wife, Kazuko, was assigned the role of the modern woman. They were marketed together as model personalities of the new age. An anonymous Fujin koron author interpreted the ap- pearance and manners of the couple as a sign that sometime in the future men and women would become completely indistinguishable.^^ Many popular journals and comics addressed the changes in gender roles in modern Japan, sometimes with considerable consternation. Their articles about the Murayamas showed both curiosity about the modern couple and alarm over social changes, particularly the couple’s gender blurring — Murayama’s long hair and Kazuko’s short cut. Several pieces noted how difficult it was to discern who was the hus- band and who was the wife, declaring sarcastically that the smaller in stature must be Mu- rayama, implying not only a reversal or blurring of sexual identities but also of gender-based power roles within the Murayama household.^^ Kazuko was presented as a paradigm of the shokugyd fujin (working woman), since she was employed as an editor for Fujin no tomo and worked as a professional poet and wtiter of children’s stories. Although she was featured in several periodicals by herself — in one article her modern hairstyle and status as a work- ing woman were said to exemplify the “masculinization of women” ( josei no danseika) — in- formation about her newly famous husband was always included as an important part of her identity.^^ The press probed deeply into the private sphere to generate news and ptovide the pub- lic with access to the intimate details of artists’ lives. In a series of articles on visits to artists studios, a writet for Atelier offered descriptive details of the Murayamas’ home. The writer carefully specifies the location in Tokyo, just fifteen minutes from Nakano station, impor- tant information for aficionados of the urban topography. He also added that Kazuko greeted the writer at the door, carrying the couple’s new baby. Ado, who was pictured on the second page of the article.'^^ That the Murayamas clearly shared a “love marriage” (ren’ai kekkon), a new trend related to individualism that was gradually superseding the custom of arranged 81 Fuchigami Flakuyo, Portrait of a Mara/sf (Mavoisuto no shozo), subject unknown, perhaps Toda Tatsuo, 1925. Originally In Hakuyo 4, no. 5 (May 1925). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. marriages among the younger generation, was also touted in the press. The Murayamas’ mar- riage was seen as a sign that the traditional social bond between husband and wife, still con- sidered one of the building blocks for sustaining the household unit (ielkatei), was being ttansformed. Several articles focused on the “queer constructivist” house Murayama built in Kami- Ochiai and the unusual environment inside. Because so many things were scattered on the floor, one reporter hyperbolically described it as looking like “the back of a theater! The store- room of a Western pawn shop! A dissection room in a hospital! Somewhere in the middle of a trench in the great war in Europe!”'^^ In Atelier, the studio was described in detail, par- ticularly the large bed, leaving the reader to wonder about its use. The studio space itself was portrayed in highly exoticizing terms that emphasized the unusual “non-art” materials scat- tered around the room, such as pieces of metal, tin cans, glass bottles, pieces of wood and shoes, as well as Murayamas “suspicious” (ayashii) works. The author stressed the Western- ness of the environment, from the style of the house to the many foreign books inside, re- marking on its suspect qualities. He added, however, that it was the house of “a great ac- tivist” ( mbarashii jikkoka). While Murayama received far more publicity than any other Mavo artist, others in the group were in the news as well. Asahi graph published a large photograph ol Kinoshita 179 THE MAVO ARTIST AND JAPAN'S CULTURE INDUSTRY 1 80 82 (LEFT) Takamizawa Michinao wearing a Russian-style shirt anct long hair, ca. 1925. Similar to photograph in “Kandan" (Chat), Yomiuri shinbun, August 2, 1 925 (a.m. ed.), 4. Photograph courtesy of Omuka Toshiharu, 83 (RIGHT) Mavo, composite of magazine cover designs, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. Shuichiro in front of his paintings (see Fig. 17).^® Unlike Murayama, who was presented as a professional artist and writer, Kinoshita was described as a doctor by profession and a painter by avocation. The caption to the photograph explained that he maintained an atelier in the hospital so that he could paint during his free time. A more ironic and slightly sardonic ex- ample of Mavo publicity came from within the group itself A portrait photograph of Takamizawa Michinao (Fig. 82) appeared in the Yomiuri shinbun together with a brief arti- cle explaining how the artist had advertised for a wife in the most recent issue oiMavo mag- azine, inviting interested parties to send a photograph to the group’s headquarters, but as of yet had received no inquiries. Detailed inlormation about Takamizawa’s height, weight, age, general health, and salary were provided, and he was described as having no familial de- pendents, beautiful long hair, and often wearing a rupashka shirt. Print Culture and Mavo Magazine From the inauguration of the group, Mavo artists through their writings and actions had ag- gressively engaged with the new print media. The launching of Mavo magazine was another act of engagement with the public, permitting Mavo to champion the artist’s role in the con- struction of mass culture and the strategic deployment of mass communication as well as to emphasize the collaborative and reproducible nature of art in the technological era. Mavo was considered a dojin zasshi (coterie magazine), a magazine “organized and di- rected by a group of men and/or women (‘associate members’) primarily for the publication of their own works and support of their particular causes. Edward Fowler has argued that Taisho magazines were “very exclusive and their membership defined by mutual acquain- tance and common purpose, a fact that resulted in fast friendships and bitter infighting.”^^ This friction led to a continuous succession of grouping and regrouping among members, which, together with financial restraints, was a primary reason why dojin zasshi seldom lasted more than a year or so and published only sporadically. Shirakaba was one of the more suc- cessful coterie magazines of the period,^^ but it had strong financial support from its wealthy members. Most groups, like Mavo, were not so fortunate, and therefore their ability to ex- pand was sharply curtailed. In appearance, Mavo combined the printed broadside and a handmade print; judging by its covers, it did not look like a mass-produced journal (Fig. 83). Yet editorially and philo- THE MAVO ARTIST AND JAPAN'S CULTURE INDUSTRY sophically, the magazine argued for a link between art and mass communication in modern society. The design techniques employed in the magazine asserted the connection between mass-circulated print media and artistic practice — between joumalism and culture. The use of printed photographs and the incorporation ot actual sheets ol newspaper as constituent pages alluded to this potential for a mass identity.^^ Yabashi Kimimaro’s text “On the Day of the Final Proof of Issue No. 3” was superimposed on hall a newsprint sheet listing nation- wide financial information, probably from the Yamato shinbun. The newsprint listing was rotated 90 degrees so that its horizontal layout contrasted with the conventional vertical for- mat ofYabashi’s text. Sumiya Iwane’s linocut Construction of Movement a 7 id Machine (see Plate 12) was similarly affixed to a sheet of newspaper and inserted as a page of the maga- zine. The faint, almost illegible text of the linocut and its bold organic shapes contrasted with the standardized, regularized typeface of the newsprint. The fusion of the artist’s hand- produced linocut with the mass-produced newspaper, however, points to the forced coexis- tence of these two modes of production in an age of rapid industrialization. The visual ref- erences to mechanization and machine production in the linocut undermine the sharp separation assumed between the handmade and the mechanical. The conspicuous display of mass advertising images from newspapers in these collage works further desegregated the putative realms of high and low culture and affirmed a strong bond between fine art and commercial art production. This is typified by a collage con- sisting of a photograph ofMurayama’s Women Friends at the Window (Mado ni yoreru onna tomodachi), a reproduction already once removed from the object itself, superimposed on a newspaper page devoted to commercial advertisements for popular consumer items such as Kao soap and Yunion perfume (Fig. 84). In each edition of the magazine, the sheet of newspaper and the advertisements were slightly different. The advertisements were gener- ally items purchased by women: Jintan tooth powder. Club face powder, and Kenshi Po- made (a brand of women’s hair tonic) . The collage brought together two disparate but equally abstract images of the modern woman, a construction of fragments that replaced the iconic romanticized female body and a collection of commodities that traced the emergence of the female consumer-subject. The Mavo collage did not argue for one whole representa- tion of the modern woman, but rather implied that she was a construction of various im- ages and practices.^*’ Although Mavo artists wanted to produce their magazine in mass quantities, they had little capital. Still, Yabashi stated in Mavo no. 3 that the group planned to expand its read- ership into other parts of the country.^*^ By that time, Mavo was already publishing adver- tisements for several major corporations, which would have provided funds to expand pro- duction. Advertisers included Mitsukoshi department store, Nisshin life insurance company, Hoshi pharmaceutical, Yebisu beer, Japan’s largest shipping company, Nippon Yusen Kaisha 84 Photograph of Murayama Tomoyoshi's Women Friends at the Window {Mado ni yoreru onna tomodachi) affixed to a page from Yamato shinbun. In Mavo, no. 3 (September 1 924), THE MAVO ARTIST AND JAPAN’S CULTURE INDUSTRY (NYX), Morinaga milk chocolate company, and a host of cafes and restaurants throughout the city. These were all relatively new consumer-oriented businesses that were forging mod- ern identities with products catering largely to the growing middle-class population. De- spite the seeming contradiction of advertising in an avant-garde, anarchistic, and potentially socially subversive magazine, these businesses recognized the possibility for communicating with a particular sector of middle-class consumers by exploiting the aesthetic newness and modish character, however rebellious, that the group evoked. Had it not been for the devastating financial loss from the censored third issue, Mavo might have been able to reach a broader audience. This run-in with the censors eventually caused all Mavo\ major sponsors to withdraw. After the magazine was resurrected in June 1925, the expanded editorial staff of Murayama, Okada, and Hagiwara attempted to take Mavo in a new direction. First they tried to do away with the notion of dojin by declaring that anyone who had even heard the name Mavo was a Mavoist and could receive the pub- lication by mail if they wanted to.^' At the same time, they printed an open call for manu- scripts and works of art, hoping to encourage more outside participation.*^^ Still, a satirical advertisement {ox Mavo no. 5, announcing an expansion of topics, plainly demonstrated that Mavo was not just another general interest magazine but was critically assessing the faddish and commodified nature of information in a consumer culture. The announcement listed the new range of topics as newspapers, commerce, sports, midwifery, prints, techniques of shorthand, music, inventions, pharmaceuticals, plays, crime, sculpture, techniques of fire fighting, methods of moneymaking, novels, cooking, light conversation, education, train- ing techniques, electricity, bricks, hypnotism, construction, knitting, the household, cos- metics, science, painting, dance, agriculture, stock farming, hairdressing, child rearing, po- etry, advertising techniques, women, hygiene, philosophy, gardening, magic, tea drinking, cardplaying, eloquence, social intercourse, astronomy, detectives, mahjong, movies, travel, architecture, photography, printing, stage design, radio, flight, acrobatics, strategy, diving, horsemanship, ping pong, transportation, dissection/autopsy, mosaics, and self-defense. This absurdly broad array of topics did in fact refer to some highly popular issues being covered in mass-circulation publications, but the long list, interspersed with bizarre themes, makes it difficult to take the announcement entirely seriously. Nonetheless, despite this tongue- in-cheek attitude, the magazine did try to integrate discussions of the arts with the more topical issues of daily life. The motivation for Mavo's new editorial policy was articulated in an essay by Nakada Sadanosuke titled “Sogo zasshi no shimei” (The mission of the general interest magazine). Informed by the writings of the Hungarian constructivist artist and Bauhaus instructor Las- zlo Moholy-Nagy, Nakada argued for a new type of constructive “general interest magazine” (sogo zasshi) that would of necessity incorporate “content on the many [kinds of] thought and formation that touch modern daily life [atarashiki seikatsu]'' This project entailed bring- ing art, literature, theater, and architecture together with the fields of economics, academia, technology, and handicrafts so that they might reinforce one another and foster an inter- connection between all modes of theoretical and mechanical production . Mavo was to spear- head this transformation in purpose. An overview of the final three issues of the magazine does reveal an expansion in the sub- ject matter covered, particularly in the inclusion of topics related to theater and architec- ture. In the final issue an entire page was devoted to architectural designs from the third ex- hibition of the Japanese architecture group Sousha (Creative Universe Association), led by Okamura Bunzo — plans for structures ranging from a private house to a metal casting fac- tory.^^ In the same issue, illustrations of new Russian architectural projects with a photo- graph of Tatlin on a construction site were reproduced from a recent publication by Nakada Sadanosuke entitled “Roshia Shakaishugi Renbo Sovietto Kyowakoku no kenchiku” (Ar- chitecture of the Russian Socialist Union of Soviet Republics). While Mavo texts still re- lated predominantly to art and literature, articles discussing toys, movies, and references to new forms of mechanical and media technology like high-voltage wires, rurbine engines, ra- dio, and airplanes were increasingly in evidence. There was also a notable inclusion of writ- ings on philosophical and sociopolitical issues by members of Bungei sensen, such as Komaki Omi. Still, the tone of the magazine remained strongly anarchistic, far from the rational, world-ordering periodical that Moholy-Nagy envisioned. Like Nakada, Murayama was acutely aware of developments in avant-garde magazines being published all across Europe and Russia.*^^ Having established critical connections with a number of avant-garde artists while in Germany, he promoted Mavo as a participant in this worldwide network of periodicals. He sent copies of Mavo abroad and maintained con- tact with several imporrant European publications, including Kurt Schwitters’s Merz, which he received from El Lissitzky. He also noted having received a copy of the Dutch magazine De Stijl from Theo van Doesburg in Amsterdam. Much has been written about the early-twentieth-century explosion of small artistic and literary magazines in Europe and Russia. Artists and writers, by publishing a small maga- zine, hoped to express their ideas to the public. In their pages, artists were able to comment on the effects of the revolution in technology on artistic production and to cultivate a new social role for themselves in either the commercial or the political sphere. For the many who were inclined toward socialism, mass media could be used to stimulate or sustain a social revolution by educating the public through innovative and progressive aesthetic techniques. The utopian visions of these often socialist-inclined artist-designers, many of whom sought to redesign the world aesthetically, also had a profound influence on commercial and in- dustrial design. Their innovative and expressive use of new kinds of typography and crisp 1 85 THE MAVO ARTIST AND JAPAN'S CULTURE INDUSTRY graphic art techniques produced an eye-catching modern look, a style that they and others enthusiastically employed for commercial advertising purposes/*^ The shape and size of a printed text, its position, and the placement of lines on the page, all became important is- sues. Visual and textual components were highlighted through dynamic combination and conscious juxtaposition.^' Many of these periodicals championed the use ol balanced but animated asymmetrical layouts. In Koseiha kenkyu, Murayama quotes Moholy-Nagy on the importance of typography as an expressive and symbolic visual art form: Printing technology is the most powerful form. It must be a clear means. It must be spe- cially emphasized. . . . Firstly, all printed works must have the clarity of a singular mean- ing. They must be easy to read. No a priori aesthetic knowledge must he necessary. . . . Letters must not be forced into a square form. According to the essence and purpose of the printed matter we must allow an unrestricted use ol all kinds of typeface, the order of the letters (i.e., not always a straight, parallel lining up of letters), geometrical forms and colors. Experiments in the so-called rational or new typography of international constructivist artists, such as Moholy-Nagy, Lissitzky, Schwitters, and Van Doesburg, were preceded by the radical and free-form typographic experimentation of the futurists and dadaists, to whom William Owen has referred as “perpetrators of crimes of typographic disobedience.” The dadaists freed typography from the restrictions of rectilinearity, championing the visual ex- pressiveness of letter forms. Futurist typography was similarly interested in liberating ty- pography for expressive and pictorial ends. Marinetti considered typographic composition as a means of visually amplifying the content of a text.^^ This skillful integration of text and image would become a powerful tool for commercial and political ends.^^ Japanese designers quickly became aware of new modernist developments in Western ty- pography through sources like Mavo and through several critical publications and exhibi- tions of Western poster design. Yet, while many Western constructivist artists were in- creasingly advocating “the new typography” (or elementary typography) as an objective, rational, and more standardized form for print, Mavo artists maintained a strong individu- alistic expressivity in their typographical designs. In Mavo, standardized, mechanistic-look- ing typography was juxtaposed with more organic, free-flowing letters and characters (Fig. 85). Many letterforms retained a strong sense of the artist’s hand. Like the international con- structivists, Mavo delineated the magazine’s cover and page layouts boldly with black, and in the case of Mavo no. 6 red, horizontal and vertical lines, dividing the composition into rectilinear, boxed sections. This arrangement was effectively employed to guide the viewer’s eye and to emphasize discrete areas of the page. s in et - •5- IS V a «5 a « s » " * ^ « = XIWII IMilllliL _ s^nc^am a:nt« »« 1 4iia>4«)«Mm !(!•«•& S«>4a«a|INI»»« B » ■ B >Ba • «>4aXBI)MBM» I *«•/ 1 jjg *1 8- E 5 ■ais41l=»-SB4B4 C^UB} ^9 * I CVttS) BocB: ** cnsilii!) M<)9 B I 85 Cover, Mavo, no. 5 (June 1925). Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Photograph by Jack Abraham. Mavo’s innovative graphic designs heralded a new era of commercial art in Japan. By 1926, when the Japanese poster designer Yajima Shuichi published a compendium of his typog- raphy called Znan moji taikan (Typographic handbook), the central importance of typog- raphy for visual communication and the encouragement of consumption was widely recog- nized. In the introduction to Yajima’s book, the Tokyo Imperial University professor Takeda Goichi argued for “new letterforms to fit modern commodities,” stating that “beautiful ty- pography is the most effective way of promoting the worth of a commodity.”^^ Mavo, Mass Publishing, and Graphic Design The development of the publishing industry offered new career opportunities to artists and a greatly expanded audience for their work.^^ The concomitant growth of consumer indus- tries that advertised in mass media publications, most noticeably cosmetics and medical goods, supported the expansion of commercial publishing, further spurring the development of ad- vertising and graphic design. The combination of a momentous surge in commercial de- sign and the great demand for published literary texts contributed to the creation of an in- novative, lucrative professional art field of book and magazine design (sotei) and illustration.®*^ Many prominent artists in gadan, ranging from academic painters such as Asai Chii to individualist printmakers like Onchi Koshiro, worked as graphic designers and illustra- tors.®* Both dojin zasshi and mass publications were infused with the full spectrum of “fine art” aesthetics. At the same time, many designers felt that illustration was a realm of artistic production that brought art closer to daily life. Offering insight into its aesthetic and intel- lectual appeal for artists during this period, Onchi Koshiro stated that design and illustra- tion reptesented “the harmony between culture in daily life and the fine arts,” and that it was “an anti-commercialistic industrial art.”®^ Both Yanase and Murayama earned a large portion of their income from the design of covers and interior-page illustrations for books and magazines. Murayama got his start as an illustrator at Fujin no tomo before his trip to Berlin and continued to provide margin de- signs for the periodical into the early 1930s (Figs. 86—88). In many of these illustrations he employed Western letters and numbers in repeated abstract patterns, creating a decorative, pictorial effect. Murayama also developed a successful career illustrating children’s stories, often those written by his wife, Kazuko.®^ OZ? ttZ- ^ it> i'- ?$g®?A \.' fU'-lc t i ■3 - (c ’ ts: I- M If -2 5:“ ic ' K t ■ & A A*’ O it A is MS o fi* < o /LS o A %■ Pk A ^ m r SEI TO L -< A T T it ii Wits: m^r T O it M^y' 3t'=S5fII lb ' ti h a -o M It ?, - ^ O < T ffi? O ' t O HSt^ a /i.iC?.M*L mz L m ts: V » 6 A ^5 m^: t' ■^H^h t » • ^ o o o ii o iirt:;^ Mt F 4 S £* t o V' mm^-C ti«iiH-^ is I’ ?r 4 o 5rs t"_ A A'-- i %■ L -^g L V. ' }g« tj* o T MJ^$} i, m ^ tz o i f) / ^ ' '' h (BELOW) Murayama Tomoyoshi, o T i< ’ A -c? Sr ii margin designs. In Fujin no tomo 20, no. 2 (December 1 926): 223. w- o ii Bi ft? o A “ Z7 A < Is T M* 0 s ct i 3* X f 2 5 L m A A A s s i m S m /K * /k lif S S B s B /h 0 /h te 4' K iL g A /o!o 1 o ^ # ! ?s I® «a ^ t* s ■r t J; i o f) jfii $/j % ffi » T? O S I • • 91 JtL- S * II E ic 5 I* S ® 9 Sli <0 •V -c I 3 J7 105 Okada Tatsuo, page layout and typographical design for Hagiwara Kyojiro’s poem “Rasukorinikofu" (Raskolnikov), in Hagiwara, Shikei senkoku, 130-31. The Culture Industry Artistic practice and commercial design developed in tandem with the culture industry, which included new forms of entertainment and leisure activity. Cafes, movie theaters, cabaret re- vues, department stores, and sporting events were among the new leisure time destinations in the Taisho period. The city’s sakariba (bustling places, popular urban areas), created by the burgeoning consumerism and mass culture, provided much needed sponsorship and ex- hibition spaces for the display of modern art. After the Russo-Japanese war, department stores and new consumer-oriented businesses, particularly those focusing on cosmetics and health-related markets such as Kao (soap), Shi- seido (cosmetics). Lion (tooth powder), and Hoshi (pharmaceuticals), became central forces in creating new popular trends. The concurrent development of a consumer economy and mass media generated innovative commercial design in everything from advertisements printed on posters or in newspapers and magazines to the displays in store windows. The newly emerging field of commercial advertising was largely staffed by artists (geijiitsuka) trained in the major Japanese art schools who worked concurrently in the fine arts. These artists employed stylistic elements from their painting in their design work. CAFES Cafes (kafe), coffee shops (kissaten), and restaurants (resutomn or shokudo) were important new social spaces (minshu no shakoba) in the urban environment.^'^ Some critics equated them with the pleasure quarters in Edo cultural lile.^^ To Mavo artists these new urban spaces provided a perfect forum for integrating art with daily life, particularly because of their in- herently theatrical environment, where patrons (and artists) could perform their personas lor public delectation. Many artists frequented cafes, some of which became associated with particular groups. The Cafe Suzuran, near Gokokuji, run by a woman rumored to have been an actress, was identified in the press as Mavo’s “base of operations” (sakugenchi) and a hang- out popular among proletarian-oriented artists. Murayama held his second solo exhibition there. A few months later it became the venue lor Mavo’s serial exhibition, in June and July of 1924.^*^ Several other Mavo (and FAA) exhibitions were held in these newly flourishing establishments. The cafe spawned its own cultural lingo and its own set of devotees, who came to be identified as the “modern boy” and “modern girl.” In the Taisho popular imagination, the culture of the cafe was distinctly tinged with decadence and sexuality. Prewar cafes served alcohol and functioned more or less like bars. The cafe waitresses (also called “cafe girls”), while seen as exemplars of the new Westernized feminist icon, the shoktigyo fujin (working woman), were also often associated with loose morality and prostitution. The cafes were them- selves often designed as stylish Westernized environments, and frequenting them indicated that one lived a fashionable, cosmopolitan lifestyle. The cafes, to attract not only artists but also middle-class patrons drawn to new trends in art, welcomed displays of new art as a way to enhance and aestheticize their ambiance. Cafes also provided an important source of advertising and sponsorship lor art and literary magazines like Mavo. For example, the ice cream cafe Shirameso Parlor described itsell in an ad in Mavo no. 3 as “a totally artistic cafe,” inviting the average person to partake in its atmosphere and beckoning the artist to join his cohorts. Cafe Suzuran’s advertisement in Mavo stated: “Famous Suzuran, Come to our dear Suzuran. In this case, “our” probably referred to Mavo, with the implication that visitors to Suzuran were likely to meet a Mavo artist. The Inoue tea cottage billed itself as a “terribly pleasant” (hidokii kimochi it) cafe that was a requisite part o{ ginbura (short for ""Ginza de bum bum suru"), a popular expression for strolling in the Cinza, gazing at the stores and their window displays. Iftatsuda Toru has argued x.\\2X ginbiira was one aspect of “enjoying the city” (gaiku kansho) encouraged by 203 a commercialization and “artification” of the streets that transformed them into a kind of hakiirankai (exposition) bazaar. DEPARTMENT STORES The transformation of the Ginza and other fashionable Tokyo districts into exposition- like environments in large part was due to department stores, a source of amusement in- extricably linked to the impetus to improve daily life. Department stores established pop- ular trends,'®' and they provided an important type of urban leisure activity, with their offerings of exotic foods, their amusing window displays, and the panoramic views of the city from their roofs. These stores also offered places to rest — cafes, spaces for sitting, and restaurants — in the bustling commercial sections of the city.'®^ Like expositions, de- partment stores displayed modern, industrially produced implements to improve daily life by rationalizing the domestic environment. '®^ These goods were displayed side by side with contemporary art. Department stores constituted a major new exhibition venue for art and deserve further consideration as sites where high and mass culture interacted. Beginning in the late Meiji period, a range of art groups decided to exhibit their work at these new public shrines to consumerism. Members of the group Action, for instance, mounted both their shows at Mitsukoshi department store in Nihonbashi. In May 1925, for their first exhibition, members of the Sanka alliance exhibited at Matsuzakaya department store in its newly opened Ginza branch.'®^ Most department store companies had been es- tablished originally to deal in luxury goods such as expensive silk kimono fabrics but grad- ually, around the late Meiji period, they had begun to include a broader range of merchan- dise. Soon after the turn of the century, a number of them adopted a new sales technique, placing merchandise in glass display cases (chinretsu hanbai hoshiki) rather than having sales- people bring requested items from storage. This change made the store an open environ- ment for the visual display of commodities, more readily accessible to the consumer. In re- designed stores people could browse, something they did in dramatically increasing numbers. The new building erected in 1914 in Nihonbashi for Mitsukoshi department store was a land- mark in architectural design, not least because it included a large space for art-related exhi- bitions. Other cultural offerings provided to amuse customers included Western musical en- tertainment in the center of the main floor and a restaurant that served full meals as well as both Japanese and Western-style sweets with coffee and tea.'®® Initially, Tokyo department stores targeted people who lived in the upscale Yamanote area. To attract them, Mitsukoshi, for example, invited many foreign dignitaries, well-known schol- ars, politicians, artists, and literary personalities to make public appearances at the store. One of the principal planners at Mitsukoshi, Hibi Ousuke, saw the store as a place where upper- level society could gather. In 1905, Hibi began inviting prominent scholars, writers, artists. educators, and journalists to meetings each month where they discussed various topics re- lated to clothing and daily customs; these became known as “trend study sessions” (ryuko kenkyiikai),^^' the results of which were published in the company’s public relations maga- zine. Mitsukoshi spearheaded these practices, and other stores soon followed suit. To attract customers, stores held entertainment and art-related events throughout the year. These included exhibitions of painting, crafts, flower arrangements, photography, and objects related to the improvement of daily life. Exhibitions and sales were often indistinguishable, as all items, cultural and pragmatic, were available for purchase. The profitability of these ventures led many stores to establish separate divisions to oversee the exhibition and sale of contemporary arts and crafts. Mitsukoshi, for instance, promoted art work as essential for decorating the house — a necessary part of bunka seikatsu (cultured life) — an attitude gadan representatives heartily supported. According to Hatsuda Tom’s detailed study, by the late Taisho period, department stores were like “year-long expositions.”'®^ Following Mitsukoshi’s lead, a number of department stores began building art exhibi- tion galleries during this period. Often newspapers would co-sponsor exhibitions or mount shows of their own. Although individual department stores may have tried to distinguish their target audiences and patronage policies, it is difficult to discern any major differences between them. Matsuzakaya, which sponsored the Sanka members’ exhibition, was a Nagoya- based company headquartered in Tokyo at Ueno.'®® In general, its policies were loosely based on those of Macy’s in the United States, and the store sought to target a broad market. Mat- suzakaya was one of the first stores to eliminate entirely the policy of dosoku nyujo (“bare- foot entrance”) that required patrons to remove their shoes and wear slippers in the store. The new practice of allowing patrons to remain shod transformed department stores into an extension of bustling outdoor street malls. It added considerably to the popularity of de- partment store visiting, and by the early Showa period had spread to most major stores. Mat- suzakaya was also well known for its bargain sales, which attracted huge crowds."® As for art sponsorship, Matsuzakaya, like its contemporaries, held commercial and cul- tural exhibitions, particularly of clothing and children’s goods, but also of art. The art exhi- bitions generally focused on artists and artists’ groups associated with Nika, such as Kishida Ryusei and Sodosha; therefore, it is not clear why the company mounted Sanka’s first exhi- bition, but the store’s representatives considered the group’s work too radical and con- frontational to allow a second exhibition at this venue.'" It is not surprising that Matsuza- kaya’s published exhibition history makes no mention of the event. The relationship between artists, department stores, and other private businesses extended to product and display design. Oftentimes, stores commissioned artists to design patterns for kimonos and Western-style clothing or held competitions for outside submissions from various sectors of the design community."^ Although Western-style clothing had come to 205 THE MAVO ARTIST AND JAPAN'S CULTURE INDUSTRY dominate men’s apparel and was gaining in popularity among urban women, the vast ma- jority of Japanese women still persisted in wearing kimonos. Often, women combined mod- ern designs and Western accessories with traditional clothing to update and “modernize” wardrobes. Innovative Taisho textile patterns and elaborately designed accessories distinc- tively incorporated stylistic developments from the fine arts. Murayama and his Mavo-Sanka colleagues Maki Hisao and Yoshida Kenkichi established the Union ol Woven and Dyed Art (Shokusen Geijutsu Renmei) in Kyoto to study artistic textile production in conjunction with young textile designers in the Kansai area. The union’s first exhibition was held at a series of department stores in Kansai beginning in November 1926, including Takashimaya in Kyoto, Mitsukoshi in Osaka, and Matsuzakaya in Nagoya. The exhibition then traveled to Mitsukoshi in Tokyo. Two of the artists’ abstract textile de- signs were reproduced in a newspaper announcement of the union’s formation, which stated that in addition to fabricating clothing, the group was interested in expressing the impulses of the age (Fig. 106)."^ Fuj in graph ran an elaborate color photographic spread of these ki- monos, obis (kimono sashes), and fabric embroidery designs, describing the work as a “rev- olution in dyed and woven art” (senshoku no kakumei), a new movement that would destroy 106 Textile designs by Murayama Tomoyoshi, Maki Hisao, and Yoshida Kenkichi for the Shokusen Geijutsu Renmei (Union of Woven and Dyed Arts), 1926. Murayama's design “Parallel” (Helko), featuring a repeated dinosaur motif, is shown second from the right on the bottom. Photograph in MTS 2. Murayama Ado collection. 107 Otsubo Shigechika, textile design, 1927. In “Otsubo Shigechika: Ryokuin no kyoen ni” (Otsubo Shigechika: For a feast under the shade of trees), Fujin graph 4, no. 7 (July 1 927). the established art of clothing ornamentation through the use of free expression.''^ A sim- ilar spread also appeared in Kokusai gaho (International Pictorial News)."^ Murayama, in his labric design, entitled Parallel (Heiko), repeated a whimsical dinosaur motif, like those he had previously used in the cover design for Koseiha kenkyu. The dinosaurs were inter- spersed with geometric blocks of color in bands of varying thickness. Maki Hisao’s designs also employed abstract blocks and patterns of color combined with seemingly random let- ters and words. The designs were dubbed “constructivist kimonos” (koseiha no kimono), be- cause they reflected styles these same artists were championing in their constructive and graphic work.'"^ Constructivist aesthetics were picked up and popularized by other design- ers such as Otsubo Shigechika, formerly of the Barrack Decoration Company, who displayed his more regularized version of these abstract patterns in Fujin graph (Fig. 107). Many avant- garde artists in Europe and Russia also designed clothing. Sonia Delaunay is perhaps the best-known example, but the futurists. Van Doesburg, and several other Russian artists, in- cluding Liubov Popova, produced innovative fashion designs. They attempted to redesign every aspect of their environment and to imbue everyday objects with modernist aesthetics. THE MAVO ARTIST AND JAPAN'S CULTURE INDUSTRY PRIVATE INDUSTRY An array of other consumer-oriented industries also supported the arts and began building exhibition spaces. Art was displayed next to new products to draw in customers. Compa- nies bringing art and commerce together portrayed themselves as involved in cultivating taste and developing “beautiful customs” (bishu) among the consumer populace. Shiseido was among the most active of the new companies in this endeavor. The president, Fukuhara Shinzo, was himself an amateur photographer as well as a devoted patron of the arts. In De- cember 1919, the company set up a gallery above its fashionable Western-style ice cream and pastry parlor, located on one of the central boulevards traversing the Ginza. The gallery ex- hibited a range of art work, but emphasized photography, particularly the work of Fukuhara’s group ofpictorialist photographers, the Japan Photography Association (Nihon Shashinkai), formed in 1924.''^ The Fioshi pharmaceutical company opened an exhibition space in May 1920. Although little is known about this gallery, it is documented that David Burliuk held his exhibition ol modern Russian art work there. The Lion dentrifice company followed Fioshi, opening an exhibition space in the Marunouchi building (abbreviated as Marubiru), one of the cen- tral modern office buildings of the period, located in the heart of the Marunouchi financial district. While little documentation survives on the gallery’s activities, it is known that the FAA’s “Study Exhibition” (Shusaku-ten) was held at Lion, as well as Kato Masao’s “Archi- tectural Works Exhibition” (Kenchiku Sakuhin-ten)."^ This connection between art and commerce was further strengthened by work many artists did for these major corporations as designers. In Mavo’s case, Oura Shiizo worked as a de- signer of print advertising and three-dimensional display for the fashionable bookstore and publisher Maruzen, in the Western products division located in Nihonbashi. Toda Tatsuo was employed in a similar capacity at Eion. The vast majority of this work, however, is no longer extant, making it extremely difficult to judge the full extent of these artists’ activities. Oura is known to have worked on the print advertisements for at least two major Maruzen products: Valet safety razors and Maruzen ink, although few designs are securely attribut- able to him. The top left image in a selection of eight figurative vignettes by Oura, published in Gendai shogyd bijutsu zenshu (The complete commercial artist), corresponds to a Valet ad- vertisement that ran in Fujin graph (Figs. 108-109). These simple line drawings humorously depicted a man’s head before, during, and after shaving. Oura’s crisp linear style geometri- cized and simplified the image. It is likely that he also produced a series of whimsical black- and-white figures for Maruzen ink that became striking logos for promoting the company’s modern image. Oura is known to have designed at least one, and perhaps two, small advertising kiosks for Maruzen ink (Figs, iio-iii).''^ The building definitively attributed to him was a small 108 Oura Shuzo, linocut series for newspaper advertisements. In Kitahara Yoshio, ed., Gendai shogyd bijutsu zenshu, vol. 1 6, Jitsuyo katto zuanshu (Collection of illustrations for practical use) (Tokyo: Ars, 1 929), 96. 109 Oura Shuzo, advertisement for Valet razors, Fujin graph 4, no. 7 (July 1927), JwV- 110 Oura ShOzo, advertising kiosk for Maruzen ink, 1924. Originally appeared in Mavo, no. 2 (July 1 924). 111 Unknown, advertising kiosk for Maruzen ink, lafe 1920s. In Kitahara Yoshio, ed., Gendai shogyo bijutsu zenshu, vol. 1 1 , Shuppin chinretsu soshokushO (Collection of exhibition designs) (Tokyo: Ars, 1 929), 1 4. structure with a gently arched doorway and window. The roof was crowned with a square signboard sandwiched between large and small parabolic structural masses. A fotir-lobed spire projected from the top of one of these masses. The entire structure was painted with abstract radiating and rectilinear color band patterns interspersed with the Maruzen ink logo and advertising copy. In an effort to garner attention, advertisers took their messages to the streets, employing outdoor kiosks, sandwich boards, decorated automobiles and trucks, and signboards. The transformation of the street into a theatrical and promotional space, begun in the Edo pe- riod, was encouraged by both artists and commercial interests. Mavo artists were well aware of the effectiveness of these advertising techniques after mounting several outdoor exhibi- tions and happenings in public spaces. Perhaps one of the most colorful examples of the pe- riod was the demonstration for the “popularization of art” (geijutsii no minshuka) launched by Murayama and the Bunto (Literary Party) group, in which men and women wearing col- orfully decorated sandwich-board signs and carrying large painted banners marched ecstat- ically from Marunouchi through the Ginza and up to Asakusa, crying, “From the study to the street!” (shosai yori gaito e)}^^ The “artification” (bijiitsuka sum) of the street occurred on many fronts. Among Oura Shuzo’s responsibilities at Maruzen was the design of show window displays. Window shop- ping had become a popular form of leisure activity in theTaisho period, and stores put great effort into creative window displays, engaging the services of young artists. There was much enthusiasm among artists and designers for this new three-dimensional art form.^^' As early as the beginning of the Taisho period, two periodicals devoted to show window design ap- peared in Japan: Uindo taimusu (Window Times) and Uindo gaho (The Show Window). Gendai shogyo bijutsu zenshu, published by Ars in the early Showa period, devoted two full volumes to window design, documenting both foreign and domestic examples as well as tech- niques for setting up displays. Although no Maruzen window designs are positively attributable to Oura, several have a distinct affinity to Mavo’s constructivist aesthetics. A window display for hats (Fig. 112) used a minimalist geometric composition constructed out of strong vertical and horizontal components with a half-arch banding the top. Like Mavo’s work, these lines delineated quad- rants in which text was inscribed. A window for athletic goods designed for the Nozawaya department store in Yokohama (Fig. 113) employed design elements closely related to those promoted by Murayama and Yoshida Kenkichi, several of which were illustrated in a chart in a volume of the Ars series (Fig. 114) that included abstracted figures of fish, birds, flags, and curling ribbon in addition to entirely abstract forms. Fish appeared frequently in Mu- rayama’s work and were prominent in his stage design for Georg Kaiser’s play From Morn- ing ’til Midnight (discussed in chapter 6; see Fig. 117). Window displays were often seen as 21 1 112 (TOP RIGHT) Maruzen show window display for hats, Nihonbashi, late 1920s. In Kitahara Yoshio, ed., Gendai shogyo bijutsu zenshu, vol. 4, Kakushu sho uindo sochishO (Collection of various show window designs) (Tokyo: Ars, 1929), 4:57, iii. ca. 113 (ABOVE) Show window design for athletic equipment, Nozawaya, Yokohama, late 1 920s. In Kitahara, 4: 1 6, ill. ca. 114 (RIGHT) Murayama Tomoyoshi (ill. a-e) and Yoshida Kenkichi (ill. f-h), chart of design motifs for magazine advertisements, In Kitahara, 4:1 6, 95. 115 Maruzen show window display for books, Tokyo, late 1 920s. In Kitahara Yoshio, ed., Gendai shogyd bijutsu zenshu, vol. 5, Kakushu sho uindo haikeishu (Collection of backgrounds for various show windows) (Tokyo: Ars, 1 928), ill. a. analogous to stage design (biitai sochi), and Mavo artists used similar aesthetic techniques in their stage designs for the theaterd^^ With its multitiered construction, off-kilter levels, whim- sical motifs randomly scattered, and forms painted on a stark white background, the win- dow display at the Nozawaya was reminiscent of Murayama’s constructivist stage sets. The background display for a Maruzen show window advertising books (Fig. 115) like- wise reflected Murayama’s stage work. It employed an abstract composition strongly delin- eated by repeated geometric forms, shapes, and bold vertical and horizontal lines and in- cluded horizontal lozenges akin to Murayama’s fish-like motifs. In the Ars series, a number of show window designs were referred to as koseiteki (constructivist); the term was repeated throughout the text. That this term was in widespread use by the late 1920s indicates the im- pact of Mavo’s constructive work and its aesthetics on the development of commercial de- sign. It also indicates the success of Mavo’s project to bridge art and everyday experience by “artifying” and theatricalizing all realms of daily life. The Cultural Contradictions of Consumerism In her writings on Kurt Schwitters, Maud Lavin has argued for a more inclusive history of modernist artistic practice that does not efface or demean the commercial artistic produc- tion of fine artists. Lavin has interpreted their commercial activities as part of a rational utopian vision of society that motivated artists to implement machine age principles of production for the ordering and aestheticizing of everyday life.^^^ Undoubtedly, the development of Japa- 2 1 3 THE MAVO ARTIST AND JAPAN’S nese commercial design also must be seen within the context of a growing national interest in rationalizing and improving daily life that spurred consumerism. The beginning of pro- fessionalized design coincided exactly with the late Taisho and early Showa periods, when new trends of kaizo (reconstruction), kaizen (improvement), and kairyo (also improvement) in daily life were emerging. In 1919, the Ministry of Education sponsored the “Exhibition for the Improvement of Daily Life” (Seikatsu Kaizen-ten), which displayed a range of new prac- tical goods for improving daily life. This spawned the League for the Improvement of Daily Life (Seikatsu Kaizen Domeikai), which presented the state’s official view on how to improve daily life. In 1926, the Japanese Association for Commercial Art (Nihon Shogyo Bijutsu Kyokai) was formed by several of the most vocal advocates and practitioners, including Hamada Masuji, Tada fdokuu, Fujisawa Tatsuo, and Murota Kurazo. Hamada began pub- lishing Shogyo bijutsu (Commercial Art) magazine and established the Research Center for the Study of Commercial Art (Shogyo Bijutsu Kenkyujo) in 1929.'^^ It is no coincidence that Hamada was a contributor to Mavo and interacted with Mavo and Sanka artists. Works by a number of these artists are found scattered through Gendai shogyo bijutsu zenshu, the multivolume series on commercial art that Ars published and Hamada co-edited from 1928 to 1930. There is no doubt that his great enthusiasm for de- sign was at least partly inspired by Mavo and Sanka’s innovative design work from the mid- 1920S and their repeated emphasis on the importance of integrating art and daily life. As manifestations of modernity, both mass culture and industrialism figured prominently in Mavo art work. Mavo artists not only commented on the pervasiveness of mass and con- sumer culture but also engaged actively in producing and shaping it. Still, this culture was undeniably the product of the same capitalist economic system that leftist intellectuals were denouncing as exploitative. The more radical members of Mavo remained ambivalent to- ward the commercial realm ol art production. Hagiwara produced several photo-collages that critiqued the commodification of culture and its transformation into mass ornament. Unlike Murayama and Yanase, the poet Hagiwara never felt compelled to consider the so- cial role of the artist-designer.'^^ Among all the Mavo members, Yanase Masamu was perhaps most persistently critical of mass culture. For him, it epitomized the control of human beings by things. He argued that the commodification of culture precipitated “unreflectiveness” (muhansei) in the producer and the viewing public, rendering people “opinionless” (muteiken). His artistic mission was to awaken people’s “self-conscious instinct” ( jikaku honno) to produce a “consciousness of reality” (genjitsu ishiki). In several of his constructions he vehemently criticized commodity culture. In the photomontage entitled The Length of a Capitalist's Drool (Fig. 116), Yanase in- verted and distorted advertising photographs of Western women, the fashionable symbols of modernity used in japan to market products. He placed them side by side with bestial 116 Yanase Masamu, The Length of a Capitalist's Droo/ (Shihonka no yodare no nagasa), photomon- tage, presumed lost. In Mavo, no, 1 (September 1924). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. images, mocking the marketing of beauty. He also superimposed photographs of machine parts, equating all the images as products of capitalism. The floating letter “m” affirmed the artist’s presence as commentator, and this signature mark served to differentiate the work from the nameless images seamlessly generated in the mass media. It asserted the individ- ual’s awareness of and resistance to a false consciousness. Although these artists had a negative perception of industrial capitalism, nonetheless, mass culture and consumerism expanded their artistic realm and offered them a vital and expan- sive public arena in which to experiment. It also offered a source of income, which they were not in a financial position to turn down. But as Lavin has pointed out, financial need was not decisive in turning modern artists to design. In many ways, Mavo artists considered mass culture a realm separate from the state. It represented personal liberation, satisfaction, and social equalization. It was the perfect means by which to make art more practical and inte- gral to daily life.'^*^ In the end, this central tension between leftist radicalism and bourgeois culture remained unresolved in the work of Mavo, as the artists both manipulated and were manipulated by the mechanisms of industrialism and consumerism. 2 1 5 Theater, Theatricality, and the Politics of Pleasure T ■ HE AUDIENCE AT THE TSUKIJI LITTLE THEATER WAS PACKED IN TIGHT, WAITING FOR THE I first act of Yoshida Kenkichi’s Button: Opening Play of Opposition Between White and Red H (Botan: Shiro to aka to no tairitsu ni yoru kaimakugeki). When the curtain rose, a nearly bare stage was revealed, with a large white sheet of paper hung across the middle, a giant red button suspended beside it, and a caged monkey staring out absentmindedly at the audi- ence. A factory whistle suddenly shrieked and an empty lunchbox clanked as it fell to the floor. Then the stage was plunged into darkness and what was described as a “dada film” fea- turing a small toy truck and a close-up of a face was projected onto the paper screen. When it ended, thirty actors dressed as workers ripped through the paper and spilled out onto the front of the stage.* Next, Murayama Tomoyoshi emerged barefoot and writhed across the stage like a snake, dancing to Beethoven’s Minuet in G. KambaraTai appeared and addressed the crowd in an inaudible voice, and people attired in cubist outfits paraded on stage. They were followed by an assortment of Sanka artists, who produced billowing smoke and deaf- ening sounds as one member ran up and down the aisles with a charred fish and another drove a motorcycle through the hall. At one point, artists even pelted the audience with dried tangerine peels. ^ So went the outrageous evening of performances and provocations staged on May 30, 192,5, billed as “Sanka in the Theater” (Gekijo no Sanka). “Sanka in the Theater” was one of numerous performances staged singly or collectively by Mavo and Sanka artists during the three years of their activities. The artists considered theater and dance critical areas for artistic experimentation, and their interest in performance 2 1 7 THEATER, THEATRICALITY, POLITICS OF PLEASURE affected other areas of their practice — their art work, happenings, and carefully cultivated public personas — with an intrinsic theatricality. Just as the theatrical pervaded their works, their art aesthetics influenced the direction of Japanese theater, dance, and stage design. The artists’ self-conscious theatricality was meant to draw attention to their utterances (and actions) and to engage viewers and listeners in the performances. Indeed, Mavo artists believed that their theatrical works were completed only when experienced by an audience. And Mavo relied on audience response to sustain its social position as an artistic avant-garde. Thus, although the group professed to abhor the gadan, its approbation established Mavo’s actions as significant in the Japanese art world. Similarly, the Japanese consumer-subject who desired and purchased Mavo’s image in the market of mass culture established the value of the group’s public performance. The theatrical and performative were equally effective for displaying the mechanisms of artistic representation, bringing to light what J. L. Austin has termed, in regard to language, as the “descriptive fallacy.”^ The dramatic presentation of Mavo’s art work, particularly the reproduction of art work in photographs, called attention to how the artist could control the viewer’s experience of art objects. Techniques of distortion, exaggeration, and absurdity were consciously deployed to highlight the act of presentation itself, to draw attention to mean- ing as distinct from mimesis. The theatrical, at its most effective, challenged the deceptive transparency of naturalistic representation by replacing it with a self-reflexive construction. Many Mavo artists designed theatrical stage sets and costumes and produced, directed, and acted in plays. They also produced various performances outside the theater, sometimes in conjunction with their art exhibitions. Desiring to eradicate artificial boundaries between the arts, Mavo envisioned a “total” theater, a comprehensive artistic-theatrical experience that would incorporate all the visual arts while completely engulfing the spectator, thus blurring the line between actor and audience.^ The blurring was extended to the line between the world of the theater and the world of the everyday. By bringing elements and themes of everyday life into their performances, as well as theatricalizing aspects of daily life, Mavo- Sanka artists hoped to show the fluid relation between the “real” or “real daily life” (gen- jitsuljitsu seikatsu) and the dramatic environment of the theater. The great importance the Mavo-Sanka circle of artists ascribed to theater and performance is attested by their voluminous writings on theater-related topics and their sizable corpus of dramatic literary texts — the title of Murayama’s memoirs. Theatrical Autobiography, was cer- tainly no coincidence. While many of Mavo’s plays went unperformed on the stage, they were still performative as literature, producing an illocutionary force in the reader compa- rable to that elicited from the theater audience. It was around this time that plays came to seem a legitimate expressive literary genre, even apart from their performance. The play texts by group members exhibited a range of new dramatic techniques and strategies, reflecting the monumental changes in theater occurring in Japan and abroad. By the first decade of the twentieth century, Japanese artists were being inundated with information about new developments in European and Russian dance and theater. Contact with these new ideas in- spired changes in performance and stage design as well as inestimably broadening the bound- aries of the theater.^ Mavo artists became particularly captivated by the expressive potential of the human body, exploring uninhibited, sensual body movement in their work. This interest in bodily liber- ation was one manifestation of the group’s basic concern for individual autonomy. This in- terest also intensified the exploration of sexual desire and physical gratification, a quest that came to permeate the artists’ work. Promoting individual assertion of bodily liberation, car- nal desire, and self-satisfaction had profound social and political implications in modern Japan. Pleasure was a deeply political issue; its emphasis on individualism was considered ir- rational and selfish, running counter to Japan’s official ethos of rationalization, the national collective, and self-abnegation. Mavo’s and Sanka’s theatrical experimentation reflected the artists’ equation of artistic ex- pression with a quest for sexual satisfaction, most notably through autoerotic activity. They repeatedly referred to masturbation or onanism as a metaphor for art making. Such sexual activities were sharply criticized by state officials, psychologists, and health experts as anti- thetical to a progressive, productive, and, most important, “normal” society. The legitimacy of pleasure (kydraku) and the social implications of pleasure-seeking, pejoratively labeled he- donism (kyorakushugi), were hotly debated. Therefore, insofar as Mavo’s work affirmed the body, and bodily and material pleasure, it was deeply subversive, arousing the widespread fear among certain Japanese intellectuals that the new liberation, in conjunction with the transformed conditions of modernity, indicated moral decadence and could lead only to sexual and material hedonism. Performance, Production, and Stage Design The point of entry for many artists into the world of the theater was the designing of the stage environment. The art of stage design, which had become a recognized modern artis- tic field in Japan only after the turn of the century, was the first step toward constructing a synthetic — or total theater — experience. Like the development of the play form as an au- tonomous literary genre, stage design also became a distinct area of artistic production. Evi- dence of this trend is the appearance of new terms such as butai bijiitsti (stage art) and gekijo bijutsuka (theater artist) as well as the sponsorship of stage design exhibitions. Techniques in stage design also filtered into the realm of the commodity, not only in art exhibitions at department stores, but in the use of parallel aesthetic strategies for show window display. 2 1 9 THEATER, THEATRICALITY, POLITICS OF PLEASURE Conceptions of the spectacular environment extended well beyond the walls of the theater. Murayama, who had played a central role in other areas ol artistic practice, did the same in the theorizing of stage design and theatrical production in the 1920s and 1930s. He con- ceived of the stage not merely as a backdrop to the action of the play, but as actively involved in shaping the audience’s perception of the performance. He rejected the notion of repro- ducing a setting, instead seeing the stage as an abstract three-dimensional construction, lib- erated from the literal content of the play. His inspirations for stage design were those that influenced other areas of his work, and he often quoted Kurt Schwitters’s concept of the “MERZ-stage” (originally articulated in Kassak’s journal MA)\ Absolutely opposite from drama and opera, all the parts of Merz-stage works are mutu- ally linked together and cannot be pulled apart. ... It can only be experienced at the theater. Until now, when acting a play, people separated the stage [design], the text, and the musical score. They labored over these works separately and the [results] gave plea- sure separately. The Merz-stage fuses all these elements, and understands the compre- hensive work that is created.^ Murayama’s set for Hijikata Yoshi’s December 1924 production of Georg Kaiser’s From Morning ’til Midnight at the Tsukiji Little Theater radically diverged from any sets previ- ously designed in Japan (Fig. 117).^ A three-story structure with numerous irregular angles partitioned the stage into seven discrete sections. Murayama’s set was architectural and bulky, a veritable Biihnenarchitektnr (stage architecture) — to use the term popularized by the Rus- sian designer Erik Gollerbakh — rather than a flat stage with two-dimensional vertical back- drops.^ The theater director Osanai Kaoru heralded Murayama’s work as the first Japanese “constructivist stage design.” He called it “constructivist” not merely because of its style, but also because it enhanced the play’s performative dynamism and, augmented by the dramatic use of lighting, incorporated the actors’ movements and actions in the spatial design. Glar- ifying this point, Osanai stated, “construction is not decoration.”''^ Japanese commercial de- signers immediately drew connections between the space of the stage and a store’s show win- dow, adapting the “constructivist” aesthetic to dramatic three-dimensional displays. Mavo’s theatrical designs, with their multitiered architectonic structures skillfully partitioned to frame actions, were easily adapted to the display of commodities in show windows." The critic Hasegawa Kinokichi was ambivalent about Murayama’s stage design, although he expressed great admiration for the entire production ol From Morning ’til Midnight, stat- ing that his eyes “sparkled at the surprises” (me wa kyoi ni kagayaiteita). He complained, however, that the set “repressed [one’s] sense of being a spectator,” because its stark artificial- ity did not allow for a suspension of disbelief At the same time, the narrowness and off- kilter orientation of the stage space made him uneasy. The use of multiple sections of the stage and the constant shifts in the location of the scenes were complicated, making the staging difficult to follow. In the end, he concluded that the majesty of the stage design over- powered the drama. He felt that the play had been enacted for the purpose of displaying the stage design, rather than the other way around.'^ Given Murayama’s devotion to design, this was probably not far from the truth. It is clear from other critical responses that the sheer massiveness and complexity of the design left a strong impression on viewers.'^ And its complexity is precisely what makes it so difficult to describe. The entire set was painted in alternating sections of black and white, which served to abstract further the shapes and emphasized the three-dimensional bulk of the structure. There was almost nothing in the stage design that evoked the specific content or particular setting of the play. The design incorporated black, seemingly random vertical and horizontal motifs of fish and turtles boldly superimposed on the white surfaces of the structure. Bits of fragmented text in Japanese phonetic and pictographic alphabets as well as letters from the Latin alphabet spelled out the name of the play and several other phrases such as “look at this person!” Some of this text was lit from behind with electric lights. Two rows of lights undulated in ribbon-like strings across the top of the stage. The inverted num- ber “oooi” sat prominently on a horizontal beam surrounded by an assortment of zigzag- ging abstract shapes. The repeated use of diagonal lines and irregularly shaped, often slanted forms gave a sense of uneasiness and instability to the structure. The design exuded play- fulness and caprice, strikingly at odds with the serious and saturnine elements of the play. The effectiveness with which the stage divided and framed the action is evident in pho- tographs of the performances. Dramatic lighting intensified the effects and isolated the ac- tion. Colors set off discrete areas of the stage: the bank was white, the domestic interior yel- low, the dance space purple, the hotel green, the ambulance red, the horse race and snowy areas blue. It is clear from the photographs that portions of the stage were alternately cov- ered by draped fabrics and exposed during different parts of the play, demonstrating the tremendous adaptability of the set design. On the lower right, a triangular cutout served as a desk for the bank teller’s window (Fig. ii8).'^ A small space on the lower left with cush- ioned seats and a round table evoked the intimacy of a booth in a cabaret and was used for a romantic rendezvous (Fig. 119). The right portion of the second tier was used to portray the protagonist’s home (Fig. 120). Murayama aimed to demonsttate the aesthetic link between all areas of theatrical pro- duction: play text, stage design, costumes, and music. In this production of From Morning ’til Midnight, he also designed the costumes and most of the props. The main figure, for example, often appeared in a long coat with bold black and white vertical stripes corre- sponding to the patterns of the stage. The actors’ faces were dramatically accentuated in black and white make-up with a strong use of black around the eyes, creating a sense of pathos to 221 117 (BELOW) Sakamoto Manshichi, photo- graph of Murayama Tomoyoshi's stage design for Georg Kaiser's From Morning 'til Midnight (Von Morgens bis Mitternachts; in Japanese, Asa kara yonaka made), performed at the Tsukiji Little Theater, December 1 924, The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Waseda University. 118 (OPPOSITE TOP) Lower right section of stage set during scenes from From Morning 'til Midnight. 119 (OPPOSITE MIDDLE) Lower left section of set during scene from From Morning 'til Midnight 120 (OPPOSITE BELOW) Middle tier of set during scene from From Morning 'tii Midnight i- ^ i JL 1 r> I ' [t II i • : 4 ' < 4!_,. i, ■P! 1 mwnw THEATER. THEATRICALITY. mirror the emotional anguish of the play. The theater scholar]. M. Ritchie describes Georg Kaiser’s play as a “solipsistic drama” in which all the characters mirror and reflect the dilem- mas of the main protagonist, a bank cashiet, who is suddenly made aware of “life” through the catalyst of a mysterious Italian woman and decides to steal a large sum of money from the bank to begin a “quest for fulfillment.” The cashier’s character is repeatedly transformed throughout the play, continually awakening to his potential as a human being, producing a new beginning (Aufbruch) in his life.*^ Murayama felt that the largely conceptual basis of Kaiser’s plays offered the producet-de- signer considerable room for creative interpretation. Expressionist drama was often abstract, not attempting to project an illusion of reality on stage; it rejected mimesis, emphasizing presentation over representation. The situations presented were often extreme and exagger- ated, designed to show characters breaking the bonds of normalcy. Suggestion was valued over explication, with the resultant open-ended meaning to be completed by the viewer. Im- provisation was emphasized over preparation. Many expressionist dramatists ttied to move away from an overreliance on words, seeking to reinfuse drama with the expressive elements of dance, mime, gesture, color, line, and rhythm. These were combined with dramatic body and face painting and dynamic lighting.'^ Japanese critics acknowledged Kaiser’s prominent position in the German expressionist movement and praised his uncanny ability to turn a steely eye toward the chaotic and frag- mented conditions of modern life, somehow rendering them understandable.'^ Kaiser ap- pealed to Murayama in part because he skillfully employed elements of the grotesque in his plays, distorting and exaggerating situations and caricaturing his characters to create a the- atrical realm unquestionably outside the normal.^® Murayama also appreciated Kaiser’s un- relentingly severe examination of human behavior. Mavo artists’ stress on self-awareness and individual action accorded with Kaiser’s belief that an individual’s choice determines his or her future. It was fitting that Murayama should make his grand debut as the stage designer for a play by Georg Kaiser.^' For inspiration in his stage design, Murayama once again turned to the writings of Kandin- sky. In his 1924 collection of essays on contemporary art (Genzai no geijutsti to mirai no gei- jutsu), Murayama translated and commented on several of Kandinsky’s abstract ruminations on the theater, including his 1909 Biihnenkomposition (stage composition) entitled “Yellow Sound” (Der gelbe Klang), which was published in the Blaue Reiter Almanac along with its prefatory essay, “On Stage Composition” (Uber Biihnenkomposition).^^ For Kandinsky, drama consisted of innet “soul vibrations,” first in the artist, and then, if the drama was effec- tive, mirroring vibrations in the audience. Principally interested in nonverbal communica- tion, Kandinsky creatively juxtaposed colors, sounds, and abstract forms to produce these vibrations. In “Yellow Sound” he united several modes of visual and aural expression into a synthetic or “synaesthetic” stage composition. Incorporating Kandinsky’s emphasis on the centrality of color and form in creating dra- matic effects, Murayama used quickly rotating red and yellow boards to produce the color orange on the stage in his rendition of Kaiser’s play Juana, staged in September 1925 by the Kokoroza theater company. And, reflecting on Kandinsky’s rhetoric of “soul vibrations,” Mu- rayama stated that this rotating device for creating color was also meant to create the sensa- tion of speed and intensity in viewers. Murayama also experimented with Kandinsky’s no- tion of disharmony, by combining costumes from two radically different cultures and time periods. Realizing this was a leap that was bound to shock the audience, he explained his reasons in an article preceding the actual production. Murayama put the two central male characters in Kaiser’s play, Juan and Jorge, in Japanese-style attire {haori coats, hakama Tpums, and bare feet) with their hair in Japanese topknots (chonmage), while Juana, the female whom the men fight over, was blond and wore a silver eighteenth-century Western gown. Stating that “picturesque beauty is not appropriate for this play,” Murayama set up a contrast in time and place through disparate modes of dress to create a productive disharmony. He explained that he hoped to bring out the ponderous severity of the play. One of his tech- niques was to instruct the actors to slow down the dialogue, particularly in the first half of the production, to give a sense of foreboding, as if “a storm [were] coming.” Cellos and violins in the background mimicked the singing of birds. Murayama described his carefully choreo- graphed staging as an awkward dance that drew attention to the actors’ expressive bodies. The developments in Russian theater before and after the revolution, like German ex- pressionism, had a significant impact on stage design in Japan. Prior to 1917, Russian artists, particularly those active in the futurist movement, were already experimenting with stage design and costumes. Afterward, they began to see the stage as a “public laboratory” in which “to explore and disseminate new aesthetic ideas.” Over 3,000 theatrical organizations were formed within five years of the establishment of the Soviet Union. Artists felt that the the- ater offered broader access than the print media did for the general public, many of whom were still illiterate. The theater as an artistic arena could effectively synthesize drama, dance, music, and design. Like German expressionist drama, Russian theater emphasized expres- sion over mimesis.^'^ Some of the most prominent theater designers and producers working in the Soviet Union were also known in Japan, including Alexandra Exter, Vsevolod Mey- erhold, Alexander Vesnin, Georgii Yakulov, Alexander Yanov, and Alexander Tairov. Almost as soon as information on the new Soviet culture became available in print it flooded into Japan. Japanese intellectuals displayed great curiosity about the experimental implementa- tion of socialism, particularly in art, literature, and other forms of artistic expression. No- 225 THEATER, THEATRICALITY. POLITICS OF PLEASURE bori Shomu’s writings were formative for Japanese perceptions of Soviet culture. His series of short studies, Shin Roshiya panfiiretto (New Russia pamphlet), included a 1924 issue on theater and dance entitled Kakiimeiki no engeki to buyo (Theater and dance in the period of revolution) in which twenty photographs of recent Russian work were reproduced. Nobori identified Meyerhold and Tairov as the two pillars of modern Russian theater because they served the new revolutionary purposes of theater art. They conveyed the tempo and energy of the revolution without reproducing previous bourgeois forms. They both believed that performers should not merely act their roles but express them through movement, rhythm, mimicry, and other techniques. The actor’s entire body was mobilized for the drama.^^ The Russian artist Alexandra Exter, moreover, went so far as to paint actors’ bodies for her productions.^*^ In his “New Russia pamphlet” study on theater and dance, Nobori also discussed Vla- dimir Tatlin’s production of Alexander Khlebnikov’s last work, ZangeziP In this 1923 pro- duction, Tatlin applied constructivist principles, particularly faktura, to theatrical design. For example, part of the stage was covered with tree bark to enhance the design’s tactile char- acter. Tatlin was among the first to use multiple tiers and platforms, which soon became a defining characteristic of constructivist stage design. The stage was also movable, adding to the sense of dynamism. Furthermore, during the play, a projector repeatedly threw shadows on the stage to intensify the action and to enliven the visual impression. Like Murayama, Tatlin created constructivist costumes, face masks, and props that coordinated with the over- all design. Mavo’s experiments with the total theater environment, creating effects that were visual, aural, tactile, and even olfactory, were part of a worldwide revolution in theatrical de- sign and production. The Tsukiji Little Theater Mavo, with innumerable other young avant-gardists, entered the theatrical world through the open door of the Tsukiji Little Theater, established in June 1924 by Hijikata Yoshi and Osanai Kaorti.^^ The theater and its troupe were in the vanguard, producing Western-style Japanese productions known as shingeki (new theater). Osanai, the older of the two, had al- ready formed the Free Theater (Jiyu Gekijo), an experimental group, in 1909 and had trav- eled abroad from 1912 to 1913, visiting Russia, Scandinavia, Germany, France, and England. Osanai was most taken with Russian drama and strongly drawn to the work of Maxim Gorky and Anton Chekhov because of their concern with the real conditions of daily life.^° Hi- jikata was Osanai’s disciple. Independently wealthy, with an aristocratic background, Hi- jikata had the resources to fund the theater’s unprofitable ventures. Hijikata had studied in Europe with the director and scenic artist Carl Heine from 1922 to 1923, returning to Japan upon news of the Great Kanto Earthquake. He traveled back through Russia, where he saw a revelatory production of the director Vsevolod Meyerholds Earth in Turmoil in Moscow.^' Unlike Osanai, however, Hijikata was more fascinated with the abstraction and artifice of Russian drama than with its attempts to represent real life. He reminisced about his first viewing of Meyerholds work: The unadorned hall, the empty stage lit only by spotlights, a sidecar running through the audience, the actors’ stark movements — everything startled me and took my breath away. ... I ielt that here was the real sense of theatrical liberation that I, who had ques- tioned “naturalistic” and “impressionistic” styles ot directing, had been seeking. ... 1 was simply overwhelmed by Meyerhold’s ingenious and novel direction. I felt that all the years of theater study that I spent in Japan and Germany were no match for what I saw in Moscow that night. The year after the earthquake he and Osanai formed the Tsukiji theater company, dedicated to translating, interpreting, and producing works by Western playwrights.^^ Osanai called the theater a “laboratory,” a place to experiment with new theatrical idioms. Thanks to Hijikata’s funding, Tsukiji’s new theater building seated 500 people and included some of the most modern theatrical equipment in Japan. Moreover, the untraditional raised seating meant that the stage was visible from every seat in the house. In general, Tsukiji presented wotks with a social message, influenced by Scandinavian playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg and Russians like Chekhov and Konstantin Stanislavsky.^*^ Of the two directors, Hijikata was more interested in the so- ciopolitical role of the theater. Osanai, on the other hand, despite his interest in naturalist theater, was more concerned with maintaining a “pure” theatrical art, unfettered by direct social polemics or what he called “ideology theater.” Matsumoto Shinko has argued that more than anything Osanai strove to impart “artistic delight” to his audiences. After Osanai’s death in 1928, the troupe broke into two factions. Hijikata formed the New Tsukiji Theater Troupe (Shin Tsukiji Gekidan), concerned with sociopolitical issues, which became an in- strumental branch of the proletarian theater movement. “Sanka in the Theater” The most memorable experimental theater work produced by Mavo and its cohorts was the collaborative revue “Sanka in the Theater,” described briefly at the beginning of this chap- ter.^® Performers were quoted in the press prior to the event saying that the more the audi- ence might protest, the more successful they would consider the production. Yoshida Ken- kichi explained that Sanka’s theatrical extravaganza reflected the cacophony of daily life.^^ 227 THEATER, THEATRICALITY. POLITICS OF PLEASURE The evening, designed more to provoke than to please, provided entertainment, with shock and delight commingled. “Sanka in the Theater” consisted of twelve unrelated pieces with interludes during which actors would run out to shake the audience members’ hands. The acts ranged in length and complexity, but little is known about most performances beyond their titles. Fortunately the script for Yanase Masamu’s comic play (mangeki) “+- + - + -x^ = Kyubi” has survived in its entirety.^^ In this drama without words, Yanase employed an array of movements, sounds, and smells (combined with dramatic lighting) to express the principal action. The play un- folded in a disjointed non-natrative fashion, denying any logical or causal progression. Yanase defined his characters as types rather than as distinct individuals: a worker (rodosha), a mil- itarist (miritarisuto), a capitalist (shihonka), a shadow man (kage no otoko), a missionary (senkyoshi), an official scholar (goydgakiisha), and so forth. Each character’s movements were described in terms of a particular animal. The shadow man, played by Yanase’s Ta7'iemaku hito colleague Sasaki Takamaru, was to move like a nim- ble bat. Murayama, appearing as the “beautiful but sadistic dancer,” was to move either lightly like a butterfly or like a duck, accentuating the physical presence of the actor. Five worker characters were described by their distinct movements and also by vatious colors. Worker F, played by the well-known cartoon artist Shimokawa ITekoten, was a pale copper-red and had to move like a mountain storm or like a bear. Fiis pregnant wife, played by Shibuya Osamu, was described as dirty and noisy. About to give birth, she moved like a turtle or a pig. Yabe’s character, the militarist, had to move like a wolf Sumiya, as the missionary, moved like a surprised fox and Kambara, as the official scholar, like a monkey. Several examples of stage actions serve to demonstrate Yanase’s skillful use of abstraction — of color, lighting, movement, gesture, smells, and sounds as dramatic devices. As the cur- tain silently opened, the dancer twirled around the room. A worker entered angrily, and his wife stuck her face through the window on the set. The dancer then held his nose as if sens- ing a bad smell. After several other unrelated actions, smoke began to waft through the win- dow, exuding the unpleasant smell of burned rice. All the while a “shadow-casting machine” threw shadows onto the walls. The dancer began to dance wildly. A train whistle blew. The scholar, soldier, and capitalist mounted the stage and walked across it as if drunk. Workers appeared carrying signs with the symbols for plus and minus. The actions continued in this manner, increasing in intensity but never clearly relating to one another. As Kato Tliroko has noted, there was a tenuous relationship between the script and the actual performance, with actors tending to improvise.'^^ Yanase’s script was merely a point of departure. Most of the Sanka performances did not require rehearsal, since the works were not about skill or mastery so much as about improvisation and spontaneous expression. Still, a run- through was held at Nakahara Minoru’s Gallery Kudan, primarily to practice Murayamas 121 (BELOW) Murayama Tomoyoshi’s “Prostitute Giving Birth to a ChiW” (Ko 0 umu inbaifu), Gallery Kudan, May 1924. Rehearsal photograph. From left to right: Yoshida Kenkichi, Shibuya Osamu, Yanase Masamu, Sumiya Iwane, and Murayama, the director, kneeling with script in hand. In “Chibigami harami onna” (Short-haired pregnant woman), Yorozu choho, May 30, 1 925 (am. ed.), 5. Photograph courtesy of Omuka Toshiharu. 122 (ABOVE) Murayama Tomoyoshi's “Prostitute Giving Birth to a Child” (Ko o umu inbaifu) performed as part of “Sanka in the Theater," May 30, 1925. Performance photograph. In “Mite wakaranu oshibai” (Play that you watch and don't understand), Hochi shinbun, May 31, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 1 1 . Photograph courtesy of Omuka Toshiharu. play Prostitute Giving Birth to a Child (Ko o umu inbaifu), which was supposerdly the most “play-like” piece in the entire evening.^^ A photograph of the rehearsal shows Shibuya Os- amu (standing second from the left) as the prostitute, with a large pillow under his clothes to simulate the woman’s pregnant condition (Fig. iii). He wore a dress stuffed with news- paper to indicate breasts but refused to shave his mustache, thereby drawing attention to the masquerade. Little is known about the content of this play by Murayama, except that it began with a regional folk dance song (yagibushi). A newspaper boy appeared and was followed by a very pregnant prostitute wearing pink clothing, who suddenly fell to the ground, simulating la- bor with loud groans and convulsive movements. The baby finally emerged, stillborn. De- spite the seemingly morbid theme, it was at this point that the drama took a comical tutn, as Hve or six rubber dolls suspended from a bamboo rod in the air portrayed the ascension of the baby to heaven. This scene was particularly popular with the audience, who were de- scribed in reviews as choking with laughter. It was characterized as “mad” and “totally fan- tastic.” The single photograph of the performance appearing in the Hochi shinbtm (Fig. 122) 229 THEATER. THEATRICALITY, POLITICS OF PLEASURE showed this scene, with an unidentified male figure standing in a long black gown-like cos- tume looking up at five baby figures dangling in the air.'^^ Mavo and Sanka artists repeatedly invoked the prostitute, representing her — unlike artists of the Edo period who often portrayed courtesans in eroticized, aestheticized, and idealized images — as marginalized, as such figures actually were in modern Japan. The prostitute, like the masochist, the sadist, and Mavo artists (as they would have the audience believe), func- tioned on the periphery of normal Japanese society, part of a deviant underclass lurking in the shadows. The prostitute here gives birth, but the birth, like her behavior, is presented as abnormal and the child dies. Mavo artists’ frequent references to prostitution played with and subverted notions of social marginalization — in their works the margins were empow- ered through self-identification with the aberrant. Mizue recorded responses to “Sanka in the Theater” in a survey that questioned individ- uals prominent in artistic and literary circles about both the performance and the concur- rent art exhibition at Matsuzakaya. While most respondents had not seen the performance, several who had gave interesting responses. Somiya Ichinen expressed respect for the group’s extreme posture and pioneering effort. NishidaTakeo noted the mutually influential nature of the two endeavors, remarking on the theatricalization of the art work and the pictorial- ization of the theater. He thought the Sanka production would surely cause waves in the “theater establishment” (gekidan). Sasaki Takamaru, a writer in the proletarian literature move- ment who participated in “Sanka in the Theater,” answered that he could not help seeing Sanka’s work as a game and implored the members to think more seriously about the future organization of such productions. Still, he claimed to feel great satisfaction with this partic- ular theatrical production because it met his desire to destroy the current modes of Japanese theater. Generally people were impressed by Sanka’s energy, although two respondents dis- approved of the “masturbatory” character of the work, perhaps referring to the artists’ seem- ing lack of interest in anything beyond stimulating themselves.^^ Somewhat dismissively and without further elaboration, Watanabe Daito commented, “when Western flowers are planted in Japan, the color changes and the scent disappears. Among the most memorable elements of the production was the dramatic recitation of prose and poetry.^^ One technique was to use nonsensical or non-narrative language, exag- geratedly speeding up and slowing down the recitation. In Europe, Kurt Schwitters was well known for such theatrical poetry, reading it at cafes and cabarets, where, according to John Elderfield, he used varied intonations that were either “soft or loud, unaccented or emphatic, demanding or pleading, fearful or fearless, pathetic or heroic.” Schwitters also produced en- tirely phonetic poems. Many Mavo-Sanka theatrical strategies were based on the provoca- tive theater and cabaret productions of futurism and dada, which were themselves intimately connected. Predicated on chance and often becoming unruly and violent, futurist and dada performances were in all respects theaters of surprise. Writing on Marinetti’s “theater of surprise,” Murayama noted that the futurist consid- ered surprise itself an art; the sensation was produced by dynamic improvisation.^^ Marinetti argued that in transforming the variety theater into one of surprise, “one must completely destroy all logic,” exaggerate “luxuriousness in strange ways, multiply contrasts, and make the absurd and the unlifelike complete masters of the stage.” Surprise had to occur not only on stage but in the minds of the audience as well. It had to flood out onto the street. He de- scribed additional tactics of provocation to elicit this response: Introduce surprise and the need to move among the spectators of the orchestra, boxes, and balcony. Some random suggestions: spread a powerful glue on some of the seats, so that the male and female spectator will stay glued down and make everyone laugh. . . . Sell the same ticket to ten people: traffic jam, bickering, and wrangling — offer free tickets to gentlemen or ladies who are notoriously unbalanced, irritable, or eccentric and likely to provoke uproars with obscene gestures, pinching women, or other freakishness. Sprin- kle the seats with dust to make people itch and sneeze, etc.^^ The dada performances at Hugo Ball’s Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich during World War I were equally provocative — a mosaic of music, dance, art theory, manifestos, poetry, paintings, costumes, and masks. These experimental performances, which could easily have included “Sanka in the Theater,” were the most modern version of the Gesamtkunstiuerk (the total work of art), where music, drama, and spectacle were all brought into one arena. The theatricalization of artistic practice is evident in all areas of Mavo’s work. The group’s activities, infused with elements of the theatrical and the performative, were all the more conspicuous, enabling them to manipulate the public’s perceptions outside the theater. The artists increasingly took to the streets to perform their protests. Their “Moving Exhibition Welcoming Works Rejected from Nika,” their serial traveling cafe exhibitions, the street ex- hibitions (gaito-ten), and the 1925 Bunto street rallies heralding the new Literary Party move- ment with colorful sandwich-board signs and a boisterous street parade (of which Murayama was a central instigator) are just a few examples. The group used street corners, arenas of mass media, or the exhibition space for its performative speech acts, in which enunciation constituted the act of creation and, in this case, insurrection. Mavo’s barrack-decoration projects are one of the best instances of transforming the street into a stage for theatricalizing artistic practice, with design, theater, and sociopolitical con- cerns converging. By incorporating the urban space of Tokyo in its architectural construc- tions and decorations, Mavo drew passersby into a relationship with its outlandish and ag- 23 1 THEATER. THEATRICALITY, POLITICS OF PLEASURE gressive structures. Mavo’s members theatricalized the everyday and made manifest the spaces that would otherwise have remained undifferentiated. The barrack projects drew attention to the constructed nature of the environment. The artist’s self-reflexive mediation in the presentation or representation of his work is a recurring theme in Mavo art work. Theatricality highlighted this involvement. For exam- ple, Karo Masao’s Wall Hanging (Kabekake), reproduced in Mavo no. i (see Fig. 33), showed the back of a person’s head and a disembodied hand, presumably that of the artist, extend- ing into the picture frame as if to present the work.^^ This theatrical presentation style is also seen in a photograph on the cover of Abe Sadao and Ariizumi Yuzuru’s journal Koseiha (Constructivism), published in October 1926. A disembodied hand similarly extends into the picture, dramatically presenting Ariizumi’s frenetic collage materials (Fig. 123).^*^ Imme- diately to the right of this outstretched hand are two lines of text: “We thoroughly declare war on art!!” In both of these works, the artist’s hand serves as a synecdochical and metaphor- 123 Ariizumi Yuzuru, Construction of Door to My Room (Watashi no shitsu e no tobira no kosei), on cover of Koseiha (Con- structivism), October 1 926. Kurashiki City Art Museum, ical sign for his role in mediating between the viewer and the work. The accompanying text reinforces the assertion of this intervention. Performance, Modern Dance, and the Body Use of the theatrical and the performative fused the artist’s body with the production. In- terest in the body as expressive tool was stimulated in part by modern dance. Murayama first became captivated by it during his trip to Germany, when he saw the spellbinding perfor- mances of Mary Wigman in Dresden and the young dancer Niddy Impekoven at the Deutsches Theater run by Max Reinhardt in Berlin. He arrived in Germany during the ex- plosion of expressionist dance known as Ausdruckstanz (interpretive dance). The main ob- jective of Wigman’s “choreographic modernism” was to make dance an autonomous lan- guage, a construction she referred to as “absolute dance. In an article entitled “Dansu no honshitsu” (The essence of dance), Murayama related the overwhelming emotions he experienced upon seeing dance performances while abroad. Wigman appeared under a fixed spotlight, wrapped in a silver costume, moving somberly to Beethoven’s Symphony no. 5 in a dance identified as “Heroic Parade.” With dramatic make- up that made her already gaunt face look like a skeleton, Wigman’s snake-like body seemed to extend from the tip of her fingers to the ends of her toes, moving with sublime elegance. Occasionally she would close her eyes as if in resignation and lower herself, crawling on the floor. Murayama was impressed by the tremendous solemnity and power of Wigman’s work, which he found both forcefully expressive yet highly refined. Wigman’s work also satisfied his quest for incompleteness, for open-endedness. In fact, her work was so powerful that Murayama felt that this one encounter was enough to entirely change his way of thinking about dance — he never saw her perform again. By contrast, Murayama attended innumerable performances by Niddy Impekoven. A child prodigy, Impekoven was described as having an ethereal stage presence. Murayama quoted a statement attributed to Felix Hollander, a stage director at the Deutsches Theater, saying that Impekoven possessed a profound and powerful magic, easily able to spellbind the viewer with her bewitching body, and in particular with her extraordinary range of facial move- ments. Dramatic-looking, with high cheekbones; large melancholy eyes; and a pale, almost translucent, skin, Impekoven, it was said, could create dynamic forms on stage merely by manipulating the line of her mouth. The power of her performance was not lost on Mu- rayama, who by his own admission dissolved into tears during her show.^^ Murayama adored Impekoven’s intuitive, emotive response to music, her movement unrestrained by prearranged forms and direction. Impekoven’s approach contrasted with the strictly predetermined forms (kata) of Japanese dance and theater, which put little emphasis on individual interpretation. 233 THEATER, THEATRICALITY. POLITICS OF PLEASURE In expressionist dance, Murayama found an absolute affirmation of bodily, and by exten- sion sexual, liberation.*^® Murayama saw a variety of dance performances during his time abroad. While attend- ing the Dtisseldorf Congress of Progressive Artists, he witnessed an impromptu dadaist per- formance by the Dutch couple Theo and Nelly Van Doesberg, who sang and yelled while dancing half-naked on tables and chairs.®' The combination of expression and provocation fundamental to expressionist and dadaist performance pervaded Murayama’s, and later Mavo’s, approach to drama. Expressionist dance clearly inspired Murayama’s emphasis on body movement in his per- formances. He exploited the body’s potential in a range of highly suggestive moves that trans- formed the dancer into a living sculpture. Gesture was a wordless means of communication, transcending other more direct and rational means of discourse. Japanese modern dance was just beginning to emerge around this time, and Murayama became one of the founding figures in the field. Another famous proponent of expressive dance in Japan was Ishii Baku, who traveled and performed abroad.®^ Ishii conceived of dance as poetry, coining the term buyoshi (dance poetry), which he defined as “poetry that must be [created] through bodily move- ment” (nikiitai no tmdd). He sought to express intense human emotions and desires like melancholy, despair, and hunger through symbolic movements and gestures. Like Murayama, he also championed the body as an expressive tool. While developed independently, Ishii’s language of dance corresponded closely with the work of Mary Wigman. After performing to great acclaim in Berlin, he was asked to dance one of his signature pieces, “The Caught Man” (Torawaretaru hito), in the German movie Road to Beauty and Power with Wigman and her teacher Rudolf Laban in 1923.®^ In Japan, modern dance quickly grew in popularity; Japanese dancers appeared regularly in flashy two-page photographic spreads in mass market periodicals. An example from the November 1924 Asahi graph shows the married couple Takata Masao and Seiko, who had studied in the United States, exhibiting aspects of their “poetical” (shiteki) dances.®^ Around this time in Japan Western-style cabarets and dancing revues emerged that re- sembled the performances of the American Tiller girls. But unlike interpretative dance, with its free-form expression, the chorus line dances seemed to imitate the mechanical movements of industrial machinery. In fact, the Tiller girls, dubbed Girlkidtnr in Germany, were often mockingly associated with Taylorism, the “scientific” production system promoted by Fred- erick Taylor.®® Murayama’s dance performances, in contrast, displayed a self-conscious aware- ness of free-form body movement. In fact, all Mavo art work incorporated aspects of the body, from hair and performative protest to references to sexual desire and collage elements with tactile qualities. Murayama spoke about dance in terms of love. He stated that the au- dience should feel as if it was being caressed by the dancer.®^ 124 Murayama Tomoyoshi and Okada Tatsuo performing the “Dance That Cannot Be Named" (Na no tsukerarenai odori) at the Tokyo Imperial University Christian Youth Hall, June 28, 1924. Photograph in “Na no tsukerarenai odori,” Chuo shinbun, June 29, 1 924 (a.m, ed.), 2. Photograph courtesy of Omuka Toshiharu. Few visual records survive of Mavo performances. A handful of still photographs, how- ever, testifies to the rich performative component of Mavo practice. In a dramatic pose pub- lished in Chilo shinbun from their “Dance That Cannot be Named” (Na no tsukerarenai odori), Murayama and Okada Tatsuo wore dark smock-like tunics (Fig. 124). The news ar- ticle accompanying this photograph describes their writhing movements and identifies Takamizawa Michinao as providing the music, playing unusual instruments constructed out of tin cans, a spinning wheel, oil cans, and logs. Takamizawa rubbed these various objects together to produce sounds, calling them “sound constructors,” undoubtedly a reference to the instruments of the same name used by the futurist Luigi Russolo in Italy. There were two types of sound constructor, “wind sound constructors” and “broken instrument sound constructors.” Critics described Murayama and Okada’s dance as unlike any they had ever seen, with the artists moving their bodies freely across the floor, gyrating in response to the rhythm of the music without attention to form or dance convention. Reviews indicate that spectators became extremely excited by this performance, although it is not entirely clear in what manner. 235 THEATER, THEATRICALITY. POLITICS OF PLEASURE Three provocative photographs taken around late 1923 show Murayama, entirely nude, performing a series of expressive gestures and movements in his studio, surrounded by his art works (Figs. 125-127). Most likely, this nude performance was photographically docu- mented for public presentation.^^ In several Mavo performances the artists were nude or partially nude. While little is known about Mavo’s other performances, a surviving photo- graph of three members of the group engaged in some kind of acrobatic act suggests that the theatrical was integral to Mavo’s regular activities (Fig. 128). In it Sumiya and Okada do handstands and Takamizawa is suspended upside down, with only his upper torso and hor- izontally extended arms visible. The figures wear only briefs, and their bodies form an ab- stract composition against a faded backdrop with two-dimensional shapes and the name “Niddy” faintly legible. Sumiya and Okada’s bent legs interlock, creating a series of arches, as Takamizawa’s rigidly suspended body strongly asserts vertical and horizontal axes. The re- sult is a piece of living sculpture, exhibiting the male body in homage to Niddy Impekoven. In the first Sanka exhibition, Kinoshita Shuichiro created two living sculptures, entitled R.G . . . (Fig. 129) and Three Examples of Costume Construction (Kosuchumu kosei san rei). Nakada Sadanosuke’s review of the show described the first piece hyperbolically. Entering the exhibition, Nakada spotted two inanimate figures with their faces painted red, white, and blue sitting before a Lissitzky-like composition that hung on the wall. Nakada thought they bore an uncanny, almost supernatural, resemblance to real people. Suddenly, their bodies began to shake, their eyes blinked, and they stood up and began to move soundlessly about the room. “I nearly fainted,” wrote Nakada. A reviewer from the Yorozu choho, re- sponding to the same event, heralded Kinoshita’s sculpture as a “great transformation” (daikakushin) in zn 7 ^ In Kinoshita’s costume constructions, group members had their faces painted in abstract patterns with small surrealistic animal motifs — of snakes, lizards, and birds. The perform- ers chain-smoked and drank coffee in front of viewers, at one point beckoning to the artist and asking, “Hey, if you’re going to give us coffee, how about a little toast?” Face painting was frequently used around this time in artistic happenings — for example, in David Burliuk’s public appearances and in the theater and films. The Russian futurists Ilya Zdanevich and Mikhail Larionov, known for walking around with Rayonnist designs painted on their faces, issued in 1913 a manifesto entitled “Why We Paint Ourselves”: The new life requires a new community and a new way of propagation. Our self-paint- ing is the first speech to have found unknown truths. . . . We have joined art to life. After the long isolation of artists, we have loudly summoned life and life has invaded art, it is time for art to invade life. The painting of our faces is the beginning of this invasion. 125-127 Murayama dancing nude in his atelier, late 1923-early 1924. Photographs courtesy of Omuka Toshiharu. 128 Mavo acrobatic performance. From left to right: Sumiya Iwane, Okada Tatsuo, and Takamizawa Michinao (hanging). Photograph in Mavo, no. 3 (August 1924). 129 Kinoshita Shuichiro, R.G,.., sculpture performed at the first Sanka exhibition, Matsuzakaya, Ginza, May 1 925. In “Egaita ningen ga kuchi o kiku" (Painted people speak), Yorozu choho, May 21,1 925 (a.m. ed.), 2, Photograph courtesy of Omuka Toshiharu. Of course, dramatic face make-up was also a tradition of Japanese Kabuki theater, and masks were fundamental to No drama. So Japanese artists certainly knew of these techniques. In modern Japanese performances, however, face painting functioned in different ways. In Ki- noshitas living sculpture, for instance, it served as a transformative device, transposing the hu- man body into an art object and signifying that the situation was supranormal. And the di- rect physical incorporation of the artist into the work, moreover, fused him with the production. Theatrical Eroticism Dramatic face painting, as documented in a provocative photograph published in Mavo mag- azine, was used in Mavo’s performance of the Dance of Death, adapted from the German ex- pressionist playwright Frank Wedekind’s 1905 play Death and Devil (Fig. 130). In the per- formance photograph, Murayama sits high above the stage, seemingly suspended in the air above a gathering of mysterious characters, all theatrically posed. Naked from the waist up, he wears a skirt, white stockings, and white women’s pumps. Below him to the right is Kato Masao, dressed in a long frock with bare arms. His face is painted white with black shapes on his cheek, and he leans languidly against the wall seductively smoking a cigarette. To the left of Murayama is Sumiya Iwane in a long coat, brandishing a hammer over the head of Yabashi Kimimaro. Yabashi, in a summer dress, leans forward, his left arm stretched back to the wall. His face is painted entirely white, with bright lipstick emphasizing his mouth. On the ground to the lower right sits Takamizawa Michinao, his nude upper torso entirely painted with abstract patterns. Behind him an unidentifiable figure lies on the ground, embracing Takamizawa passionately with a decorated arm. Sitting to the left is Toda Tatsuo, who leans forward as if about to kiss Takamizawa’s uptilted and white-painted face. The cross-dressing and sensual, suggestive poses make the scene erotic as well as sinis- ter. It anticipates both carnal desire and violence. Mavo artists used theatrical eroticism and sexuality as confrontationally as they employed the language of violence and destruction — as resistance to publicly sanctioned morality and as social criticism. Cross-dressing, a tra- dition in Kabuki since the Edo period, by the Meiji period was sanctioned only in the cir- cumscribed realm of “traditional” theater; moreover, officials tried to sanitize the Kabuki repertoire to conform with “civilized” morality. Like the censors, public officials deemed the open expression of sexuality “injurious to public morals” (fuzokn) because it implied the emancipation of the individual and the recognition of personal satisfaction as threats to na- tional and familial structures. Mavo’s adaptation of work by Frank Wedekind was significant because Wedekind was one of the first German expressionist playwrights who wrote openly of sexuality, masturba- tion, and sexual fantasies. Part of Mavo’s project of expressive freedom related to sexual 239 130 Mavo members performing “Dance of Death" (Totentanz; in Japanese, Shi no buyo) from the third act of Frank Wedekind's 1 905 play Death and Devil (Tod und Teufel; in Japanese, Shi to akuma). Photograph in Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924). National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. liberation, including highlighting sexual behavior that had been designated abnormal. By identifying with the “abnormal,” they subverted the designation, empowered themselves, and drew attention to the hegemonic act of constructing and institutionalizing normality. The common perception of Mavo-Sanka art as promoting unrestrained stimulation, of- ten autoerotic, was the primary reason critics called it “hedonistic” (kydrakushugiteki). The implications of this label deserve further attention. From the late Taisho period, the nature of kyorakushiigi (hedonism) and the sources and legitimacy of personal fulfillment (jujitsu) and pleasure (kyoraku) were widely debated. According to Tanabe Hisao, the modern dis- courses affirming pleasure came into conflict with ascetic morality (kin’yokushugi), bound up with the warrior ethic of the samurai class, which persisted into the Meiji period with the new industrialists, who were of samurai status. They did not feel that an individual’s pleasure took precedence over national concerns, an attitude that, Tanabe argued, made them productive. Greg Pflugfelder, arguing that during the Meiji period there was a “profound reformulation of official discourse surrounding sexuality,” dubbed the new formulation a “discourse of ‘civilized’ morality,” one that sought to bring behavior in line with Judeo-Chris- tian and new psycho-scientific notions. Murobuse Koshin’s assessment that “every step to- ward civilization was a step toward contempt lor the body” (nikutai keibetsu) echoes this opinion. Following quickly on the heels of this philosophical transformation, new tech- nologies developed for “policing the erotic body”; principal among these, according to Pflugfelder, was a centralized constabulary in Japan. Many critics, including Tanabe, argued that an overemphasis on physical pleasure would lead to a dangerous (kiken) life of dissipation.^*^ Countering this view, Mavo artists asserted that desire is a primary human urge, whose expression is essential to individual autonomy. As Maud Lavin has argued in relation to the work of Fiannah Fl5ch, “representations of pleasure” are valuable “for their potential to motivate change through desire.”®* Recogniz- ing the truth of that argument, Mavo artists incorporated nudity, sensuality, and carnal de- sire into their art work and performances. Okada Tatsuo, announcing the construction of his ticket-selling machine to the press, made sure to mention that the artist inside would be naked. Among the most explicit and unrestrained writers in the group, Okada creatively linked physical needs, such as the “primal” urges of hunger and sexual desire, to anatchism and ni- hilism. Fie argued that desire was a necessary emotional and physical condition for any kind of social change: It [is] a mistake to think of stomachs and art problems as separate. . . . There is no de- sire where there are no men. There is no famine where there is no desire. There is no impulse where there is no famine. Where there is no impulse, there are no humans, no daily life, no revolution, and no fights. I must tell you Shaka [Buddha] is a dadaist! A 24 1 THEATER. THEATRICALITY, POLITICS OF PLEASURE very tired nihilist! I must tell you Christ is an anarchist! He requested a transformation of sexual organs from the crucifix.®^ In his text “Daisangd koryd no hi ni” (On the day of the final proof of issue no. 3), Yabashi Kimimaro linked these issues, proclaiming that one should demand revolution as one de- mands alcohol and fulfillment of sexual desire. The revolutionary power of sexual liberation was certainly not lost on anarchist political theorists such as Osugi Sakae, who similarly tied it to social revolution. Sexual liberation was also intrinsic to the women’s liberation move- ment that developed as women gradually moved into the workplace. The assertion of women’s desire and sexual identity, and the equity of men and women as sexual partners, threatened the Japanese social structure. Women’s newly emerging sexuality was sometimes diagnosed by sexologists as “abnormal sexual desire” (hentai seiyoku), and the women themselves were seen as psychologically “abnormal” (hentai). In his article “Kyoraku no igi” (The meaning of pleasure), the dadaist poet Tsuji Jun, a close associate of Murayama and Hagiwara, wrote that because the mind and body were united, freedom of thought implied the liberty to satisfy one’s physical desires. Tsuji con- sidered Confucianism the most socially oppressive ideology, for it demonized those who sought personal fulfillment.^^ A number of Japanese intellectuals roundly criticized the free expression of desire as a social ill related to the rampant individualism and materialism brought on by modernization and Westernization. Modernity was perceived as decadent. Respond- ing to this widespread attitude, the theorist Togawa Shugotsu stated that the perceived “mis- conduct of youth is none other than the discovery of desire” and asked, “Are they really so decadent?” Togawa affirmed the impulse toward self-gratification for the creative energy it generated. Hasegawa Nyozekan, Yanase’s mentor, wrote a long article on the question of “pleasure” (kyoraku), in which he examined the relationship between pleasure and art. Generally speak- ing, he wrote, the term kyoraku was taken to mean the satisfaction of one’s desires through one’s environment. The purest form of pleasure, however, he contended, had nothing to do with the individual’s environment but was generated from within. And even those religious people who felt that morality depended on overcoming or controlling individual desires through strength of mind (kokoro) were in fact advocating a personal pleasure rooted in self-denial. Hasegawa felt that creators/artists (soshokusha) were inherently hedonistic (kyorakuka) be- cause it is intoxicating (tosui) to create illusion in art. Artistic stimulation threw one off bal- ance, producing the sensation and often the behavior of mental illness. He concluded, how- ever, that artists could achieve ultimate pleasure in art only if they incorporated social action into their artistic creations; otherwise, they would be oppressed by their environment.®^ Mavo’s sociopolitical activism expressed through the articulation of desire did not stop at strictly masculine heterosexual, “normal” sexual behavior. On the contrary, by publicly cross-dressing, Mavo members implicitly questioned accepted truths about male and female social roles, subverting the dominant ideology of gender that had become increasingly codified with the formation of the modern nation-state. In this sense, clothing was, to borrow a phrase from Jennifer Robertson, “the means to, and even the substance of, [a] character’s commutable gender.” In her study of gender blurring in modern Japan, Robertson states that “ ‘androg- yny’ . . . [refers] to a ‘surface politics of the body’ [It] involves the scrambling of gender markers — clothes, gestures, speech patterns, and so on — in a way that both undermines the stability of a sex-gender system premised on a male-female dichotomy and retains that di- chotomy by either juxtaposing or blending its elements. Critics and audiences noticed that Mavo artists, particularly Mtirayama, were playing with gender markers in the theatrical performance of their public personas. Yashiro Kanoe, for example, in his review of Murayama’s sensual dance for “Sanka in the Theater,” referred to the dance as a sudden impulse toward androgyny (danjo rydsei) and hermaphroditism ( fti- tanan)P As Donald Roden has convincingly argued, “gender ambivalence” was widespread in Japan and Europe during the interwar years, and was particularly visible in film and the- ater. But Pflugfelder has countered that state officials from the Meiji period on still perceived cross-dressing as a threat because it “added to the atmosphere of the carnivalesque that Meiji officials were bent on containing within the bounds of ‘civilized’ order.” As early as 1873, the Tokyo code of misdemeanors was amended to prohibit cross-dressing, and “police routinely stopped people whose dress violated gender conventions. Similarly, Mavo artists also championed masturbation and onanism ( jitoku and onanii) as asserting the right to self-satisfaction and resisting ideologies of normalcy. It was threat- ening because it might lead to a “rampant erotic imagination,” antisociality, and infertility, among other things. Precisely because it carried such a stigma, masturbation became sym- bolic for artists and a metaphor for the process of art making itself. Highlighting a passage in his anarchist tract, “Red and Black Movement Manifesto Number One” (Aka to kuro undo daiichi sengen), Hagiwara Kyojiro wrote in capital romanized letters, “Art is human mastutbation.”^*^ He reiterated a common association of autoerotic activity with autonomous imaginative production.^' Yabashi Kimimaro’s collage My Onanism (Fig. 131) literalized this impulse. His frenetic assemblage of crumpled and expressively strewn objects might even be described as a kind of ecstatic ejaculation of materials. Yabashi accentuated the white form of a discarded woman’s sock (tabi), inviting the viewer to fantasize about its uses. In the context of the image’s mas- turbatory theme, the sock and its imagined correlates, the fetishized female foot and leg, be- came fantasy objects of autoerotic activity. Moreover, the composition implied a connection between erotic fantasies and mass production, alluded to by the bold placement of the sock THEATER, THEATRICALITY, POLITICS OF PLEASURE 244 at the juncture of two diagonally oriented newspaper printing plates. In Yabashi’s construc- tion, mechanization was indisputably eroticized. TodaTatsuo’s prose poem “Onanism” (Onanizumu), presented with a series of other po- ems under the heading “poems that are difficult to utter,” also associated eroticism with the fetishized woman’s shoe, leg, and foot. In this case, however, it was the melancholy, disap- pointed woman who, in the absence of her lover, was titillated by her own leg: What if it were enough. Perhaps in the W.C. the gray ghost would appear. A tiny, tiny, tiny unparalleled ghost as thin as your finger. The face also small. Then you pick it up with something like chopsticks and throw it into a pond. First you see it swim, but in the end it sinks. Certainly! The disappearing love. One vision disappears for good. It leaves nothing behind. This strange, body-agonizing shadow is an unusual sign. Only white flowers bloom. While they ate in the process of becoming white all over, a dis- consolate lover stretches out her legs. Near the edge of that faded skirt, don’t the worn- down heels of her shoes glimmer? She slowly examines the lowet part of her own leg.^^ These repeated references to onanistic practice, such as Murayama’s championing of dadaism “as a watering of the field of art with sperm through the spilling of the artist’s seed,” illumi- nate one of the reasons for the frequent criticism of Mavo and Sanka artists’ work as overly masturbatory.^^ The fetishizing of materials and objects also explains why materialism was perceived as decadent and associated with sexual behavior such as masturbation. That Mavo artists represent just a few of the many voices invoking masturbation for vary- ing polemical purposes is evident in the extensive collection of Japanese writings on mas- turbation gathered by Kimoto Itaru in his book Onanii to Nihonjin (Onanism and the Japa- nese) In general, in the late Meiji the loudest voices on masturbation were those of officially sanctioned health and hygiene specialists. According to Narita Ryuichi, in these circles, masturbation as a means of discovering and acknowledging one’s sexuality was not just severely condemned; it was seen as physically harmful and even advised against from a medical standpoint. “The results of masturbation are a weakening of the mental facul- ties, headache, thick-headedness, decreased mental comprehension, and amnesia.” More- over, masturbation was directly contrary to the main purpose of sexual activity as con- ceived by the Japanese state and health officials, which was to procreate. Scholars have shown that it was a distinctly Meiji phenomenon to designate some sexual ac- tivities as “abnormal” according to criteria laid out in Western psychology texts first trans- lated and interpreted around the mid-iSpos. Akita Masami argues that sexual life became drastically impoverished in the Meiji period as sexuality itself was sanitized to transform Japan 131 Yabashi Kimimaro, My Onanism (Watashi no onani), 1 924. Mixed media construction, presumed iost. Photograph in Mavo, no. 4 (September 1924). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. into a modern nation. In this process certain kinds of sexual behavior, including mastur- bation, masochism, sadism, and scatological fetishism, were pathologized and called deviant, signs of mental illness. In this context, Mavo’s statements and activities encouraging such behavior must be seen as deliberately subversive. Mavo artists chose to take their artistic and sociopolitical agendas into the theatrical and sexual realms. Both were important for resistance and self-definition, often linked at the cru- cial junction of gender. The body was contested, fought over, and redefined through cul- tural practice. In Mavo’s theatrical work, combining modernist aesthetic concerns about au- tonomous expression and anarchist concerns about rebellion against the status quo, art, politics, and the aestheticization of everyday life converged. EPILOGUE LAYING CLAIM TO MAVO’S LEGACY r HE CULTURAL BATTLEGROUND ON WHICH MAVO FOUGHT had multiple fronts: aesthetic, social, political, economic, and sexual. As the group marched into the arena of daily life, carrying their rag-tag assortment of constructions, they broke through the barrier artificially cordoning off art from praxis. Mavo’s work, by successfully reconnecting art and the materiality of everyday life, addressed a growing concern among artists worldwide about the relevance of art to the ex- perience of modernity. The artists, taking their cue from the ethnographic modernoiogy of Kon Wajiro and Yoshida Ken- kichi, found inspiration in the chaos and frenzy of modern life. The cultural anarchism of the Mavo movement expressed the ethos of an age in flux, where individuals, constantly bom- barded by new forces and changes, were often sent reeling. Cultural anarchism also had direct implications for Japa- nese society and politics as the artists turned their inner sub- jective vision outward. The group’s boisterous rebellion was a conspicuous form of social critique in which destructive acts functioned as constructive criticism. And this conscious process of destruction/construction was thought to be a necessary first step in the revolutionary transformation of society. Mavo artists established themselves as social critics by using the new mass media, loudly broadcasting their commentaries on the problematic sociocultural conditions that had developed under the progressive ideologies of modernization. Mass culture and the ever-expanding commercial sector offered modern Japanese artists an unprecedented means of entering the public sphere while also providing them with new art venues and new opportunities in design. Mavo’s work for these consumer-oriented commercial interests creatively 247 combined fine art with products and spaces integral to daily life, resulting in work that was more “practical” and invested with the “social nature” for which Murayama and other Mavo artists so yearned. By linking commercial design and the avant-garde, Mavo members played a pivotal role in developing modern Japanese design, one of the nation’s most highly acclaimed artistic fields at home and abroad. Mavo artists were entertainers using new communication technologies to perform for a mass audience. With their passionate leftist sympathies, they wished to believe that this au- dience included industrial labor, but in fact they were largely speaking to their own class of urban middle-class intellectuals, of perhaps modest means but with considerable cultural and social capital that made them even more influential than their numbers or station might initially suggest. The sophisticated social criticism embodied in the visual art works and ac- tions of artists’ groups like Mavo provided intellectual stimulation, but also entertainment. The ability of Mavo artists to entertain their audience while conveying a political message made their work appealing commodities — the higher the amusement value the greater like- lihood that people would pay sustained attention. In Japan during the 1920s, a wide array of cultural forces vied for this attention; Mavo artists used their radical personas to stand out from the crowd as well as to dislodge art from the increasingly antiseptic sphere of high culture, as mass culture became the preeminent domain for achieving notoriety. Producing works that were unlikely to be collected by conventional art connoisseurs, the group instead inscribed its legacy in the press. The commodification and marketing of the modern artist through the mass media had been accomplished. Still, the arena of mass culture was not entirely liberated. It was carefully monitored by state authorities, increasingly so after the Manchurian Incident in 1931, which escalated Japan’s military involvement on the continent. Though the government brutally suppressed leftist political ideas, by far the largest portion of censored publications dealt with erotic topics, particularly those marketing sexual deviance under the larger rubric of the “erotic-grotesque,” which were thought to pose an ongoing threat to public morality.' Authorities labored might- ily to keep this domain under control, but the prevalence and popularity of sexual themes in the publications demonstrate the public’s continuing “prurient” interests. Mavo’s frequent references to masturbation, sadomasochism, and their gender-blurring costumes alluded to this growing underground world that threatened to undermine what was a purportedly healthy, sanitary, and rational society. Whether in seductive androgynous tunics or in vari- ous states of undress, group members flaunted the eroticized body to remind the viewer of the connection between expression and desire. Mavo’s cross-dressing and public outbursts were also strategies designed to provoke staid members of the Japanese art establishment. While succeeding in this primary objective, the group revealed to public scrutiny the institutional nature of the art establishment and its role in directing art production and exhibition, even it the constellation of associations that constituted the gadan was more fluid than the group claimed. Mavo and Sankas collective activity, as recounted here, demonstrates the tremendous importance of group formation in the Japanese att world, where the individual gained power through organization and group identity. But what the Sanka experiment perhaps most aptly illustrates is the great difficulty involved in bteaking away from established models and, in the end, the limited impact these artists had on testructuting the gadan. Art practice was deeply embedded in socioeconomic systems. Bringing about change was a monumental task rarely achieved on a grand scale. The desire for individual freedom of self-expression that originally brought Mavo artists together was eventually responsible for the group’s demise. As a band of raging individual- ists, Mavo lacked the theoretical and organizational cohesiveness to sustain its activities. Mu- rayama’s theory of conscious constructivism temporarily provided a platform for the group, articulating a common dedication to the unlimited expansion of art, thematically and for- mally; the reintegration of art and daily life; and the complete libetation of the creative in- dividual, unfettered by the bonds of state and society. Despite growing interest in integrat- ing new social concerns into art, however, a number of the original Mavo members were not prepared to support the escalating violence of the group’s post-earthquake activity and its “direct action” tactics. They had joined Mavo to revolutionize art. Mavo artists’ attitudes concerning the role of the individual artist in promoting social revolution ranged from mod- erate social protest through the innovation of artistic forms and practices to complete anat- chistic radicalism, leaving members sharply at odds. The inception of the proletarian arts movement introduced a third contending attitude represented by the artists in Zokei — art that directly served the revolution. Zokei called for a return to representation for didactic purposes. At the time of Mavo’s dissolution, irreparable rifts had developed between these three factions. Mark Sandler quotes the observation of the noted sutrealist critic Takiguchi Shuzo that in modern Japanese art there was a “constant tension between individual attistic self-expression and cultural authority vested in the collective.”^ The debate over individual versus collec- tive values intensified in the Japanese intellectual community during the 1930s. Former Mavo- Sanka artists (Murayama, Yanase, Okamoto, Yabe, and Asano) who went on to spearhead the proletarian arts and theater movements advocated a shift from individualism (kojinshngi or: jigashngi) to collectivism (shudanshugi) in line with communist dogma. They envisioned an international brotherhood united under Marxism that would transcend national botders and individual concerns. Signaling this major change in attitude, Murayama took scissors to his long hair, the fashionable emblem ot the artist as Mavoist, shearing it into a nonde- script buzz-cut commonly known as a zangiri. As the artist was ttansfigured, so was art. It was reconceived as an educational tool useful principally for bringing about a communist EPILOGUE revolution. Artistic merit no longer hinged on individual expression or even formal inno- vation but on elficacy. Art forms that efficiently communicated social criticism and politi- cal messages, especially manga and other graphic arts, came to constitute a major portion of proletarian artistic production.^ Yanase was at the forefront of political cartoonists, pub- lishing a continuous barrage of scathing critiques of Japan’s plutocracy, government cor- ruption, militarism, censorship, and other themes related to the inequalities of the Japanese class structure.^ Proletarian painting took its lead from new trends in social realism being produced in the Soviet Union. Japanese proletarian artists invoked familiar rhetoric from the 1920s about engaging “reality” and “daily life,” but they interpreted these terms in a radically new way. For them, realism meant “pictorial realism” (gamenjo shajitsushngi), which concentrated on depicting events that accorded with a Marxist political agenda. This was most decidedly not the “material realism” (gazai no shajitsushngi) of the constructivists that had inspired Mavo and Sanka.^ Even though the proletarian artists called their work realism, it was still imbued with a strong sense of idealism, expressed in romanticized scenes of class struggle and the proletariat. Their images reflected only the rosy glow ol the Russian Revolution, telling noth- ing of the difficult transition to communism or the underlying problems of Bolshevik rule that were already becoming evident by the late 1920s. Daily life was treated optimistically. Messages were life affirming to spur the masses (taishii) on to fight for the revolution. Pro- letarian artists did not seek to represent the contradictions of daily life that had so captivated Mavo and so annoyed its detractors. Unlike the Mavo-Sanka initiatives, those in the prole- tarian arts movement were unconcerned with reforming the art establishment. Fighting the gadan no longer mattered because revolution would not be achieved through artistic means. Rejecting the term “art” altogether, proletarian artists instead heralded their work as “anti- art” (higeijutsn), important instrumentally for political agitation. Despite the government’s denunciation of Marxist politics, the initial proletarian art ex- hibitions were relatively successful, regularly drawing crowds in the thousands. The “First Great Proletarian Art Exhibition” (Daiikkai purotetaria bijutsu daitenrankai) in 1928 ran for ten days and drew upward of 3,000 viewers, almost a third of whom identified themselves as workers.^ Attendance increased through the next two exhibitions. Social concerns were still in vogue among young intellectuals, and the proletarian arts movement had managed to garner considerable support from the working class. Social themes also gradually infiltrated the main gadan exhibition venues. Although direct submissions by artists in the proletarian arts movement were rejected on the grounds of poor quality, other more established artists exhibited works dealing with social themes. A so-called social faction (shakai-ha) developed among Teiten artists — oil painters, now largely unknown, who continued the academic styl- istic tradition of Meiji realism, with its images of peasants and workers.^ The social faction conceived such subjects, however, more as inanimate objects than as active agents of a so- cial revolution. The artists were not political activists, nor did they advocate any social pol- ic)t Among Nika artists, a number ol younger painters, most notably Tsuda Seifu (1880—1978), dedicated themselves to social themes. Still, Tsuda’s most controversial work. The Victim (Gi- seisha) from 1933, which showed the shocking image of a bound torture victim hanging from the ceiling like a limp, bloody piece of meat, was not publicly exhibited until after the war. Tsuda’s anonymous rendering of his expressionistic figure, unlike the documentary approach of the proletarian artists, captured the psychological and physical trauma of the moment rather than the precise historical details of a particular event. ^ The censors’ tolerance of proletarian activities did not continue lor long. There had al- ready been a large-scale arrest of Communist Party members on March 15, 1928 (known as the 3.15 Incident). That same year, violating the Peace Preservation Law, which made it ille- gal to “organize or knowingly participate in an association for the purpose of changing the national polity or repudiating the private property system,” was elevated to a capital offense.^ In the midst of these developments in late 1929, Murayama contributed to a con- ference volume of lectures by distinguished intellectuals, including the cultural critic Oya Soichi, on the Japanese censorship system, sponsored by xhe Asahi shinbim. In the volume’s preface, AWt/ editors noted that despite significant shifts in the political tide from the reac- tionary Tanaka cabinet (in olfice from April 1927 to July 1929) to the supposedly more pro- gressive Hamaguchi cabinet (from July 1929 to April 1931), censorship policy had remained unchanged. They charged that the lack of political freedom did not reflect a true constitu- tional government and that the system, a holdover from the previous “age of despotism,” was wielded as a weapon by the authorities against the political left. Denial of access to crit- ical information about current affairs and alternative viewpoints not only injured profes- sional writers, the authors all argued, but also stunted the intellectual development of the Japanese general public.*** Contributors to the volume complained that the censors indis- criminately excised or rewrote large portions of texts, plays, and films, careless of creative ex- pression or meaning, rendering many works unintelligible. Such suppression abrogated the nation’s obligation to foster the growth of society. It stifled cultural development and critical thinking. And if publishers could simply pay fines for printing censored material, were they not in effect just bribing the officials? Murayama, together with a broad-based coalition of intellectuals, lobbied for a reform of the system and the consistent implementation of a new national policy to replace the often arbitrary decisions of regional agencies and thus reduce the potential for local corruption. Still, the larger question remained: To what degree should the government be allowed to regulate the thoughts and actions of its people? The burgeon- ing numbers of those advocating moral suasion (kyoka sodo) resoundingly replied: to what- ever extent was necessary to protect and properly guide (zendo suru) the national polity ( kokka). 25 1 When his book Puroretaria bijutsu no tame ni (For the sake of proletarian art) was pub- lished in 1930, Murayama was arrested for his inlornial affiliarion with the Japanese Com- mtinist Party. He was subsequently imprisoned twice, in 1932 and 1940. * ' Mavo artists’ where- abouts and activities, like those of many intellectuals during this turbulent time, become sketchier and more difficult to confirm. When Murayama died in 1977, in the midst of writ- ing his memoirs, he had documented his activities only up to 1933. A fragmentary series of expurgated letters sent to him in jail by Kazuko, published on the one-year anniversary of her death under the title Arishihi no tsuma no tegami (Letters from a wife of bygone days), tells of Murayama’s deprivation in prison and refers to a host of his leftist colleagues, in- cluding Nakano Shigeharti, Nagata Isshii, and Kobayashi Takiji, who were similarly impris- oned for their political associations. Kazuko writes in one letter of seeking financial aid from the Japan Writers’ Association (Nihon Bungeika Kyokai) to provide her husband with basic supplies. Turned down with the excuse that his situation was not sufficiently grave to war- rant support, she comments that “the organization’s assistance is like life insurance. You can’t get benefits unless you die.”^^ Kobayashi Takiji’s unexpected and brutal murder in 1933 while in custody sent shock waves throughout the leftist community, as it viscerally demonstrated the escalated stakes of political involvement. Okamoto Toki later labeled 1933 the year “the liberation movement reeked with the smell of blood. The year 1933 marked an important turning point for the relationship between left-lean- ing intellectuals and the Japanese state. It was generally referred to by the intellectual com- munity as “the season of apostasy” (tenko no kisetsu), when a torrent of leftists, either will- ingly or under duress, publicly denounced Marxism.^'* Murayama became one of the many tenkosha (apostates) who proclaimed their conversion to secure their release from prison. Ac- cording to Patricia Steinhoff, apostasy — the abandonment of ideology by the so-called thought criminal — represented a “natural resolution of the thought crime” and “provided proper ritual expiation required for retribution” while still allowing for the reintegration of the Japanese individual back into the national collectivity. A number of Japanese prisoners, tormented by guilt over their perceived lack of filial piety, buckled under the emotional pres- sure of friends and family whose own “Japaneseness” and loyalty to the nation were ques- tioned because of their association with the thought criminal. Murayama, like many of the 95 percent of former proletarian literary figures who became tenkosha, initially justified his decision to recant by asserting the fundamental incompatibility of Communist Party dogma and individual expression, of Marxist, collectivist ideology and personal subjectiv- ity, subsequently articulating his justifications in several fictionalized and semi-autobio- graphical works published in general inrerest magazines, such as “White Night (Hakuya) in Chad koron and “The Return Home” (Kikyo) in Kaizd.^'^ Ironically, the writings of the tenkosha launched a new literary trend tenko literature. The question of resistance or collaboration among the Japanese avant-garde is an often mtirk)^ issue, as Kozawa Setsuko demonstrates in het detailed study of Matsumoto Shun- suke and Takiguchi Shuzo. Kozawa shows the profound ambivalence of many artists (par- ticularly painters) forced to choose between individualism, the source of their identity as modern artists, and their country, to which they still felt allegiance. An official cartoon of 1942 entitled “Purging One’s Head of Anglo-Americanism” (reproduced in John Dower’s seminal study on wartime propaganda. War Without Mercy) shows the culmination of the censorious state social policy Mavo had identified in its nascent stages fifteen years earlier. A woman is shown combing her hair, shaking out all the offending ideological flakes of ex- ttavagance, selfishness, hedonism, liberalism, materialism, money worship, individualism, and Anglo-American ideas. The text reads “Get rid of that dandruff encrusting your head!”'^ Increasingly obsessed with purity and purification, the state had responded definitively to the threat of individual divergence from the collective, and by the onset of the war in the Pacific all those values for which Mavo had stood were now no longer just injurious to pub- lic morals but were criminally seditious and anti-Japanese. While those caught between fas- cism and treason tried desperately to carve out a space where individuality could be pre- served in the national collective, the military regime, concerned less with artistic creativity and more with social mobilization to support the war effort, blocked their path, forcing all those in opposition into jail or seclusion. Like the artistic community at large, Mavo artists took disparate positions during World War II. Some collaborated with the war effort, directly or indirectly; some were forced to apostatize or were allowed to work only if they refrained from any controversial activity; and some lived in self-imposed exile, completely out of the public eye. Like Murayama, Yanase found himself detained for questioning by the Special Higher Police in December 1932, sus- pected of violating the Peace Preservation Law. He had begun a series of trips to China and Manchuria in 1929 and, after formally joining the Japanese Communist Party in 1931, is thought to have made contact in Shanghai the following year with the Comintern Far East- ern Bureau. Although tortured while in custody, Yanase, unlike Murayama, would not ca- pitulate. He was then incarcerated in Ichigaya prison and formally charged with violating the Peace Preservation Law in 1933. As his wife, Umeko, lay dying in the hospital, Yanase was sentenced to two years hard labor and was granted a stay of execution for five years, judgments that were commuted in late 1933. After his release, Yanase returned to work as a freelance designer producing manga illustrations and caricatures for the Yomiuri shinbun, Chuo koron, Kaizo, and the children’s magazine Kodomo no kuni. Increasingly limited in his public activity from the mid-i930s, Yanase turned his attention to travel sketching and pho- tography, taking numerous trips around the country and several to the continent, particu- larly to sites in China and Manchuria. Although essentially an amateur photographer, he 253 EPILOGUE was commissioned to shoot a series of travel photographs in China for Chud koron in 1940 to illustrate the everyday lives of average Chinese people.*^ At this time, Yanase also returned to oil painting, exhibiting mostly landscapes, figure paintings, and watercolor sketches for the last ten years of his career until his death at Shinjuku station during a firebombing in 1945. In 1919, prior to his involvement with Mavo, Takamizawa had been conscripted and had served with the army in northern Korea and Manchuria for nearly three years. After Mavo disbanded, he began producing children’s rnayjga under the pen nameTagawa Suiho, achiev- ing considerable celebrity and financial success with the publication of the comic serial Nora kiiro (Stray Black), about a small stray dog who pretends to be in the army. Nora kuro be- gan appearing in Shonen kurabu (Boy’s Club) in 1931 and became so popular that it was is- sued in book form the following year. This began a ‘Wora kuro boom” that would last for nearly eleven years. The popularity of the strip was based on the profound identification of Japanese children with the plucky, comical hound and his steady rise through the ranks of the military. The Nora kuro boom was supported by extensive advertising and the mer- chandising of Nora kuro products that included everything from mail-in printed postcards tor fans to a recorded theme song.^*^ Between 1939 and 1941, Takamizawa traveled to Manchuria three times to comtort Japa- nese troops engaged in the war with China. As the war intensified, however, he and his ed- itors were abruptly ordered by the Japanese Information Agency to economize on paper by ceasing publication of their “trivial” comic. When told that he should instead be devoting himself to the national cause, Takamizawa argued that by raising morale among the nation’s fighting youth, Nora kuro was serving just that purpose. Despite his protests, the comic was prohibited by the Home Ministry in 1941, and Takamizawa was discharged from all army service. He did not work again regularly as a manga artist until after the end ol the war.^^ From the late 1930s, Sumiya Iwane also began to work for the army, producing official reportage paintings (sakiisen kirokuga) of the war effort. This was a common role for artists during the war. Art produced for the military ranged from documentary works and sketches of soldiers in the field to ideologically charged monumental propaganda tableaux such as those painted by FujitaTsuguharu and Miyamoto Saburo and displayed at the public art ex- hibitions sponsored by the army, navy, and air force beginning in 1939.^^ Wartime experiences divided prewar avant-garde activities and the reconstruction of the postwar Japanese art world. Recent work on the cultural continuities of the 1940s has at- tempted to bridge this divide, but fifteen years of conflict in Asia and the controversial ac- tivities of many during the war resulted in collective and individual lapsed memory and lost information that have made it difficult to unify the pre- and postwar generations. So then, what of Mavo’s legacy in the postwar period? Though a number of Mavo participants were still alive and working after the war, their allegiance to the proletarian cause and their trau- matic wartime experiences disinclined them to return to what they considered the misguided youthful idealism of the 1920s. It was not artists, but rather art critics, art historians, and exhibition curators who first reclaimed the Taisho avant-garde in the postwar period, excavating and piecing together the fragmentary record of the “new art movement” (shinko geijutsu undo). As early as 1958, two major exhibitions included work by Mavo members and other prewar artists, marking the incipient evolutionary stages of the two dominant (and often intertwined) reclamation dis- courses: (i) the prewar avant-garde as transhistorical predecessors of the postwar avant-garde, and (2) the prewar avant-garde as early formal pioneers of abstract painting who set the stage for postwar abstract expressionism in Japan. Both of these reclamation discourses came to serve progressive and conservative political agendas at various times. The Yomitiri Shinbunsha mounted the show “Heretic Artists” (Itan no gakatachi) to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the newspaper’s influential independent art exhibition. The category of heretic artists was introduced by the art critic Nakahara Yusuke, author of the brief art-historical commentary in the catalogue; Nakahara ascribed to disparate individuals from different historical peri- ods an essential rebellious individualism based on personal adversity, privation, and an op- position to institutional structures that would come to define the transhistorical “avant-garde” (zenei)}^ Just three months before the show, in his series of essays on the history of mod- ern Japanese art published in Bijutsu techo (Art handbook), Nakahara had established Mavo and other Taisho period “new art movement” artists as the “source of the avant-garde” (zen’ei no genryu), asserting their foundational relationship to the contemporary avant-garde with- out further elaboration.^^ The same year, 1958, Tokyo’s National Museum of Modern Art mounted the exhibition “The Development of Abstract Painting” (Chusho kaiga no tenkai) in which prewar artists such as Kambara Tai, Togo Seiji, Yorozu Tetsugoro, and Murayama were displayed as the “predecessors” (senku) of the postwar movements in geometrical and gestural abstraction then dominating the art scene. Successful contemporary artists whose careers had spanned the war years, such as Yoshihara Jiro and Okamoto Taro, were positioned as stylistic bridges to the postwar. The exhibition’s approach was clearly an elaboration on the formalist flow dia- gram of art development proposed by Alfred H. Barr Jr., director of the Museum of Mod- ern Art (MOMA) in New York, and printed on the cover of his profoundly influential 1936 exhibition catalogue Cubism and Abstract Art. Among those interested in the Japanese prewar avant-garde, Honma Masayoshi, a cura- tor at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, emerged as one of the preeminent schol- ars. In the summer of 1968, Honma mounted the show “Dadaism to Surrealism in Japan” (Nihon ni okeru dadaizumu kara shururearisumu e), exhibiting work by Murayama and copies of Mavo magazine along with work by the Japanese surrealists from the 1930s. Three EPILOGUE years later, in 1971, he published a detailed survey of prewar avant-garde activities entitled Zenei bijutsu (Avant-gatde art) as an issue in the serial journal on modern Japanese art, Kindai no bijutsu (Modern art), put out by Ibundo.^*’ Honmas survey was followed by that of his museum colleague AsanoTorti, &nm\tA Zen’ei kaiga (Avant-garde painting), in 1978.^^ Both works were documentary histories that carefully charted the artists’ various activities and the formal correspondence between their work and that of artists in Europe and the United States. The authors were ultimately less concerned to examine the nature or meaning of an “avant- garde” in the sociopolitical context of 1920s Japan than to establish dynamic manifestations of abstraction in Japan’s modernist past. While the authors do not explain the motives behind theit projects, it is interesting to consider why this became the critical moment of Mavo’s reclamation. It should not be for- gotten that the late 1940s and 1950s were the heyday of abstract expressionism in the United States, and the supremacy of American abstract painting was in many ways exported along with the country’s hegemonic cold-war, anticommunist politics. As a number of scholars have argued, American art institutions, MOMA in particular, which was run by the Rock- efeller family and their sympathizers, functioned as quasi-official adjuncts of the United States Information Agency. McCarthyism greatly hampered the agency’s support for artists even remotely connected with leftist activity, and thus MOMA and other organizations were in- formally encouraged to step in and support what Eva Cockcroft has referred to as an “en- lightened” cold-war rhetoric of Americanism. This rhetoric featured abstract expressionism as the premiere representative of existentialist individualism and a bastion of expressive freedom — the consummate product of an “open and free society” that had replaced Europe as the center of avant-garde artistic production after the war.^^ Writing about abstract ex- pressionism in the Match 1948 issue of Partisan Review, Clement Greenberg, one of the ma- jor proponents of American modernism, explicitly articulated this shift: If artists as great as Picasso, Braque and Leger have declined so grievously, it can only be because the general social premises that used to guarantee their functioning have disap- peared in Europe. And when one sees, on the other hand, how much the level of Amer- ican art has risen in the last five years, with the emergence of new talents so full of energy and content as Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollack, David Smith . . . then the conclusion forces itself, much to our own surprise, that the main premises of Western Art at last migrated to the United States, along with the center of gravity of industrial production and po- litical power.^^ Under the directorship of Nelson Rockefeller, MOMA sent exhibitions of abstract expres- sionism all over the world, including Tokyo. Those in developing nations or nations seek- ing to rebuild after the war and thus currying favor with the United States had to negotiate their position in relation to this rubric of Americanism. Meanwhile, the 1951 signing and subsequent renewals of the Japan-United States Secu- rity Treaty (Nichibei Anzen Hosho Joyaku, abbreviated as Anpo) in i960 and 1970 (and every ten years after that) allowed the United States to maintain strategic military bases on Japa- nese soil, effectively turning Japan into the easternmost front of America’s cold-war offensive against communism. Museum curators like Honma and Asano who lived through the war and the American occupation (1945—1952) either established or began their careers in the late 1950S and early 1960s, when Japan was experiencing a period of rapid economic growth that undergirded the nation’s postwar recovery. The country received an important economic jump- start by serving as the supplier to and location of American military bases during the Korean War, just as it had profited from supplying the allies during World War I and would later profit from the Vietnam War. Postwar Japan, with its new constitution and demilitarization, was reinvented on the American democratic model, and displays of the assimilation of Amer- ican culture and values were taken as a sign of Japan’s amity and “progress” in democratiza- tion. Working for a national museum and functioning simultaneously as government bu- reaucrats, these curators fashioned a reclamation discourse that inscribed Mavo artists as formal (but historically disconnected) predecessors of postwar abstract painting that curiously co- incided with what Carol Gluck has broadly termed “establishment history” constructed by conservative Japanese intellectuals, which came to dominate official postwar public memory. These intellectuals (many of them bureaucrats) were deeply concerned not only with do- mestic reconstruction but also with the “recovery of international stature,” often phrased as “regaining the trust of the world,” for which recuperation of a positive past and presentation of an internationally recognized, superior national culture were considered vital. In the 1960s, Asia became the focus of Porter A. McCray, director of MOMA’s interna- tional programs. During 1962-1963, McCray spent a year traveling in Asia under the joint auspices of the State Department and MOMA. In 1963, he left the museum to become the director of the John D. Rockefeller Fund, which was a new United States-Asia cultural exchange program (an organization that is still active and is now known as the Asian Cultural Council). Under McCray’s leadership, the Rockefeller Fund, together with the Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai (Society for International Cultural Relations),^^ supported a 1966 exhibi- tion in New York of contemporary abstract Japanese art, organized by the San Francisco Mu- seum of Art and MOMA and entitled “The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture.” In the catalogue’s introduction, William Lieberman, MOMA’s curator of prints and drawings, noted. 257 Between the two wars, many [Japanese] artists evolved styles based on earlier fauve and German-expressionist prototypes; during the 1930s, photographic surrealism was much admired. After the war, the Japanese developed a violent attraction to abstract, non-representational art. Today, painters of abstract compositions in oil are the best and most original artists of Japan. . . . Intended for an American audience, the selection [of the exhibited works] reflects a choice that probably would not have been made at that time by the Japanese themselves, . . . The exhibition is concerned only with Japanese art of international tendency.^'^ Japanese curators thus received a strong message that to be recognized by the American art establishment and to be considered “international,” Japan had to display its mastery of ab- straction. Therefore, it is no coincidence that during the period when Mavo was being re- claimed, many of the major Japanese artists’ groups being lauded at home and abroad were practicing forms of gestural or geometric abstraction, although the political underpinnings so crucial to Mavo’s work were largely absent. These abstract artists included the Gutai group (active from 1954 to 1972), the Art Informel movement, the painter Okamato Taro, and the Mono-ha artists in the 1970s, all of whom were heralded as international yet distinctly Japanese. The rapid pace of postwar economic development also, however, revealed deep-rooted social problems and raised questions about the modernization plan for Japan’s postwar re- construction. At the time of Japan’s renegotiation of the security treaty in i960, a massive, broad-based movement suddenly emerged to oppose the government’s support of American expansionist cold-war policies in Asia. The protest was subsequently quashed and the treaty ratified, but not before several protesters were injured (and one protester killed) and the en- tire Japanese nation had witnessed this painful social upheaval. Subsequent renewal of the treaty in 1970 prompted similar mass protests, causing the government gradually to lose pub- lic confidence. At the same time, students began campus protests against government pol- icy and poor university educational conditions. It was a time of political and social tumult as well as economic ascendance. Out of this tumultuous situation emerged a number of radi- cal art groups, several of whom considered themselves dada revivalists. Foremost among them were the Neo-Dada Organizers (active from i960 to 1964) and High-Red-Center (active from 1963 to 1964). While these artists looked to European and American dada revivals for in- spiration and remained largely ignorant of Japan’s prewar avant-garde experience, key ob- servers writing slightly later noted the surface parallels between the turbulent domestic sit- uation in the 1920s and 1960s, and the rebellious tenor of the art that emerged during these periods. In 1972, two art student activists and an art critic from Tama Art University, Tone Ya- sunao, Hikosaka Naoyoshi, and Akatsuka Yukio, guest-edited a special issue of Bijutsu techo (Art handbook) entitled Nenpyo: Gendai bijutsu no ^o—nen 1916—1968 (Chronology: Fifty years of contemporary art 1916— 1968), in which they constructed a detailed chronology and overview of the art of the past fifty years. Hikosaka was a principal organizer of the Artist’s Joint-Struggle Conference (Bijutsuka Kyoto Kaigi, known as Bikyoto; active from 1969 to 1975), which was centrally involved in the student protests of 1968— 1969. Group members, who staged events and performances as well as mounted installations, wete keenly concerned with defining themselves in relation to the history of Japanese art.^^ Hikosaka, Tone, and Akatsuka saw their 400-page issue of Bijutsu tecbo as a form of conceptual art, a “ ‘temporal tableau’ framing the ’60s avant-garde within the process of [art’s] institutionalization.”^^ And while they stated in their introduction that the sociopolitical conditions that generated avant- garde movements in the 1920s and the 1960s were entirely distinct, they repeatedly implied an inchoate correspondence between the two eras — the earlier period setting the stage for developments after the war. Most important, they identify the late 1920s and early 1930s as a crucial period for categorizing artistic genres and institutionalizing the avant-garde whose social infrastructure would continue to undergird the postwar art world as well. Shinko gei- jutsu (new art) became a fixed artistic category, later referred to as zenei (or abangyardo) bi- jiitsu (avant-garde art) and alternatively 2,5 gendai bijutsu (contemporary art); it designated a group of professional artists who always considered themselves split off from the domain of pure art.^^ Such a history of the avant-garde functioned in several different ways. It asserted an an- timilitarist, prewar intellectual movement that had posed a vigorous, if ultimately unsuc- cessful, opposition to nationalism. It provided an alternative to characterizations of Japan as a country of homogeneous automatons inexorably and blindly led to war, offering instead a narrative of active resistance and subsequent suppression by a malevolent nationalist state. The oblique link between the prewar avant-garde and postwar anti-authoritarianism placed contemporary protests on a par with the fight against fascism. It also subtly legitimized the pressing need for the contempotary protesters to keep the state at bay. By raising the specter of the war and the ever-present potential for a return to an authoritatian regime, this narra- tive articulated a threat that everyone could understand all too well. Following the lead of the Bijutsu techo editors, the Tokyo University student activist and later art impresario Kitagawa Fram, with the veteran art critic Segi Shin’ichi, co-organized in 1977 the “Art Exhibition of Pioneers of Contemporary Art” (Gendai bijutsu no paionia bijutsu-ten), showing prewar avant-garde art, at the Central Art Museum in Tokyo. This ex- hibition firmly linked prewar artists to contemporary developments, a link strengthened in subsequent exhibitions. A number of these exhibitions were geared toward foreign audiences, indicating Japanese intellectuals’ ongoing concern with the European and American legiti- mation of Japanese artistic production and with the display of avant-garde art abroad as es- sential to the construction of postwar Japanese national cultural identity. Art exhibitions of 259 EPILOGUE the Japanese avant-garde from 1920 to 1970 increased markedly during the 1980s. Premised on a fraternity between the prewar intelligentsia and postwar political activists, they con- structed a “tradition of avant-gardism” in Japan (however oxymoronic that may seem). Es- says by Asano Torn for exhibitions of the Japanese avant-garde in Dtisseldorf in 1985 and Paris in 1986 solidified this reading of the link between pre- and postwar activity without ar- guing for their direct historical connection.'^® In the Japanese version of the Dada m Japan catalogue accompanying the exhibition in Dtisseldorf, the art critic Hariti Ichiro states that there were three peaks in Japanese avant-garde activity, the 1920s, the 1930s, and the 1960s. But unlike artists in the earlier and later periods, he argues, the avant-garde artists of the 1930S were less outwardly political in their art work, forced by circumstances during the war to explore the formal issues of abstraction or the inward-looking psychological frontiers of surrealist painting. According to Hariu’s analysis, after the war, beginning in the mid-1950s, Japanese abstract painters who were part of the worldwide movement of Art Informel and abstract expressionism reinvoked the dadaist love of anarchy and destruction to produce a tabula rasa upon which they could build their own “alternative morphology” (betsu no keitaigaku). These painters shook up the art world of the Yomiuri Independent and estab- lished a model of radical avant-gardism; they were followed by younger artists who contin- ued to go even further in opposing the art establishment, rejecting the production of “art for art’s sake,” and engaging contemporary political issues. Hariu concludes that “the prob- lems addressed by the Japanese artistic avant-garde are still not entirely resolved today.”^* This inclination to link or compare the pre- and postwar avant-gardes was abundantly evident in the 1994 survey of Japanese art curated by Alexandra Munroe at the Yokohama Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.^^ Munroe locates the matrix of Japanese avant-gardism in the 1920s, establishing a semantic link by stating that the “term "zenei bijutsii came into vogue in Taisho,” thus reinscribing the largely ahistorical, retro- spective use of the term zen’ei initiated by Nakahara, Honma, Asano, and a host of other Japanese scholars.^^ Echoing many of Hariu’s sentiments, Munroe goes on to state that “the Japanese avant-garde that emerged after 1945 from the devastation of war was both a resur- rection of Taisho and prewar Showa modernism, and a purge of history, a beginning from absolute nothingness.” This statement points to the profoundly problematic crux of this post- war exercise in reclamation, the notion that a historical relationship can be resurrected in transhistorical terms that ultimately “purge” any notion of historicity by asserting the post- war as a tabula rasa. In this case, according to Munroe, “what survived from the past, and what sustained the recreation of a future, was the spirit of oppositiond^^ In a sweep of the hand, the Taisho oppositional spirit is reified into a transhistorical essence. The native com- ponent of Japanese modernism and the avant-garde is thus not thematic or even formal; it is in the intangible realm of spirit. The ensconcing of the avant-garde in the palace of essential culture took another ironic twist that would have significant implications for Mavo’s legacy. What had been seen in the prewar as outsider, peripheral, subversive, even threatening to the establishment was main- streamed in the postwar and, through display at influential international exhibitions, identified as Japan’s central cultural contribution. The mainstreaming of the avant-garde was clearly taking place by 1970 when the world’s fair, known as Expo ’70, was held in Osaka. The first world’s fair to be held in any Asian nation — a point emphasized in every publica- tion on the event — Expo ’70 conferred upon Japan an important mantle of “first world” sta- tus right at the moment that the country was emerging as an economic superpower. The theme of Expo ’70 was “progress and harmony for mankind,” and the awesome display of national technological prowess projected an image of Japan as a country ol the future. Art, particularly so-called avant-garde art, was well integrated into this vision. As Reiko Tomii has documented in detail, many attists identified as members of the avant-garde were cen- trally involved in Japan’s main cultural exlribits at the fair. OkamoroTaro designed the promi- nent Tower of the Sun for the fairgrounds, the Gutai group staged several exhibitions and ac- tion performances, and a number of artists contributed to the outdoor and pavilion exhibitions. Tomii notes that because direct exhibition of commercial products was prohib- ited at the fair, many corporations cloaked their advertising in innovative, expetimental mul- timedia shows that allied technology and art.^^ And despite the considerable opposition to Expo ’70 expressed by radical artists and other members ol the artistic community, the fair still served as an effective mechanism for asserting the Japanese avant-garde’s contribution to the national culture, a message that was swiltly communicated to the rest of the world. Munroe writes, “Artists outcast for their perverse unorthodoxy are now reclaimed as national treasures and the avant-garde culture that traditionally received little support among the Japa- nese establishment has come to be embraced. Thus by association with its purported post- war artistic successors, Mavo could be acknowledged as a true Japanese artistic achievement, inscribed in the enduring tradition of Japanese avant-gardism. 26 1 ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES (following page 98) 1. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Dedicated to the Beautiful Young Girls (Utsukushiki shojo ni sasagu), ca. 1922. 2. Yanase Masamu, Moji (Moji), 1920. 3. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Sadistic Space (Sadisutisshu na kukan), ca. 1921-1922. 4. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Portrait of a Young Jewish Girl (Aru yudaiyajin no shojo zo), 1922. 5. Yanase Masamu, A Morning in May and Me Before Breakfast (Gogatsu no asa to asameshi mae no watashi), 1923. 6. Yanase Masamu, Oh, Excuse Me! {Y?l shikkei!), 1923. 7. Yanase Masamu, MV i, 1923. 8. Sumiya Iwane, Daily Task of Love in the Factory (Kojo ni okeru ai no nika), 1923. 9. Cover, Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924). 10. OkadaTatsuo, cover design for Hagiwara Kyojiro, Shikei senkoku (Death sentence), 1925. 11. Exhibition flier, “Sanka Members Plastic Arts Exhibition” (Sanka kaiin sakuhin zokei geijutsu tenrankai), Matsuza- kaya, Ginza, May 20—24, 1925. 12. Sumiya Iwane, Construction of Movemeyit and Machine (Undo to kikai no kosei), ca. 1924. 13. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Construction (Kosei or konsutoraku- chion), 1925. 14. Cover, Mavo, no. 4 (November 1924); inset linocut byToda Tatsuo, Prophesy (Yogen). 15. Murayama Tomoyoshi, cover design for Bungei jidai 2, no. 4 (1925)- 16. Yanase Masamu, cover design for Fujimori Seikichi, Nani ga kanojo 0 so saseta ka? (What made her do what she did?), 1930. FIGURES 1. Kuroda Seiki, Maiko Dancing Girl (Maiko), 1893. / 15 2. Asai Chu, Harvest (Shukaku), 1890. / 16 263 ILLUSTRATIONS 3. Aoki Shigeru, The Teripyd Era (Tenpyo jidai), 1904. / 18 4. Aoki Shigeru, Self-Portrait (Jigazo), 1903. / 18 5. Kishida Ryusei, Self-Portrait (Jigazo), 1913. / 23 6. Umehara Ryuzaburo, Self-Portrait (Jigazo), 1911. / 23 7. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Augsbiirgerstrasse (Aukusuburugagai), 1921. / 35 8. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Portrait of the Father (Bildnis des Vaters), ca. 1921. / 35 9. Cover of exhibition pamphlet for Murayama Tomoyoshi’s first solo exhibition. May 15-19, 1923. / 39 10. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “As You Like It" Danced by Niddy Impekoven (Niddi Imupekofen ni yotte odoraretaru “Gyo-i no mama”), ca. 1922-1923. / 40 1 1. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Still Life with Bottle (Bin no aru seibutsu), ca. 1922—1923. / 40 12. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Picture without a Title (Dai no nai e), ca. 1922-1923. / 41 13. Imperial Prince Chichibunomiya viewing Murayama Tomoyoshi’s work, perhaps Beatrice (Beatoriche), at the Chuo Bijutsuten,Takenodai Hall, Ueno Park, June 1923. / 41 14. Yanase Masamu, Mountain in Winter (Fuyu no yama), 1917. / 51 15. Yanase Masamu, River and Bridge (Kawa to hashi), ca. 1921. / 52 16. Yanase Masamu, Cliff and Grass (Gake to kusa), ca. 1921. / 53 17. Kinoshita Shuichiro and his paintings, 1924. / 56 18. Kinoshita Shuichiro, Autopsy (Kaibo), ca. 1922. / 56 19. Oura Shuzo, Cup with Foam and the Smell of Meat (Awadatsu koppti to niku no kaori), ca. 1922. / 57 20. Shibuya Osamu, Woman (Onna), ca. 1922. / 58 21. Ogata Kamenosuke, Conductor (Kondakuta), ca. 1922. / 58 22. Yanase Masamu, Nap (Kasui), ca. 1922. / 59 23. Yanase Masamu, Mavo Gathering, cartoon {manga), mid-1923. / 64 24. Cover of the pamphlet for Mavo’s first exhibition, Denpoin Temple, Asakusa, July 28-August 3, 1923. / 65 25. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Work Employing Flower and Shoe (Hana to ktitsu no tsukatte aru saktihin), ca. 1923. / 69 26. Ogata Kamenosuke, Hill on a Mud Road and the Head of a Cow (Doromichi no saka to ushi no atama), eatly 1923. / 70 27. Yanase Masamu, MV 2, 1923. / 72 28. Yanase Masamu, MV 3, 1923. / 72 29. Kadowaki Shinto, ipiy No. 34, 1923. / 73 30. Yanase Masamu, MV y, 1923. / 73 31. Oura Shuzo, Two People Talking (Futari wa hanshite iru), early 1923. / 74 32. Pamphlet for the second Mavo exhibition, November 1923. / 79 33. Kato Masao, Wall Hanging (Kabekake), probably November 1923. / 81 34- Murayama Tomoyoshi and Mavo, Morie bookstore signboard (Morie shocen kanban), 1924. / 82 35. Mavo, Hayashi restaurant (Hayashiya shokudo), barrack decoration project, early 1924. / 83 36. Murayama Tomoyoshi, plan for Triangular Atelier, Kami-Ochiai, mid-1924. / 85 37. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Architectural Idea for Mavo Headquarters (Mavo honbu no kenchikuteki rinen), 1924. / 88 38. Sumiya Iwane, Model for a Shop (Shoten no tame no mokei), April 1924. / 89 39. Takamizawa Michinao, Gt^'(Kafe), April 1924. / 89 40. Takamizawa Michinao, Model for the Kant 200-Year Memorial Tower (Kanto nihyakunen kinento mokei), April 1924. / 90 41. Exhibition view. Takamizawa Michinao on a ladder constructing Model for the Kant 200-Year Memorial Tower, at the “Exhibition of Plans for the Reconstruction of the Imperial Capital” (Teito fukko soan tenrankai), April 1924. / 90 42. “The Exhibition Space and Me” (Kaijo to watashi), OkadaTatsuo at Cafe Suzuran during his exhibition in the “Serial Conscious Constructivist Exhibition” (Ishikiteki koseishugiteki renzokuten), July 6—15, 1924. / 94 43. OkadaTatsuo, K.KL (also called kk.L), ca. 1924. / 94 44. Announcement flier for the publication of Mavo magazine used in a collage in Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924). / 96 45. KambaraTai, Subject from “The Poem of Ecstasy’’ by Skryabin (Sukuriabin no “Boga no Shi” ni daisu), 1922. / 104 46. Okamoto Told, Pessimist’s Festival (Peshimisuto no shukusai), 1925. / 104 47. Nakahara Minoru, Atomic Straggler No. 2, 1925. / 104 48. Oura Shtizo, PROUN.D.II. 1 106 49. Works submitted to the second Sanka exhibition, Jichi Kaikan, Ueno, September 1925. / 109 50. Okada Tatsuo constructing the Gate and Moving Ticket-Selling Machine (Monto ken ido kippu uriba), in front of Gallery Kudan, 1925. / iii 51. Okada Tatsuo seated in the Gate and Moving Ticket-Selling Machine, second Sanka exhibition, September 1925. / 112 52. NNK, Sanka Exhibition Entrance Tower (Sankaten monto), exhibited outside the second Sanka exhibition, September 1925. / 113 53. Maid Hisao, Draft for an Outdoor Theater According to Only a Stage Design (Butai sochi nomi ni yoru okugai gekijo soan), exhibited at the second Sanka exhibition, September 1925. / 114 54. Nakada Sadanosuke, Bubikopf Venus (Bubenkoppu no vuinesu), 1925. / 114 55. Kinoshita Shuichiro, Psychological Portrait of an Anarchist of Decisive Action (Kekkoseru anaruhisuto no shinriteki z6), 1925. / 117 56. Yabashi Kimimaro, Self-Portrait (Jigazo), ca. 1924. / 127 57. Yamazato Eikichi, Standing Man (Tatte iru otoko), ca. 1924. / 128 58. Kinoshita Shuichiro, Record I of the Negative Destructive Act of Every Conceptual Indication (Arayuru gainen no hyoji no hiteiteki hakai kdi no kiroku I), 1924. / 129 265 ILLUSTRATIONS 59. Takamizawa Michinao, PrOtestO (Protest), ca. 1924. / 131 60. Oura Shuzo, Construction F (Konstitorakushion F), ca. 1924. / 131 61. Shibuya Osamu, Construction of Artificial Flowers Lacking in Sympathy (Kyokansei no toboshii zoka no aru konsutorakushon), ca. 1925. / 132 62. Kinoshita Shuichiro, Organization of Tin (Buriki no oruganizachion), ca. 1924. / 132 63. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Seated Prostitute (Zaseru inbaifu), ca. 1922. / 134 64. Shibuya Osamu, Constructivist Stage Design (Koseishugi no butai sochi), ca. 1924. / 137 65. Kato Masao, (Architectural) Picture on the Theme of Destruction (Hakai o tema ni motsu ga [kenchiku no]), ca. 1923. / 137 66. Yanase Masamu, sketch ofTokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake, late 1923. / 146 67. Yanase Masamu, sketch ofTokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake, late 1923. / 146 68. Yanase Masamu, sketch of military police in Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake, late 1923. / 147 69. Yanase Masamu, sketch of military police in Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake, late 1923. / 147 70. Yanase Masamu, cartoon on the theme of censorship, 1921. / 152 71. Yanase Masamu, cartoon satirizing the management of labor unions by their capitalist employers, 1921. / 152 72. Yanase Masamu, cartoon on the theme of industrialism and militarism, 1921. / 153 73. Yanase Masamu, cartoon on the theme of militarism, 1921. / 153 74. Murayama Tomoyoshi and his wife, Murayama Kazuko, along with other leftist intellectuals, 1927. / 166 75. “Mavo manifesto” with Mavo logo. / 169 76. Mavo envelope. / 169 77. Murayama Tomoyoshi in Russian-style shirt, 1925. / 176 78. Mutayama Tomoyoshi and Murayama Kazuko, June 1926. / 176 79. Murayama Tomoyoshi, ca. 1925—1926. / 177 80. Murayama Tomoyoshi in dance pose, ca. 1925. / 177 81. Fuchigami FFakuyo, Portrait of a Mavoist (Mavoisuto no shozo), 1925. / 179 82. Takamizawa Michinao, ca. 1925. / 180 83. Mavo, composite of magazine cover designs. / 181 84. Photograph of Murayama Tomoyoshi’s Women Friends at the Window (Mado ni yoreru onna tomodachi) affixed to a page from Yamato shinbun, ca. 1924. / 183 85. Cover, Mavo, no. 5 (June 1925). / 187 86. Murayama Tomoyoshi, margin designs, 1926. / 188 87. Murayama Tomoyoshi, margin designs, 1926. / 189 88. Murayama Tomoyoshi, margin designs, 1926. / 189 89. Yanase Masamu, cover design, Kusari i, no. 4 (December 1923). / 191 90. Yanase Masamu, cover design, Nobi 4, no. 2 (January 1925). / 191 91. Yanase Masamu, caricature ofWakatsuki Reijiro, 1923. / 192 92. Yanase Masamu, caricature of Fujimura Yoshiro, 1923. / 192 93. Yanase Masamu, caricature of Hayami Seiji, 1923. / 192 94. Yanase Masamu, cover design for Hosoi Wakizo, Kojo (Factory), 1925. / 193 95. Yanase Masamu, cover design for Fiayama Yoshiki, Inbaifu (Prostitute), 1926. / 195 96. Yanase Masamu, slipcase design for Nakanishi Inosuke and FuseTatsuji, Sabaku mono sabakareru mono (The judge, the judged), 1924. / 196 97. Yanase Masamu, front cover design, Sabakii mono sabakareru mono. / 196 98. Yanase Masamu, back cover design, Sabaku mono sabakareru yyiono. / 197 99. Murayama Tomoyoshi, slipcase design for his Genzai yio geijutsu to mirai yio geijutsii (Art of the present and art of the future), 1924. / 198 100. Murayama Tomoyoshi, cover design, Genzai no geijutsu to mirai yio geijutsu. / 198 101. Murayama Tomoyoshi, cover design for his Koseiha kenkyii (Study of constructivism), 1926. / 199 102. Murayama Tomoyoshi, interior page layout, Koseiha kenkyu. / 199 103. Yabashi Kimimaro, The Still Life Yawyis (Seibutsu wa akubi o suru), 1925; Okada Tatsuo, untitled, 1925. / 201 104. Okada Tatsuo, untitled, 1925. / 201 105. Okada Tatsuo, page layout and typographical design for Hagiwara Kyojiro’s poem “Rasukorinikofu” (Raskolnikov), 1925. / 202 106. Textile designs by Murayama Tomoyoshi, Maki Fiisao, and Yoshida Kenkichi for the Shokusen Geijutsu Renmei (Union of Woven and Dyed Arts), 1926. / 206 107. Otsubo Shigechika, textile design, 1927. / 207 108. Oura Shuzo, linocut series for newspaper advertisements, 1929. / 209 109. Oura Shuzo, advertisement for Valet razors, 1927. / 209 no. Oura Shuzo, advertising kiosk for Maruzen ink, 1924. / 210 111. Unknown, advertising kiosk for Maruzen ink, late 1920s. / 210 112. Maruzen show window display for hats, Nihonbashi, late 1920s. / 212 113. Show window design for athletic equipment, Nozawaya, Yokohama, late 1920s. / 212 114. Murayama Tomoyoshi and Yoshida Kenkichi, chart of design motifs for magazine advertisements. / 212 1 1 5. Maruzen show window display lor books, Tokyo, late 1920s. / 213 116. Yanase Masamu, The Length of a Capitalist’s Drool (Shihonka no yodare no nagasa), ca. 1924. / 215 117. Sakamoto Manshichi, photograph of Murayama Tomoyoshi’s stage design for Georg Kaisers From Moryimg ’til Midnight (Von Morgens bis Mitternachts; in Japanese, Asa kara yonaka made), Tsukiji Little Theater, December 1924. / 222 118. Sakamoto Manshichi, photograph of lower right section of stage set for Froyn Morning ’til Midnight. I 223 119. Sakamoto Manshichi, photograph of lower left section of stage set for Frotn Moryiing ’til Midnight. I 223 267 ILLUSTRATIONS 120. Sakamoto Manshichi, photograph of middle tier of stage set for From Morning ’til Midnight. I 223 1 2 1. Rehearsal photograph of Murayama Tomoyoshi’s “Prostitute Giving Birth to a Child” (Ko o umti inbaifu), May 1924. / 229 122. Performance photograph of “Prosritute Giving Birth to a Child,” performed as part of “Sanka in the Theater,” May 30, 1925. / 229 123. Ariizumi Yuzuru, Construction of Door to My Room (Warashi no shitsu e no tobira no kosei), on cover oi Koseiha (Construcrivism), October 1926. / 232 124. Photograph of Murayama Tomoyoshi and OkadaTatsuo performing the “Dance That Cannot Be Named” (Na no tsukerarenai odori) at the Tokyo Imperial Universiry Chrisrian Youth Hall, June 28, 1924. / 235 125. Murayama dancing nude in his atelier, late 1923-early 1924. / 237 126. Murayama dancing nude in his atelier, late 1923— early 1924. / 237 127. Murayama dancing nude in his atelier, late 1923— early 1924. / 237 128. Mavo acrobaric performance, ca. 1924. / 238 129. Kinoshita Shuichiro, R.G , sculpture performed at the first Sanka exhibition, Matsuzakaya, Ginza, May 1925. / 238 130. Mavo members performing “Dance ol Death” (Totentanz; in Japanese, Shi no buyo), 1924. / 240 1 3 1. Yabashi Kimimaro, My Onanism (Watashi no onani), 1924. / 245 NOTES INTRODUCTION 1. “Rakusenga no hikitori” (Claiming the rejected works), Asahi graph, August 29, 1923, 16. 2. Nakamura Giichi, Nihon kindai bijntsn ronsdshi (A history of controversies in modern Japanese art) (Tokyo: Kyuryudo, 1981), 182 (emphasis in original). 3. Murayama’s biography and career alone offer more than enough material to sustain a study, as attested to by his volu- minous autobiography, which covers only the first thirty-odd years of his life, from 1901 to 1933. See MurayamaTomoyoshi, Engekitekijijoden (Theatrical autobiography), vols. 1-4 (Tokyo: Toho Shuppansha, 1970, 1971, 1974, 1977). 4. Interest in empiricism is also known to have been introduced to Japan in the eighteenth century via China through illustrated books, prints, and by travelers between the two countries. For example, KanoTan’yu, as well as other atelier-trained Japanese artists active in the early eighteenth century, kept extensive sketchbooks of drawings based on direct observation, indicat- ing an empirical approach to representing the natural world. 5. The long Japanese tradition of shasei was based on Chinese painting practices; see Melinda Takeuchi, Taiga's True Views (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992). 6. Kitazawa Noriaki, Me no shinden (Palace of the eye) (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1989); Kitazawa Noriaki, Kishida Ryusei to Taisho avangyarudo (Kishida Ryusei and the Taisho avant- garde) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1993). 7. See Omuka Toshiharu, Taishoki shinko bijutsu undo no kenkyii (A study of the new art movements of the Taisho period) (Tokyo: Skydoor, 1995), 19-26. 8. Peter Burger, Theory of the Avant-Garde {¥r 3 .n\d\].n-. S\i\ir:\sa.mp Verlag, 1974; reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 56. 9. “Atorie no techo: Mavo” (Atelier notebook: Mavo), Atelier 2, no. 6 (June 1925): 82. 10. “Zorozoro aruku kaiga tenrankai” (The painting exhibition marching in troops), Yorozu choho, August 27, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 3. “Atorie no techo: Mavo,” 82; Sumiya Iwane, “Han Nika undo 269 II. NOTES TO PAGES 6-1 9 to ‘Mavo’” (The anti-Nika movement and Mavo), Bijutsukan Nyiisti (Tokyoto Bijutsukan), no. 303 (April 1976): 3; “Hanasaki o orerareta: Mabo dojin no idoten” (The tip of his nose broken: The moving exhibition of the Mavo coterie), Tokyo asahi shinbun, August 29, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 5; “Rakusen idoten no chingyoretsu” (The unusual procession of the moving exhibition of rejected works), Kokumin shinbun, August 29, 1923 (p.m. ed.), 3. 12. Sandy Petrey, Speech Acts and Literary Theory (New York: Routledge, 1990), 13. CHAPTER 1 1. Earl Kinmouth, The Self-Made Ma)i in Meiji Japanese Thought: From Samurai to Salaryman (Berke- ley: University of California Press, 1981). 2. The expression was coined by Makimura Masanao, vice-governor of Kyoto. Ellen Conant, “The French Connection: Emile Guimet’s Mission to Japan, A Cultural Context for Japonisme," in Japan in Transition: Thought and Action in the Meiji Era, 1868—1912, ed. Hilary Conroy, Sandra Davis, and Wayne Patterson (Rutherford, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1984), 128-30. 3. Languages taught at the institute and translated there included Dutch, English, French, and Ger- man. The curriculum was largely dedicated to subjects related to the military, including metal- lurgy, surveying, navigation, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and mechanical engineering. In 1862, the institute moved and was renamed again, as the Institute for the Investigation of West- ern Books (Yosho Shirabesho). It was later expanded under the name Institute for Development (Kaiseijo) and continued to be supported by the Meiji government after it was attached to the Tokyo Medical School ofTokyo Imperial University in 1877. 4. Michiaki Kawakita, “Western Influence on Japanese Painting and Sculpture,” in Dialogue in Art: Japan and the West, ed. Chisaburoh Yamada (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1976), 83. The Tech- nological Art School was short-lived; it closed in 1881 due to a lack of funds and a shift in inter- est toward promoting Japanese-style painting. 5. Many of the most influential Meiji yoga artists initially studied under Fontanesi, including Taka- hashi Yuichi, KawakamiTogai, KoyamaShotaro, Goseda Yoshimatsu, Harada Naojiro, Asai Chu, Nakamaru Seijurd, Matsuoka Hisashi, Yamashita Rin, and Yamamoto Hosui. A number of Fontanesi students later went to France and entered the staunchly conservative atelier of the his- torical academic painter Jean-Patil Laurens. For an examination of Fontanesi’s career, his activi- ties at the Technological Art School, and his influence on the development ofWestern-style paint- ing in Japan, see National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Fontaneji, Raguza to Meiji zenki no bijutsu (Fontanesi, Ragusa and early Meiji art) (Tokyo, 1977); Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Mu- seum, Awrcw/’o Japanese Modern Art: Revolutionary Artists (Tokyo, 1997). For a general history oi yoga, see Minoru Harada, Meiji Western Painting, no. 6, Arts ofjapati, trans. Bonnie Abiko (1968; reprint, New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill/Shibundo, 1976). 6. Kawakita, “Western Influence,” 82. 7. HagaToru, “The Formation of Realism in Meiji Painting:The Artistic Career ofTakahashi Yuichi,” in Tradition and Modernization in Japanese Culture, ed. Donald H. Shively (Princeton: Prince- ton University Press, 1971), 228, 253. 8. Okakura’s teacher at Tokyo Imperial University, Ernest Fenollosa (1853—1908), is often credited with launching the nihonga movement, but as Ellen Conant’s research has convincingly shown, Okakura (we'Kakuzo, 1862-1913) and other Japanese theorists were actually responsible for shap- ing the concept of nihonga, skillfully utilizing Fenollosa’s approbation as a foreigner to propa- gandize their project and to assert the affirmation of “the West.” For a more in-depth consider- ation of the construction of nihonga, see Ellen Conant, Steven Owyoung, and J. Thomas Rimer, Nihonga, Transcending the Past: Japanese-Style Painting, 1868—1968 (Saint Louis, Mo.: Saint Louis Art Museum, 1995). 9. The National Industrial Arts Exhibitions (Naikoku Kangyo Hakurankai) began in 1877 and were mounted again in 1881, 1890, 1895, and 1903. 10. For a discussion ol the experiences of Japanese art students abroad and their French teachers, with special attention to Collin, see Bridgestone Museum of Art, Nihon kindai yoga no kyosho to Fii- ransu (Masters ol modern Japanese Western-style painting and France) (Tokyo, 1983). Kuroda had many students who later became accomplished painters, some of whom also went to study with Collin through Kuroda’s introduction. His most well-known students were Fujishima Takeji, Okada Saburosuke, and Wada Eisaku. 11. Kuroda Seiki’s adoptive father, Kuroda Kiyotsuna, was from the powerful Satsuma clan and an important figure in the Meiji Restoration who served as an oligarch (genroin) in the early Meiji government. 12. Kitazawa Noriaki, Kishida Ryusei to Taisho avangyarudo (Kishida Ryusei and the Taisho avant- garde) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1993), 32-36. 13. For a discussion of the rivalry that developed between the White Horse Society and the Meiji Art Society, see Nakamura Giichi, Nihon kindai bijutsu ronsoshi (A history of controversies in mod- ern Japanese art) (Tokyo: Kwryudo, 1981), 97— iii. Kuroda was the central figure in the White Horse contingent. Asai Chu (1856-1907), a pupil of Koyama Shotaro (who had himsell studied directly with Fontanesi), was one of the most celebrated painters of the Meiji Art Society. Most of Asai’s earth-colored oil paintings depicted picturesque scenes of farmers tending fields and gath- ering harvests. He transposed the Barbizon agrarian pastoralism of Fontanesi’s work onto Japa- nese indigenous subjects and locales. The Meiji Art Society was succeeded by the Pacific Paint- ing Society (Taiheiyo Gakai) in 1901. 14. Kitazawa, Kishida Ryusei, 38. 15. Miriam Levin, Republican Art and Ideology in Late Nineteenth-Century France (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1986). 16. Kitazawa Noriaki, Me no shinden (Palace of the eye) (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1989), 164—82; Kitazawa, Kishida Ryusei, 30—31. 17. Takashina Shuji, “Natsume Soseki and the Development of Modern Japanese Art,” in Culture and Identity: Japanese Intellectuals During the Interivar Years, ed. J. Thomas Rimer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 273-74. 18. Kawakita Michiaki, ed., Aoki Shigeru to romanshugi (Aoki Shigeru and romanticism), Kindai no bijutsu, no. i (Tokyo: Ibundo, 1970), 33-34. 19. Kawakita, Aoki Shigeru to romanshugi, 18. 20. Jay Rubin, Injurious to Public Morals: Writers and the Meiji State (Seattle: University of Wash- ington Press, 1984), 60. 21. For further discussion of the Hibiya riot, see Shumpei Okamoto, “The Emperor and the Crowd: The Historical Significance of the Hibiya Riot,” in Conflict in Modern Japanese History, ed. Tet- suo Najita and J. Victor Koschmann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982). 22. Yoshitake Oka, “Generational Conflict After the Russo-Japanese War,” in Conflict in Modern Japa- nese History, 197-99, 206. 23. Smith employs the term “self-concerned,” rather than “selfish” or “self-centered,” to avoid the negative connotations of vain self-indulgence and egocentrism. Henry Smith, Japan's First Stu- dent Radicals (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), xii. 271 NOTES TO PAGES 1 9-25 24. The naturalists assumed the “self” as a given, not a time-specific cultural construction, and ar- gued that they could bypass the outward manifestations of Westernization and tap into an es- sentially Japanese core. Edward Fowler, The Rhetoric of Confession (Berkeley: University of Cali- lornia Press, 1988). 25. Sharon Nolte, Liberalism in Modern Japan: Ishibashi Tanzan and His Teachers, ipo^—1^60 (Berke- ley: University of California Press, 1987), 16. 26. Soseki gave a public lecture entitled “Content and Form,” in which he exhorted members of the government to “adjust their policies to the inner needs of the individualistic new Meiji genera- tion.” Jay Rubin, “Preface and Foreword to Essays,” in Natsume Soseki, Kokoro a Novel and Se- lected Essays, trans. Edwin McClellan and Jay Rubin (Lanham, Md.: Madi.son Books, 1991), 243-44. 27. Individualism was seen as incompatible with the maintenance of the Japanese national polity (kokii- tai) and the emperor system (tennosei), “which demanded absolute loyalty and obedience”; rec- onciliation could only come trom imperial benevolence. Japanese nationalists believed that “the corporate imperial state transcended not only individual interests but the whole people.” Nolte, Liberalism, 55—56. 28. The main contributors to Shirakaba included the writers and theorists Mushanokoji Saneatsu (1885-1976), Arishima Takeo (1878-1923), Shiga Naoya (1883-1971), Kojima Kikuo (1897-1950), Nagayo Yoshio (1888-1961), Yanagi Soetsu (1889-1961), Satomi Ton (1888-1983), and Natsume Soseki (1867—1916), as well as the painters Arishima Ikuma (1882—1974), Kishida Ryusei (1891-1929), and Umehara Ryuzaburo (1888-1986). Shirakaba achieved an unprecedented circulation for a “co- terie magazine” (dojin zasshi). At the highest point of circulation, a single issue sold 10,000 copies, a statistic that does not take into consideration the widespread sharing ot published material in the period. Furthermore, the broad-based influence of Shirakaba-ha thought was markedly in- creased by its popularity among young Tokyo-educated schoolteachers who imparted this phi- losophy to their students throughout Japan. Fowler, Rhetoric of Confession, 132. 29. For various conceptions of individualism in late Meiji and Taisho Japan, see Nolte, Liberalism; Sharon Nolte, “Individualism in Taisho Japan,” The Journal of Asian Studies 43, no. 4 (August 1984); Atsuko Hirai, Individualism and Socialism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986). 30. For more on Uchimura’s thought, see Tatsuo Arima, The Failure of Freedom: A Portrait of Mod- ern Japanese Intellectuals (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 15-50. 31. Kitazawa, Kishida Ryusei, 27. For another consideration of the relationship between Christianity and interiority in Japan, see H. D. Harootunian, “Between Politics and Culture: Authority and the Ambiguities of Intellectual Choice in Imperial Japan,” in Japan in Crisis, ed. Bernard Silber- man and H. D. Harootunian (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 124. 32. Nika nanaju nenshi (Seventy-year history of Nika) (Tokyo: Zaidan Hojin Nikakai, 1985), 8-9. 33. Takashina Shuji, '^Shirakaba to kindai bijutsu,” in Nihon kindai no biishiki (Tokyo: Seidosha, 1993), 327. 34. Mushanokoji’s comment on the wrenching struggle involved in individual liberation was origi- nally published in Shirakaba (August 1911); translated in Takashina, “Natsume Soseki,” 277. See J. Thomas Rimer, “Tokyo in Paris/Paris in Tokyo,” in Paris in Japan, ed. ShujiTakashina, J. Thomas Rimer, and Gerald Bolas (Tokyo and St. Louis, Mo.: Japan Foundation and Washington Uni- versity in St. Louis, 1987), 26. The Shirakaba-ha was as diverse as its many members and went through a series of phases during the magazine’s long run. See Takumi Hideo, Niho:; no kindai bijutsu to bungaku: Sashie shi to sono shuheri (Japanese modern art and literature: The history of illustration and related subjects) (Tokyo: Chusekisha, 1987), 116-28. 35. The main members of the Fusain-kai were Saito Yori, Takamura Kotaro, Kimura Shohachi, Yorozu Tetsugoro, Kishida Ryusei, Hazama Inosuke, and Kobayashi Tokusaburd. The first Fusain exhi- bition was held in December 1912 in the Ginza at the Yomiuri Shinbun building and displayed the artists’ interpretations of various styles associated with European post-impressionism. After its second exhibition, held in the spring of 1913, the group disbanded. For more information, see Oka Isaburo, “Fyuzankai” (Fusain Society), Bijutsu kenkyu, no. 185 (March 1956); Shimada Ya- suhiro, ed., Fyuzankai to Sodosha (Fusain Society and the Sodosha), Kindai no bijutsu, no. 43 (Tokyo: Ibundo, 1977). 36. Tlye yoga artists followed the precedent set by the nihonga section in 1911 after the fifth Bunten, when it divided into the ikka (first section) and the nika (second section); a rift had occurred be- tween artists who advocated a more traditionalistic approach, represented by the kyuha (old group), and those inclined toward stylistic innovation represented by the shinpa (new group). By this time, the rivalry between and nihonga had entirely subsided and a new antagonism had de- veloped between conservative and progressive forces within each community of painters. This led to mutual support of like-minded artists across yoga-nihonga boundaries. 37. Rimer, “Tokyo in Paris,” 60— 61. 38. Ibid., 66. Yamashita Shintaro, 1881-1966; Yasui Sotaro, 1888-1955. 39. Takashina, “Natsume Soseki,” 277. 40. Takamura Kotaro, “Midori iro no taiyo” (A green sun), in A Brief History of Imbecility, trans. Sato Hiroaki (Honolulu; University of Hawaii Press, 1992), 180—86. 41. Translated in Kawakita Michiaki, Modern Currents in Japanese Art, The Heibonsha Survey of Japa- nese Art, no. 24, trans. Charles Terry (New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill/Heibonsha, 1974), 96. 42. See, for example, Bernard Silberman and H. D. Harootunian, qAs., Japan in Crisis: Essays on Taisho Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, i974);Tetsuo Najita and]. Victor Koschmann, eds., Conflict in Modern Japanese History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982); Germaine A. Hoston, Marxism and the Crisis of Development in Prewar Japajt (Princeton: Princeton Uni- versity Press, 1986). 43. Peter Duus, “Liberal Intellectuals and Social Conflict in Taisho Japan,” in Conflict in Modern Japa- nese History, ed. Tetsuo Najita and J. Victor Koschmann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 412-15. 44. Popular discontent over the inflated price of rice led to a nationwide series of spontaneous revolts known as the Rice Riots of 1918, which were brutally suppressed by the authorities. As Andrew Barshay has aptly noted, the Rice Riots “introduced the concept of society’ into public discourse all across the political spectrum, and into the day-to-day workings of the government,” causing a “crisis of state.” Basically, the late Taisho period “saw the forceful impingement of society onto politics.” Andrew Barshay, State atid Intellectual in Imperial Japan: The Public Man in Crisis (Berke- ley: University of California Press, 1988), 21. 45. Duus, “Liberal Intellectuals,” 426. The consciousness of class conflict created by the introduc- tion of leftist thought reinlorced the growing perception of the separation between state and so- ciety and intensified the demand for total social revolution rather than just “renovation” (kaizo) that would maintain the paternalism of the state. 46. In this spirit, Arishima sponsored many leftist journals and offered financial support to a variety of young socially engaged intellectuals. However, in his essay “One Declaration” (Sengen hitotsu) published in Kaizo 4, no. i (January 1922): 60, Arishima stated that in the end there was no way that the intellectual, having come from a different class background, could hope to speak for the proletariat, and therefore, the revolutionary activities of the intelligentsia were all in vain. Excerpt quoted in G. T. Shea, Lefiwing Literature in Japan (Tokyo: Hosei University Press, 1964), 79. 273 NOTES TO PAGES 30-37 CHAPTER 2 274 1. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Engekiteki jijoden (Theatrical autobiography), vol. i (Tokyo: Toho Shup- pansha, 1970), 1:180, 254. 2. Ishida Takeshi, “The Meaning of ‘Independence’ in the Thought ofUchimura Kanzo,” in Cul- ture and Religion in Japanese-American Relations: Essays on Uchimnra Kanzo, 1861— ig^o, ed. Ray Moore, Michigan Papers on Japanese Studies, no. 5 (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies, 1981), 13, 15. 3. Ota Yuzo, “Uchimura Kanzo: The Carlyle of Japan,” in Culture and Religion in Japanese-Ameri- can Relations, 64. 4. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 1:198, 203-5; Murayama Tomoyoshi, Kodomo no tomo gengashu, no. 2 (Tokyo: Fujin no Tomosha, 1986); Murayama Tomoyoshi no shigoto (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1985). 5. Hani writes of his experiences at the First Higher School with Murayama. Hani Goro, Watashi no daigaku (My university) (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1966), loi— 2. 6. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Engekiteki jijoden igiz—igzy (Theatrical autobiography), vol. 2 (Tokyo: Toho Shuppansha, 1971), 2:263—64. For selected examples of Murayama Kazuko’s work and a consideration of her career, Murayama Kazuko, Hiratsuka Takeji, Kiji Etsuko (Survey of Japa- nese children’s literature), no. 26 (Tokyo: Harupu, 1978), 557-86, 618-27, 639-41. 7. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 1:98—99, 123, 150—51, 312. 8. For an overview of the sociopolitical context of Weimar Germany and its influence on cultural production, see John Elderfield, “Dissenting Ideologies and the German Revolution, ’’ Studio In- ternational 180, no. 927 (November 1970); John Willett, Art and Politics in the Weimar Period: The New Sobriety igiy—igj^ (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1978; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1996); Joan Weinstein, The End of Expressionism: Art and the November Revolution in Ger- many, igi8—ig (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). 9. See all essays in Beeke Sell Tower, ed.. Envisioning Atnerica (exhibition catalogue) (Cambridge: Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, 1990), 14. 10. Dawn Ades, Photomontage (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976), 13. 11. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:41-44; Mizusawa Tsutomu, “Ranhansha suru kosai” (Diffusely reflecting light), in Mavo nojidai (The age of Mavo), ed. Mizusawa Tsutomu and OmtikaToshi- hatu (Tokyo: Art Vivant, 1989), 19; Mizusawa Tsutomu, “Deai ga nokoshita mono: 1920 nendai Berurin to Nihonjin,” in Waimdru no gakatachi: Kunstler aus der periode de Weimarer republik (Kamakura: Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, 1988), 4-7. In addition to writing poetry, Wadachi experimented with sketching, painting, and collage. The handful of his works that sur- vive show significant stylistic overlap with Murayama’s work from this period. He produced a se- ries of semi-abstract works in a non-naturalistic, expressionist style with cubo-futurist elements. The subjects were often urban or landscape scenes from around Berlin as well as a smattering of still lifes and evocative self-portraits. Omuka, “Berurin no miraiha,” 68-69. For examples of Wadachi’s work, see Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, Waimdru no gakatachi: Kunstler aus der periode de Weimarer republik (Kamakura, 1988). 12. Omuka Toshiharu, “Berurin no miraiha kara ‘Augusuto Gurtippe’ e” (From the Japanese futur- ists in Berlin to the “August Gruppe”), Geijutsu kenkyuho (Bulletin of Institute of Art and De- sign, University ofTsuktiba) 15 (1990): 58. M. S. Jones, Der Sturm: A Eocus of Expressionism (Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1984), xiii— 44. 13 - 14. See Stephanie Barron, ed., German Expressionism The Second Generation (exhibition catalogue) (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988). 15. MurayamaTomoyoshi, “Akipenko ni mensetsu shite” (An interview with Archipenko), Child bi- jutsii, no. 93 (June 1923): 81-83. 16. Togo had achieved recognition in Japanese art circles with his cubo-futurist painting Woman Hold- ing a Parasol (Parasoru saseru onna), exhibited at the third Nika exhibition in 1916. This work went on to win the Nika prize. Togo first studied in France from April 1921 until March 1922; he met the leader of Italian futurism, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, along with Luigi Russolo and Pablo Picasso. Upon his return to Japan, Togo was one of a number of Nika artists spearheading a stylistic move toward a cubo-futurist and abstract expressionist style and away from the post- impressionist modes that had dominated the group. Omuka Toshiharu, “Shoki tai-O jidai no Togo Seiji to Itaria miraiha” (Togo Seiji’s early stay in Europe and Italian futurism), Bijutsnshi kenkyu (Waseda Daigaku Bijutsnshi Gakkai), no. 29 (1991). 17. Volker Pirsich, Der Sturm (Tlerzberg: T. Bautz, 1985), 671. According to Peter Demetz, Walden’s Der Sturm functioned “as a German propaganda medium of early Italian futurism.” Walden main- tained his support of futurism into the 1920s when he promoted Ruggero Vasari. Peter Demetz, Italian Futurism and the German Literary Avant-Garde (London: University of London Institute of Germanic Studies, 1987), 4-5. 18. Nagano exhibited Woman Playing a Guitar (Gita o hiku fujin) and Four Workers (Yonin no ro- dosha). Murayama’s painting and Nagano’s Woman Playing a Guitar ilk reproduced in Ruggero Vasari, “Die Grosse Futuristische Ausstellung in Berlin, Marz 1922” (The great futurist exhibi- tion in Berlin, March 1922), Der Futurismus, no. i (May 1922): 3-6. 19. Nagano’s photo album is now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura; it con- tains photographs of Nagano’s and Murayama’s paintings as well as documentary images of their activities in Berlin. 20. The art exhibition was organized by the German artists’ group Junge Rheinland and ran from May 28 to July 3, 1922. For a full account and reconstruction of the event, see Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Komtruktivistische Internationale SchdpferischeArbeitsgemeirischaft Ip22—ip2j: Utopien fiir eine Europaische Kidtur (Nordrhein-Westfalen, 1992), 17-30. Murayama reported on this event in Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Bankoku Bijutsu Tenrankai no shin undo” (New move- ments at the International Art Exhibition), Kaihd (November 1922): 116-19. It is interesting to note that the congress ended prematurely due to the protest of the International Faction of Con- structivists (IFdK), includingTheo Van Doesburg, El Lissitzky, and Hans Richter. Omuka Toshi- haru, “MurayamaTomoyoshi to Dyusserudorufu no ‘Bankoku Bijutsu Tenrankai’ ” (Murayama Tomoyoshi and the Diisseldorf “International Art Exhibition”), Tstikuba Daigaku geijutsu netibd (1987): 42-45. For a discussion ol the IFdK’s protest, see Stephen Bann, ed., The Tradition of Con- structivism (New York: Da Capo Press, 1974). 21. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:31. 22. Murayama, “Bankoku,” 119. 23. Omuka, “Berurin no miraiha,” 68. It is not known what works were exhibited. 24. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Koseiha hihan i” (Critique of constructivism i), Mizue, no. 233 (July 1924): 2. 25. As early as 1913, Walden was exhibiting Russian artists in Berlin in his “Salon d’Automne” (Erster Herbst-salon). Annely-Juda Fine Gallery, The First Russian Show (London, 1983), 7. 26. Through Vasari, Murayama also met the Russian futurist artist Vera Steiner (Idelson). Steiner was 275 known mainly for her work in stage design. She and Vasari worked together at the Dramatisches Theater in Berlin. Omuka, “Berurin no miraiha,” 57. 27. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:101-12. 28. Ibid., 2:87. Murayama wrote about seeing the famous expressionist dancer Mary Wigman. Mu- rayama Tomoyoshi, “Dansu no honshitsu ni tsuite” (About the essence of dance), Cbiid bijiitsii, no. 94 (July 1923). 29. He was in Europe from February to December 1922 and arrived back in Japan in January 1923, after the month-long sea voyage home. 30. Bunpodo was one of the first manufacturers of oil paint yoga art supplies in Japan. Estab- lished in 1887, the store at the present Kanda location was opened in 1921 and included a gallery to showcase work by artists using Bunpddo materials. Construction of the store’s reinforced con- crete structure was completed sometime around 1923; the building was considered extremely mod- ern by all contemporary accounts. 31. The exhibition’s Japanese title was “Murayama Tomoyoshi no ishikiteki koseishugiteki shohin tenrankai — Niddi Imupekofen to oshitsukegamashiki yubisa to ni sasagu”; the German title was “Bewusste-Konstruktionistische Ausstellung von Tomoyoshi Murayama (Niddy Impekoven Gewidmet).” Omuka translates Murayama’s term koseishiigi as “constructionism” to emphasize its affinity to assemblage art and to distinguish it conceptually from Russian constructivism. The Western movement of constructivism itself, however, was pluralistic and included many artists who did not subscribe to the ideology of Russian constructivism. Therefore, I have chosen to pre- serve the translation as “constructivism” in the broadest sense of the term. 32. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Jiten jihyo” (Self-critique of my exhibition), Chfw bijutsu 9, no. 7 (July 1923): 196-97- 33. Another three are positively identifiable from photographs reproduced in Murayama’s anthology of art criticism, Genzai no geijntsu to rnirai no geijiitsu (Art of the present and art of the future) (Tokyo: Choryusha, 1924), and Mavo magazine; as with his other pieces from this period, Mu- rayama gave them dual titles, in both Japanese and German: Women Friends at the Wmdow (Mado ni yoreru onna tomodachi; Freundinnen am Fenster), Portrait of the Dancer Jolanda Figoni (Odoriko Yoranda Figoni no zo; Tanzerin Jolanda Figoni), and Seated Prostitute ( Suwaseru in- baifu; Sitzende Dime). 34. The “Central Art Exhibition” was sponsored by the publisher of the art journal Child bijutsu and was dedicated to introducing the work of young unknown artists. 35. Fliers for rhese two exhibitions are in the first volume of Murayama Tomoyoshi’s unpublished and unpaginated multivolume scrapbook, which is currently in the possession of his son Mu- rayama Ado. Hereinafter, these scrapbooks will be cited as MTS, followed by the volume number. 36. “Onna o kakazu takumini onna o hyogen” (Skillfully expressing a woman without painting a woman), Kokumin shinbun, June 2, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 3. It may be the painting Beatrice (Beatoriche) that the two figures are viewing in the photograph accompanying the news article “Chuo bijut- suten e onari no Chichibunomiya” (Prince Chichibu’s visit to the Central Art Exhibition), Koku- min shinbun, June 4, 1923 (p.m. ed.), 2. 37. Murayama notes that a half-page newspaper advertisement was run for his second solo exhibi- tion. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:170. 38. TodaTatsuo, Watashi no kakocho (Tokyo: Kobunsha, 1972), 12; Yurugi Yasuhiro, “Jidai ni iki, jidai o koeta 'Mavo’,” in Mavo’ fukkokuban bessatsu kaisetsu (Tokyo: Museum of Modern Japanese Lit- erature, 1991), 9; Sumiya Iwane, “Han Nika undo to ‘Mavo’” (The anti-Nika movement and Mavo), Bijutsukan nyusii (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum), no. 303 (April 1976); 2. 39. MurayamaTomoyoshi, “Sugiyuku hyogenha” (Expressionism expiring), Chilo bijutsu, no. 91 (April 1923): 14. The title “Expressionism Expiring” was probably taken from an article in German of the same title by Ivan Goll {ne Herbert Lang, 1891-1950) in the Serbo-Croatian avant-garde pe- riodical published in Zagreb, Zenit (Zenith) i, no. 8 (October 1921): 8-9. Rose-Carol Washton Long, ed., German Expressionism: Documents from the End of the Wilhelmine Empire to the Rise of National Socialism (New York and Toronto: G. K. Hall and Maxwell Macmillan, 1993), 287—89. 40. An announcement for the second issue of Mavo magazine calls it a “conscious constructivist mag- azine.” “Ishikiteki koseishugiteki na zasshi no hyoshi-e” (The cover picture of a conscious con- structivist magazine), Yomiuri shinbun, August 24, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 4. Also, many Mavo artists used the term for their exhibitions and in their works. For instance, Takamizawa’s exhibition at Cafe Dontoku on Hongd street, held September 15-30, 1923, was called an “Ishikiteki Ko- seishugiteki Koten” (Conscious constructivist solo exhibition). “Mavo no kokoku” (Mavo ad- vertisement), Mavo, no. 4 (October 1924). Sumiya’s solo exhibition in Maebashi (October 14-15, 1923) was similarly entitled “Ishikiteki Koseishugiteki Kojin Tenrankai.” MTS i. 41. Murayama, “Sugiyuku,” 14. 42. Murayama mentions sevetal artists such as Otto Dix and Pablo Picasso as examples of painters who have confronted the ugliness of life. Murayama, “Sugiyuku,” 12. 43. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:150. 44. See for example, “Kaba no mimi” (The hippopotamus’s ear), Yomiuri shinbun, June 25, 1923 (a.m. ed.), II. ■ 45. Many scholars have sharply criticized Murayama for falling short of offering a consistent or co- hesive platform to replace what he was tearing down. They also criticize him for maintaining the centrality of expression while impeaching it. Mizusawa has even referred to this as Murayamas “prolific hypocrisy,” an opinion that Omttka shares. Mizusawa Tsutomu, “Ranhansha suru kosai” (Diffusely reflecting light), in Mavo no jidai, ed. Mizusawa Tsutomu and OmukaToshiharu (Tokyo: Art Vivant, 1989), 23; OmukaToshiharu, '^Mavo toTaishoki shinko bijutsu undo (I)” (Mavo and the new art movement in the Taisho period), Geijutsu kenkyuho, no. 12 (1991): 27. I believe that Murayama was making a distinction between the expression of the individual in response to the outside world and an expressionism that advocated the development of an interior world totally disengaged from political, social, or cultural realities. Still, this is not to say that there were not many inconsistencies in Murayama’s ideas. 46. Murayama, “Sugiyuku,” 29—30. 47. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:15-16, 19. Murayama wrote and translated articles on many of the artists he saw at Galerie Der Sturm. He published a series of articles on Kandinsky’s poetry: MurayamaTomoyoshi, “Kandinsky no shi” (The poems of Kandinsky), Chud bijutsu, no. 99 (Feb- ruary 1924); Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Kandinsuki no shi (tsuzuki)” (The poems of Kandinsky [Continuation]), Chud bijutsu, no. 100 (March 1924); MurayamaTomoyoshi, “Kandinsky no shi (2)” (The poems of Kandinsky), Chud bijutsu, no. loi (April 1924). He later turned these three ar- ticles into the book Kandinsuki, annotated with his own commentary and expanded to include an analysis of Kandinsky’s art work and aesthetic theories. MurayamaTomoyoshi, trans., Kandin- suki (Kandinsky) (Tokyo: Ars, 1925); the book introduced about sixty-five artworks, most of which were executed after 1902. 48. Kenneth Lindsay and Peter Vergo, eds., Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982; reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994), 479. 277 NOTES TO PAGES 45-49 49. Murayama, “Sugiyuku,” 6—7, 15. 50. Lindsay and Vergo, Kandinsky: Complete Writings, 353. 51. In his autobiography, Murayama retrospectively codified and distinguished his attitude toward “realism,” which was concerned with expressing the truth of the nature of daily life, from the re- alist movement that sought to represent accurately and objectively the appearance of the natural world, by calling the former shinjitsu shiigi (truthism) and the latter shajitsushiigi (bourgeois re- alism). Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 1:72. 278 52. The basic history of the Futurist Art Association is recounted in Kinoshita Shuichiro, “Taishoki no shinko bijutsu undo o megutte 4: Miraiha Bijutsu Kyokai no koro (sono ichi)” (Concerning the new art movement of theTaisho period 4: The days of the Futurist Art Association i), Gendai no me, no. 185 (April 1970): 7-8; Kinoshita Shuichiro, “Taishoki no shinko bijutsu undo o megutte 5: Miraiha Bijutsu Kyokai no koro (sono ni)” (The new art movement of the Taisho period 5; The days of the Futurist Art Association 2), Gendai no me, no. 186 (May 1970); 7. See also Honma Masayoshi, “Miraiha bijutsu kyokai oboegaki” (Notes on the Futurist Art Association), Tokyo kokuritsu kindai bijutsiikan nenpo (1973); Flonma Masayoshi, ed., Nihon no zen'ei bijutsu (Japa- nese avant-garde art), Kindai no bijutsu, no. 3 (Tokyo: Ibundo, 1971), 20, 29-32. Honma’s dis- cussions of the group are largely based on Kinoshita’s accounts. 53. Although Kinoshita’s official relationship to Mavo is ambiguous, he clearly played an invaluable role in the initial period of the group’s organization. It is only by understanding Kinoshita and his role in the FAA that the gathering of Mavo artists becomes clear. As shown in the work of Tsuchioka Shuichi (the son of Kinoshita’s friend from Fukui who was bequeathed the artist’s per- sonal papers), Kinoshita was the consummate art organizer and exhibition facilitator. He was able to both organize and fund these exhibitions. He continued to invigorate art activities in Fukui city upon his permanent return in 1925. I am indebted to Mr. Tsuchioka for making Kinoshita’s papers available to me. For Kinoshita’s activities in Fukui, see Fukui Prefectural Museum of Art, Avant-Garde Movement in Fukui ip22—i()8j: Tsuchioka Hidetard to Hokusd, Hokubi to Gendai Bi- jutsu (Fukui, 1983). 54. For studies on the relationship between futurism and other movements in European and Rus- sian art, see Stephanie Barron and Maurice Tuchman, eds.. The Avant-Garde in Russia, ipio—ipjo: Netv Perspectives (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Museum of Art, 1980), 14-15; Anne D’Harnoncourt, Futurism and the International Avant-Garde (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1981); Marjorie Perloff, The Futurist Moment: Avant-Garde, Avant-Guerre, attd the Language of Rupture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); Nancy Van Norman Baer, ed.. Theatre in Revolu- tion: Russian Avant-Garde Stage Design (New York and San Francisco: Thames and Hud- son, and The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1991); Linda Boersma, The Last Futurist Fx- hibition of Painting {Kotitrdzm: 010 Publishers, 1994). 55. Kinoshita gave a lecture in Fukui entitled “From Futurism to ‘Conscious Constructivism,’ ” stress- ing the connection between the FAA and Mavo. Kinoshita Shuichird Scrapbook, Fukui (abbre- viated hereinafter as KSS). 56. The “Futurist Manifesto” published in Le Figaro in February 1909 was first partially translated into Japanese by Mori Ogai {Subaru, May 1909) only a few months after the original, but this text seems to have had very little impact on Japanese artists. In 1912 a series of articles in Bijutsu shinpo, Taiyd, Gendai no yoga, and various newspapers introduced aspects of Italian futurism to |apan. Asano Toru, ed., Zen’ei kaiga (Avant-garde painting), Genshoku gendai Nihon no bijutsu, no. 8 (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1978), 117; Otani Shogo, “Itaria miraiha no shokai to Nihon kindai yoga” (The introduction of Italian futurism and Japanese modern western-style painting), Geiso (Tsukuba Daigaku geijutsugaku kenkyushi) (University ofTsukuba Art and Design Research Bui- letin), no. 9 (1992): 107-8. Artists such as Tiikamura Kotaro, Saito Yori, Kishida Ryusei, and Ar- ishima Ikuma, who were involved with groups like the Fusain Society and Nika-kai that were ex- perimenting with the stylistic modes of European post-impressionism, were particularly inter- ested in fututism because it accotded with their stress on the expressive and anti-mimetic nature of painting. Arishima began a correspondence with Marinetti and later sent Togo Seiji to meet him. Togo exhibited his work with the futurists in Europe. He also attended a performance of Russolo’s “sound constructor” in 1921. Togo’s writings to Arishima about this experience were published in Myojo (March 1922). Omuka, “Shoki tai-O jidai no Togo Seiji,” 35-38. Other Japa- nese artists associated with Nika, such as Kimura Shohachi and Kambara Tai, also corresponded with Marinetti, who continued to be actively engaged in disseminating futurism. Based on his contact with Marinetti and independent study of futurism, Kambara published his Miraiha no kenkyii (Tokyo: Idea Shoin, 1925). 57. The work of Umberto Boccioni was first exhibited in Japan in 1914 at the Hibiya Bijutsukan exhi- bition “DER STURM Mokuhanga Tenrankai Mokuroku 1914” (Der Sturm woodblock print ex- hibition catalogue). Otani, “Itaria miraiha,” 120, 114. For a discussion of this exhibition, see Fujii Hisae, '"Der Sturm mokuban tenrankai sakuhin ni tstiite” (About the works from the Der Sturm woodblock print exhibition). Bulletin of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo 1 (1987); Omuka Toshiharu, “Hibiya bijutsukan ni tsuite” (Concerning the Hibiya Museum), Nidd kindai katei no hikaku bunkateki kenkyu (Comparative cultural studies ol the modern processes of Japan and Ger- many), Chiba University Education Division, no. 02305002 (March 1992). 58. Kinoshita Shuichiro, “Miraiha no kaiga” (Futurist painting), bijutsu i, no. ii (November 1921): 5-6. 59. Gokuraku Chosei, “Miraiha gaka sengen ni arawareta shiso” (Ideas expressed in the luturist man- ifesto), Mizue, no. 209 (July 1922): 31. 60. Born in Nara, Fumon moved to Tokyo as a young child. He later studied design, architecture, nihonga, and oil painting, and continued to work in a diversity of media throughout his career. Fumon began submitting works to Nika after his work was recognized by the prominent critic and Nika artist Ishii Hakutei during a solo exhibition in 1917. Fumon was primarily concerned with expressing the qualities of music and the sensation of movement in the visual arts through the animated use of line and color. He became friends with the Nika artists Togo Seiji and Kam- bara Tai while exhibiting at the “Exhibition of the Pacific Painting Society” (Taiheiyo Gakaiten) in 1917. He returned to Nara permanently in 1920 and was active in organizing exhibitions with other artists in the Kansai area. Nara Prefectural Museum of Art, Fumon Gyd sakidtinheji, chdkoktdten (Catalogue of works in the Nara Prefectural Museum of Art’s collection: Fumon Gyo and sculpture volume), Zohin zuroku, no. ii (Nara, 1993). 61. The name was derived from the fact that there were eight founding members who saw themselves as burning brightly like a flame. 62. Honma has pointed out that Fumon learned how to work in sculpture from his close Iriend Toda Kaiteki, a sculptor who exhibited at the Teiten and later showed in the second and third FAA ex- hibitions. Toda was also listed as a full member of the group, even though he is seldom men- tioned as directly involved with the activities. Honma, “Miraiha,” 62. 63. “Miraiha tenrankai” (Futurism exhibition), Chiio bijutsu 6, no. 10 (October 1920): 150-51. 64. “Miraiha” (The Futurists), Yomiuri shinbun, September 20, 1920 (a.m. ed.), 7. 65. Burliuk was able to establish a connection with Hoshi through a diplomat he met while on the ship to Japan, who had connections with the owner. Tsuchioka Shuichi, personal communica- tion, August 26, 1994. Burliuk’s exhibition was entitled “The First Exhibition of Russian Paint- 279 NOTES TO PAGES 49-54 ings in Japan” and included works by Burliuk, Palmov, Kasimir Malevich, Vasilii Kamenskii, and Vladimir Tatlin. Okamoto Ippei, “Kokan!! Rokoku miraiha no gaka to mangaka ga bucanabeya de” (Exchange celebration!! Russian futurist artist and cartoon artists at a pork stew restaurant), Tokyo asahi shinbun, October 21, 1920 (a.m. ed.), 5. For an explication of Burliuk’s activities in Japan, see Omuka Toshiharu, “David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-Garde,” Cartadian-Amer- ican Slavic Studies 20, no. 1-2 (Spring-Summer 1986); Nishinomiya City Otani Memorial Art Museum, ‘Miraiha no chichi' Rokoku gahaku raichokiH: Bururyukku to Nihon no miraiha (“The father of futurism” Record of the Russian masters visit to Japan: Burliuk and the Japanese Fu- turists) (Nishinomiya-shi, 1996). 66. In reviewing the Russian futurist exhibition at Hoshi pharmaceutical, Arishima Ikuma strongly criticized Butliuks version of futurism, stating that it differed significantly from Italian futurism and the core concepts of dynamism asserted by Marinetti and Boccioni. Arishima Ikuma, “Pari- mofu no geijutsu (chu)” (Palmov’s art 2), Yomiuri shinbun, October 21, 1920 (a.m. ed.). 67. David Burliuk (1882-1967) and his brother Vladimir collaborated with Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov between 1908 and 1912 in formulating a neo-primitive style of painting that combined the pictorial traditions of Russian folk art with the stylistic language of cubo-futur- ism. Barron and Tuchman, “The Avant-Garde in Russia,” 14. 68. “Doteki seimei o utsushita miraiha no saktihin” (The work of the futurists reproduces the dy- namism of life), Kokumin shinbun, October 10, 1920 (a.m. ed.), 5. 69. This book is now available in facsimile and includes lists of all works shown at FAA exhibitions. Kinoshita Shuichird and David Burliuk, Miraiha to wa? Kotaeru (What is futurism? An answer), Kindai Bungei Hyoron Sosho, no. 15 (Chuo Bijutsusha, 1923; reprint, Tokyo: Nihon Zusho Senta, 1990), 111-16. The original text is based on a lecture Kinoshita gave on futurist art theory to art critics in 1922. Kinoshita, “Taishoki (sono ni),” 7. 70. The second FAA and Idakkasha exhibitions were held concurrently in Ueno Park. They were both planned to coincide with the Teiten. Unfortunately, they ended up competing with each other for viewers, a competition that the FAA won hands down. “Teiten o mae ni shite miraiha ga taiji” (The futurists stand face to face in front of the imperial painting exhibition), Nichinichi shinbun, October 15, 1921 (a.m. ed.), 9. 71. One of Ogata’s best-known works is the poetry anthology Iro gtirasit no machi (Street of colored glass), published in November 1925. Ogata’s close friend, the writer Kusano Shinpei, later pub- lished the eponymous periodical called Ogata Kamenosuke, which ran from around February 1975 until January 1978 and detailed Ogata’s life through the recollections of his friends, family, and colleagues. This series is in the collection of the Kanagawa Kindai Bungakukan, Yokohama. 72. Shibuya Osamu, “Sankaten no miraiha” (The futurists at the Sanka exhibition), Chuo bijutsu, no. 87 (December 1922): 16. 73. Hirato published the “Nihon miraiha daiichi sengen” (The first manifesto of the Japanese futur- ist group) in December 1920. 74. See Shibuya Osamu, “Shigematsu Iwakichi-Ktin no e” (The paintings of Shigematsu Iwakichi), Mizue, no. 216 (February 1923): 6-9. 75. During his early career, Yanase decided to change from his given name Shoroku to his artist’s name Masamu, and is thought to have taken the second character “yume” from the name of an artist he admired, Takehisa Yumeji, one of the most popular artists and illustrators of the late Meiji and Taisho periods. 76. Yanase’s relationship to the Fusain Society is unclear, but a New Year’s card from Saito Yori is in- eluded among Yanase’s personal papers and the dabbing brush work in Yanase’s early paintings seems to be indebted to Saito’s work. 77. This text was published serially in Gendai no yoga. Yanase Nobuaki, '"Hikari no naka no seishun Kitakyushu de no bijutsu undo” (“Youth in the Light” The art movement of Kitakyushu), in Yanase Masamu Kenkyu I (Tokyo: Musashino Art University Yanase Masamu Joint Research, 1992), 18, 24, nn24— 26. 78. Matsumoto was involved with publishing the socialist literary journal Bttngei undo (Literary Arts Movement); published in Yamaguchi prefecture from July 1915 until February 1916, the journal was heavily censored and eventually closed down by the Japanese authorities. He was also in- volved in Yanase’s career until the artist moved to Tokyo in 1919, at which time Matsumoto went to Manchuria. Yanase, '‘Hikari no naka," 18. 79. Yanase was introduced to Hasegawa by Oba Ako (1888-1980), a well- known journalist for the Yomiiiri shinbun, whom he had met through Oba’s relative in Kyushu. Oba attended Yanase’s fifth solo exhibition in Moji. Yanase Nobuaki, “Yanase Masamu o kataru,” in Nejikugi no gaka: Yanase Masamuten, ed. Yanase Masamu Sakuhin Seiri linkai (Committee for the Maintenance of Yanase Masamu’s Work) (Musashino: Musashino Art University Museum and Library, 1990), 19. 80. Andrew Barshay, State and Intellectual in Imperial japan: The Public Man in Crisis (Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, 1988), 155-61. 81. Akita was involved with the Tsukiji Little Theater (Tsukiji Shogekijo) and was an active member in rhe proletarian theater movement. He was also a founding member of Tanemaku hito. Yanase Nobuaki credits Akita with kindling Yanase’s interest in theater design. 82. According to G. T. Shea, the establishment of Tatiemaku hito in 1921 represented the official be- ginning of the proletarian literary movement in Japan. The magazine was actually founded slightly earlier by Komaki Omi (we'Omiya Kei), and the first issue was published in Akita prefecture. Ko- maki had srudied law in France and joined the Clarte socialist literary movement spearheaded by Henri Barbusse, Victor Cyril, Raymond Lefebvre, and Paul Vaillant-Courturier, and which included the well-known writer Anatole France. Clarte was largely organized “to counter post- revolutionary anti-Soviet, anti-bolshevik sentiment in France,” and sought “to establish interna- tional solidarity among revolutionary intelligentsia through support of the third international.” G. T. Shea, Lejtiving Literature in Japan (Tokyo: Hosei University Press, 1964), 72. Influenced by Clarte, Tanemaku hito dedicated its beginning issues to a discussion of the Third International, which provoked rhe Japanese censors. After being censured, the magazine folded and then re- opened again in October 1921. Yanase joined around this time. The membership continued to increase until the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 terminated the publication. Tanemaku hito writers were particularly interested in the role of the intelligentsia in the worker's movement. Shea, Leftwing Literature, 72—79. 83. For a discussion of Ueno as an urban space symbolic of the emperor and a modern imperial Japan, see Yoshimi Shunya, Toshi no doramatorugii (Dramaturgy of the city) (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1987), 118-39. 84. Kinoshita, “Taishoki (sono ichi),”; Kinoshita, “Taishoki (sono ni).” 85. A few of the works submitted by Burliuk were collages of colored paper. Burliuk explained to Ki- noshita that these were by Vladimir Tatlin and that they represented a new movement in Russia called “constructivism.” These were the first constructivist art works known in Japan. Kinoshita, “Taishoki (sono ni),” 7; “Kunken no me o nokarete, miraiha ga minami no shima e” (To escape the eyes of the officials, the futurists go to a southern island), Tokyo asahi shinbun, December 18, 1920 (a.m. ed.), 9. 2S1 NOTES TO PAGES 55-75 86. Three-part review by the unknown author Haru Koko(?), “E ni yoru hansel” (Self-examination by painting), Yomiuri shinbtm, November 12, 14, 15, 1921 (a.m. eds.). 87. The FAA’s 1923 New Year’s announcement asserted that Fumon was no longer associated with the group in any capacity. KSS, Tsuchioka Shuichi collection, Fukui. 88. According to the “Sanka Independent Art Exhibition Rules” (Sanka Independento bijutsu ten- rankai kisoku) dated September 1922 and distributed by the FAA, the exhibition was open to all artists working in cubist, futurist, or expressionist modes. All works were to be submitted with an explanation and would be judged by the group members (listed as Kinoshita, Oura, Toda Kaiteki, Ogata, Shigematsu, Burliuk, and Palmov). If sold, a third of the price would be taken as commission by the agent (presumably the exhibition venue) and 10 percent would go to the FAA. The exhibition would travel to Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, and Kobe. KSS. 89. Shibuya bluntly stated that despite Kinoshita’s superior understanding of futurism, he was un- able to translate these ideas effectively into visual terms. Fie attributed this to Kinoshita’s cerebral approach to art and his inability to paint without overly analyzing his work. Shibuya, “Sankaten no miraiha,” 24. 90. Sell Tower, Envisioning America, 19. 91. Ogata’s piece is now known only from a newspaper photo. “Ikizumatta miraiha no shin seimei no kaitaku ni” (The futurists who are developing toward a new life are deadlocked), Nichinichi shinbun, October 7, 1922 (a.m. ed.), 7. 92. Varvara Bubnova, “Gendai ni okeru roshia kaiga no kisu ni tsuite” (Concerning trends in con- temporary Russian painting), Shiso 13 (October 1922): 75-110; and Varvara Bubnova, “Bijutsu matsLiro ni tsuite” (On the death of art). Child kdron 8, no. ii (November 1922): 80—90. Discussed in Omuka, “David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-Garde,” 114. 93. For a discussion of Bubnova’s work in Japan, see Omuka Toshiharu, “Varvara Bubnova as a Van- guard Artist in Japan,” in A Hidden Fire, ed. J. Thomas Rimer (Stanford, Calif, and Washing- ton, D.C.: Stanford University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995), 101-13; Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts, Bnbunowa 1886—198^ (Machida, 1995). 94. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:178. 95. Okada Tatsuo, “Mavo no omoide” (Recollections of Mavo), Mizue, no. 394 (December 1937): 591 - 96. Kato also participated in the “Futurist Art Association Study Exhibition” (Miraiha Bijutsu Kyokai Shusakuten) in April 1923 held at the Lion dentrifice company (Raion hamigaki) in the Marunouchi building. 97. “Shin katsuyaku ni hairu miraiha no bijutsuka” (The Futurist artists beginning new activities), Tokyo asahi shinbun, April 16, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 3. CHAPTER 3 I. “Gakugei shosoku” (Art News), jiji shinpd, July 21, 1923 (p.m. ed.), 9. Kinoshita Shuichiro, “Taishoki no shinko bijutsu undo o megutte 5: Miraiha Bijutsu Kyokai no koro (sono ni)” (The new art movement of the Taisho period 5: The days of the Futurist Art Association 2), Gendai no me, no. 186 (May 1970): 7. The second press announcement of Mavo’s formation ran in “Gakugei shosoku: Mavo seiritsu” (Art News: The Establishment of Mavo), Chud shinbun, July 23, 1923 (a.m. ed.), i; Omuka Toshiharu, “Mavo to Taishoki shinko bijutsu undo (I)” (Mavo and the new art movement in the Taisho period), Geijutsii kenkyuhd, no. 12 (1991): 15—16. Yanase Masamu’s di- ary entry dated June 18, 1923, records his meeting with Ogata, Kadowaki, Oura, and Murayama and their decision to form a new group, which was officially christened “Mavo” on June 20. This entry is reproduced in Yurugi Yastihiro, “Jidai ni iki, jidai o koeta ‘Mavo’,” in “Mavo" fukkokuban bessatsu kaisetsu (Nihon Kindai Bungakukan, 1991), 9-10. The artists regularly met at the Cafe Suzuran and formally inaugurated the group the night before the opening of Murayama’s third solo exhibition at this cafe. Sumiya Iwane, personal communication, March 23, 1994. 2. Another variation on this story, probably recorded by Arishima Ikuma, appeared in Atelier. Af- ter cutting up their names (whether written in the Latin or Japanese phonetic alphabet is un- clear), the Mavo members chose the first three (?) sheets to land on the ground. Arishima Ikuma, “Mekuso mimikuso” (Eye mucus ear wax). Atelier, no. i (February 1924): 61. 3. Omuka, “Mavo to Taishoki,” 22. The spread ol this legend about Mavo’s name is recounted in OmukaToshiharu, “ ‘Mavo’ oboegaki” (A note on “}A-iyd'),Musaslnno bijutsu, no. 76 (1989): 9-10. 4. Omuka, “Mavo to Taishoki,” 23; Murayama Tomoyoshi, Engekiteki jijoden, 1^22— igij (Theatri- cal autobiography), vol. 2 (Tokyo: Toho Shuppansha, 1971), 2:305. 5. On June 20, 1923, he wrote, “It was decided that the name of the group would be the name I chose: ‘Mavo.’” Quoted in Yurugi Yasuhiro, “Kaidai” (Bibliographical introduction), in Yanase Masamu kenkyii I (Musdishimo'. Musashino University Yanase Masamu Joint Research, 1992), 60. 6. Sasaki’s explanation is cited in Yurugi, “Jidai ni iki,” 12—13. 7. A general announcement of the exhibition ran in “Gakugei shosoku: Mavo Daiikkai Tenrankai” (Art news: Mavo’s first exhibition), Chito shinbun, July 25, 1923 (a.m. ed.), i. A photograph ap- peared in “Mavo daiikkai tenrankai” (First Mavo exhibition), Asahi graph, July 31, 1923, 16. Yanase records in his diary searching lor a suitable venue for the first Mavo exhibition and hav- ing meetings with Lion dentrifice, Fioshi pharmaceutical, Nichinicbi shinbun, Kokumin shinbun, Daiichi sogo life insurance, Takashimaya, Shirokiya, Ueno Museum, and the exhibition hall at Takenodai. For unclear reasons, it was eventually decided to exhibit in the main Buddhist hall of Denpoin. It has been suggested that this was arranged through a personal connection of Kado- waki Shinro, but this has yet to be verified. Yurugi, “Jidai ni iki,” ii. 8. The manifesto is reproduced in Shirakawa Yoshio, ed., Nihon no dada 1920— igjo (Dada in Japan 1920-1970) (Tokyo: Fiakuba Shobo and Kazenobara, 1988), 55. 9. This flier was reused to advertise Mavo’s second exhibition. It was reproduced in Arishima Ikuma’s review, “Mekuso mimikuso,” 61. The lower portion ol the flier with the quoted statement was used once again in Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924); it was affixed to a sheet ol newspaper and in- serted as an unfolioed page of the magazine. 10. Miraiha Bijutsu Kyokai, “Tomo yo same yo” (Friends! 'Wake up!), Mizue, no. 210 (December 1922). 11. Since it is not known which numbers originally corresponded to which paintings, I have ran- domly assigned the numbers i through 4 for the purposes of identifying the works. 12. Ogata Kamenosuke, “Mavo (j 5 )” (Mavo i), Tokyo asahi shinbun, August 15, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 6; Ogata Kamenosuke, “Mavo (ge)” (Mavo 2), Tokyo asahi shinbun, August 16, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 6. 13. In fact, the Denpdin show did not attract as much attention as the group had hoped and so they decided to mount another exhibition just a few days later. They displayed a pared-down version of the first exhibition with about six works per artist, called the “Small 'Works Exhibition” (Shohin- ten), held August 6-15, 1923, at the Cafe Ruisseau in Kanda. 14. Asaeda Jiro, “Mavo tenrankai o hyosu” (Critiquing Mavo’s exhibition), Yomiuri shinbun, August 2, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 7. 15. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Mavo tenrankai ni saishite: Asaeda-kun ni kotaeru” (Concerning the Mavo exhibition: A reply to Mr. Asaeda), Tokyo asahi shinbun, August 5, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 6. 283 NOTES TO PAGES 75-79 16. A review of the show by Okada’s friend Tsuchiya Choson describes the artist’s descent into utter nihilism and expresses the frighteningly bleak view presented by the works in Okada’s exhibition. Tsuchiya Choson, “OkadaTatsuo no geijutsu” (The art of Okada Tatsuo), Yomiuri shinbim, Au- gust 4, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 7. A photograph of three-dimensional constructive works mounted on the wall at the exhibition ran in “Okada Kato ryoshi sakuhinten” (Exhibition of works by Okada and Kato), Asahi graph, August i, 1923, 16. 17. OkadaTatsuo, “Ishikiteki koseishugi e no kogi” (A protest to conscious constructivism), Yorni- uri shinbim, part i, August 18, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 6. 18. Ibid. See also Okada’s commentary, part 2, published in Yomiuri shinbim the following day: Au- gust 19, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 6. 19. Postcard announcement is preserved in Murayama’s unpublished and unpaginated multivolume scrapbook (cited as MTS followed by volume number): MTS i. 20. Yabashi came to Tokyo with his older brother, Rizaburo, who went to work at a local post office. Yabashi’s experiences are recounted in his enigmatic poetic autobiography, his only known writ- ing outside his conttibutions to Mavo magazine. The autobiography is entitled Kiiro hata no moto ni (Under the hlack flag) and consists of a series of reminiscences in the form of expressionistic poetry with little concrete documentary information to illuminate Yabashi’s Mavo activities. The reference to “black” in the title asserted Yabashi’s commitment to anarchism, as this color was symbolic of the movement. In this respect, he, Okada, and Takamizawa were of like mind. Yabashi Jokichi, Kiiro hata no moto ni (Tokyo: Kumiai Shoten, 1964), 5, 9, 12, 22. Sumiya Iwane, personal communication, March 23, 1994. 21. Yabashi, Kiiro hata no moto ni, 14. 22. Mtirayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:189. 23. Toda writes about being profoundly impressed by Murayama’s work, which gave him a “weird feeling.” Toda Tatsuo, “Taisho jidai no hanashi,” in Nihon dezain shoshi, ed. Nihon Dezainshi Henshu Doin (Tokyo: Daviddosha, 1970), 12. 24. Ibid., lo-ii, 13. For more biographical information, see Toda Tatsuo, Watashi no kakocho (Tokyo: Kobtmsha, 1972). Toda’s design firm was called Orion-sha. 25. Sumiya was born in the city of Maehashi in Gunma prefecttite. Although he did not pursue his education beyond middle school, he came from a celebrated family of Christian academics who were noted for their contributions to the history of Christianity and socialism. Sumiya himself was, and until his recent death continued to he, a devout Christian. Sumiya’s older brother, Et- suji, is well known for his many writings on socialism. Sumiya Iwane, personal communication, March 23, 1994, and May 26, 1994. Sumiya had little formal artistic training. After dropping out of middle school, he went to Tokyo to study painting around 1920, but had no money and ended up working on the docks loading ships, leaving little time to study. He also worked as a railroad lineman and a ticket seller. Sumiya was painting portraits for money at the time he joined Mavo, and was employed in the printing factory of an educational newspaper company in Totsuka. “Ro- jin no na de nyusen no shinsakuhin kara fuhei no hitobito” (Many people are discontented be- cause of the new work submitted under a Russian name), Tokyo asahi shinbim, August 27, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 3; “Happyo sareta Nika no nyusen” (Announcement of works accepted by Nika), Hochi shinbim, August 27, 1923, 7. 26. Sumiya had been in contact with Murayama prior to becoming involved with Mavo. He visited Murayama’s first solo exhibition and later was invited to Murayama’s studio by his friend Yabashi Kimimaro, who was already involved with Mavo. Sumiya credits Murayama with influencing a shift in his work toward conscious constructivism. Sumiya Iwane, “Han Nika undo to ‘Mavo (The anti-Nika movement and Mavo), Bijutsukan Nyusu (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum), no. 303 (April 1976): 2. Sumiya briefly discusses the subject of his work in “Mondai ni narisona no Nika" {Daily Task of Love in the Factory that seems to be about to become a Y>to\Asm) , Asahi graph, August 27, 1923, 3. 27. One of Sumiya’s friends, Ishikawa Sakurasuke, had just returned from traveling in Russia; he was responsible for creating Sumiya’s Russian pseudonym. Sumiya, “Han Nika,” 2. A photograph of Sumiya and his accepred work appeared in Asahi graph, “Mondai ni nariso,” 3; “Nikaten gaho: Nytisenga to sakuhin” (Nika exhibition pictorial account: Accepted paintings and works), Asahi graph, August 27, 1923, 8-9. 28. This view was reported in the Tokyo asahi shinbnn, where Yabashi was quoted as saying that Nika’s fear of Russian artists was the sole reason for the judges’ decision to accept Sumiya’s work. He in- timated that the judgment made glaringly obvious the inequitable treatment of Mavo as well as the overall prejudicial nature of Nika’s evaluations, since Nika judges praised Sumiya’s work while rejecting Murayama’s, even though Sumiya was markedly influenced by Murayama. “Rojin no na,” Tokyo asahi shinbnn, August 27, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 3. 29. At first the Nika jurors refused ro allow Sumiya to withdraw because it was against the rules, but eventually they acceded to his request. 30. A photograph of this happening was reproduced in “Rakusenga no hikitori” (Claiming the re- jected works), Asahi graph, August 29, 1923, 16; Omuka Toshiharu, Taishoki shinko bijutsu undo no kenkyii (A study of the new art movements of theTaisho period) (Tokyo: Skydoor, 1995), 424. Newspapers reported that about thirty or forty people were involved in the event. “Zorozoro aruku kaiga tenrankai” (The painting exhibition marching in troops), Yorozu choho, August 27, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 3. 31. Accounts of this event differ. According to the Tokyo asahi shinbun, Murayama, Ogata, and Otira were responsible for draping the flag on the building. “Hanasaki o orerareta: Mabo dojin no idoten” (The tip of his nose is broken: The moving exhibition of the Mavo coterie), Tokyo asahi shinbun, August 29, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 5. 32. Tagawa Suiho andTakamizawa Junko, Nora kiiro ichidaiki (An account of the life of Nora Ktiro) (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1991), 107. 33. This seismographic rating is according to the Japanese Meteorological Agency’s earthquake scale, which differs only negligibly from the Richter scale. The pre-earthquake population of the Greater Tokyo area, which corresponds to the land area of modern-day Tokyo, was around four million people. Detailed statistical information on earthquake-related fatalities, land damage, and mili- tary and police deployment are listed in a separate edition of Mainichi gurafti. See Yamada Ku- nio, ed., Kanto daishinsai 6g—nen (69th anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake) (Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1992), 154-57; Ishizuka Hiromichi and Narita Ryuichi, Tokyoto no hyakimen (One hundred years of metropolitan Tokyo) (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppan, 1986), 157, 165. 34. G. T. Shea, Leftwing Literature in Japan (Tokyo: Hosei University Press, 1964), 124. 35. Murayama, who was broughr ro rhe attention of government officials by his neighbors, discusses these events in his autobiography. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:181—96. 36. Entry for September i, 1923, in Yanase Masamu, “Jijoden” (Aurobiography), Kirkos (Musashino Bijutsu Daigaku Shiryo Toshokan nyusu) (Musashino Art University Museum and Library News), no. 2 (October 1990): 7—8; originally published in 1926. 37. “Antism renrankai” (Antism exhibition), Mizue, no. 225 (November 1923): 54. 38. This exhibition was reviewed in “Roshia na no seinen gaka” (The young artist with a Russian name), Yomiuri shinbun, October 24, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 4, and included an illustration of Sumiya’s 285 NOTES TO PAGES 79-91 286 new painting, For the Man who Refused Love (Ai o kyozetsu shitaru otoko no tame ni). A pam- phlet from the exhibition survives in MTS i. This also includes a reproduction of Sumiya’s paint- ing. Later in April 1924, Sumiya again exhibited in Maebashi with Toda Tatsuo, along with other Mavo members. 39. The exhibition was held November 18-30, 1923. A few additional venues were later added to the itinerary. The Yomiuri shinbnn announced that Mavo would he having “a dispersed style” (bim- sanshiki) exhibition, “Yakeato kara” (From the ruins of the fire), Yomiuri shinbnn, November 26, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 4. Another small report on Mavo and the exhibition appeared in Atelier. It was accompanied by a photograph of the exhibition flier and stated that the show traveled to twenty- four cafes. See Arishima, “Mekuso mimi kuso,” 61. 40. The exhibition leaflet survives in MTS i. 41. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:199. Mtirayama explains that the image of the pig was taken from the common theme of pig husbandry among the publications of the group’s publisher Choryusha. See also Fig. 23, above. Mavo’s relationship with Choryusha is discussed below. 42. “Yakeato,” Yomiuri shinbnn, November 26, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 4. 43. Soga Takaaki, “Taisho makki ni okeru shinkd geijutsu undo no kosatsu: Zokei bijutsu to kenchiku no kakawari o megutte” (Thoughts on the new art movement of the late Taisho period: On the relationship between the plastic arts and architecture) (master’s thesis, Waseda Univer- sity, 1990), 47; Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:193. 44. “Shinsaigo no shinshokugyo: Ude o furu zekko no kikai” (New occupations after the earthquake: They skillfully display their abilities, the best machine). Child shinbnn, March 6, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 3 - 45. Soga, “Taisho makki.” 46. “Morie shoten kanban” (The signboard for the Morie bookstore), Kenchiku shincho 5, no. 7 (July 1924). 47. A photograph of this building accompanied an article on Mavo in “Shinsaigo,” Child shinbnn, March 6, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 3. The same photograph appeared in a newspaper clipping found in Murayama’s scrapbook, but its provenance is unknown. The headline above three photographs of barrack structures reads, “Futurist-style buildings that have appeared in the reconstructed city.” MTS I. 48. Soga, “Taisho makki,” 76, 79. 49. “Shinsaigo,” Child shinbnn, March 6, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 3. 50. To name a few of these projects: Mavo Hair Salon (Mavo rihatsuten), Olala Bar behind Matsuya department store in Ginza, a Maruzen advertising kiosk (Maruzen kokuto), the Sanka Exhibi- tion Gate (Sankaten monto), and the Aoikan movie theater in Asakusa. 51. Omuka has drawn parallels between Murayama’s atelier and Kurt Schwitters’s Merzbaii, noting that both structures were conceived of as autobiographical works of art and monuments to their creators. Omuka, Taishdki shinkd bijutsu, 502. A ground plan of Mtirayama’s house and two pho- tographs of the interior and exterior of the building appeared in “Higasa no ryuko to shinjutaku (Modern Japanese Life)” (Trends in parasols and new housing), Asahi graph 2, no. 24 (June ii, 1924): 22. It is not known how Murayama was able to fund this construction, but in light of his strained financial situation, it is most likely that he either borrowed the money, probably through his mother’s connections, or found a patron. 52. Omuka, Taishdki shinkd bijutsu, 301-2. 53- Kon’s tremendous interest in the study of daily life was fueled by his participation in Yanagita Kunio's folklore study ( minzokugaku) group, which examined everything from fables to dwellings. For his part, Kon engaged in extensive documentary field work, particularly related to rural Japa- nese houses (minka), and produced numerous detailed sketches of his findings. Fujimori Terunobu, Ginza no toshi isho to kenchikukatachi (The urban design of Tokyo and architects), ed. Shiseido Gyararii (Tokyo: Shiseido, 1993), 19. For more information on Yoshida’s career, see Yoshida Kenkichi, Tsukiji Shogekijo no jidai (The era of theTsukiji Little Theater) (Tokyo: Yaedake Shobo, 1971)- 54. Kon’s field notes are still extant in the Kon Wajir 5 Archive at Kogakuin University. The studies were published in a variety of magazines at the time. Some of his sketches of barrack construc- tions are reproduced in Mie Prefectural Museum of Art, 20 seiki Nihon bijutsn saiken II: ipzo nendai (Tsu, 1996), 136. Yoshida Kenkichi also actively published his sketches of the post-earthquake sit- uation. He was particularly taken with the assortment of “signboard architecture” produced at this time. He documented and commented on numerous signboards produced by amateurs that were visible throughout the Tokyo landscape, advising artists involved with barrack decoration to learn from the ingenuity, wit, and playfulness of these examples. Yoshida Kenkichi, “Baraku Tokyo no kanbanbi” (The beauty of signs in the barracks of Tokyo), Kenchikii shincho 5, no. i (1924): 21-25. 55. Kon Wajiro and Yoshida Kenkichi, eds., Modernologio (Kogengaku) (Modernology) (Tokyo: Shun- yodo, 1930). For analyses of Kon and Yoshida’s modernology, see Miriam Silverberg, “Constructing the Japanese Ethnography of Modernity, ’’/ottrwrt/oyXfww Yntz/zYr 51, no. i (February 1992); Kawa- zoe Noboru, Kon Wajiro: Sono Kogengaku (Kon Wajiro: His modernology), Minkan Nihon gakusha, no. 9 (Tokyo: Liburopoto, 1987); Yoshida Kenkichi, Yoshida Ketikichi collection I: Kd- gengaku no tatijo (Yoshida Kenkichi collection I: The birth of modernology), ed. Fujimori Terunobu (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1986). 56. Based on Yoshida’s reminiscences, Kawagoe comes to a similar conclusion; Kawagoe, Kon Wajiro, 9:7-11 57. Quoted in Fujimori Terunobu, “Kon Wajiro to Barakku Soshokusha” (Kon Wajiro and the Bar- rack Decoration Company), Quarterly Column, no. 88 (1983): 64. 58. For a somewhat murky elaboration on Kon’s attitude, see Kon Wajiro, “Soshoku geijutsu no kaimei” (Clarification of decoration art), Kenchiku shincho 5, no. 2 (November 1924). 59. Fujimori, “Kon Wajiro to Barakku,” 60. 60. Omuka, Taishoki shinko bijutsu, 506. 61. Koshizawa Akira, Tokyo no toshi keikaku (Urban planning ol Tokyo), Iwanami Shinsho, no. 200 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1991), 11-86. 62. “Kokumin Bijutsu Kyokai kai hokoku” (Announcement from the Citizens’ Art Association), Koku- min bijutsu i, no. 3 (March 1924): 15—16. 63. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:228. 64. Some of the groups who exhibited in addition to the Citizens’ Art Association and Mavo were Meteor Company (Meteoru-sha), Garden Association (Teien Kyokai), Society of Wood Crafts (Mokuzai Kogei Gakkai), Comprehensive Art Association (Sogo Bijutsu Kyokai), Soaring Wind Association (Yofiakai), Secessionist Architecture Association (Bunriha Kenchikukai), Creative Uni- verse Association (Sousha), and the Rato Architecture Association (Rato Kenchikukai). 65. The “Kant Memorial Archive” (Kanto Kinen Bunko), dedicated to the philosopher Immanuel Kant, was bequeathed to Tokyo Imperial University just a month prior to Takamizawa’s work, 287 NOTES TO PAGES 91 -96 288 and it is possible that he was sarcastically referring to this. Other Mavo works in the exhibition identified only by title include Murayama’s Active Collaborative Toilet (Akutibu na kyodo benjo) znA Rest Area in the Park (Koen nai no kyukeiio);Takamizawas Grave (Haka); and Kaxos My Imag- inings at a Certain Moment about a Club That Was Used Throughout a Certain Night (Aru yoru tooshi mochiirareru kurabu ni taisuru watashi no aru toki no sozo) and Wall HajigingiYcafoekake.) . Soga, “Taisho makki,” 109-10, 117. These works were originally mentioned in an atticle by the ar- chitect Hamaoka Chikatada. See Hamaoka Chikatada, “Wagoku ni okeru saikin kenchiku no shokeiko” (New trends in recent architecture in Japan), Kenchiku fukyu 5, no. 7 (July 1924): 4-5. 66. “Teito fukko soanten no kaiki shitsu” (The mysterious room at the exhibition of plans for re- construction of the Imperial City), Miyako shinbun, April 15, 1924, 10. 67. “Teito Fukko Soanten” (Exhibition of plans for reconstruction of the Imperial City), Yorozu choho, April 20, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 3. 68. “Kyo futaake no Fukko Soan Tenrankai” (Today opening the lid of the exhibition of plans for re- construction), Tokyo asahi shinbun, April 13, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 7. 69. Originally in “Mabo no danjo” (Mavo’s stage), no. 5 (July 1924): 53. Quoted in Omuka, Taishoki shinko bijutsu, 509. 70. Kishida Hideto, “Soanten shokan (kenchiku)” (Impressions of the exhibition of plans [for the reconsttuction of the Imperial Capital] [Architecture]), Kenchiku shincho 5, no. 6 (June 1924): 2. 71. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Aru tokkakan no nikki” (Diary of a certain ten days). Child bijutsu, no. 113 (April 1925): 67-68. 72. Kato Masao, “Watashi no tenrankai ni tsuite: Kenchiku no honshitsu ni kansuru ikkosatsu kindaigeki to kenchikuka” (Concerning my exhibition: Thoughts on the essence of architecture; modern theater and the modern architect), Kenchiku no fukyii 3, no. 8 (August 1923): 6. 73. Mutayama Tomoyoshi, “Geijutsu no kyukyoku to shite no kenchiku” (Architecture as the ulti- mate art), Kokumin bijutsu i, no. 7 (July 1924): 13-14. 74. Kato, “Watashi no tenrankai,” 6. 75. Esther Levinger, “Lajos Kassak, MA and the New Artist, 1916-1925,” The Structurist, nos. 25-26 (1985-1986): 83. 76. Esther Levinger, “The Theory of Flungarian Constructivism,” Art Bulletin 69, no. 3 (September 1987): 455 - 77. Sophie Lissitsky-Kiippers, El Lissitsky: Life-Letters-Texts (London: Thames and Hudson, 1967), 21. 78. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Koktiten ni okeru Mavo no sakuhin” (Mavo’s works at the Citizens’ ex- hibition), Kenchiku shincho 5, no. 6 (June 1924): 3. 79. Kon Wajiro, “Kenchiku Soanten no kanso” (Imptessions of the architecture plans exhibition). Child bijutsu, no. 103 (June 1924): 171. 80. While one reviewer noted that the exhibition was a tremendous resource for the bureaucrats who were in the process of reconstructing the city, there is no indication that any of the plans were actually used. As for the exhibition prizes, during the deliberations a conflict arose among the committee of judges, which was made up of architects, sculptors, designers, and artists. Many members wanted to choose the architect Nakamura Junpei, who had recently returned from study- ing in Paris, but it was felt that this would seem nepotistic since Nakamura was also a member of the sponsoring association. In order to assuage all parties involved, the committee, in true diplo- matic fashion, decided to awatd a prize to a representative artist in the three fields of architec- ture, sculpture, and design, and to give Nakamura a special honorary prize. “Fukko Sdanten no jushoko nayamu” (Worrying about awarding the prize for the exhibition of plans for recon- struction), Child shinbun, April 22, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 2. 81. For a discussion of the rebuilding of Tokyo after the earthquake, see Koshizawa, Tokyo no toshi. The earthquake did, however, change the power and social relations between the various areas within the city. 82. Little is known about Yamazato except that he was originally from Okinawa and eventually re- turned there, becoming deeply involved in the movement to promote Okinawan culture. 83. Very little is known about Sawa. He first began participating in Mavo sometime around the pub- lication of the first issue oi Mavo magazine, where one of his collage constructions incorporating Russian text fragments was printed. Sawa understood Russian and was involved with a coterie of Japanese enthusiasts of Russian studies who published a small magazine called Nichiro tsushin (Russo-Japanese correspondence). Omuka, Taishdki shinko bijutsu, 546. In May 1924, Sawa had a solo exhibition of his conscious constructivist work at the Cafe Yamada in Kagurazaka that was ordeted closed by the police. While the authorities often demanded certain works be withdrawn, it was rare for them to close an entire exhibition. It is not clear why they found this particular show so menacing. Murayama, Eiigekiteki jijoden, 2:193—94. 84. The exhibit was held at the cafe Shirasameso Parlor in Kanda from September i to 10, 1924; listed in “Mavo no kokoku” (Mavo advertisement), Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924). A short discussion about the Mavo song and a text of the lyrics is in Terashima Teishi, “Mavo no uta” (Mavo song), Hosho gekkan, no. 113 (February 1995): 2—3. I am grateful to Professor Yamaryo Kenji for point- ing this latter item out to me. 85. An announcement for the April 19, 1924, event is in MTS i. This newly founded organization also sponsored an exhibition of modern Russian art, as well as other curious Russian objects, at the Garo Kudan (Gallery Kudan) March 22-29, 19M- Works by Archipenko, Chagall, and Kandin- sky were reportedly shown. “Roshia geijutsu tenrankai” (Russian art exhibition), Tokyo asahi shin- bun, March 21, 1924 (a.m. ed.), ii. 86. This is advertised in the first issue of Mavo magazine, which announced that the first Mavo port- folio was put out on June 15, 1924. It stated that Mavo would produce one portfolio every month and each would have two works by two of the group's members. The subscription price per month was I yen 50 sen, a half-year subscription 8 yen, and a one-year subscription 15 yen. Mavo, no. i (July 1924). 87. Mavo magazine was also favorably reviewed and promoted by newspapers, as seen in “Ishikiteki koseishugiteki na zasshi no hyoshi-e” (The cover picture of a conscious constructivist magazine), Yomiuri shinbun, August 24, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 4. 88. Yabashi Kimimaro, “Daisango koryd no hi ni” (On the day of the final proof of issue no. 3), Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924). 89. The magazine’s seven issues were published monthly in two series. The first phase extended from July 1924 until October 1924. Then the group ran into financial trouble and did not resume pub- lishing until it secured sponsorship from the publisher Choryusha, after which it published an additional three issues from June 1925 until August 1925. The facsimile of Mavo published by Ni- hon Kindai Bungakukan (Museum of Modern Japanese Literature) also includes a listing of the table of contents for each issue in the accompanying pamphlet. Odagiri Susumu, ed., Mavo’ fukkokuban (“Mavo” facsimile) (Tokyo: Museum of Modern Japanese Literature, 1991). 90. The use ofXX’s in the second paragraph was probably an intentional reference to the marks (fu- seiji) used by the censors to replace expurgated portions of texts. 289 NOTES TO PAGES 96-105 91. A clipping of this announcement is saved in MTS i. 92. At the same time, other artists were joining, although next to nothing is known about these in- dividuals. Two of those who joined Mavo are Hashimoto Kinei and Miura Tozo (1904—1933). Miura was Murayama’s cousin; unlike most of the other Mavo artists, he had studied art formally. Omuka, Taishoki shifiko bijiitsu, 558, 0150. 93. Mavo, “Mavo no kokoku,” no. 3 (September 1924); Yabashi, “Daisango koryo no hi ni.” 94. Akimoto Kiyoshi, Hyoden Ogata Kamenosuke (Biography of Ogata Kamenosuke) (Tokyo: Toki- sha, 1979), 171, 207. 95. Yabashi, “Daisango koryo no hi ni.” 96. Mavo, no. 4, also curiously announced (with regret) the withdrawal of Sumiya Iwane and Okada Tatsuo. However, evidence from later issues of the magazine and exhibition activities attest to the fact that both artists still continued to participate in Mavo even after they had supposedly left. 97. “Atorie no techo: Mavo” (Atelier notebook: Mavo), Atelier 2, no. 6 (June 1925): 82. 98. See advertisement in Mavo, no. 5 (June 1925): 4. I am grateful to Mr. Uchibori Hiroshi for kindly bringing to my attention other Choryusha publications and allowing me to study works in his collection. 99. Hagiwara was the second son of a middle-class farmer in Maebashi, Gunma prefecture, but he was raised and later adopted by an aunt. He attended the Maebashi Middle School, the alma mater of the famous poet Hagiwara Sakutaro (no relation). Kyojiro avidly read and wrote poetry; initially more inclined toward lyricism, he soon shifted to an interest in the discordant aesthetic of Hirato Renkichi’s futurist poetry. He first visited Tokyo in 1920 and moved there permanently in 1923. For a full biographical account of Hagiwara’s career, see Takahashi Shuichird, Hakai to genso: Hagiwara Kyojiro shiron (Destruction and vision: My views on Hagiwara Kyojiro) (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 1978). too. According to Sumiya Iwane, he and Hagiwara were acquaintances from Maebashi, and Hagi- wara was a good friend of his older brother, Etsuji. Sumiya Iwane, personal communication, March ^3. 1994- 101. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:220. 102. Sumiya Iwane indicates that the son of the publisher at Choryusha studied art and was interested in Murayama’s work after seeing his first solo exhibition. However, Mavo’s relationship with Choryusha is still unclear. 103. The book went through two additional printings, in April and May 1925. 104. Okada illustrated another Choryusha publication in 1926, a book of poetry by the now obscure poet Saito Hideo, titled Aozameta doteikyo (The mad [male] virgin who went pale). 105. Omuka, Taishoki shinko bijutsu, 542. 106. The association was formed on October 16, 1924. As noted earlier, the name Sanka (the Third Section) was first coined by Kinoshita Shuichiro and other members of the FAA for their un- juried exhibition held in January 1922, called the “Sanka Independent.” 107. Quoted in Honma Masayoshi, ed., Nilton no zenei bijutsu (Japanese avant-garde art), Kindai no bijutsu, no. 3 (Tokyo: Ibundo, 1971), 39-40. 108. KambaraTai, “Akushon no kaisan kara Sanka no seiritsu made” (From the disbanding of Action to the establishment of Sanka), Atelier 10, no. 12 (December 1924): 79. 109. Original reproduced in Yurakucho Asahi Gyararii (Yurakucho Asahi Gallery), Hokkaido-ritsu Hakodate Bijutsukan (Hokkaido Prefectural Hakodate Art Museum), and Nagano-ken Tatsuno- cho Kyodo Bijutsukan (Nagano Ptefectural Tatsuno City Art Museum), eds., Taisho shinko bi- jutsu no ibnki: Akiishonten (The youthful energy of the new art of the Taisho period: Action ex- hibition) (Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 1989), 52. no. Shoto Museum of Art, Nakagawa Kigen 1892— igyi (Tokyo, 1992); Toyoda Sayaka, Yabe Tomoe (Tokyo: Koyo Shuppan, 1987). 111. Honma, Nihon no zenei bijutsu, 20. 112. Action’s first exhibition, co-sponsored by the Asahi Shinbun, was held in April 1923 at the Mitsu- koshi department store in Nihonbashi. A second exhibition was held a year later, in April 1924, at the same venue. The history of Action and photographs of surviving exhibition materials are in AsanoToru, “Akushon daiikkaiten, dainikaiten no sakuhin mokuroku to OkamotoToki (shitsu- dai) no gendaime” (The list of exhibits for the first and second Action group exhibitions and the original title of Told Okamoto’s Untitled), Gendai no me (Bulletin of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), no. i (1987); Yurakucho Asahi Gyararii, Hokkaido-ritsu Hakodate Bijutsukan, and Nagano-ken Tatsuno-cho Kyodo Bijutsukan, Taisho shinko bijutsu no ibuki, 49—50. 113. For more information on the DSD and the group’s manifesto, see Tanaka Kazuyoshi, “Daiichi Sakka Domei no keiko” (The inclination of the First Artists’ League), Child bijutsu, no. 87 (December 1922): 26—34; Soun Giichi (?), “Daiichi Sakka Domei (D.S.D.) wa seiritsu shita” (The First Artists’ League is established), Child bijutsu, no. 83 (August 1922): 10—17; “Daiichi Sakka Domei (DSD)” (The First Artists’ League), Bijutsu gurafii 22, no. 9 (November 1972): 12-15. 114. I am grateful to Professor Omuka Toshiharu for making the “Sanka Rules” available to me. 115. Along with Kambara, Okamoto and Asano were angry about the turn of events in Action and contributed to the redirection of Sanka. Kinoshita Shuichiro, “Sankaten no watashi kiji o yomareta katagata ni” (To the people who read my article on the Sanka exhibition), Miziie, no. 238 (December 1924): 30. 116. Kambara, “Akushon no kaisan kara,” 68, 70. 117. The original list of potential Sanka members that Kinoshita composed survives among his per- sonal papers in Ftikui. It indicates that the artist Matsuoka Masao was to be included but his name was eventually taken off the list. 118. Okada Tatsuo, “Sankaten endokuhyo” (Critique of the lead poisoning of the Sanka exhibition), Mizue, no. 245 (July 1925). 119. Murayama’s critique of Action appears in MurayamaTomoyoshi, “Akushon no shokun ni kugen o teisuru” (Some candid advice for the Action gentlemen), Mizue, no. 284 (June 1924). 120. Kawaji Ryuko, “Hyogen geijutsu yori seikatsu geijutsu e” (From expressionist art to the art of daily life). Atelier 2, no. 7 (July 1925): 167. 121. Ibid., 167-68. 122. Ibid., 172. 123. Ibid., 172-73. 124. Ibid., 173-74. 125. It seems that two distinct paintings were identified by the same title. It has not been verified which work was correctly labeled. 126. The work was originally titled in English. 127. “Atorie meguri: Nakahara Minoru: Sanka ni shuppin sum daiuchu no sakti to shi no hofti” (Ate- 291 NOTES TO PAGES 107-1 1 6 Her tour: Nakahara Minoru: The painting of the great universe submitted to the Sanka exhibi- tion and the artist’s aspirations), shinpd, August 23, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 5. 128. Minegishi Giichi, “Sanka ten’in tenpyo” (Review of works by Sanka exhibitors), Miziie, no. 245 (July 1925): 40. 129. Tada Saburo, “Futatsu no tenrankai: Sanka Kaiin Sakuhinten” (Two exhibitions: Sanka members exhibition), Kokumin bijiitsu 2, no. 7 (July 1925): 14. 130. Minegishi, “Sanka ten’in,” 40. 131. Nakada Sadanosuke, “Megane o suteru (Sanka kaiin tenpyo)” (Throwing away the glasses [Sanka members exhibition review]). Child bijutsu, no. 116 (July 1925): 52. 132. Matsumoto Koji, “Sanka ni yosete” (Approaching Sanka), Bimgei sensen 2, no. 3 (July 1925): 28. For an expression of similar opinions, see Honma Koichiro, “Futatsu no shin undo” (Two new movements), Bimgei sensen 2, no. 4 (September 1925): 28; Hayashi Fusao, “Botsuraku no ban- sokyoku” (Accompaniment to ruin), Bimgei sensen 2, no. 6 (October 1925): 9-10. Murayama re- sponded to these critics, defending himself and Sanka in Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Toben futatsu” (Two replies), Bimgei sensen 2, no. 7 (November 1925): 41—42. 133. Okada, “Sankaten endokuhyo,” 32-34. 134. The early announcements about Sanka’s activities had already stressed that the group intended to have an exhibition open to public submissions in the fall of 1925. “Jiyu kaiho no Sanka” (Freely liberated Sanka), Tokyo asahi shinbun, October 17, 1924 (a.m. ed.), ii. Murayama made his own pitch for those sympathizing with Sanka to submit work. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Sanka ga kita!” (Sanka has come!), Tokyo asahi shinbun, August 23, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 5. 135. For a description of the submission and judging procedures at the Gallery Kudan, see “Kikaizukume no Sankaten no shuppin” (Works covered with machines from the Sanka exhibition), Nichinichi shinbun, August 26, 1925, 7. Estimates on how many works were originally submitted for con- sideration range horn 500 to 784. “Sanka dojin, tojjo ...” (Sanka members, suddenly . . . ), Yomiii- ri shinbun, August 28, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 3; “Marude kemono yashiki Sankaten no monosugosa” (Ex- actly like a bestial mansion, the ghastliness of the Sanka exhibition),///; shinpd, August 29, 1925 (p.m. ed.), 2; “Ipponkyaku no isti ya nihonkyaku no tsukue” (A chair wirh one leg and a desk with two legs), Tdkyd asahi shinbun, August 30, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 7. 136. Murayama, “Sanka ga kita!” 5. 137. Since the participants and the exhibited works are far too numerous to consider individually here, I discuss some of the more celebrated (and infamous) works and also a few of the new, non-Sanka, contributors to the exhibition. 138. The group’s formation was announced in Mavo, no. 7, in August 1925. “Toshi Doryokti Kensetsu Dome! naru” (The formation of the Urban Power Construction League), Mavo, no. 7 (August 1925) : 6. The Mavo-NNK group seems to have been active into 1926 even alter the ostensible dis- solution of Mavo. The group advertised their house building designs and plans for ornamental building fittings in the magazine Buntd (Literary Party) in April 1926. They are listed with the Suidobashi Kogeisha (Stiidobashi Craft Company) located in Lion House in Hongo, but the re- lationship between these two organizations is unclear. “MAVO-N.N.K.,” Buntd 2, no. 3 (March 1926) : 65. 139. “Toshi Doryoku Kensetsu Domei” (The Urban Power Construction League), Mavo, no. 7 (Au- gust 1925): 22. 140. “Kippu uriba ni nyutto kuroi te” (Suddenly a black hand from the ticket selling place), Yorozu chdhd, August 30, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 2. 141. A brief description of the tower is in “Kii no sekai o chinretsu shita Sankaten” (The Sanka exhi- bition that displayed a strange world), Chiigai shogyd sbinpd, September 13, 1925, 2. 142. Maki’s work, including Draft for an Outdoor Theater According to Only a Stage Design, was promi- nently displayed and discussed by the artist in Maki Hisao, “Geki oyobi gekijo bokumetsu undo e no joshikiteki katei to shite no futatsu no gekijo an” (Two theater proposals as commonsense processes for the play and theater extermination movement), Mavo, no. 7 (August 1925): 7, 17—18. 143. “Atorie meguri: Nakahara,”/yz August 23, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 5. 144. Nakada had just returned from studying in Germany, where he met with many well-known Eu- ropean artists and visited the Bauhaus on several occasions. He wrote numerous articles on Eu- ropean art. 145. “Owarai no Sankaten” (The hearty laugh of the Sanka exhibition), Tokyo asahi shinbun, September II, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 7; “Chinretsu o isogu kazegawarina Sankaten” (Rushing to display the unusual Sanka exhibition), September ii, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 9. According to one account the ex- hibition drew over 200 people by the second day. “Kii no sekai,” Chiigai shogyd shinpd, Septem- ber 13, 1925, 2. Postcards of Sanka works were also reported to have sold very well, particularly because of the sensationalism of the press. 146. Tamamura in “Deta deta, Nishi Ogikubo eki chikaku sankashiki no ie ikken" (Its here, it’s here, a Sanka-style house near Nishi Ogikubo Jiji shinpd, September 6, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 9. Nakada in “Sankakai no shin kaiin suisen” (Recommendation for the new member of the Sanka Association), Child shinbun, September 10, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 2. Murayama in “Usugurai kaijo ni yoku mo atsumeta kitanai mono” (Many dirty works skillfully gathered together in a dim exhi- bition space), /yz shinpd, September 12, 1925 (p.m. ed.), p. 2. 147. “Marude Vs.mono," Jiji shinpd, August 29, 1925 (p.m. ed.), 2; “Kiso tengai no shuppin totemo menkurawaseru sakuhin: Sankaten Chinretsu” (Strange outdoor exhibition works. Totally con- fusing work: The Sanka exhibition), Tdkyd asahi shinbun, August 28, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 6; “Kiso tengai: Sankaten no shuppin kimaru” (Fantastic beyond the heavens: Works to be exhibited at the Sanka exhibition decided), Hdchi shinbun, August 29, 1925 (p.m. ed.), 4; “Kii no sekai,” Chiigai shdgyd shinpd, September 13, 1925, 2; “Usugurai kaijo,” /zyz shinpd, September 12, 1925 (p.m. ed.), 2. 148. “Futa o aketa Sankakai” (The Sanka association that opened the lid), Miyako shinbim, Septem- ber 13, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 10. 149. “Sanka ddjin, tojjo . . . ,” Yomiiiri shinbun, August 28, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 3; “Sanka momeru” (Sanka has xxo\To\€), ]iji shinpd, August 28, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 9. 150. “Sanka dojin,” Yomiiiri shinbun, August 28, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 3. 151. “Kiso tengai,” Hdchi shinbun, August 29, 1925 (p.m. ed.), 4. 152. KambaraTai, “Sanka o nukeru” (Escaping Sanka), Atelier 2, no. 10 (October 1925): 86-87. 153. “Marude kemono,”/z}z shinpd, August 29, 1925 (p.m. ed.), 2. 154. “Kii no sekai,” Chiigai shdgyd shinpd, September 13, 1925, 2. 155. “Sanka demo yonten tekkai” (Four works withdrawn at Sanka), Yorozii chdhd, September 13, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 7; “Yonten tsui ni tekkai saru butsugi o kamoshita Sankaten” (Four works eventually withdrawn, the Sanka exhibition that caused public censure.), Jiji shinpd, September 13, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 9. 156. “Dogimo o nuku Sanka tenrankai hiraku” (Appalling, the opening of the Sanka exhibition), Tdkyd asahi shinbun, September 13, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 10; “Tsui ni niramareta Sanka no yonten” 293 NOTES TO PAGES 116-133 (The four Sanka works that were eventually glared at), Chuo shinbim, September 13, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 2. 157. “Mondai no Sankakai totsuzen kaisan su” (The problematic Sanka exhibition sudden disband- ment), Nichinichi shinbun, September 20, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 7. 158. The exhibition closed prematurely on September 19. “Sankakai kaisan shi tenrankai chushi” (The Sanka association disbands, the exhibition is halted), Tokyo asahi shinbun, September 20, 1925 (a.m. ed.), ii. 159. “Sanka kaisan shiki” (Sanka disbandment ceremony), Yomiuri shinbun, September 23, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 4; “Sanka sodo no shinso hokoku engeki” (Theater announcement of the truth of Sanka’s dispute), Yorozu choho, September 23, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 3. The writer Nogawa Ryu, who co-published Ge gimgigam prrr gimgem with Tamamura, also performed at this celebration. 160. Yokoi Hirozo/Kozo, “Bakuhatsti no Sanka” (Explosive Sanka), Mizue, no. 249 (November 1925): 28-32. 161. Yokoi, “Bakuhatsu,” 28. 162. Sankakyo, “Bakudan haretsu” (Burst of a bomb), Yomiuri shinbun, September 22, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 4. 163. The membership consisted ol Okamoto, Yabe, Yoshida, Kambara, Asano, MakishimaTeiichi, Saito Keiji, Sakuno Kinosuke, Yoshimura Jiro, Yoshihara Yoshihiko, and Asuka Tetsuo. “Zokei shus- san nami ni sengen” (Declaring Zdkets birth), Yomiuri shinbun, December i, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 4. 164. Quoted in Omuka, Taishoki shinko bijutsu, 572. 165. “Zokei shussan,” 4. Also quoted by Murayama in his response to Zokei’s manifesto, Mtirayama Tomoyoshi, “Hando koko nimo hando” (Reaction here’s another reaction), Yomiuri shinbun, De- cember 13, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 4. When stating that “art” had been negated, Zokei artists were refer- ring to “art for art’s sake” that had no explicit didactic or social purpose. 166. Murayama, “Hando”; OkamotoToki, “Zokei e no handdsha: Murayama Tomoyoshi-kun ni ko- tae” (To those who reacted to Zokei; A response to Murayama Tomoyoshi), Yomiuri shinbun, parts 1—4, December 23-26, 1925 (a.m. eds.). 167. “Gakugei dayori” (Art news), Tokyo asahi shinbun, September 22, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 5; Omuka, Taishoki shmkd bijutsu, 544. t68. Kon Toko, "'Bunto no tanjd” (The birth ol Bunto), Yomiuri shinbun, part i, June 14, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 4; part 2, June 16, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 4. 169. The first issue of Bunto magazine was published in August 1925. It lasted for eight issues, until May 1926. 170. Omuka, “Mavo to Taishoki,” 15. The dance performance leaflet and program are reproduced in Shirakawa, Dada, 67. 171. “Mavo dairenmei” (Reconstruction of the great alliance of Mavo), Bunto 2, no. 5 (May 1926): 72 - 73 - CHAPTER 4 I. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Engekiteki jijoden ip22-ip2y (Theatrical autobiography), vol. 2, (Tokyo; Toho Shuppansha, 1971), 2:62. This term is quoted by Murayama when translating excerpts from an article by El Lissitzky and Kurt Schwitters in Aferz magazine. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Koseiha ni kansuru ichi kosatsu: Keisei geijutsu no hani ni okeru” (One consideration of constructivism: The extent of constructive art), Atelier, no. 8 (August 1925): 49. 2. Susan Napier, The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature (New York: Routledge, 1996), 143. 3. OkadaTatsuo, “Ishikiteki koseishugi e no kogi (ge)” (A protest to conscious constructivism, patt i), Yomiuri shinbnn, December 19, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 6. 4. In modern-day usage, particularly in sociology, seikatsn is often employed as a modern version of the traditional concept oifuzokn (customs and mores). 5. Miriam Silverberg, “Constructing the Japanese Ethnography of Modernity,”/'5K^'«rt/o/A«Vz« Stud- ies 51, no. I (February 1992): 32. 6. Silverberg defines seikatsu as “everyday practice.” Silvetbetg, “Consttucting the Japanese Ethnog- raphy,” 35. 7. Kon and Yoshida developed a new category of social science devoted to the study of modern life, which appropriately they called “modernology.” See chapter 3 for further discussion of these two thinkers. Kon Wajiro and Yoshida Kenkichi, eds., Modernologio (Kogengakii) (Modernology) (Tokyo: Shun’yodo, 1930). It bears reiterating here that Kon and Yoshida were both close associ- ates of Murayama and associated with Mavo. Yoshida was a participant in the group Action and jointly exhibited with Mavo in the Sanka alliance. He and Murayama were close friends, partic- ularly through their work at the Tsukiji Little Theater, and later while they were both active in the proletarian theater movement. 8. E. Sydney Crawcour, “Industrialization and Technological Change, 1885—1920,” in The Cambridge History of Japan: The Twe 72 tieth Century, ed. Peter Duus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 6:386-88. Among the general populace, the war was seen as “divine providence” (ten’yu), since it finally enabled Japan to enter the ranks of the great imperial powers. Minami Hiroshi and Shakai Shinri Kenkyujo (Social Psychology Research Center), Taisho bunka (Taisho culture). (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo, 1965), 62. 9. Takahashi Shtiichiro, Hakai to genso: Hagiivara Kydjird shiron (Destruction and vision: My views on Hagiwara Kyojiro) (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 1978), 39-40, 57—58, 60—62. 10. Just as Western goods and technology were adopted into the everyday realms of clothing, food, and lodging to an unprecedented degree in the Taisho period, there was also an attempt by state officials to introduce foreign notions about how to organize daily life rationally. Around this time, the word noritsu (efficiency) came into widespread use along with other terms to denote the trend toward rationalization. Minami and Shakai Shinri Kenkyujo, Taisho bunka, 63, 159-62. 11. In Mavo, no. 3, Yabashi goes so far as to say Mavoists are “half murdered” (hangoroshi), although it is unclear by whom. Yabashi Kimimaro, “Daisango koryo no hi ni” (On the day of the final proof of issue no. 3), Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924). 12. Murayama wrote a short article documenting the range of European artists who had experimented with the machine aesthetic, including Fernand Leger, Francis Picabia, Willi Baumeister, Luigi Russolo, Enrico Prampolini, Oskar Schlemmer, Umberto Boccioni, Alexander Archipenko, Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitzky, Vladimir Tatlin, and Giorgio de Chirico. Among Japanese artists he added Oura and Okada as the Mavoists most concerned with the machine in their work. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Kikaiteki yoso no geijutsu e no donyu” (Introduction of mechanical elements to art), Mizue i, no. 227 (Januaty 1924). 13. Napier, The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature, 188. 14. Kon and Yoshida’s statistics indicate that growing numbers of women in Tokyo were wearing West- 295 NOTES TO PAGES 133-139 ern apparel or assimilating elements associated with a Western modern appearance, including cosmetics and hairstyles. 15. For a discussion ol the discursive representations of the “modern girl” in late Taisho and the re- lationship between this image, the new “working woman” (shokugyo fujin), and the Japanese women’s rights movement, see Miriam Silverberg, “The Modern Girl as Militant,” in Recreating Japanese Women, 1600— ig4$, ed. Gail Lee Bernstein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). 16. Both Murayama and the well-known dancer and choreographer Ishii Baku wrote on legs in Mu- rayama Tomoyoshi, “Ashi: Doitsu no ashi” (Legs: German legs), Fujin koron ii, no. 8 (August 1926); Ishii Baku, “Ashi: Ashi no bunmei” (Legs: The civilization of legs), Fujin koron ii, no. 8 (August 1926). 17. In addition to tin, chemicals such as magnesium and new technologies such as high-voltage wires (koatsusen) figured prominently in Mavo poems and essays, constantly referring to the modern conditions of daily life. 18. For a history of the importation and domestic manufacturing of tin in Japan, see Kayano Yat- suka, Kindai Nihon no dezain bunkashi 1868—1^26 (A cultural history of modern Japanese design) (Tokyo: Fuirumu Aato, 1992), 266-70. 19. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Koseiha to shokkakushugi” (Constructivism and tactilism), Yomiuri shin- bun, February 19, 1923 (a.m. ed.), 7. Three months later Murayama wrote an entire article on Marinetti’s conception of tactilism, which was originally published in Chuo bijutsu and later re- produced as Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Shokkakushugi to kyoi no gekijd,” in Genzai no geijutsu to mirai no geijutsu (Art of the present and art of the future) (Tokyo: Choryusha, 1924). 20. Marinetti further expanded on this theory in a leaflet produced for a futurist exhibition in the United States in April 1923. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, “The Discovery of New Senses,” Fu- turist Aristocracy, no. I (April 1923): 9-11. This leaflet was known to have been in the collection of Kambara Tai and it is likely that Mavo artists also had access to it. 21. Murayama, “Koseiha to shokkakushugi,” 7. 22. Burliuk’s other basic aesthetic precepts were summed up in the “Canon of Displaced Construc- tion,” which advocated the use of disharmony, disproportion, deconstruction, and coloristic dis- sonance (also known as chrom-symphonie) . Burliuk’s ideas were elaborated in A Slap in the Face of Public Taste (published in Moscow, December 1912), which was the first cubo-futurist anthology of writings on art and was profoundly influential among constructivist artists. Magdalena Dabrowski, “The Plastic Revolution: New Concepts of Form, Content, Space, and Materials in the Russian Avant-Garde,” in The Avant-Garde in Russia, igio-ig^o: New Perspectives, ed. Stephanie Barron and Maurice Tuchman (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Museum of Art, 1980), 29. 23. Many Russian artists explored the concept oi faktura in their work. For a discussion of the ori- gins and use of this term, see Margit Rowell, “Vladimir Tatlin: Form/Faktura,” October, no. 7 (Winter 1978); Benjamin Buchloh, “From Faktura to Factography,” October, no. 30 (Fall 1984): 86-95. Varvara Bubnova also wrote on fakturaWcAt in Japan. Varvara Bubnova, “Gendai ni okeru roshia kaiga no kisu ni tsuite” (Concerning trends in contemporary Russian painting), Shiso 13 (October 1922): 87—88; Omuka Toshiharti, Taishoki shinko bijutsu imdo no kenkyu (A study of the new art movements of the Taisho period) (Tokyo: Skydoor, 1995), 357. 24. Shibuya Osamu, “Takutura oyobi fakutura” (Taktura and faktura), Mizue, no. 237 (November 1925): 34. 25. Murayama obtained information on Merz directly from the artist himself, from El Lissitzky, and from articles published in the Japanese press. Information on Schwitters first appeared in “Doitsu bijutsukai no kigensho: Shyuvitsuta no merutsu e' (A strange phenomenon in the German art world: Schwitters’s Merz Paintings), Tatsnmi 14, no. 8 (August 1920): 5. Murayama mentions re- ceiving Aferz magazine, reproductions of Schwitters’s works, and a letter from Schwitters explaining his “MERZ-stage” and requesting that the text be published in Mavo. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Aru tokkakan no nikki” (Diary of a certain ten days), Chiid bijutsu, no. 113 (April 1925): 69—72. It is evident from the inclusion of a Mavo work, originally reproduced on the front cover oiMavo, no. I, in the Merz section of the book Die Knnstismen (The isms of art), co-authored by El Lis- sitzks' and Hans Arp in 1925, that these influential European artists wete aware of Mavo’s work and saw it as closely akin to the assemblages of Kutt Schwitters. The work entitled Stariding Man (see Fig. 57) by Yamazato Eikichi, however, was misattributed by Lissitzky and Arp to Murayama (written Murajama). El Lissitzky and Hans Arp, Die Knnstismen (Erlenbach-Zurich, Munich, and Leipzig: Eugen Rentsch "Verlag, 1925; reprint, Baden: Verlag Lars Muller, 1990), ii; Omuka, Taishoki shinko bijutsu, 405—6. 26. Kurt Schwitters, “To All the Theatres of the Wotld I Demand the MERZ-Stage,” in Dada Per- formance, ed. Mel Gordon (New York: PAJ Publications, 1987), too. 27. John Elderfield, Kurt Schwitters (London: Thames and Hudson, 1985), 33, 51. 28. Ibid., 31. 29. John Clark, “Artistic Subjectivity in the Taisho and Early Showa Avant-Garde,” in Japanese Art Af- ter ip4S: Scream Against the Sky, ed. Alexandra Munroe (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994), 41. 30. “Tenrankai seido no hihan” (Criticism of the exhibition system), Chud bijutsu, no. 117 (August 1925): 79. Kinoshita Mokutaro, one of the earliest proponents of art criticism (bijutsu hihyd) in Japan, argued in the late Meiji period that art criticism and art appreciation were not the same, and that the Japanese needed to take a critical rather than just a descriptive approach to their own artistic production. J. Thomas Rimer, “Kinoshita Mokutaro as Critic: Putting Meiji Art in Con- text,” in Nihon kindai bijutsu to seiyd (Japanese modern art and the ’West), ed. Meiji Bijutsu Gakkai (Meiji Art Society) (Tokyo: Chuo Koron Bijutsu Shuppan, 1992). 31. Many artists active during the Weimar republic took on the role of social critic because of the widespread perception of a crisis in society and politics. 32. Murayama brought many examples of Grosz’s work back to Japan, including portfolios and il- lustrated books. It was Murayama who first introduced Yanase to Grosz. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:19. Yanase was in turn profoundly influenced by Grosz artistically and philosophically. He did many close studies of Grosz’s work and drew political cartoons in Grosz’s style (for ex- ample, Ecce Homo!). He also modeled himself as an artist-social critic after Grosz. Yanase wrote on Grosz in Yanase Masamu, “Musan kaikyu no gaka Georuge Gurossu” (Proletarian artist George Grosz), Bi no kuni, no. 23 (April 1927). Murayama wrote on Grosz several times: Murayama To- moyoshi, “Georugu Gurossu” (George Grosz), Atelier 3, no. i (January 1926); Murayama To- moyoshi, Gurossu: Sono jidai, hito, geijutsu (Grosz: His age, the man, his art), Jinmin no gaka (Artist of the people) (Tokyo: Hachigatsu Shobo, 1949). For more on the relationship between Murayama and Grosz’s work, see Ozaki Masato, “Kosei to iu na no jumon to jubaku” (The spell and spellbinding quality of the name Constructivism), in Mavo no jidai (The age of Mavo), ed. Mizusawa Tsutomu and Omuka Toshiharu (Tokyo: Art Vivant, 1989), 31—37; Georuku Gurossu (George Grosz), Art Vivant, vol. 29 (Tokyo: Art Vivant, 1988). 33. Gregory Kasza, The State and Mass Media in Japan 1918— ip4S (Berkeley: University of Califotnia Press, 1988), 28-29. 34. Ibid., 44. 35. Henry Smith, Japans Eirst Student Radicals (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 34. 297 NOTES TO PAGES 140-151 36. All quotations from Barshay in this paragraph are taken from Andrew Barshay, State and Intel- lectual in Imperial Japan: The Public Mati in Crisis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 8-9. 37. H. D. Harootunian, “Between Politics and Culture: Authority and the Ambiguities of Intellec- tual Choice in Imperial Japan,” in Japan in Crisis, ed. Bernard Silberman and H. D. Harootun- ian (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974); and Barshay, State and Intellectual. 38. For further information on the contemporary Japanese art world in 1924 and 1925, see Kawaji Ryuko’s series of fourteen articles in Child bijutsu, which ran from May 1924 until June 1925 (is- sues nos. 102-15). 39. This is also true of Odake Chikuha’s Hakkasha and other adversarial groups who publicly posi- tioned themselves in opposition to tins, gadan. 40. Shibuya Osamu, “Mavo no mado” (The Mavo window), Mavo, no. 2 (July 1924). 41. This refers to Moriguchi’s publications Jiini kd nite (Twelve lessons) and Zuanshti (Design col- lection), which were art pedagogy texts. OkadaTatsuo, “Zesshoku” (Fast), dTtw, no. i (June 1924). 42. Yanase Masamti, “Nika, Inten, Teitenhyo ni kae” (Substitute for a review of the Nika, the Inten and theTeiten), Tanemaku hito i, no. 2 (November 1921): 113. 43. Nika nanajtl nenshi (Seventy-year history of Nika) (Tokyo: Zaidan Hojin Nikakai, 1985), 12. 44. “Tenrankai seido,” Child bijutsu, no. 117 (August 1925). 45. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Tenrankai soshiki no riso” (The ideal exhibition organization), Mizue, no. 238 (December 1924): 15-19. 46. The first chairman was the preeminent writer and elder statesman Mori Ogai, and in 1924 it was Kuroda Seiki. The membership usually consisted of seven nihonga artists, ioux yoga artists, and two representatives from sculpture. Kawaji was quick to point out that most of these artists, while famous, were generally past their prime. Some of the better-known members of Kuroda’s com- mittee included Takamura Kotin (Kotaro’s father, who was a sculptor), TomiokaTessai, Takeuchi Seiho, Okada Saburosuke, Kawai Gyokudo, Wada Eisaku, and Nakamura Fusetsu. Kawaji Ryuko, “Gendai Nihon no bijutsukai” (The contemporary Japanese art world). Child bijutsu, no. 102 (May 1924): iio-ii. 47. Hagiwara Kyojiro, “Barakku machi ni taisuru geijutsuteki kosatsu 2” (An artistic consideration of the barrack towns 2), Child shinbun, April 13, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 7. 48. Takahashi, Hakai to gensd, 62. 49. Suehiro Gentaro, “Shinsai ni tstiite no kanso futatsu” (Two impressions of the earthquake), Kaizd 5, no. 10 (October 1923): 170-74. 50. KambaraTai, “Akushon no monogatariteki omoide (sono ni)” (Action narrative recollection 2), Gendai no me, no. 188 (July 1970): 8. 51. Edward Seidensticker, Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), 4, 8-9; Edward Seidensticker, Tokyo (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 6. 52. In the fervor of modernization throughout the Meiji period, Edo had symbolized decadence, but in theTaisho and Showa periods Edo enjoyed a new popularity. Seidensticker, Low City, 14; John Solt, “Shredding the Tapestry of Meaning: The Poetry and Poetics ofKitasono Katue (1902-1978)” (Ph.D. dissertation. Harvard University, 1989), 21. 53. Chiba Kameo, “Shinsai to bungakuteki eikyo” (The earthquake and its literary influence), Kaizd 5, no. 10 (October 1923): 45. 54- Yanase Masamu, “Jijoden” (Autobiography), Kirkos (Musashino Bijutsu Daigaku Shiryo Toshokan nyusu) (Musashino Art University Museum and Library News), no. 2 (October 1990): 7-9; orig- inally published in 1926. 55. Yanase, “Jijoden,” 2. Though Yanase temporarily continued his Mavo-related activities, after 1927 he turned all his attention to working for a proletarian revolution by concentrating on produc- ing incisive and satirical political cartoons. 56. Hagiwara Kyojiro, “Barakku machi ni taisuru geijutsuteki kosatsu 3” (An artistic consideration of the barrack towns 3), Child shinhun, April 15, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 3. 57. Hagiwara Kyojiro, “Barakku machi ni taisuru geijutsuteki kosatsu 6” (An artistic consideration of the barrack towns 6), Child shinbim, April 19, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 3. 58. Osawa Masamichi, Anakizumu shisdshi (A history of anarchist thought) (Tokyo: Gendai Shichosha, 1967), 200. 59. Ira Plotkin, Anarchism in Japan: A Study of the Great Treason Affair igio—ipii (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990). 60. For further discussion of the Morito affair, see Kasza, State and Mass Media, 40. The history of anarchism in Japan is recounted in Stephen Large, Organized Workers and Socialist Politics in In- terwar Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); John Crump, Hatta Shiizd and Pure Anarchism in Interwar Japan (New York: St. Mattin’s Press, 1993). 61. Thomas Stanley, Osugi Sakae: Anarchist in Taishd Japan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), 62. 62. Peter Duus and Irwin Scheiner, “Socialism, Liberalism and Marxism, 1901-1931,” in The Cam- bridge History of Japan: The Twentieth Century, ed. Peter Duus, The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 692-94. Reemphasizing his belief in the pteeminence of man’s free will in determining the future, Osugi wrote, “humanity is not a book complete and fixed once and for all. It is a book of blank pages on which each person and every person writes letter by letter. Humanity is merely people living.” Quoted in Stanley, Osu- gi Sakae, 120. 63. Quoted in Stanley, Osugi Sakae, 69. 64. Pamphlet from OkadaTatsuo and Kat 5 Masao, “Sakuhin tenrankai,” July 29-August 5, 1923 (Ex- hibition flier Cafe Italy); preserved in Murayama’s unpublished and unpaginated multivolume scrapbook (cited as MTS followed by volume numbet): MTS 1. 65. See Kat 5 Kazuo’s seties of four articles, entitled “Jigashugi to kojinshugi” (Egoism and individu- alism), published in Tdkyd asahi shinbim. May 5, 6, 7, and 9, 1922 (a.m. eds.). 66. Murayama vacillated on this issue. He sometimes scoffed at the idea that the intelligentsia could ever act on behalf of the proletariat. Other times, that is exactly what he seemed to be doing. 67. Published in October 1922, the first issue of the second run of Tanemaku hito was censored and not petmitted to be sold. This garnered the magazine considerable notoriety in various major newspapers around the country. The 3,000 copies of the second issue (November 1922) sold out; the third issue (December 1922) was increased to 5,000 copies, which nearly sold out. Odagiri Susumu, Shdwa bungaku noseiritsu (The establishment ofShowa litetatute) (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo, 1965), 4. 68. Yanase, “Jijoden,” 7. Many workets caught up in the labor movement also conflated anarcho- syndicalism, Marxism, and labor organization since all three ideas entered Japan together and were often mixed indiscriminately. 299 NOTES TO PAGES 151-161 300 69. Odagiri, Showa bungaku, 6. 70. Anakisuto no Tachiba XYZ, “Jigashugisha no techo kara” (From the notebook of an egoist), Tane- maku hito i, no. 3 (March 1921): 9-12. 71. Yanase, Murayama, and the rest of the Mavo group displayed profound ambivalence toward cap- italism and the sociocultural ramifications of the capitalist system. They both critiqued and ma- nipulated this system to their own advantage. 72. Anakisuto, “Jigashugisha,” 9-12. 73. Takayama Keitaro, “Anakisuto no bungaku to anakizumu no bungaku” (Anarchist literature and the literature of anarchism), Hoti no techo, no. 76 (August— September 1968): 592. 74. From Tanemaku hito 2, no. 6 (June 1922); quoted in Odagiri, Shown bungaku, 10. 75. Tanemaku hito writing became known pejoratively as chishiki kaikyii ron (writings of the intelli- gentsia). Many writers felt that the group’s writings wete overly intellectualized and too concerned with aesthetic issues to the dettiment of their revolutionary potential. When the magazine began publishing again after the earthquake under the new name Bungei semen (Literary Front), the ed- itorial policy clearly shifted to a more utilitarian, propagandistic Marxist stance. Aono Suekichi became even more vocal in Bungei semen, and his approach was more journalistic, less concerned with the literary value of his writing. For more on radical proletarian and anarchist magazines, see G. T. Shea, Leftwing Literature in Japan (Tokyo: Hosei University, 1964), 87—90. 76. The magazine also published one unnumbered issue. Aka to kuro was actually preceded by a sin- gle issue of Dam dam, published by some of the same poets. According to Tsuboi’s recollections, he and Fiagiwara were able to launch Aka to kuro thanks to financial assistance from Arishima Takeo. Tsuboi Shigeji, “ Aka to kuro’ kara ‘Damu damu’ e” (From “Red and Black” to “Dam Dam”), Hon no techo i, no. 3 (May 1961). 77. Translated in Ko Won, The Buddhist Elements in Dada: A Comparison of Tristan Tzara, Takahashi Shinkichi, and Their Fellow Poets (New York: New York University Press, 1977), 27. 78. Takahashi, Hakai to genso, 55-56. 79. Aka to kuro, no. 3 (March 1923); translated in Ko, Buddhist Eletnents, 28. 80. Takahashi, Hakai to genso, 81, 84. The quotation in the text does not reproduce the variations of typography in the original. 81. Ibid., 91. 82. This poem is translated in William Gardner, “Avant-Garde Literature and the New City: Tokyo 1923-1931” (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1999), 193. 83. Dawn Ades, “Dada — Constructivism,” in Twentieth Century Art Theory: Urbanism, Politics, and Mass Cidture, ed. Richard Hertz and Norman Klein (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990), 71- 84. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Sugiyuku hyogenha” (Expressionism expiring), Chud bijutsu, no. 91 (April 1923): 13; Murayama, “Koseiha ni kansuru ichi kosatsu,” 54; Murayama, “Aru tokkakan,” 67. Mu- rayama also equated constructivism with dadaism. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Higyakusha no gei- jutsu” (The art of a masochist), Mavo, no. 6 (July 1925): 6. 85. Hagiwara Kyojiro, “Neo dadaizumu” (Neo dadaism), Chud shinbun, September 20, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 4. 86. Shiran, “Kyorakushugi no saishin geijutsu: Sengo ni kangei saretsutsu aru dadaisumti” (The lat- est art of Epicureanism: Dadaism becoming popular in the postwar era), Yorozu choho, August 15, 1920 (a.m. ed.); Yotosei, “Dadaizumu ichimenkan” (A view of dadaism), Yorozu choho, Au- gust 15, 1920 (a.m. ed.). Shiran’s article described dadaism as “a kind of Bolshevism and nihilism in literature and art; Dadaists are extreme epicureans, thoroughgoing individualists, nihilists, and realists. . . . They aim at the destruction of love, philosophy, psychology, and everything; they are sort of mad destroyers who will recognize certain senses only.” Quoted in Ko, Buddhist Elements, 15-16, 117, nni-3. See Ko, chap, i, for a discussion of the reception of dada in Japan. 87. Ko, Buddhist Elements, 10. 88. Katayama Koson, “Dadashugi no kenkyu” (A study of dadaism), Taiyd 28, no. i (February 1922); Ko, Btiddhist Elements, 36, 19. 89. For information on the dada movement, see Hanne Bergius, Das Lachen Dadas (Giessen: Anabas- Verlag, 1989); Elderfield, Kurt Schwitters; Judi Freeman, The Dada and Surrealist Word-Image (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989). 90. Ko Won and John Solt have both addressed this subject, although one might argue that their art had sociopolitical implications despite their intentions. Ko, Buddhist Elements; Solt, “Shredding the Tapestry.” 91. For a discussion of the relationship between dada and constructivism, see Ades, “Dada — Constructivism”; John Elderfield, “Dissenting Ideologies and the German Revolution,” Studio International 180, no. 927 (November 1970). 92. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Koseiha hihan 2” (Critique of constructivism 2), Miziie, no. 235 (Sep- tember 1924): 13. 93. Murayama, “Idigyakusha,” 6. 94. Murayama was clearly aware of Kassak’s writings and quoted him several times in his articles and books, even reproducing a cover illustration from Kassak’s magazine MA. Murayama, “Koseiha ni kansuru ichi kosatsu,” 46, 50, 52; Murayama Tomoyoshi, Koseiha kenkyu (Tokyo: Child Bi- jutsusha, 1926), 26. 95. Esther Levinger, “Lajos Kassak, MA and the New Artist, 1916—1925,” The Structurist, nos. 25—26 (1985-1986): 81. 96. Levinger, “Lajos Kassak,” 81. Lor further discussion of Kassak’s work and ideas, see Esther Levinger, “TheTheory of Hungarian Constructivism,” Art 69, no. 3 (September 1987); Steven Mans- bach, “Confrontation and Accommodation in the Hungarian Avant-Garde,” Art Journal 49, no. I (Spring 1990); Steven Mansbach, “Introduction,” in Standing in the Tempest: Painters of the Hun- garian Avant-Garde, ed. Steven Mansbach (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991). 97. For a discussion of the range of constructivist theories in Europe and Russia, see Stephen Bann, ed.. The Tradition of Constructivism (New York: Da Capo Press, 1974). 98. All quotes in this paragraph from Hannah Hedrick, Theo Van Doesbiirg: Propagandist and Prac- titioner of the Avant-Garde, ipop-ip2j (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1973), 109-10. 99. Murayama also mentions his affinity for Van Doesburg’s work. Murayama, “Aru tokkakan,” 67. too. Other Mavo artists also used this image, such as Oura Shuzd in his Construction F, discussed above. loi. The initial split between anarchists and Marxist-Leninists in Japan came right after the Russian Revolution in 1917. Several prominent socialist thinkers who until then had been involved with the anarcho-syndicalist movement, such as Sakai Toshihiko, Yamakawa Hiroshi, and Arahata Kan- son, switched to a Marxist stance, which created a rift in the socialist movement and left Osugi Sakae as the leading force of the anarchists. Stanley, Osugi Sakae, 127. Lor a brief overview of the ana-boru split in the political arena, see Germaine A. Hoston, Marxism and the Crisis of Devel- opment in Prewar Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 24-27. 301 NOTES TO PAGES 161-172 302 102. Takayama, “Anakisuto,” 6. Even after the split between these two factions and the predominance of the Marxists, anarchist literary publications continued to appear. For a full, although somewhat biased, discussion of the trajectory of anarchist literature into the Showa period, see Akiyama Kiyoshi, Am anakizurnu no keifii (A certain genealogy of anarchism) (Tokyo: Tokisha, 1973); Akiyama Kiyoshi, Anakizurnu bungakushi (Anarchism literary history) (Tokyo; Chikuma Shobo, 1975). 103. Odagiri, Showa bungaku, 7. 104. This debate echoed many of the central issues among the Russian avant-garde around the time of the revolution. 105. Large, Organized Workers, 31-50. 106. MurayamaTomoyoshi, “Hando koko nimo hando” (Reaction here’s another reaction), Yomiuri shinbiin, December 13, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 4. 107. MurayamaTomoyoshi, “Koseiha hihan i” (Critique of constructivism i), Mizue, no. 233 (July 1924). 108. Murayama, “Koseiha hihan 2”; OmukaToshiharu, “To Make All of Myself Boil Over; Murayama Tomoyoshi’s Conscious Constructivism,” in Dada and Constructivism (Tokyo: Seibu Museum of Art, 1988), 23. 109. Murayama, “Koseiha ni kansurti ichi kosatsu”; Omuka, “To Make All of Myself,” 23. no. Murayama’s move toward this affirmative stance is evident in the unfolding of his ideas in a se- ries of articles on constructivism. Murayama, “Koseiha hihan i”; Murayama, “Koseiha hihan 2”; Murayama, “Koseiha ni kansurti ichi kosatsu.” His book Koseiha kenkyu was based on many of the ideas expressed in Ludwig (Lajos) Kassak and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Buch Neuer Kiinstler (Book of new artists), trans. Eileen Walliser-Schwarzbart (Vienna: 1922; reprint, Baden: Verlag Lars Muller, 1991). HI. Lozowick worked in a non-objective constructivist style and coined the term “machine ornament” for his black-and-white drawings of mechanical objects. He had a solo exhibition at the Gallery Twardy in June 1922, just three months before Murayama and Nagano showed there. This was his first solo exhibition in Germany. Lozowick is emphasized here because Murayama quoted exten- sively from an article on constructivism he wrote for the European periodical Broom and because his ideas clearly informed Murayama’s shift around 1926 to an aesthetic philosophy closer to Rus- sian constructivism. Omuka Toshiharu, “Berurin no miraiha kara Augustito Guruppe’ e” (From the Japanese futurists in Berlin to the “August Gruppe”), Geijutsu kenkyiiho (Bulletin of Institute of Art and Design, University of Tsukuba) 15 (1990); 60-61. For a more in-depth discussion of Lozowick, see Barbara Zabel, “Louis Lozowick and Technological Optimism of the 1920s” (Ph.D. dissertation. University of Virginia, 1978). 112. Murayama, Koseiha kenkyu, 58-62; Louis Lozowick, “Tatlin’s Monument to the Third Interna- tional,” Broom 2, no. 3 (October 1922): 232-33. 113. Murayama, Koseiha kenkyu, 42—43. CHAPTER 5 1. “Pro” here stood for “Proletarian.” “Musanha bungei undo no toshi” (Champions of the so-called Pro Literature in Japan), Asahi graph, March 9, 1927, 9. 2. Minami Hiroshi and Shakai Shinri Kenkyujo (Social Psychology Research Center), Taisho bunka (Taisho culture) (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo, 1965), 118-19. 3. E. Sydney Crawcour, “Industrialization and Technological Change, 1885—1920,” in The Cam- bridge History of Japan: The Twentieth Century, ed. Peter Duus (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 1988), 6:387. 4. Takemura Tamio, Taisho bunka (Taisho culture) (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1980), no. H. D. Ha- rootunian, “Cultural Politics in Tokugawa Japan,” in Undercurrents in the Floating World: Cen- sorship and Japanese Prints, ed. Sarah Thompson and H. D. Harootunian (New York: The Asia Society Galleries, 1991), 7—10; H. D. Harootunian, “Late Tokugawa Culture and Thought,” in The Emergence of Meiji Japan, ed. Marius Jansen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 53-67- 5. For discussions and visual representations ofTokugawa and Meiji public exhibition practices, see Edo-Tokyo Museum and Edo-Tokyo History Eoundation, Hakuran toshi Edo Tokyo (Exhibition city Edo Tokyo) (Tokyo, 1993); P. E Kornicki, “Public Display and Changing Values: Early Meiji Exhibitions and Their Precursors,” Momimenta Nipponica 49, no. 2 (Summer 1994). 6. This emblem was also stamped on Mavo exhibition tickets. See illustration in Yurugi Yasuhiro, “Jidai ni iki, jidai o koeta ‘Mavo’,” in "" Mavo" fiikkokuban bessatsu kaisetsu (Tokyo: Nihon Kindai Bungakukan, 1991), ii. 7. Many artists in the European avant-garde, most notably Schwitters, the De Stijl artists, and Mo- holy-Nagy at the Bauhaus, produced innovarive logos and preprinted stationery for themselves. 8. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Aru tokkakan no nikki” (Diary of a certain ten days), Chud bijutsu, no. 113 (April 1925): 73. 9. Yanase Masamu, “Mabashi zogon” (Mabashi abuse), Bungei sensen 2, no. 8 (November 1925): 32. 10. Andreas Huyssen, After the Great Divide (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 21. 11. Miriam Silverberg, “Constructing a New Cultural History of Prewar Japan,” Boundary 2 (Fall 1991): 64. 12. Huyssen, After the Great Divide, 22. 13. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson, “Introduction: Rethinking Popular Culture,” in Re- thinking Popular Cidture, ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 39. 14. Minami and Shakai Shinri Kenkyujo, Taisho bunka, 134-35. 15. William Owen, Modern Magazine Design (New York: Rizzoli, 1991), 232, 1112. 16. S. H. Steinberg, $00 Years of Printing (London: Penguin Books, 1974). 17. Even though Fowler has cautioned that the “mass” audience of newspapers and magazines was still fairly circumscribed and represented an elite group of people that cannot be compared to the truly mass readership of the postwar era, it is indisputable that a substantially increased number of people, particularly in the middle class, were reading published materials during this period. Edward Eowler, The Rhetoric of Confessioti (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 134. 18. Minami and Shakai Shinri Kenkyujo, Taisho bunka, 118—19, 121. 19. For an explication oiAsahi shinbuns, sponsorship activities, see Asahi Shinbunsha, Asahi shinbun bunka jigyo no ayumi: Senzenhen (The course of the Asahi Shinbun’s culture projects: Prewar vol- ume) (Tokyo, 1987). 20. Gregory Kasza, The State and Mass Media in Japan 1918-194^ (Berkeley: University of Calilornia Press, 1988), 28. For a broad consideration ol the “massification” ol Japanese publishing and the development of mass print advertising, see Ishikawa Hiroyoshi and Ozaki Hatsuki, Shuppan kokoku no rekishi (A history of print advertising) (Tokyo: Shuppan Nyususha, 1989). 303 NOTES TO PAGES 172-170 21. The late Meiji period had already seen the launching of several art journals, including Bijutsu (Art) in March 1899, Bijutsu shinpd (Art news) from March 1902 (the successor to Bijutsu hy- dron (Art criticism), which was published from 1897 to 1899 and was largely devoted to West- ern-style art), and Mizue (Watercolor) from July 1905. During the Taisho period, Gendai no yoga (Contemporary Western-style painting), published by Kitayama Kiyotaro, began in April 1912, and Chud bijutsu (Central review of art) appeared from October 1915. Atelier W3.s estab- lished in February 1924 and Bi no kuni (The world of aesthetics) appeared in May 1925. These were followed by Bijutsu shinron (New art theory/opinion) in February 1926. Other publica- tions such as architecture periodicals covered art events as well. The editor oi Atelier, Kitahara Yoshio, also founded an art publishing house called Atelier-sha. Yoshio was the younger brother of the successful poet Kitahara Flakushu and the Ars art publishing company executive Kita- hara Tetsuo. 22. For example, Murayama’s book on Kandinsky was published in a series on Western artists put out by Ars. Murayama Tomoyoshi, trans., Kandinsuki (Kandinsky) (Tokyo: Ars, 1925). 23. Perhaps rather than “art criticism,” this writing is better called “art appreciation” in view of its lack of critical content. Many artists actively worked at writing on art, Murayama included. Most wrote on new stylistic trends in the West along with covering developments in t\\e gadan and re- viewing exhibitions. In addition to teaching, translating foreign books on art and literature, and working in commercial design, their reviews represented an important source of income for artists, since few were able to sell enough works to support themselves. 24. Iwamura’s novels told highly idealized accounts of artists’ lives in Paris that were tremendously popular in Japan and generated a mystique about the city, inspiring many artists to travel there for study. J. Thomas Rimer, “Tokyo in Paris/Paris in Tokyo,” in Paris in Japan, ed. Shuji Taka- shina, J. Thomas Rimer, and Gerald Bolas (Tokyo and St. Louis: Japan Foundation and Wash- ington University in St. Louis, 1987), 45; Kitazawa Noriaki, Kishida Ryusei to Taisho avangyarudo (Kishida Ryusei and the Taishd avant-garde) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1993), 37; Kitazawa Noriaki, “Pari no bijutsu gakusei,” in Nihon yoga shoshi (A commercial history of Japanese Western-style painting), ed. Nihon Yoga Shokyodo Kumiai (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1985), 179 - 25. Donald Roden, “Taisho Culture and the Problem of Gender Ambivalence,” in Culture and Iden- tity: Japanese Intellectuals During the Interwar Years, ed. J. Thomas Rimer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 42-44, 55. 26. Asahi graph began as a daily publication but was switched to a weekly after the earthquake. Mi- nami and Shakai Shinri Kenkyujo, Taisho bunka, 232. 27. Sugimura Takeshi, “Kanto daishinsai no toshi” (The city in the Great Kanto Earthquake), m Asahi gurafu ni miru Showa zenshi (Taisho 12 nen), ed. Asahi Shinbunsha, vol. i (Tokyo: Asahi Shin- bunsha, 1975), 2. 28. “Teikoku Bijutsuin Dairokkai Bijutsu Tenrankai shinsa iin” (Portrait gallery of members of the Imperial Art Bureau), Asahi graph, November 1925, 63-64. 29. “Akushon tenrankai” (Action exhibition), Asahi graph, April 3, 1923, 4. 30. “Atigusuto Guruppe shohinten” (Small works exhibition of the August Gtxi'p'pe) , Asahi graph, July 3, 1923, 16. 31. “Mavo daiikkai tenrankai” (First Mavo exhibition), Asahi graph, July 31, 1923, 16; “Okada Kato ryoshi sakuhinten” (Exhibition of works by Okada and Kato), Asahi graph, August i, 1923, 16. 32. “Nika-ten gaho: Nyusenga to sakuhin” (Nika exhibition pictorial account: Accepted paintings and works), Asahi graph, August 27, 1923, 8-9; “Mondai ni narisonay 4 / yio Nika" [Daily Lesson of Love in the Factory that seems to be about to become a problem), Asahi graph, August 27, 1923, 3; “Rakusenga no hikitori” (Claiming the rejected works), Asahi graph, August 30, 1923, 16. 33. “Sankaten no kibotsu na shuppin” (Novel works at the Sanka exhibition), Asahi graph, Septem- ber 9, 1925, 13. 34. In the title of one newspaper article, Murayama was referred to as “the representative modern man” (daihyoteki na kindaijin). Shimokawa Hekoten and (?) Shiro, “Seikatsu o sozo sum hito- bito” (People who create daily life) [second authors name unclear, original source unknown, n.d.] . Preserved in Murayama’s unpublished and unpaginated multivolume scrapbook (cited as MTS followed by volume number): MTS i. 35. Chichibunomiya was the brother of Michinomiya, who later became the Showa emperor Hiro- hito. “Chuo bijutsuten e onari no Chichibunomiya” (Prince Chichibu’s visit to the Central Art Exhibition), Kokumin shinbun, June 4, 1923 (p.m. ed.), 2. 36. Two newspaper clips preserved in Murayama’s scrapbooks also show Mavo artists dressed in mod- ern fashion: “Kono gofufu” (This couple), Yorozn choho, August 31, 1925, MTS 2; “Fufu doto” (Couple with the same heads), Fujin koron, June 1925, MTS 2. 37. The article also states that this questionably attained hair was then affixed to the surface of Mu- rayama’s constructive paintings. “Kaba no mimi” (The hippopotamus’s ear), Yomiuri shinbun, June 25, 1923 (a.m. ed.), ii. 38. In light of these emphases and the signihcant amount of coverage he received horn women’s jour- nals, it is likely that Murayama was deliberately being marketed to a new readership of urban middle-class women. Murayama is photographed in the same otitht in Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Btibenkoppu” (Bubikopf), Fujin koron 10, no. 9 (August 1925): 63-64. 39. “Gosshipu: kankyu suru shojo o ytime ni: ‘Kitanai Odori’ o odorti Mavo no Murayama-kun” (Gossip: Dreaming of young girls brought to tears: Mavo’s Murayama who dances the “Dirty Dance”), Nichinichi shinbim, September 25, 1925, 7. 40. Murayama referred to his haircut by its German name, Bubikopf. His clothing is discussed in “Jotenka” fWomen’s world) [original source unknown, n.d., ca. 1925-1926], MTS 2. 41. However, he stressed that the haircut was unequivocally not related to the bobbed fashion asso- ciated with the modern girl (whom he called “Yankee Girl”). Murayama noted that people often criticized him by saying, “How pitiful, [doing that] even though he is a man.” In response, he argued that hair was a natural gift that should be enjoyed since there rarely had been a time in history when people could cut or style their hair as they pleased. He exhorted people not to crit- icize his hair according to some popular trend and instead to open their minds to new possibili- ties. Murayama, “Bubenkoppu,” 63—64; OmukaToshiharu, Taisho shmkd bijutsii undo no kenkyii (A study of the new art movements of the Taisho period) (Tokyo; Skydoor), 521. 42. “Ftifu ddto,” MTS 2. 43. Shimokawa, ’’Seikatsu o sozo suru hitobito,” MTS i. 44. “Betoven 'Menuetto in Ge’; Murayama Kazuko” (Beethoven’s Minuet in G: Murayama Kazuko), Fujin graph, September 1925; “Shin kami fujin hyobanki” (Account of the popular new wife) [orig- inal source unknown, n.d., ca. 1925-1926], MTS 2. 45. “Shin kami fujin hyobanki,” MTS 2. Another article explained that Kazuko was a strong advo- cate of equality between the sexes and the chief adviser to her husband, but was careful to men- tion that with all her vocations and hobbies she was still a good housewile (shufu) — in fact, a per- fect example of the “new woman” (atarashii onna). “Jotenka,” MTS 2; “Betoven,” Fujin gaph, September 1925. 305 NOTES TO PAGES 178-186 46. For instance, the subtitle of the above-mentioned article by Shimokawa Hekoten was “Going so far as to entet the house” (ie no naka made). “Seikatsu o s6z6 suru hitobito,” MTS i. 47. A Kisha, “Atorie homonki: Murayama Tomoyoshi-Shi” (Diary of a studio visit: Murayama To- moyoshi), 3, no. 4 (April 1926); 150—51. 48. Shimokawa, “Seikatsu o sozo suru hitobito” (People creating daily life), MTS i; “Higasa no ryuko to shinjutaku (Modern Japanese Life)” (Trends in parasols and new housing [Modern Japanese Life]), Asahi graph 2, no. 24 (June 11, 1924): 22. 49. A Kisha, “Atorie homonki,” 150-51. 50. “Miraiha no bijutsu undo o okoshita Kinoshita Shuichiro-shi” (Kinoshita Shuichiro who brought about the futurist art movtmtnx), Asahi graph, October 15, 1924, ii. 51. “Kandan” (Chat), Yomiuri shinbiin, August 2, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 4; “Kyukon kokoku” (Marriage proposal advertisement), Mavo, no. 6 (July 1925): 7. Takamizawa later married Kobayashi Junko, the younger sister of the famous social critic Kobayashi Hideo. 52. G. T. Shea, Leftiving Literature in Japan (Tokyo: Hosei University Press, 1964), 72, ni. 53. YcrfAtt, Rhetoric of Confession, 131. 54. The group published a total of 160 issues over thirteen years and while their monthly circulation hovered in the thousands, around 1920 it peaked at over 10,000. This also does not take into ac- count the considerable sharing of published matter, or the widesptead rental system. Circulation for Chud koron (published 1899-present) was around 100,000 in 1920; Kaizo (1919— 1955) was be- tween 30,000 and 40,000. Fowler, Rhetoric of Confession, 132. 55. It is significant that very few dojin zasshi or bungei zasshi had photographic illustrations. This would undoubtedly have made Mavo stand out even in relation to mass publications. 56. Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924). 57. They generally printed 200 copies of each issue, although accurate statistics are not available, and it is not clear whether this number increased under the auspices of Choryusha. It is important to remember, however, that the much heralded European avant-garde art magazine De Stijl, for ex- ample, began with a circulation of 120 and never exceeded 300. Paul Overy, De Stijl (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991), 46. 58. Yabashi Kimimaro, “Daisango koryo no hi ni” (On the day of the final proof of issue no. 3), Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924). 59. The NYK shipping company also dealt with heavy industry and was integral to the expansion of Japan’s modern economic sector across the board. 60. In fact, Mitsukoshi advertisements, among those of other new businesses, appear in many of the leftist-oriented journals of the time. 61. “Mavo no kotoba” (The words of Mavo), Mavo, no. 5 (June 1925): 5. Many small magazines re- lied on the newly developed, and by the Taisho period quite expansive, Japanese postal system for delivering their publications. The announcement for Mavo, no. 5, explicitly stated that the magazine was not sold in stores and could only be received through the mail. A tear-off subscription form was attached to the advertisement. Subscription prices were as follows: one month 50 sen, six months 2.50 yen, one year 5 yen. Advertisement for Mavo, no. 5 (June 1925), MTS i. 62. “Genko to sakuhin o tsunoru ni saishite” (On the occasion of the call for manuscripts and works), Mavo, no. 5 (June 1925): 5. 63. Advertisement for Mavo, no. 5 (June 1925), MTS i. 64. Nakada Sadanosuke, “Sogo zasshi no shimei” (The mission of the general interest magazine), no. 5 (June 1925): 8, 21. 65. It is interesting that Moholy-Nagy explicitly stated that all political ideology should be excluded from the general interest magazine. Like many other international constructivists including Lis- sitzky and Van Doesburg, while his work was implicitly political in nature and had sociopoliti- cal ramifications in the broadest sense, Moholy-Nagy felt that it should stand apart from (party) politics and instead be concerned with directly addressing the conditions of modern life. In this respect, he differed from the self-proclaimed “productivist” wing of constructivism in the Soviet Union, which considered itself explicitly political in orientation. 66. The exhibition was held at Shiseido in the Ginza. "Sousha Kenchikuten no sakuhin” (Works at the Sousha architecture exhibition), Mavo, no. 7 (August 1925): 8; Okamura Bunzo, “Sousha kenchikuten” (The architecture exhibition of the Sousha), Mavo, no. 7 (August 1925): 28. This group exhibited together with Mavo at the post-earthquake display of plans for reconstructing the imperial capital sponsored by the Citizens’ Art Association in April 1924. 67. Mavo, no. 7 (August 1925): 31. 68. The back cover of Mavo, no. i, lists the “new art magazines of the world”: Der Sturm (Berlin), Ma (Budapest/ Vienna), Not (Rome), Blok (Warsaw), Broom (Rome), and Het Overzicht (Antwerp). This list was augmented in Mavo's second and third issues to include De Stijl (Paris), Zwrotnica (Cracow), Manometre (Lyon), Stavba (Prague), Mecano (Leiden), LEjfort Moderne (Paris), Disk (Prague), Das Werk (Zurich), LEsprit Nouveau (Paris), The Next Call (Groningen, the Nether- lands), L’Aurora (Gorizia, Italy), Integral (Bucharest), y Arts (Brussels), G (Berlin), and Periode (Brussels). For a brief discussion of Mavo in the context of small art magazines throughout the world, see Omuka Toshiharu, “‘Mavo’ oboegaki” (A Note on “Mavo”), Musashino bijutsu, no. 76 (1989): 8-13. 69. Lissitzky sent Murayama Merz, vol. 8, no. 9. Van Doesburg sent Der Stijl, no. 2. Murayama, “Aru tokkakan,” 69. Van Doesburg is known to have owned six issues of Mavo. Kawahata Naomichi, “Yanase Masamu no ikita jidai” (The age when Yanase Masamu lived), in Yanase Masamu: Shisso suru gurafizumu (Graphism running at full speed), ed. Yanase Masamu Sakuhin Seiri linkai (Yanase Masamu Works Organization Committee) (Musashino: Musashino Art University Museum and Library, 1995), 8. Subsequent references to this collection of work by and about Yanase Masamu are cited by the subtitle, Shisso suru gurafizumu, followed by page numbers. 70. According to Maud Lavin, Kurt Schwitters was a prolific commercial designer in the 1920s, pro- ducing everything from print advertisement for local businesses to stationery for the municipal- ities of Hanover and Karlsruhe. In 1927, he and a circle of international artist colleagues includ- ing Max Burchartz, Jan Tschichold, Piet Zwart, and others formed the Ring neuer Werbegestalter (the ring of new advertising designers). Maud Lavin, “Advertising Utopia: Schwitters as Com- mercial Designer,” Art in America 73, no. 10 (October 1985): 136. 71. Moholy-Nagy referred to the dynamic combination of typography and photography as “typo- photo.” 72. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Koseiha kenkyu (Tokyo: Chuo Bijutsusha, 1926), 68-69. 73. Owen, Modern Magazine, 22, 25. 74. David Gundy, “Marinetti and Italian Futurist Typography,” Art Journal 41, no. 4 (Winter 1981): 349-52. 75. El Lissitzky was one of the earliest and most central proponents of a design theory of integration where all graphic elements were synthesized in the magazine or book for expressive and didactic 307 NOTES TO PAGES 186-196 purposes. Owen, Modem Magazine, 26; Victor Margolin, “The Transformation of Vision: Art and Ideology in the Graphic Design of Alexander Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, and Laszlo Moholy- Nagy, 1917-1933” (Ph.D. dissertation, The Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities, 1982), 137-60. 76. In May 1921, Asahi shinbun sponsored an exhibition in Tokyo and Osaka of posters from World War I. A year later, Ttmamura Zennosuke and the artist’s group he formed, Kogenkai (The Asso- ciation of the Highlands), published a volume of poster designs entitled Posta (publisher unknown), which displayed primarily expressionist designs. Kawahata Naomichi sees these two elements as critical to the subsequent development of Japanese poster design. By extension, it also affected book and magazine design. Varvara Bubnova also played an important role in imparting the Russian constructivist appreciation for poster and book design to Japan. Kawahata, “Yanase,” 8-9. 77. Yajima Shuichi, Ziian mojitaikan (Typographic handbook) (Tokyo: Shobunkan, 1926). This work andTakeda quoted in James Fraser, Steven Heller, and Seymour QXmz&i, Japanese Modern: Graphic Design Between the Wars (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1996), 123. 78. For a consideration of the emergence of the book publishing industry, see Kono Kensuke, Shomotsu no kindai: Media no bungaknshi (The modernity of books: A literary history of media), Chikuma Raiburarii, no. 80 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobd, 1992). 79. The number ol advertisements appearing in newspapers steadily increased throughout theTaisho period, exceeding six times the amount in Meiji publications. By Taisho, well over half of the space in newspapers was devoted to advertising. Minami and Shakai Shinri Kenkyujo, Taisho bitnka, 131. 80. Elizabeth de Sabato Swinton, The Graphic Art of Onchi Kosbiro: Innovation and Tradition (New York: Garland Publishing, 1986), 51. For a discussion of the development ol book illustration and the relationship between artists and writers in this area, see Takumi Hideo, Nihon no kindai bi- jntsu to bungaku: Sashie shi to sono shuhen (Japanese modern art and literature: The history of il- lustration and related subjects) (Tokyo: Chusekisha, 1987). For a consideration of the develop- ment of the book in early modern Japan and the role of artists as illustrators in the Edo period, see Henry Smith, “The History of the Book in Edo and Paris,” in Edo and Paris, ed. James Mc- Clain, John Merriman, and Ugawa Kaoru (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1994); Sarah Thompson and H. D. Harootunian, Undercurrents in the Floating World: Censorship and Japanese Prints (New York: The Asia Society Galleries, 1991). For a comparative understanding of the world- wide importance and extensive influence of book and magazine design for the mass publishing industry, see Anysley’s analysis of the international Pressa book fair in Cologne in 1928. Jeremy Anysley, “Pressa Cologne, 1928: Exhibitions and Publication Design in the Weimar Period,” De- sign Issues 10, no. 3 (Autumn 1994). 81. Takumi lists some of the major artists from yoga, nihonga, and watercolor painting associations who worked as illustrators for books and magazines. Takumi Hideo, Kindai Nihon no bijutsu to bimgaku (Modern Japanese art and literature) (Tokyo: Mokujisha, 1979), 110-12. For a discus- sion of Asai’s work as an illustrator and his interest in industrial design, see Christopher Mar- quet, “Asai Chu to zuan’ ” (Asai Chu and “Design”), in Kenchiku to dezain (Architecture and design), Nihon bijutsu zenshu: Kindai no bijutsu 4 (Survey of Japanese art: Modern art 4), vol. 24 (Tokyo: Kddansha, 1993), 176-82. Elizabeth Swinton’s detailed study oftheprintmaker Onchi Koshiro illuminates his important role in Japanese graphic design during this period. Onchi il- lustrated magazines, books, and serialized novels in newspapers. He initially learned illustration techniques from Takehisa Yumeji, one of the preeminent prolessional illustrators and designers of the period. Onchi went on to design over 800 books during the course of his career. Swin- ton, Graphic Art of Onchi Koshiro. 82. Sakai Tetsuro, “Jojo no keisliiki” (The form of lyricism), in Onchi Koshird: Iro to katachi no shi- jin (Onchi Koshiro: A poet of color and form) (Yokohama: Yokohama Museum of Art, 1994), 298. 83. Children’s books were a lucrative and expanding field. Fujin no Tomosha produced several pub- lications for children including Manabi no tonio (Learning Companion) and Kodomo no tomo (Children's Companion). For a consideration of this topic, see Ibaraki Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Doga no paioniatachi (Pioneers of children’s story illustration) (Ibaraki, 1992). Many of the works Murayama illustrated were original stories by his wife, Kazuko; see, for instance, “Mijikai o-hanashi yotsu” (Four short stories) published by Maruzen in 1926. 84. For a study ofYanase’s cartoon work and Western sources for some of his drawings, see Shimizu Isao, “Yanase Masamii: Fushiga hyogen no kakuritsu katei” (Yanase Masamu; The process of es- tablishing caricature expression), in Shisso sum gurafizumu, 93—97. 85. The popularity of leftist literature and its relationship to the market requires further investiga- tion. Murayama’s vocal support for the leftist cultural and political movement strained his rela- tionship with Fujin no tomo. It was eventually severed after Murayama was arrested in April 1932 for subversive activity that violated the Peace Preservation Law. Ffe was not released until De- cember 1933. 86. Oyobe Katsuhito, “Jidai ni mukau sotei no kiseki” (The origins of book design that faces the times), in Shisso sum gurafizumu, 16. 87. Hosoi Wakizo (1896—1927) was employed in a textile mill and all his works addressed the prob- lems of factory laborers, particularly the issues of dismemberment and terminal illness contracted from unsanitary working conditions. Hosoi had lost his own arm in a machinery accident and later succumbed to a respiratory disease he contracted in the factory. Originally published in Kaizo, no. II (November 1925), Kojo was a rwo-part story. The first section told the story of a worker and his girlfriend who dies of pneumonia and the second part more broadly discussed the de- ceptive tactics of a mill recruiter who craftily ensnared young girls for factory work. The two other books in the series were Joko aishi (Tragic history of the female mill hand, June 1925) and Mugen no kane (Infinite bell, June 1926). They were all published by Kaizosha. For further discussion of Hosoi’s work, see Shea, Lefitwing Literature, 101-3. 88. Bungei jidai, the central organ for the literary coterie known as the Shinkankaku-ha (Neo- perceptionists) that included Kawabata Yasunari and Kikuchi Kan, also reproduced designs from Mavo magazines in three issues: Bungei jidai (December 1924): 30, 38, 47; (January 1925): ii; and (March 1925): 44. These designs were not specifically created for Bungei jidai, but rather directly reused from Mavo. 89. This tale of proletarian woe, which focused on a downtrodden and consumptive prostitute whose tremendous will to survive transforms her into a martyr of capitalism, was written while Hayama was in prison for his activity in the labor movement. It was originally published in Bungei sensen 2, no. II (November 1925). For a brief synopsis of the story, see Shea, Lefitwing Literature, 155-56. 90. Shea, Lefitwing Literature, 124. 91. This is seen in his purely abstract designs for LLyogenha gikyokushii (Collection of expressionist plays, December 1924), translated by Kuroda Reiji, and Kuroi kamen (Black mask), by Andre Lef and translated by Kumekawa Masao, which was published as the eleventh volume in a series by Senku Geijutsu Sosho in November 1924. These images are reproduced in Shisso sum gurafizumu, 19, 21, ill. 31, 34. 92. Kawahata considers the leftist posters by Hungarian artists reproduced in Tamamtira Zennosuke’s book Posta (Poster) discussed in note 76 above to have been most influential for Yanase’s proletar- 309 NOTES TO PAGES 200-208 ian designs in the late 1920s. Yanase is also known to have had several Russian books in his per- sonal collection. Kawahata, “Yanase,” 8-9. 93. Sakai, “Jojo no keishiki,” 298; Numata Hideko, “Onchi Koshiro no sohon no bigaku” (The aes- thetics of Onchi Koshiro’s book design), in Onchi Koshiro: Iro to katachi no shijin (Onchi Koshiro: A poet of color and form) (Yokohama: Yokohama Museum of Art, 1994), 314-15. 94. For a brief discussion of the emergence and social significance of cafes in Japan, see Takemura, Taisho bitnka, 118-20. For a photodocumentary look at the Japanese cafe environment and a de- tailed analysis of the wide variety of eating and drinking establishments in Japan, see Idatsuda Torn, Kafeto kissaten (Cafes and coffee shops), Inax Album, no. 18 (Tokyo: Inax Shuppan, 1993). And, for an appreciation of the world of the interwar cafe aficionado, see Sakai Masato, Kafe tsu (Cafe aficionado) (Tokyo: Shiroku Shoin, 1929). 95. As licensed prostitution districts, the pleasure quarters offered an erotically charged environment for socializing, entertainment, and of course sexual activity. They were the centers of Edo social life. “Kafe manwa 13: Minshu no shakoba to undo no sakugenchi” (Cafe chat 13: Social space of the people and base of operations fot movements) [otiginal source unknown], MTS i. 96. Ibid. 97. Mavo, no. 3 (September 1924); Mavo, no. 4 (October 1924). 98. Mavo, no. 3. 99. Mavo, no. 3; Mavo, no. 4. too. Hatsuda Torn, “Toshi keikan no henyo to kenchiku” (Transformation of the urban landscape and architecture), in Kenchiku to dezain (Architecture and design), Nihon bijutsu zenshu: Kindai no bijutsu 4 (Survey of Japanese art: Modern art 4), vol. 24 (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1993), 164; Flat- suda Toru, Hyakkaten no tanjo (The birth of the department store), Sanseido Sensho, no. 178 (Tokyo: Sanseido, 1993), 43. 101. This was facilitated by the use of extensive poster advertising and the publication of a series of public relations periodicals that touted store products as well as offering practical advice and in- formation. Hatsuda, Hyakkaten, 77—78. There is a vast literature on European and American de- partment stores as spectacle. For example, see Rosalind Williams, Dream Worlds: Mass Consump- tion m Late Nineteenth-Century France University of California Press, 1982); and Michael Miller, The Bon Marche: Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, i86p-ig20 (Princeton: Prince- ton University Press, 1981). 102. The rapid development of private suburban train lines enabled a broader scope of people living in the surrounding areas to gain access to city resources like these consumer centers. 103. Hatsuda, Hyakkaten, 70. 104. The Tokyo Memorial Peace Exposition (Heiwa Kinen Tokyo Hakurankai) in 1922 in particular presented a newly developing progressive, rationalized, and consumeristic version of daily life that popularly came to be referred to as the “cultured life” (bunka seikatsu). This expression has also been translated as the “cultivated life,” “cultural life,” and “culture life.” The translations for seikatsu V2xy, as the term comprised the notions of life, daily life, living, and lifestyle. I generally prefer the translation “daily life” because of its emphasis on the quotidian. For a discussion of bunka seikatsu and the impetus to rationalize daily life, see Minami and Shakai Shinri Kenkyujo, Taisho bunka, 248-55; Sakata Minoru, “Seikatsu bunka ni mini modanizumu” (Modernism in the culture of daily life), in Nihon modanizumu no kenkyu (A study of Japanese modernism), ed. Minami Hiroshi (Tokyo: Buren Shuppan, 1982). 105. For the Ginza store, which was only opened after the earthquake, Matsuzakaya rented the re- cently constructed Kokko life insurance building at Ginza Roku-chome (Sixth street) that was opened in December 1924. The store has remained in this location until the present day. Matsu- zakaya, Seikatsu to bunka 0 musubu 50 nen (Fifty years of tying together daily life and culture) (Nagoya; Matsuzakaya, i960); 60 Nenshi Henshu linkai, ed., Matsuzakaya 60 nenshi (Sixty-year history of Matsuzakaya) (Nagoya: Matsuzakaya, 1971). 106. Minami and Shakai Shinri Kenkytijo, Taisho bunka, 57. 107. Kuroda Seiki was listed as a participant at one of the sessions. 108. Hatsuda, Hyakkaten, 129—31. While less is known about the sponsorship activities of Shirokiya, it is clear that the store held an exhibition of contemporary Japanese stage design in June 1925 in which Murayama and Yoshida Kenkichi participated. The exhibition pamphlet survives in MTS i. 109. Unfortunately, Matsuzakayas main Tokyo store at Ueno was completely destroyed during the fire bombings in World War II and no prewar archival records for the company’s operations survive. no. Takemura, Taisho bunka, 109—10; Hatsuda, Hyakkaten, 184. 111. This is mentioned in Yokoi Hirozo/Kozo, “Bakuhatsti no Sanka” (Explosive Sanka), Miztie, no. 249 (November 1925): 28. 112. Saito Kaz 5 was undoubtedly one of the artists most active in this area. He designed kimono fab- rics, a new style of apron, wall decorations, furniture upholstery, and a range of other goods re- lated to fashion and the domestic interior. For a consideration of Saito ’s work, see Yurakucho Asahi Gyararii, “Sogo geijutsu" no yiime: Saito Kazd-ten (Dream of a “Synthetic Art”: Saito Kazo exhibi- tion), ed. Asahi Shinbunsha and Akita Shiritsu Chiaki Bijutsukan (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1990). 113. “Shokusen geijutsu renmei ikiru” (The union of woven and dyed art lives) [original source un- known, n.d., ca. 1926], MTS 2. 114. The designs were actually woven by the young Kyoto textile designer Wakamatsu Seiichi. “Shokusen geijutsu no kakumei” (A revolution in dyed and woven art), Fujin graph 3, no. 12 (De- cember 1926). 115. “Shokusen renmei” (Dyeing and weaving league), Kokusai gaho (December 1926), MTS 2. 116. Many of the themes and patterns in the textiles also referred to work the artists were concurrently producing for the theater. One pattern on a swatch ol fabric was called “From Morning ’til Mid- night” after Murayama’s stage design lor Georg Kaiser’s play at theTsukiji Little Theater. The mo- tifs were paired abstracted images of fish and turtles linked by undulating lines and geometric shapes, reminiscent of Mutayama’s work on the stage. One of Maid’s kimonos and matching obis, entitled The Longing of Toller (Toruraa no shibo), presumably referring to the German playwright Ernst Toller, had the made-up composite German word Vormorgen (“pre-morning”) in cursive script running sideways up and down the fabric. “Koseiha no kimono,” Yomiuri shinbtin, No- vember 1, 1926 (a.m. ed.), 3. For a collection of essays on a range of artists who experimented with clothing design, see Nina Felshin, ed., “Special Issue; Clothing as Subject,” Art Journal 54, no. i (Spring 1995). 117. For a discussion of Shiseido’s art sponsorship activities, see Shiseido Gyararii, ed., Ginza modan to toshi isho (Ginza modern and urban design) (Tokyo: Shiseido, 1993). For a brief consideration of Fukuhara in the context of modern Japanese photography, see lizawa Kotaro, “Shizen no kaitai,” in Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, lyio nendai Nihonten (Tokyo, 1988), 49-51. Recently the Shiseido gallery has been reconstructing a series of historical exhibitions it displayed from the late Taisho period on. 118. “Kato Masao-shi kenchiku sakuhinten” (Exhibition of architectural works by Kato Masao), HWj; graph, June 14, 1923, 4. 3 1 1 NOTES TO PAGES 208-220 119. Another unatrributed example that in terms of style could conceivably have been designed by Oura is found in Kitahara Yoshio, ed., Shuppin chinretsu sdshokushil (Collection of exhibition de- signs), in Gendai shogyd bijutsu zenshu (The complete commercial artist), vol. ii (Tokyo: Ars, 1929), 14, ill. c. 120. A person who wore these signboards was popularly known as a “sandwich man.” The Biinto demon- stration received extensive coverage in the press where it was referred to as a form of senden (pub- licity, propaganda, advertising). “Shosai yori gaito e” (From the study to the street), Kokiimin shinbun, July 1925, MTS i; “Aojirokaranti tamashii ni kike” (Listen to the cheerful spirit spilling 312 over), Yamato shinbun, July 1925, MTS t; “Onna no ouen ni metoru o agete”(In high spirits with the women’s assistance), Yorozii choho, July 7, 1925, MTS i; “Toralckti de noridashite” (Jumping out of a truck), Tokyo asahi shinbun, July 1925, MTS 1; “Gaito e gaito e” (To the street, to the street), Chiigai shogyd shinbun, July 1925 (p.m. ed.), MTS i; “ ‘Bunto’ ga neriaruku” (“Bunto” pa- rades), Nichinichi shinbun, July 1925, MTS i; “Fiata kimono no kibatsu na fuzoku de” (Flag ki- monos in an unconventional manner),//// shinpd, July 7, 1925, MTS t; “Genko o uru puro bun- shiren” (League of proletarian literary men who sell their manuscripts), Hochi shinbun, July 1925, MTS I. 121. While no specific works have been confirmed, Murayama states that after the earthquake Mavo artists were engaged to do show window design projects. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Engekiteki jijo- den ig22—ig2y (Theatrical autobiography), vol. 2 (Tokyo: Toho Shuppansha, 1971), 2:194. 122. Uindo taimusu was published from around May 1917 to around September 1918. Uindo gahd was published starting around 1915 by Uindo Gahosha located in Kyobashi, Tokyo. 123. Kitahara Yoshio, ed., Kakushu shd uindo sdchishu (Collection of various show window designs), in Gendai shogyd bijutsu zenshu, vol. 4 (Tokyo: Ars, 1929); Kitahara Yoshio, ed., Kakushu shd uindd haikeishu (Collection of backgrounds for various show windows), in Gendai shogyd bi- jutsu zenshu, vol. 5 (Tokyo: Ars, 1928). Fiereinafter abbreviated GSBZ followed by the volume number. 124. GSBZ y.io. 125. GSBZy.j. 126. Lavin, “Advertising Utopia,” 134—39, 169; Maud Lavin, “Photomontage, Mass Culture, and Moder- nity: Utopianism in the Circle of New Advertising Designers,” in Montage and Modern Life ipig—ig42, ed. Matthew Teitelbaum (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 37-59. 127. Kashiwagi Hiroshi, “Nihon no kindai dezain” (Japanese modern design), in Kenchiku to dezain (Architecture and design), Nihon bijutsu zenshu: Kindai no bijutsu 4 (Survey of Japanese art: Modern art 4), vol. 24 (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1993), 168, 171, 174. 128. Hagiwara Kyojiro, “Onna, Kenchiku, Hikoki” (Women, architecture, airplanes), Mavo, no. 7 (Au- gust 1925): 9. 129. The commodification of literature and its relationship to the market was addressed in the peri- odical Bungei shijd. 130. Minami argues that the culture industry not only asserted cultural equality but also cultural au- tonomy. Minami and Shakai Shinri Kenkyujo, Taishd bunka, 120. CHAPTER 6 I. The performance sold close to 550 tickets, 50 more than the available seats, so many people stood throughout the performance. In the audience were the well-known theater personalities Hijikata Yoshi and Akita Ujaku. OmukaToshiharu, “Taishoki no shinko bijutsu undo to ‘Gekijo no Sanka’” (The new arc movements of theTaisho period and “Sanka in the Theater”), in Mavo no jidai, ed. Mizusawa Tsutomu and Omuka Toshiharu (Tokyo: Art Vivant, 1989), 84-88. 2. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Engekiteki jijoden ipii—ictiy (Theatrical autobiography), vol. 2 (Tokyo: Toho Shuppansha, 1971), 2:25. “Okyakusamao kemuri ni maita” (Wrapping the guests in smoke), Tokyo asahi shinbtm. May 31, 1925 (a.m. ed.), to. 3. The “descriptive hillacy” is defined by Austin as the erroneous belief that “language’s value is de- termined uniquely by its connection to or disconnection from objective reality.” Sandy Petrey, Speech Acts and Literary Theory (New York: Routledge, 1990), 10. 4. While the Kabuki theater had pioneered this total theater experience with its fluid relationship between the stage action and audience, the form had undergone significant changes beginning in the Meiji period, increasingly separating the two spheres. One major reason was the shift away from standard Kabuki performance venues, generally located in informal places like teahouses, to Western-style theaters with fixed seats, drop-curtains, and raised stages with a proscenium arch, all of which served to divide the performers from the audience. Jacob Raz, Audience and Actors (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983), 216. 5. For general discussions of some of the developments in modern Japanese theater, see J. Thomas Rimer, Toward A Modern Japanese Theater: Kishida Kimio (Princeton: Princeton Univetsity Press, 1974); David Goodman, “Russian-Japanese Connections in Drama,” mAHidden Fire, ed. J. Thomas Rimer (Stanford, Calif, and Washington, D.C.: Stanford University Ptess and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995); Matsumoto Shinko, “Osanai Kaoru’s Views on Russian Theatre,” in A Hid- den Fire;]. Thomas Rimer, “Chekhov and the Beginnings ofModern Japanese Theatre, 1910-1928,” in A Hidden Fire; Mizushina Haruki, Tsukiji Shogekijoshi (History of the Tsukiji Little Theater) (Tokyo: Nichinichi Shobo, 1931). 6. From September 2 to October to, 1924, Mavo members held an exhibition of their stage designs at Shirasameso Para (parlor), although no further documentary material survives. Omuka Toshi- haru, Taishoki shmkd bijutsu undo no kenkyu (A study of the new art movements of the Taisho period) (Tokyo: Skydoor, 1995), 516. There was also a large-scale stage design exhibition at the Shi- rokiya department store in Nihonbashi, June 21-25, 19^5- The exhibitors, all of whom worked for the Tsukiji Little Theater, included Murayama, Yoshida Kenkichi, and Mizoguchi Saburo. The exhibition list is preserved in Murayamas unpublished and unpaginated multivolume scrapbook (cited as MTS followed by volume number): MTS i. 7. Quoted by Murayama in Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Koseiha ni kanstiru ichi kosatsu: Keisei gei- jutsu no hani ni okeru” (One consideration of constructivism: The extent of constructive art). Atelier, no. 8 (August 1925): 50-51. 8. The play’s run was December 5—20, 1924. 9. This was a stage design concept developed by the Russian Erik Gollerbakh. John Bowlt, “The Construction of Caprice: The Russian Avant-Garde Onstage,” in Theatre in Revolution: Russian Avant-Garde Stage Design ed. Nancy Van Norman Baer (New York and San Francisco: Thames and Hudson and The Fine Arts Museums of San Ftancisco, 1991), 61. 10. Osanai Kaoru, “Nihon saisho no koseiha butai sochi” (Japan’s first constructivist stage design), Yomiuri shinbun, December 9, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 4; Omuka, Taishoki shinko bijutsu, 530-32. Omuka goes on to argue for a link between Murayama’s stage set for From Morning 'til Midnight and Alexander Vesnin’s design for the 1923 production by Alexander Tairov of the The Man Who Was Thursday at Moscow’s Kamerny Theater. Certainly Murayama’s use of multiple tiers is similar to Vesnin’s design. Yet, despite the labeling of Murayama’s technique as “constructivist,” it is clear that his work still retained strong ties to expressionism and was not nearly as focused on the me- chanical or the machine aesthetic, as was characteristic of Vesnin’s work. 3 1 3 NOTES TO PAGES 220-227 314 11. In 1930, Yoshida Kenkichi wrote a handbook codifying and explicating his theories of stage design, many of which were influenced by Murayama. There are certainly parallels between Yoshida’s techniques for the stage and those suggested for show window design in the Ars publishing house series Gendai shogyd bijutsu zenshu (The complete commercial artist). Yoshida Kenkichi, Butai sochisha no techo (A stage designer's handbook) (Tokyo: Shiroku Shoin, 1930). 12. From Morning ’til Midnight played to standing-room-only audiences every night. Hasegawa Ki- nokichi, “Tsukiji Shogekijo no Asa kara Yonaka made o mite” (Viewing From Morning 'til Mid- night ax theTsukiji Little Theater), Yomiuri shinbun, December i8, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 5. 13. A photograph of the stage set appeared in Osanai, “Nihon saisho,” 4. Murayama’s great notori- ety for his “conscious constructivist” stage design was also mentioned in regard to the artist’s sec- ond major work in this idiom: Hijikata Yoshi's production ol August Strindberg’s Brott och Brott (There are crimes and crimes; translated into Japanese as Ransui) staged at theTsukiji Little The- ater in 1925. A model of the stage design is reproduced in the article “ ‘Ransui’ no butaimen” (The stage set for “Ransui”), Yomiuri shinbun. May 31, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 9. 14. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “ ‘Asa kara Yonaka made’ no butai sochi ni tsuite” (Concerning the stage design for From Morning ’til Midnight), Zdkei, no. i (April 1925): i. Zdkei was an art journal pub- lished in Kobe by the well-known photographer Fuchigami Hakuyo and edited by Asano Mofu. It seems that only one issue was ever produced. Many artists involved with Mavo, Action, and Sanka contributed to the publication. 15. SeeTakeuchi Hota, “Murayama-kun no kingyo o homu” (Praising Mr. Murayama’s recent work), Kenchiku shincho 6, no. 3 (March 1925): 1-5 16. A number of sketches for Murayama’s prop designs survive. See Tokyo Metropolitan Art Mu- seum, 1^20 nendai Nihonten (Exhibition of Japan in the 1920s) (Tokyo, 1988), 168. In the mid- 1920S, Murayama also became interested in the work of the German dramatist Erwin Piscator, who is thought by many to be the father of the twentieth-century mass media, panoramic the- ater spectacle. Murayama later translated Piscator’s book Political Theater in 1929. Rimer, Toward a Modern Japanese Theater, 45. For a consideration ol Piscator’s work, see John Willett, Art and Politics in the Weimar Period: The New Sobriety 1917— ipH (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1978: reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996), 150-53. 17. Georg Kaiser, Plays, ed. J. M. Ritchie, in German Expressionism, vol. i, trans. B. J. Kenworthy, Rex Last, and J. M. Ritchie (London and New York: John Calderand Riverrun Press, 1985), 17-73; J. M. Ritchie, German Expressionist Drama (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 17-18. 18. Ritchie, German Expressionist Drama, 20, 27-28, 32. 19. Kitamura Kihachi, “Asa kara yonaka made” (From Morning ’til Midnight), Yomiuri shinbun. May 19, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 5. Kitamura translated Kaiser’s play Von Morgens bis Mitternachts into Japa- nese. 20. Ritchie, German Expressionist Drama, 20. 21. In fact, Murayama actively sought the commission. Despite Murayama’s wishful recollection in his autobiography about being asked by Hijikata Yoshi to design the set for Erom Morning ’til Midnight, the recent discovery of a letter by the artist to Hijikata requesting the commission, now in the possession of Hijikata’s son Yohei, proves unequivocally otherwise. I am grateful to Hi- jikata Yohei for bringing this letter to my attention and for sharing his impressions of the Tsu- kiji Little Theater with me. 22. Kandinsky differentiated between conventional theater and “stage composition,” which incor- porated all the elements he described. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Genzai no geijutsu to mirai no gei- jutsu {Art of the present and art of the future) (Tokyo: Choryusha, 1924), 45-80. Kandinsky’s texts are translated in Kenneth Lindsay and Peter Vergo, eds., Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982; reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994), 257-83. 23. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Hitotsu no atarashii enshutsu: Kaiser to chonmage” (A new production: Kaiser and a topknot), Yomiiiri shinbim, part i, September 25, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 4; part 2, Septem- ber 26, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 4. 24. It is curious to note that this interest was partly inspired by Japanese theater techniques of No and Kabuki. Bowk, “Construction of Caprice,” 75. 25. Nobori Shomu, Kaknmeiki no engeki to buyo (Theater and dance of the revolution), Shin Roshiya Panfuretto, no. 2 (Tokyo: Shinchdsha Shuppan, 1924), 7-11. 26. Mikhail Kolesnikov, “The Russian Avant-Garde and the Theatre ol the Artist,” in Theatre in Rev- olution: Rtissian Avant-Garde Stage Design ed. Nancy Van Norman Baer (New York and San Francisco: Thames and Hudson and The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1991), 87. 27. Nobori also includes an illustration of this production, which was staged by the Experimental Amateur Theatre of the Museum of Artistic Culture in Isaakievskaia Square in Petrograd. No- bori, Kaknmeiki, 12. 28. Tatlin’s work on “Zangezi” is described in Flora Iakovlevna Syrkina, “Tatlin’s Theatre,” in Tatlin, ed. Larissa Alekseevna Zhadova (New York: Rizzoli, 1988), 158—63. 29. Both Hijikata Yoshi (1898-1959) and Osanai Kaoru (1881-1928) invested their own personal for- tunes into the Tsukiji Little Theater and continued to support the enterprise. For a full account of the founding of the theater, see Mizushina Haruki, Osanai Kaoru to Tsukiji Shogekijo (Osanai Kaoru and the Tsukiji Little Theater) (Tokyo: Machida Shoten, 1954), 48-55. The original theater building, erected soon after the Great Kantd Earthquake, was a barrack structure and built to stand only for a few years. 30. Osanai was encouraged to form the Free Theater by his close friend, the Kabuki actor Ichikawa Sadanji 11 , one of the most prominent Japanese actors of the time, who was a strong proponent of “modernizing” the theater in Japan. By this, he meant primarily making traditional theater forms less formulaic and incorporating dramatic techniques from Western theater to form a new synthesis. Sadanji acted in several Tsukiji theater productions, as did numerous other profes- sional Kabuki actors who were retrained for contemporary productions. At this time, several other prominent writers and dramatists were attempting to form their own modern theater com- panies, such as Tsubouchi Shoyo, who founded the Bungei Kyokai (Literary Society) around 1908, which was replaced by the Butai Kyokai (Stage Society) in 1913. Matsumoto, “Osanai,” 66-67, 72. 31. Rimer, Toward a Modern Japanese Theater, 30—31, 42—43. 32. Quoted and translated in Goodman, “Russian-Japanese,” 64. 33. For a list of plays put on at the Tsukiji Little Theater, see Mizushina, Tsukiji, 205-344. 34. Osanai Kaoru, “Tsukiji Shogekijo no taishakaiteki taido” (The Tsukiji Little Theater’s social pos- ture), Yomiiiri shinbun, June 9, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 5. 35. Ikeda Hiroshi, “ Asa kara Yonaka made’ to Tsukiji Shogekijd,” in Tokyo Metropolitan Art Mu- seum, igzo nendai Nihonten, 162. 36. Rimer, Toward a Modern Japanese Theater, 23-24. Earlier in 1907, Osanai had founded the Ibsen Society for the study of the playwright’s work. Members of this group included such prominent and diverse intellectuals as the folklore historian Yanagita Kunio, the novelist Masamune Haku- cho, the poet Kambara Ariake, the dramatist Akita Ujaku, and the novelist Tayama Katai. Rimer, “Chekhov,” 84-85. 37- Matsumoto, “Osanai,” 69. 38. For a full list of “Sanka in the Theater” performances, see Omuka, “Taishoki no shinko bijtitsu undo to 'Gekijo no Sanka’,” 86. 39. Yoshida Kenkichi, “Gekijo no Sanka” (Sanka in the Theater), Tokyo asahi shinbun, May 26, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 6. 40. Yoshida, “Gekijo no Sanka.” There were two versions of the performance pamphlet. The second indicates that there were twelve plays and lists the casts for each. 41. The original manuscript is housed in the Museum of Gontemporary Art Tokyo, Yanase Masamu Archive. 42. Karo Hiroko, “Yanase Masamu saku: Mangeki ‘+- + - + -x-r = Kytibi’ (ichimaku)” (A work by Yanase Masamu: Comic play - x -r = Holiday” [first act]), Tokyoto Bijtitsuka?! kiyd (The Bulletin ofTokyo Metropolitan Art Museum) 15 (1990): 49. 43. It is interesting to note that Yanase’s manuscript displays two distinct censor’s seals, indicating that the text was inspected and approved by the police censorship bureau and the division for the Peace Preservation Law (Keishicho Hoanka) prior to public performance. The text is reproduced in Karo, “Yanase.” 44. “Tsumeranakereba daiseiko” (Packed great success), Tokyo asahi shinbun. May 29, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 7- 45. It seems that Murayama’s play was censored by the police, who were concerned about the con- tent and forbade the group from showing the prostitute actually having the child on stage. 46. “Chibigami harami onna” (Short-haired pregnant woman), Yorozu choho. May 30, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 5- 47. “Tsumeranakereba,” Tokyo asahi, May 29, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 7; “Mite wakaranu oshibai” (Play that you watch and don’t understand), Hochi shinbun. May 31, 1925 (a.m. ed.), ii. 48. “Tenrankai Sanka to Gekijo no Sanka” (The Sanka exhibition and Sanka in the Theater), Miziie, no. 245 (July 1925): 29. 49. Ibid., 30. 50. It is clear from newspaper reviews that the audience was particularly provoked by Kambara Tai’s nearly inaudible recitation of a poem as part of his two-act play Jinsei (Life). They began to call out, “We can’t hear!” “Please be quiet,” “This is boring,” and “This isn’t interesting, stop!” “Sanka o miru, Tsukiji Shogekijo” (Watching Sanka, theTsukiji Little Theater), Yomiuri shinbun, June 2, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 5. 51. John Elderfield, Kurt Schwitters (London: Thames and Hudson, 1985), 104-9. 52. Omuka, “Taishoki no shinkd bijutsu undo to ‘Gekijo no Sanka’,” 80. Murayama’s translation of Marinetti is published in Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Koseiha to shokkakushugi” (Gonstructivism and tactilism), Yomiuri shinbun, February 19, 1923 (a.m. ed.). 53. Translated in Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, “The Variety Theater (1913),” in Marinetti: Selected Writings, ed. R. W. Flint, trans. R. W. Flint and Arthur Goppotelli (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972), 120-21. 54. For a discussion of Berlin dada cabaret and Weimar political satire, see Peter Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 141-53. 55. Omuka, Taishoki shinkd bijutsu, 516. 56. Koseiha was published in Tokyo by the publishing division of the little-known artists’ group called the Yajugun (Group of Wild Beasts) in October 1926. There seems to have been only one issue of this periodical. 57. Susan Manning, Ecstasy and the Demon (Berkeley; University of California Press, 1993), 2. See Manning for an exploration of Wigman and her influence on modern German dance. 58. Murayama recalls seeing Wigman sometime in October 1922. MurayamaTomoyoshi, “Dansu no honshitsti ni tsuite” (About the essence of dance), Child bijiitsu, no. 94 (July 1923): 168-69. He also saw Gertrude Falke, another well-known German expressionist dancer. 59. Impekoven also had a significant impact on German artists. Her prominence is exemplified by the dada artist Hannah Hoch’s use of a picture of Impekoven dancing, or rather just her body, in the center of the famous photomontage Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany. Her body is shown in the center tossing up the head of the expressionist printmaker Kathe Kollwitz. In Germany, according to Lavin, modern dancers were seen as “emblems of corporeal pleasure.” See Maud Lavin, Cut with the Kitchen Knife: The Weimar Photomontages ofElannah Hoch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 30-34, ill. 2. 60. Lavin, Cut with the Kitchen Knife, 34. 61. Murayama, Engekiteki jijoden, 2:30. 62. Yamada Kosaku (1886-1965), who studied in Berlin, was one of the first people in Japan to ini- tiate dance theater, combining dance, theater, and music. Yamada referred to this as ‘fugd gei- jutsiE (fused or synthetic art). Akiyama Kuniharu, “Yamada Kosaku to bijutsukatachi,” in Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, lyio nendai Nihonten, 34. For more on Yamada’s experiences in Ger- many, as well as his role in adapting expressionist music and dance in Japan, see Yamada Kosaku, Jiden: Wakaki hi no kydshikyoku (Autobiography: Rhapsody of my youth), Chud Bunkd, no. 1100 (Tokyo: Chuo Koton, 1996). For a discussion of the development of expressionist music in Japan, see Goto Nobuko, “Nihon ni okeru hyogenshugi ongaku no jtiyo” (The reception of expressionist music in Japan), Shisd (September 1984). 63. Ishii Baku (1886-1962) traveled and performed in Berlin, Czechoslovakia, Poland, England, France, and New York between 1923 and 1925. The dancer Ito Michio (1893-1961) was also an important early figure in the development of modern dance in Japan, but he had less of an im- pact than Ishii because he spent most of his career abroad (from 1919 until 1939). For a biographical account of Ito’s career, see Fujita Fujio, ltd Michio: taiyd no gekijd 0 mezashite (Kokubunji: Musa- shino Shobo, 1992). 64. Ishii is quoted in Ichikawa Miyabi, “Ishii Baku to 20 nendai,” in Tokyo Metropolitan Art Mu- seum, lyzo nendai Nihonten, ij6. For a full account of Ishii’s career, see Ishii Kan, Buyd shijin Ishii Baku (Dance poet Ishii Baku) (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1994). 65. “Atarashii shiteki buyo: Line and Colour Weaved [sic] into Rhythm” (New poetic dance), Asahi- graph, November 12, 1924, 12—13. 66. Discussed in Beeke Sell Tower, “Jungle Music and Song of Machines: Jazz and American Dance in Weimar Culture,” in Envisioning America, ed. Beeke Sell Tower (Cambridge: Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, 1990), 97-98. 67. Murayama, “Dansu no honshitsu,” 178. 68. The performance also included theatrical skits and poetry reading. “Na no tsukerarenai odori” (The dance that cannot be named). Child shinbun, June 29, 1924 (a.m. ed.), 2; Omuka, Taishdki shinkd bijutsu, 520; Omuka, “Taishoki no shinko bijutsu undo to 'Gekijo no Sanka’,” 82. 69. These photographs may correspond to images exhibited at Murayama’s first solo exhibition in 317 NOTES TO PAGES 236-249 1923 and listed in the pamphlet as Me Naked (Hadaka no watashi; in Getman, Ich nackt), Me Dancing Beethoven's Minuet m G (Betoken no Minyuetto ha Chocho o odotteiru watashi; in Ger- man, Beethovens Mentiett G-dur getanzt von mir), mA Me Dancing Hummers Waltz (Fumumerti no warutsu o odotteiru watashi; in German, Hummels Walzer getanzt von mir). 70. “Egaita ningen ga kuchi o kiku” (Painted people speak), Yorozu choho, May 21, 1925 (a.m. ed.); Nakada Sadanosuke, “Megane o suteru (Sanka kaiin tenpyo)” (Throwing away the glasses [Sanka members exhibition review]). Child bijutsu, no. 116 (July 1925): 53-54; Omuka, “Taishoki no shinko bijutsu undo to ‘Gekijo no Sanka’,” 74. 71. Ilya Zdanevich and Mikhail Larionov, “Why We Paint Ourselves: A Futurist Manifesto,” in Rus- sian Art of the Avant Garde, ed. John Bowlt (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988), 81. Omuka has identified Russian futurism, particularly the work of David Burliuk, as a primary source for the popularity of face painting in Japan. Omuka, Taishoki shinko bijutsu, 75. 72. This issue was pressing for many of the Mavo members who had been raised in highly moralis- tic Christian households. Mtirayama’s experience abroad had been particularly sexually liberat- ing, freeing him from the strict Christian upbringing of his mother. Murayama, Engekiteki jijo- den, 2:54-56, 84. 73. Tachibana Takashiro, Kore ijo wa haishi: Aru kenetsii kakaricho no shuki (Beyond this is prohib- ited: A censor’s note) (Tokyo: Senshinsha, 1933). 55-97. Images of the nude based on European models were causes for public concern in the late 1890s because of the questionable morality as- sociated with public nudity. For discussion of the controversy surrounding the exhibition of Kuroda Seiki’s La Toilette, see Nakamura Giichi, Nihon kindai bijutsu ronsdshi (A history of controversies in modem Japanese art) (Tokyo: Kyuryudo, 1981), 59-93. In 1900, the November issue oi Mydjd was banned because of two nude line drawings taken from French originals, indicating the con- tinuing severity of censorship standards prevailing at the time. The naturalists were also repeat- edly censured for their focus on sexuality and illicit sexual relations. Jay Rubin, Injurious to Pub- lic Morals: Writers and the Meiji State (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984), 43. 74. Ritchie, German Expressionist Drama, 24. 75. Child kdron had an entire section devoted to the question of kydraku in its October 1922 issue. 76. Tanabe Hisao, “Kyo chokusetsu no inochi no kyoraku ni shisubeki minyo to dansu” (Folk songs and dances that should contribute directly to the pleasure of life today). Child kdron 37, no. ii (October 1922): 117. 77. Gregory Pflugfelder, “Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950” (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1996), 139. 78. Murobuse Koshin, “Nikutai no biteki kino” (The aesthetic function of the body), /ore/ 8, no. 4 (October 1925): 179. 79. Pflugfelder, “Cartographies of Desire,” 139. 80. Tanabe, “Kyo chokusetsu no inochi no kyoraku,” 136. 81. Lavin, Cut with the Kitchen Knife, 35. 82. OkadaTatsuo, “Sankaten endoktihyo” (Critique of the lead poisoning of the Sanka exhibition), Mizue, no. 245 (July 1925): 34. 83. Tsuji Jun, “Kyoraku no igi” (The meaning of pleasure). Child bijutsu, no. 91 (April 1923): 32—36. 84. Yoshitake Oka, “Generational Conflict After the Russo-Japanese War,” in Conflict in Modern Japa- nese History, ed. Tetsuo Najita and J. Victor Koschmann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 222. 8). Hasegawa Nyozekan, “Geijutsu no kyoraku to kyoraku no geijutsu” (The pleasure of arc and the art of pleasure), /orei 8, no. 4 (October 1925): 170-75. 86. Jennifer Robertson, “The Politics of Androgyny in Japan: Sexuality and Subversion in the The- ater and American Ethnologist If), no. 3 (August 1992): 419. Robertson uses the all-female, cross-dressing theater troupe Takarazuka Revue, established by Kobayashi Ichizo in 1913, as a case study for evaluating gender construction. 87. Yashiro Kanoe, “Sankageki no Sankahyo” (Sanka review of the Sanka Theater), Yomiuri shinbim, June 3, 1925 (a.m. ed.), 4. 88. Donald Roden, “Taisho Culture and the Problem of Gender Ambivalence,” in Culture and Iden- tity: Japanese Intellectuals During the Interwar Years, ed. J. Thomas Rimer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). Pflugfelder, “Cartographies of Desire,” 115. For a discussion of the con- struction of female gender categories in conjunction with ideologies of the nation-state, see Koyama Shizuko, “The 'Good Wife and Wise Mother’ Ideology in Post-World War I Japan” (Daiichiji sekai Taisengo no ryosai kenbo shiso), U.S. -Japan Womens Journal English Supplement, no. 7 (1994). 89. Paula Bennett and 'Vernon Rosario II, “Introduction: The Politics of Solitary Pleasures,” in Soli- tary Pleasures, ed. Paula Bennett and Vernon Rosario II (New York: Rotitledge, 1995), 7. Also see Bennett and Rosario, Solitary Pleasures, for a consideration of discourses on masturbation in Europe. 90. Quoted in Okamoto Jun, “ Aka to kuro’ to 'Damn damu’ ” (“Red and Black” and “Dam Dam”), Hon no techo, no. 76 (August— September 1968): 24—25. 91. Bennett and Rosario have noted the same association in the European context. Bennett and Rosario, “Introduction,” 10. 92. TodaTatsuo, “Onanizumu” (Onanism), Mavo, no. 2 (July 1924). 93. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Tenrankai soshiki no riso” (The ideal exhibition organization), Mizue, no. 238 (December 1924): 19. 94. Kimoto Itaru, Onanii to Nihonjin (Tokyo: Intanaru Shuppan, 1976). 95. Narita Rytiichi, “Women and Views of Women Within the Changing Hygiene Conditions of Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Japan” (Eisei kankyo no henka no naka no josei to joseikan), U.S.-Japan Womens Journal English Supplement, no. 8 (1995): 82. Quote in Narita from Onna no Ishi (The woman doctor, 1902), written by a woman who edited a medical advice newspaper column. 96. Akita Masami, Sei no ryoki modan (Bizarre sexuality of the modern) (Tokyo: Seikytisha, 1994), 7 - 13 - EPILOGUE 1. Pejoratively referred to by detractors as ero-guro-nansensu (erotic grotesque nonsense), this sub- stantial, vibrant area of mass culture production was strongly condemned by the censors, evi- dence that while it may indeed have been erotic and grotesque, its perilous social implications made it anything but nonsense. Hakkinbon, Bessatsu Taiyd (Prohibited books, special issue of Taiyo magazine) (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1999). 2. Mark Sandler, “The Living Artist: Matsumoto Shunsuke’s Reply to the State,” Art Journal 55, no. 3 (Fall 1996): 74. Takiguchi is quoted in Kozawa Setsuko, Avangyarudo no senso taiken (The wartime experiences of the avant-garde) (Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1994), 3. 319 NOTES TO PAGES 250-256 3. Film and theater were also two dynamic arenas for the development of proletarian cultural forms. As Omuka has noted, Murayama’s decision to concentrate on the theater (and his increasing par- ticipation in film production) was partially based on a realization that the direct contact between art and the masses in the theatrical environment (and the intrinsically mass forum of film) in many ways resolved the central problem of proletarianizing the fine arts, which still remained in- herently elitist in character and circumscribed as a mode of communication. Even after his re- nunciation of Marxism, and the dissolution ol many key proletarian theater groups, Murayama remained dedicated to the theater, writing extensively on the problematic relationship between the “theater of the masses” (taishu geki) and the popular theater, or so-called low theater (hizoku geki). Omuka Toshiharu, “Senzen no Nihon modanizumu no zasetsu: Murayama Tomoyoshi no ‘Tengoku jigoku’ ” (The breakdown of Japanese prewar modernism: Murayama Tomoyoshi’s “Ffeaven and Hell”), Geijutsu kenkyilho (Bulletin of Institute of Art and Design, University of Tsukuba), no. i8, Tsukuba Daigaku Geijutsu Kenkyu Hokoku (University ofTsukuba Institute of Art and Design Research Report), no. 30 (1997): 7—10. 4. In 1929, Yanase changed the signature on his work to the simple but dramatic image of the head of a screw and renamed himself nejikugi no gaka (artist of the screw), symbolizing his desire to function as an all-purpose instrument for the proletarian revolution in the same manner that the screw served as an essential building tool for all constructions. This signature image would ap- pear on over 200 designs by the artist for the proletarian movement. For a discussion of Yanase Masamu’s proletarian manga, see Yanase Masamu, Yanase Masamii gashii (Yanase Masamu pic- ture collection) (Tokyo: Shobunkaku, 1930); Okamoto Toki and Matsuyama Fumio, Nihon purore- taria bijutsnshi (A history of Japanese proletarian art) (Tokyo: Zokeisha, 1972), 109-21; and Musashino Art University Museum and Library, Nejikugi no gaka: Yanase Masamuten (The artist of the screw: An exhibition of Yanase Masamu), ed. Yanase Masamu Sakuhin Seiri linkai (Musashino, 1990). 5. Okamoto and Matsuyama, Nihon puroretaria bijutsnshi, 15. 6. For exhibition attendance statistics and a comprehensive list of exhibited works, see Okamoto and Matsuyama, Nihon puroretaria bijutsnshi, 259-90. 7. Ibid., 93. 8. Ibid., 93-97. 9. Patricia Steinhoff, “Tenko: Ideology and Societal Integration in Prewar Japan” (Ph.D. disserta- tion, Harvard University, 1969), 3. There was a second nationwide arrest of members of the Com- munist Party on April 16, 1929. Then in June 1931 all the major members of the party were tried and convicted. 10. See the preface to Asahi Shinbunsha, ed., Kenetsu seidd hihan (Critique of the censorship system) (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1929); also in the Asahi Shinbunsha volume, see Murayama Tomo- yoshi’s essay “Eiga to engeki no ken’etsu” (Film and theater censorship), 37-53. 11. Murayama Tomoyoshi, Puroretaria bijutsu no tame ni (For the sake of proletarian art) (Tokyo: Ateliersha, 1930). Murayama was detained for seven months in 1930, arrested again in mid-1932 and held until December 1933. He was then imprisoned for a third time in August 1940 and re- mained incarcerated until July 1942. In the lollowing sources, the dates of his arrests and the length of his incarceration vary negligibly: Murayama Kazuko, Arishihi no tstima no tegatni (Letters from a wife of bygone days), ed. Murayama Tomoyoshi (Tokyo: Sakurai Shoten, 1947), 3, 105; Mu- rayama Tomoyoshi no bijutsu no shigoto (Murayama Tomoyoshi’s artwork) (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1985). After his release in 1942, Murayama basically ceased all public activity and writing for the press until after the end of the war. 12. Murayama Kazuko, Arishihi no tsuma no tegami, 71 13. Okamoto and Matsuyama, Nihon pnroretaria bijutsushi, 96. 14. Kozawa, Avangyarndo no senso taiken, 116. 15. SteinhofF, Tenko, 73, 139. 16. “Mdiite Night” (Hakuya) ran in the May 1934 issue of Chm koron and “The Return Home” (Kikyo) appeared two months later in the July 1934 issue of Kaizd. Omuka, “Senzen no Nihon modanizumu no zasetsu,” 8. 17. Steinhoff refers to this as “spiritual tenko." SteinhofF, Tenko, 187-206. 18. John Dower, War Without Mercy (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 191. 19. These photographs ran in the January 1940 issue of Chtio koron. For a consideration of Yanase’s photographic layout design for the magazine and reproductions of some of the photographs, see Kaneko Rvuichi, “Yanase Masamu no shashin’: Chud koron no futatsu no gurafu kosei o megutte” (Yanase Masamu’s “Photographs”: Concerning two graphic compositions in Child koron), in Mi- taka City Art Gallery, Yanase Masamu: Hankotsu no seishin to jidai 0 mitsumeru me (Tokyo, 1999), 25-27, 101-6. 20. Tagawa Suiho andTakamizawa Junko, Norakuro ichidaiki (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1991), 84—95, 13 i“ 49 - 21. Tagawa and Takamizawa, Norakuro ichidaiki, 170, 173—76. 22. For a detailed discussion of the military’s sponsorship of art activities during the war, see Ko- matsu, Avangyarndo no senso taiken; and Tan’o Yasunori and Kawata Akihisa, Imeji no naka no senso (The war in images) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1996). The active collaboration of photog- raphers and designers in producing propaganda to support the war effort was another dynamic area of artistic practice in the 1930s and 1940s. 23. The exhibition somewhat arbitrarily lumped Yanase and Murayama with an assortment of “un- orthodox” artists including academic painter Aoki Shigeru, surrealists Kitawaki Noboru and Ai- Mitsu, as well as a host of School of Paris-style painters. Yomiuri Shinbun, Itan no gakatachi (Heretic artists) (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shinbunsha, 1958). Segi Shin’ichi, Sengo kuhakuki no bijutsu (Art of the blank period of the postwar) (Tokyo: Shichosha, 1996), 238-47. 24. Nakahara Yusuke, “Zen’ei geijutsu no genryu” (The source of avant-garde art), Bijutsu techo 134 (December 1957). Omuka identifies Nakahara’s essay as one of the earliest uses of the term zen'ei in postwar art historical writing. Omuka Toshiharu, Taishoki shinkd bijutsu undo no kenkyu (A study of the new art movements of the Taisho period) (Tokyo: Skydoor, 1995), 23. 25. National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Chusho kaiga no tenkai (The development of abstract painting) (Tokyo, 1958). 26. This issue consolidated material that Honma had been publishing in the museum bulletin, Gendai no me (Contemporary Eye), and various other art journals for several years prior. Honma Masayoshi, ed., Nihon no zen’ei bijutsu (Japanese avant-garde art), Kindai no bijutsu, no. 3 (Tokyo: Ibundo, 1971). 27. Asano Toru, Zen’ei kaiga (Avant-garde painting), Genshoku gendai Nihon no bijutsu, no. 8 (Tokyo: Shdgakkan, 1978). The work done by Honma Masayoshi (b. 1916) and Asano Toru (b. 1937) was greatly elaborated upon in the 1980s by a younger generation of scholars and curators, who have tried to contextualize the artistic developments of the 1920s in terms of the social and political events of the times. A groundbreaking publication in this respect was a special issue of Bijutsu techo published in 1980 that featured a detailed chronology of artistic activities in the 1920s set side by side with a chronology of current events. This was followed by a round-table discus- 32 1 NOTES TO PAGES 256-26 1 sion berween literary critic HagaToru, architectural historian Hasegawa Gyo, and art critic Naka- hara Yusuke entitled “The Background of Simultaneous Cultural Experiences; The Whereabouts of 1920s’ Sensibilities” (Kyojiteki bunka taiken: Ninju nendai kankaku no arika), which eluci- dated the implied connection between these two chronological columns. Additional essays by Kashiwagi Hiroshi and Kitazawa Noriaki further elaborated on the emergence of modern design during the period and closely examined the writings ofTaisho artists in the context of broader social and political discourses of the period. This kind of contextualist analysis has been further pursued by scholars such as Omuka Toshiharu, Mizusawa Tsutomu, and Ozaki Masato, whose work has been referred to throughout this book. In addition to the individual studies published by these various scholars, a collection of essays in the exhibition catalogue from the Tokyo Met- ropolitan Art Museum, ip20 nendai Nihonten (1988), represents one of the most comprehensive contextualist studies of the vast range of material and artistic production ol the 1920s. 28. Eva Cockcroft, “Abstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War,” in Francis Frascina, ed., Pol- lock and After: The Critical Debate (New York: Harper and Row, 1985), 126, 129. 29. Quoted in Francis Frascina, “Introduction,” in Frascina, Pollock and After, 98—99. 30. Cockcroft, “Abstract Expressionism,” 128. 31. Carol Gluck, “The Past in the Present,” in Andrew Gordon, ed.. Postwar Japan as History (Berke- ley; University of California Press, 1993), 71—72. 32. Cockcroft, “Abstract Expressionism,” 130. 33. The society was a nonprofit organization established under the auspices of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1934, and was later replaced by the Japan Foundation. 34. There were conflicting expectations of internationalism and cultural essentialism embedded in the Western presentation of Japanese art during this time. The art was expected to be both in- ternational and to look distinctly “Japanese.” William Lieberman, “Introduction,” in The New Japanese Painting and Sculpttire, The Museum of Modern Art (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 11. 35. For instance, Honma Masayoshi noted in 1969 that in “universal terms” ( fthenteki ni) the “avant- garde manner” (zenei biiri) of the Taisho new art movement’s anti-establishment radicalism re- sembled the art movements in the postwar period. Honma Masayoshi, “Sanka: Sono eiko to za- setsu” (Sanka: Its glory and disintegration), Miziie, no. 769 (February 1969): 17. 36. Akatsuka Yukio, Tone Yasunao, and Hikosaka Naoyoshi, eds., Nenpyd: Gendai bijiitsu no po—nen Ipi6—ip68 (jo), Bijutsu techo, no. 354 (April 1972); and Akatsuka Yukio, Tone Yasunao, and Hikosaka Naoyoshi, eds., Nenpyd: Getjdai bijutsu no ^o—nen ipi6—ip68 (ge), Bijutsu techo, no. 355 (May 1972). I am grateful to Otani Shogo for bringing this publication to my attention and to Reiko Tomii for sharing her insights into the text’s historiographical importance. 37. Reiko Tomii, '' Infinity Nets: Aspects of Contemporary Japanese Painting,” in Alexandra Munroe, Japanese Art After ig4y. Scream Against the Sky (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994), 312. 38. Reiko Tomii, “Concerning the Institution of Art: Conceptualism in Japan,” in Global Conceptu- alism: Points of Origin igpos—ip8os (New York: Queens Museum of Art, 1999), 22. 39. Akatsuka, Tone, and Hikosaka, Netipyd: Gendai bijutsu no po—nen Ipi6—ip68 ( jo), 2—3. Asano notes that the term zenei was not regularly used to refer to an artistic avant-garde until the mid-i930s, although he uses the term generically for the title of his study. Asano, Zenei kaiga, 114. 40. Diisseldorf Kunstmuseum, Dada in Japan: Japanische Avantgarde igzo—igjo. Eine Photodoku- mentation (Diisseldorf, 1983); Centre Georges Vompidou, Japan des avant gardes ipio—igyo (Paris: Editions du Centre Pompidou, 1986). The Diisseldorf catalogue was later published in Japanese; see Shirakawa Yoshio, ed., Nihon no dada igio—igjo (Dada in Japan 1920—1970) (Tokyo: Hakuba Shobo and Kazenobara, 1988). 41. Hariu Ichiro, “Nihon no abangyarudo geijucsu: Rekishi to genzai” (Japanese avant-garde art: His- tory and the present), in Shirakawa, Nihon no dada igio—igyo, 17, 20-21. 42. Alexandra Niumot, Japanese Art Afterig4g: Scream Against the Sky (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994)- 43. 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Zabel, Barbara. “Louis Lozowick and Technological Optimism of the 1920s.” Ph.D. dissertation. Uni- versity of Virginia, 1978. Zdanevich, Ilya, and Mikhail Larionov. “Why We Paint Ourselves: A Futurist Manifesto.” In Russian Art of the Avant Garde, edited by John Bowlt, 79—83. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988. (First published in Argus [1913]: 114-18.) “Zokei shussan nami ni sengen” (Declaring Z(9.^«'’s birth). Yomiuri shinbun. December i, 1925, a.m. ed. “Zorozoro aruku kaiga tenrankai” (The painting exhibition marching in troops). Yorozu choho, Au- gust 27, 1923, a.m. ed. ARCHIVAL SOURCES Unpublished source material, primarily clippings and exhibition documentation, in private and insti- tutional archives. Murayama Ado Collection, Tokyo The abbreviation MTS refers to the Murayama Tomoyoshi scrapbooks, multiple volumes, unpaginated, all in the Murayama Ado Collection. “Aojirokaranu tamashii ni kike” (Listen to the cheerful spirit spilling over). Yamato shinbun, July 1925. MTS I. August Gruppe, first exhibition, flier. Cafe Ruisseau, Kanda, July 2—14, 1923. MTS i. August Gruppe, first exhibition, flier. Cafe Ruisseau, Kanda, July 15—30, 1923. MTS i. “ ‘Bunto’ ga neriaruku” (“Bunto” parades). Nichinichi shhibun, July 1925. MTS i. “Butai Sochi Mokei Tenrankai,” flier. Shirokiya department store, Nihonbashi, June 21—25, 19 ^ 5 - MTS I. “Ftifu doto” (Couple with the same heads). Fujin koron, June 1926. MTS 2. “Gaito e gaito e” (To the street, to the street). Chitgai shogyo shinbun, July 1925, p.m. ed. MTS i. “Genko o utu puro bunshiren” (League of proletarian literary men who sell their manuscripts). Flochi shinbun, July 1925. MTS i. “Hata kimono no kibatsu na fuzoku de” (Flag kimonos in an unconventional m^nncs) . Jiji shmpo, July 7, 1925. MTS I. “Jotenka” (Women’s world), original source unknown. MTS 2. “Kafe manwa 13: Minshu no shakoba to undo no sakugenchi” (Cafe Chat 13: Social space of the people and base of operations for movements). Original source unknown. MTS i. “Kono gofufu” (This couple). Yorozu choho, August 31, 1925. MTS 2. Mavo, first exhibition, pamphlet. July 1923. MTS i. Mavo, second exhibition, pamphlet. November 1923. MTS i. Mavo, no. 5, advertisement flier. June 1925. MTS i. Mavo envelope. MTS i. Mavo logo. MTS i. “Mavo no sengen” (Mavo manifesto). MTS i. Murayama Tomoyoshi, exhibition pamphlet. Cafe Suzuran, Gokokuji, June 21-29, I 9 ^ 3 - MTS i. Murayama Tomoyoshi, second solo exhibition, pamphlet. Kami-Ochiai, June 9-10, 1923. MTS i. Murayama Tomoyoshi, “Koseiha no genri to sono shinten” (The principles of the constructivists and their development), pamphlet for talk presented at the Nichiro Geijutsu Kyokai (Russo-Japanese Art Association), April 1924. MTS i. OkadaTatsuo and Kato Masao, “Sakuhin tenrankai” (Works exhibition). Cafe Italy, Ginza, July 29-Au- gust 5, 1923. MTS I. “Onna no ouen ni metoru o agete” (In high spirits with the women’s assistance). Yorozu choho, July 7, 1925. MTS I. Shimogawa Hekoten and (?) Shiro, “Seikatsu o s6z6 suru hitobito” (People who create daily life); orig- inal source unknown. MTS i. “Shin kami fujin hyobanki” (Account of the popular new wife). Original souce unknown. MTS 2. “Shokusen geijutsu renmei ikiru” (The union of woven and dyed art lives), original source unknown, ca. 1926. MTS 2. “Shokusen renmei” (Dyeing and Weaving League). Koknsai gaho, December 1926. MTS 2. “Shosai yori gaito e” (From the study to the street). Kokumin shinbun, July 1925. MTS i. Sumiya Iwane, “Ishikiteki koseishugiteki kojin tenrankai” (Conscious constructivist solo exhibition). Maebashi, Gunma prefecture, October 14-15, 1923. MTS i. Takamizawa Michinao, “Ishikiteki koseishugiteki koten” (Conscious constructivist solo exhibition), pamphlet. Cafe Dontoku, Hongo, September 15-30, 1923. MTS i. “Torakku de noridashite” (Jumping out of a truck). Tokyo asahi shinbun, July 1925. MTS i. 35 1 BIBLIOGRAPHY Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura Nagano Yoshimitsu, photo albums, unpaginated. Tsuchioka Shuichi Collection, Fukui Kinoshita Shuichiro, personal papers and scrapbook, vol. i, unpaginated. “MurayamaTomoyoshi no ishikiteki koseishugiteki shohin tenrankai — Niddi Imtipekofen to oshitsti- kegamashiki yubisa to ni sasagu” (Murayama Tomoyoshi’s conscious constructivist exhibition of 35 ^ small works — Dedicated to Niddy Impekoven and obtrusive grace), exhibition pamphlet. Bun- podo, May 15-19, 1923. “Sanka Independento bijutsu tenrankai kisoku” (Sanka Independent art exhibition rules). September 1922. Yanase Masamu Archive, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo Mavo Daiikkaiten, exhibition pamphlet. Denpoin Temple, Asakusa, July 28-August 3, 1923. “Sanka Kaiin Sakuhin Tenrankai Shuppin Mokuroku” (Sanka Members Works Exhibition Inventory). Matsuzakaya, Ginza, May 20-24, ^ 9 ^ 5 - Yanase Masamu sketchbooks and diaries. INTERVIEWS Hijikata Yohei, Tokyo, 1993-1995. Matsuoka Asako, Tokyo, 1994—1995. Murayama Ado, Tokyo, 1993-1995. Sumiya Iwane, Tokyo, 1994-1995. Tsuchioka Shuichi, Fukui city, 1995. Yanase Nobuaki, Tokyo, 1994-1995. Yoshida Kanoko, Tokyo, 1994. INDEX Italicized numbers refer to illustrations. page Abe Sadao, 232 Abstract expressionism, 71, 255, 256, 260, 275016 Abstraction: and Kambara’s work, 103, 255: and Murayama’s work, 38, 42, 45, 46, 68, 133-34, 160, 188, 255; and Yanase’s work, 52, 59, 71, 190, 228 Academic art: critique of, ll, 20, 21, 22, 142; and edu- cation, 12-13, H' i7> 2.0, 27005; and Mavo, ii; and social realism, 250; Andjoga (Western-style paint- ing), 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 22, 31, 270115 Action group, 99, loo-ioi, 102, 116, 118, 174, 204, 29100112,115, 29507 Ades, Dawn, 158 Adorno, Theodor W, 171 Advertising, 50, 168, 182, 184, 188, 203, 208, 211, 213, 261, 306060, 307070, 308079 A/^a to kuro (periodical), 97, 155-56, 300076 Akatsuka Yukio, 258, 259 Akita Masami, 244 Akita Ujaku, 54, 281081, 31201, 315036 Alienation, 3, 19-20, 26, 57, 124 Allegory, 14, 16, 21-22 Altman, Natan, 163 Ana-born controversy, 161, 3010101, 3020102 Anarchism, 32, 44, 47, 54, 126, 148-51, 154-55, 15 ^- 62, 243, 3010101, 3020102; cultural, I, 124, 140, 149-50, 154, 247; and Mavo, 27, 76, 83, 87, 91, 95, 97-98, 123, 124, 140, 148-51, 154-55, 158. 162, 175, 185, 241-42, 247, 249, 284020; and Sanka alliance, 108-9, 115-16 Anarcho-syndicalism, 78, 149, 161, 299068, 3010101 Androgyny, 243, 248 Vkngermeyer, Fred Antoine, 33 Anti-art, 108, 250 Aoki Shigeru, 17, 18, 19, 321023 Aono Suekichi, 165, 300075 Apostasy, political, 252-53 Arahata Kanson, 3010101 Archipenko, Alexander, 33-34, 36, 289085, 295012 Architecture, 80-88, 91-93, no, 111, 179, 185, 204, 208, 211, 231, 286047, 288080, 2920138 Ariizumi Yuzuru, 232, 252 Arishima Ikuma, 22, 26, 50, 272028, 279056, 280066, 28302,9 Arishima Takeo, 25, 154, 2721128, 273046 Arp, Hans, 63, 297025 Art criticism, 172, 255, 297030, 304023. See aho Reception, critical Art establishment. See Gadan Art history, 255-61, 321-22027 Artificiality, 102 Art Informel movement, 258, 260 Artists’ Joint-Struggle Conference (Bijutsuka Kyoto Kaigi), 259 Art nouveau, 17, 190 Asaeda Jiro, 71, 74-75, 84 Asahi graph (periodical), 173-74, 179, 234, 304026 Asai Chu, 188, 27005, 271013 Asano Mofu (Asano Kusanosuke), 50, 99, 103, 104, 116, 29111115, 2940163 Asano Toru, 256, 257, 260, 3211127, 322039 Assemblage, 34, 42, 68, 71, 93, 96, 123, 129, 130, 135, 136, 138, 276031, 297025 AsukaTetsuo, 2940163 Atelier (periodical), 173-74, 179, 304021 August Gruppe, 174 Ausdrtickstanz (interpretive dance), 37, 233—34 Austin, J. L., 6, 218, 31302 Authenticity, 19, 22 Authoritarianism, 126, 129, 140, 161, 259 Autoeroticism, 8, 219, 230, 239, 243-44 Autonomy: and artistic identity, 150, 154; and artistic practice, 4, 5, 26, 154, 245; and culture industry, 3120130; and individualism, 123; and individuality, 11, 19, 20, 43, 123, 124, 149, 150, 154, 161, 219; and interiority, 19; and mass culture, 167, 170, 171; and Mavo, ii, 124, 170, 245; and natural- ism, 19, 20; and private sphere, 19; and self 19; and self-expression, 19, 20; and sexuality, 19, 133, 149, 245; and subjectivity, 19; and women, 133 Ball, Hugo, 231 Barbizon school, 12, 271013 Barbusse, Henri, 281082 Barr, Alfred H., 255 Barrack Decoration Company (Barakku Sosho- kusha), 85-86, 207 353 Barracks, 80-88, 8}, 143-44, H$> 148. 286n47, 287054, 315029 Barshay, Andrew, 54, 139, 140, 273044 Bauhaus, 184, 197, 2930144, 30307 Baumeister, Willi, 295012 Beauty, 43, 45, 47, 107, 141 Benjamin, Walter, 171 Berlin, Japanese artists in, 29, 32-34, 36-37, 159, 234, 274011, 3170062,63 Bijutsu techo (“Art handbook”; periodical), 258-59, 321027 Bikyoto conference, 259 Bliimner, Rudolf, 33 Boccioni, Umberto, 34, 279057, 280066, 295012 Body: and androgyny, 243; and commodification, 130, 133; and eroticism, 241, 248; and performing arts, 7, 218, 226, 233, 234; and scatology, 140; and tactilism, 134-35 Boguslawskaja, Xenia, 36 Bolshevism, 98, 108, 161, 250, 301086; Marxism- Leninism, 3010101 Bourgeoisie, 120, 125, 143, 150, 154, 155, 159, 161, 170, 215 Braque, Georges, 256 Breton, Jules, 13 Bubnova, Varvara, 60, 63-64, 99, 296023, 308076 Bundan (literary establishment), 2, 119, 139, 175 Bungei Kyokai (Literary Society), 315030 Bungei sensen (periodical), 108, 120, 170, 185, 195, 300075 Bunten (state-sponsored art exhibition), 17, 21, 22, 26, 31, 142, 167, 273036. See abo Nitten; Teiten Bunto (Literary Party) group, 119-20, 211 Burcharrz, Max, 307070 Burger, Peter, 5 Burliuk, David, 48-49, 54, 55, 56, 135, 208, 236, 279-80065, 2800066,67, 281085, 282088, 296022 Burliuk, Vladimir, 280067 Butai Kyokai (Stage Society), 315030 Cabaret Voltaire, 231 Cafes, 79, 167, 174, 202, 203, 204, 28301, 286039, 2890083,84 Campendonck, Heinrich, 34 Capitalism, 27, 36, 53, 75, 86, 126, 142, 150, 151, 154, 159, 170, 171, 214, 215, 300071 Cappelletti, Giovanni, 12 Carra, Carlo, 70 Censorship, 53-54, 97, 116, 151, 161, 184, 239, 248, 251, 28101178,82, 28901183,90, 299067, 3160043,45, 318073, plate I) Central Art Museum, Tokyo, 259 Cezanne, Paul, 21, 47, 51 Chagall, Marc, 34, 289085 Chekhov, Anton, 226, 227 Chichibunomiya, 175, 305035 Children’s literature, 30-31, 76, 178, 188, 253, 254, 3091183 China: and war with Japan, 2, 17, 19, 254; Yanase’s travels in, 253—54 Chirico, Giorgio de, 103, 295012 Choryusha (publisher), 97, 98, 157, 286041, 2891189, 2900102, 306057 Christianity, 21, 29-30, 31, 284025, 318072 Child bijutsu (periodical), 34, 2761134 Citizens’ Art Association (Kokumin Bijutsu Kyokai), 87, 3071166 Clark, John, 138 Clarte movement, 281082 Class, social, 20-21, 24, 25, 53, 120-21, 126, 145, 149, 150, 160, 167, 248, 250 Cockcroft, Eva, 256 Cold war, 256-57, 258 Collage, 38, 46, 59, 68, 70, 71, 96, 102, 105, 119, 123, 126, 130, 133-36, 138, 182, 214, 232, 243, 2811185, plate 9 Collectivism, 249, 252, 253 Collin, Raphael, 14, 271010 Commercial design, 50, 76, 168, 170, 182, 185-86, 188, 194, 196, 202-8, 211, 213, 214, 220, 247-48, 304023, 3071170, 3iini2i Commodification, 36, 130, 133, 142, 168, 170-71, 172, 188, 248, 3120129 Communism, 54, 78, 143, 161, 249, 250, 251, 253, 32009 Conant, Ellen, 27008 Confucianism, 242 Congress of International Progressive Artists, 35—36, 160, 234, 275020 Construction. See Collage Constructivism: and Action group, 102; and anar- chism, 124; and Archipenko’s work, 33; and archi- tecture, 83-84, 92; and artistic identity, 43; and artistic practice, 43, 88, 102, 105, 123, 124, 126, 138, 162-63, 207; and Bubnova’s theory, 60; con- scious, 3, 7, 29, 42-46, 65, 70, 83-84, 124, 138, 143, 150, 159, 160, 163, 249, 277040, 2781155, 284026, 2891183, 314013; and dadaism, 36, 102, no, 158-60, 162, 300084; and daily life, 42, 45; and design, 186, 207, 211, 213, 220, 308076; and emotionality, 45; and futurism, 102; and indi- viduality, 42, 43-44; and interiority, 44-45; and international exhibitions, 36, 275020; and Kandinsky’s theory, 44-45; and Kinoshita’s theory, 278055; and Lozowick’s work, 162-63, 30211111; and Mavo, 3, 12, 42, 65, 66, 67, 75, 83- 84, 95, 102, no, 123, 124, 126, 130, 138, 160, 184, 186, 211, 213, 249, 277040, 278055, 284026; and Murayama’s theory, 3, 7, 29, 42-46, 65, 70, 71, 75, 92, 95, 124, 138, 143, 159, 160, 162-63, 249. 284n26, 300n84, 302nniio,iii; and Murayama’s work, 36, 42, 213, 220, 226, 276031, 313010, 314013; and performing arts, 37, 119; and political relations, 44, 60, 124, 150, 159-60, 162-63, 307065; and Russian art, 33, 36, 44, 276031, 281085, 296022, 3060111; and Sanka alliance, 102, 103, 105; and Sawa’s work, 289083; and self- expression, 42, 43; and social relations, 163; and subjectivity, 42, 43, 45, 124; and theater, 119, 213, 220, 226, 313010, 314013 Consumerism, 6, 107, 130, 133, 167, 170-71, 182, 184, 188, 202, 208, 214-15, 217, 247-48, 3100104 Contextualist analysis, 322027 Corot, Jean-Baptiste, 12 Crafts, 14, 17 Criticism: art, 172, 255, 297030, 304023; sociopoliti- cal, I, 138-41, 157, 247. See ako Reception, critical Cross-dressing, 6, 239, 243, 248, 319086 Cubism, 47, 51, 52, 99, 163, 217, 282088 Cubo-futurism, 34, 49, 274011, 275016, 280067, 282088, 296022 Culture industry, 165, 167, 171, 202, 3120130 Cyril, Victor, 281082 Dadaism, 32-33, 92, 97, 100, 108, 186, 217, 234, 242, 244, 255, 258, 260, 301086, 317059; and construc- tivism, 36, 102, no, 158-60, 162, 300084; and Mavo, 12, 63, 67, 76, 102, 110, 124, 125, 158, 230- 31, 234 Daily life (seikatsii), 3, 80, 85-86, 100, 130, 156, 184, 188, 215, 218, 226, 295010, 296017, 297053, 3100104; and artistic ptactice, 2, 5, 7, 42, 45, 103, 105, 108, 121, 123, 125, 126, 143, 167, 170, 203, 213, 214, 232, 247, 248, 249, 250 Dance, 37, 38, 120, 175, 178, 219, 225, 226, 233-36, 243, 276028, 296016, 3170059,62,63 Daubigny, Charles Francois, 12 Decorative art, 17 Delaunay, Sonia, 207 Demetz, Peter, 275017 Democracy, 21, 25, 257 Denis, Maurice, 99 Department stores, 5, loi, 167, 174, 202, 204-5, ^ 19 ' 2910112, 31306 Design: commercial, 50, 76, 168, 170, 182, 185-86, 188, 194, 196, 202-8, 2II, 213, 214, 220, 247-48, 304023, 307070, 3120121; graphic, 70, 85, 96, 120, 182, 186, 188, 190, 194-97, 200, 307075, 308081; industrial, 185; poster, 186, 308076, 309092; stage, 38, 85, 119, 213, 219-21, 222—25, 224-26, 276026, 281081, 31100108,116, 31306, 3140011,13; textile, 206-7, 31100112,114,116 Desire, 7, 130, 135, 219, 234, 239, 241, 242, 248 De Stijl, 160, 185, 30307, 306057, 3070068,69 Dialectics, 158, 160 Direct action, 155, 161, 249 Dix, Otto, 32 Dojin zasshi (coterie magazines), 181, 184, 188, 306055 Dower, John, 253 Dragon Pond Society (Ryuichikai), 13 DSD. See First Artists’ League Dutch painting, 4 Duus, Peter, 25 Dystopianism, 124, 125 Earthquake. See Great Kanto Earthquake Economic relations: and class relations, 24, 25, 126, 167; and commodification, 36, 133; and con- sumerism, 130, 133, 167, 184, 202; and economic development, 12, 24, 126, 261; and industrializa- tion, 24, 33, 47, 86, 125-26, 130, 133; and popular discontent, 19, 24—25, 32, 273044; and postwar recovery, 257, 258; and Weimar Germany, 32; and women, 133 Edo period, 4, 12, 81, 144-45, 167, 168, 203, 211, 230, 239, 298052, 310095 Education: and academic art, 12-13, D’ 17 - 27005; and art textbooks, 298041; and atelier training, 26, 32, 27005; indgadan (art establishment), 26, 32; and mass culture, 167, 172; of Murayama, 31- 32; of Sumiya, 284025; and yoga (Western-style painting), 12-13, I4> I7> 26, 32, 60 Educational institutions: Institute fot Development (Kaiseijo), 27003; Institute for the Investigation of Western Books (Yosho Shirabesho), 2700; Institute for the Study of Batbarian Documents (Bansho Shirabesho), 12; Institute for Western Learning (Yogakusho), 12; Japan Arr Academy (Nihon Bijutsuin), 14, 17, 99; Japan Art School (Nihon Bijutsu Gakko), 60; Osaka Institute of Art (Osaka Geijutsu Gakuin), 48; Pacific Western-style Painting Studio (Taiheiyo Yoga Kenkyujo), 32; Tama Art University, 258; Tech- nological Art School (Kobu Bijutsu Gakko), 12-13, 27004; Tenshin Academy (Tenshin Dojo), 17; Tokyo Imperial University, 32, 33, 149, 27008, 287065; Tokyo School of Fine Arts (Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko), 14, 26, 85, 99, 172; Waseda University, 60, 61, 85 Egalitarianism, 21, 80, 143 Elderfield, John, 230 Elirism, 25, 109, 119, 160, 161, 167, 170, 175, 32003 Emotionality, 19, 21, 33, 37, 45, 74, 103, 156, 241 Endo Atata, 84-85 Eroticism, 8, 133, 135-36, 219, 239, 241-45, 248, 310095, 31901 Exhibitions, by artist: Asano Mofu, 103; Fumon Gyo, 48, 55, 279060; KambataTai, 103; Karo Masao, 60, 76, 80, 150, 174, 288065; Kinoshita 355 Exhibitions, by artist (continued) Shuichiro. 48, 50, 56-57, iii, 115; Louis Lozowick, 302nni; Mokube Masayuki, 115; Murayama Tomoyoshi, 34-36, 37-38, 68-69, 76, 78, 87-88, 107, 203, 275018, 276031, 28301, 284026, 288065, 2900102, 3020111, 321023; Nagano Yoshimitsu, 34-36, 3020111; Nakada Sadanosuke, 115; Naka- hara Minoru, 103, 115; Ogata Kamenosuke, 49, 59, 70, 78; Okada Tatsuo, 60, 76, 93, no, 150, 174, 284016; Okamoto Toki, 103, no, iii; Oura Shuzo, 50, 57, 71, 105, 107; Sawa Seiko, 93, 289083; Shibuya Osamu, 49, 59; Sumiya Iwane, 78-79, 88, 93, 174, 277040, 285-86038; Taka- mizawa Michinao, 60, 76, 78, 88, 91, 93, no, 277040, 287-88065; Toda Tatsuo, 76, 93, no, 286038; Yabashi Kimimaro, 76, 93; Yamazato Eikichi, 93; Yanase Masamu, 50, 54, 59-60, 70- 71, 78, 105, 115, 281079, 321023; Yokoi Hirozo, 105; Yoshida Kenkichi, 105, 107, 29507 Exhibitions, group: Action, 204, 2910112; Bunten, 17, 21, 22, 26, 31, 142, 167, 273036; Central Art Exhibition, 38, 276034; Citizens’ Art Association (Kokumin Bijutsu Kyokai), 87, 287064; Fusain, 273035; Futurist Art Association, 48, 49, 50, 54, 55-56, 57, 60, 61, 203, 208, 279062, 2800069,70, 282088, 2900106; Hakkasha, 280070; Inten, 48, 51; Mavo, 65, 66-71, 74-77, 78-80, 87-88, 91- 93, 95, 102, no, 174, 203, 277040, 283007,9,13, 286039, 287064, 287-88065, 289084, 307066; National Industrial Arts Exhibition, 13, 27109; Nika, 5, 26, 48, 50, 55, 77, 174, 205, 275016, 279060; Nitten, 31; Pacific Painting Society, 279060; Reconstruction of the Imperial Capital (Teito fukko soan tenrankai), 87-88, 91-93, 107, 288080; Russo-Japanese Art Association, 289085; Sanka alliance, 100, 101-3, 105, 107, 109-n, 115- 16, 174, 204, 205, 236, 2920134, 2940158, 29507, plate ii: Sanka Independent (FAA-sponsored), 55-57> 59-60, 61, 282088, 2900106; Der Sturm Woodblock Print Exhibition, 279057; Teiten, 26, 45, 143, 173, 250, 279062, 280070; Union of Woven and Dyed Art (Shokusen Geijutsu Renmei), 206. See also International exhibitions; Postwar exhibitions Expo ’70, 261 Expressionism: and artistic identity, 33, 43; and artistic practice, 34; and dadaism, 32, 33, 92; and dance, 37, 233-34, 276028, 317062; and design, 308076; and emotionality, 33, 37; and futurism, 24, 47, 49, 55, 57, 274011, 275017, 282088; and individualism, 20; and individuality, 224; and literature, 33; and Mavo, 12, 24, 67, 74, 91, 141; and mimesis, 21, 24, 224, 225; and Murayama’s theory, 43, 74, 163, 2770039,45; and Muraya- ma’s work, 34, 38, 42, 43, 92, 162, 313010; and naturalism, 20; and political relations, 32, 33, 37; and self-expression, 24, 43; and Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), 21, 45; and subjectivity, 33, 37, 42; and theater, 7, 37, 224, 225, 239, 313010; and Yanase’s work, 52; and yoga (Western-style painting), 12, 19, 24, 45; and Zokei group, 119 Exter, Alexandra, 225, 226 FAA. See Futurist Art Association Face painting, 49, 236, 238 Faktura, 135, 296023 Family relations, 133, 159 Fauvism, 99, 257 Feininger, Lyonel, 34 Fenollosa, Ernest, 27008 Fetishism, 243-45 Fi.ala, Vaclav, 48 Film, 217, 234, 236, 243, 320 Fine art, 2, 4, 17, 26, 102, 167, 168, 188, 203, 206, 213, 248 First Artists’ League (DSD; Daiichi Sakka Domei), 99-100 First Great Proletarian Arts Exhibition, 250 First Great Russian Art Exhibition, 36 First International Art Exhibition, 35 Folklore, 287053 Fontanesi, Antonio, 12-13, 27005, 271013 Fowler, Edward, 181, 303017 France; and international exhibitions, 14; Japanese artists in, 14, 16, 21, 32, 34, 60, 99, 172, 27005, 271010, 275016, 304024; andjoga (Western-style painting), 12, 13, 14, 16, 34, 101, 27005 Frankfurt School, 170-71 Free Theater (Jiyu Gekijo), 226, 315030 Free will, 21, 124, 140, 148, 299062 Fuchigami Hakuyo, 314014 Fujimori Terunobu, 86 Fujin no tomo (periodical), 30, 31 Fujin no Tomosha (publisher), 30-31, 309083 Fujisawa Tatsuo, 214 FujishimaTakeji, 26, 271010 Fujita Tsuguharu, 254 Fukuhara Shinzo, 208 Fumon Gyo, 47-48, 55, 141, 2790060,62, 282087 Fusain. See Fyuzan-kai Futurism: and abstraction, 46, 55, 56, 59; and Action group, 99; and alienation, 57; and anarchism, 47; and art exhibitions, 34, 48, 49, 50, 54, 55-56, 57, 60, 61, 279062, 279-80065, 280066,69,70, 282088, 296020; and artistic practice, 34, 46, 51, 56-57, 59-60, 102, 135; and beauty, 47; and Burliuk’s theory, 49, 56; and Burliuk’s work, 56— 57, 60, 236; and collage, 46, 59, 102; and construc- tivism, 102; and cubo-futurism, 34, 49, 274011, 275016, 280067, 282088; and design, 186, 207; and expressionism, 24, 47, 49, 55, 57, 274nii, 275ni7, 282088; and Fumon’s work, 48; and gadan (art establishment), 46, 47-48, 54, 61; and individualism, 48; and internationalism, 46; Italian, 34, 46, 47, 49, 70, 235, 275016, 278- 79056, 280066; and Kinoshita’s theory, 47, 49, 50, 67, 278055, 280069, 282089; and Kinoshira’s work, 50, 56, 282089; and Mavo, 6, 27, 29, 46, 49, 60-61, 63, 67-68, 70, 75, 76, 77, 102, 133-34, 140-41, 148, 230-31, 286047; and Murayama’s work, 46, 275026; and nationalism, 46; and Nika, 47-48, 77; and Oura’s work, 57; and performing arts, 36, 275-76026; and poetry, 49, 50; and polirical relations, 47, 54; reception of, 48, 49, 50, 54-55, 57, 59, 278-79056, 280066; Russian, 46, 48-49, 54, 60, 236, 275026, 279-80065, 2800066,67; and sculpture, 48; and self- expression, 47, 48; and Shibuya’s theory, 49-50, 57, 59; and social relations, 57; and subjectivity, 48, 49, 55; and tactilism, 134-35; and theater, 230-31, 236; and Yanase’s work, 50, 52, 54, 59-60 Futurist Art Association (FAA; Miraiha Bijutsu Kyokai), 6, 27, 46-50, 54-57, 59-61, 63, 67, 75, 76, 140-41, 203, 208, 2780052,53, 279062, 2800069,70, 2820087,88, 2900106 Fyuzan-kai (Fusain or Sketch Society), 22, 51, 142, 272-73035, 279056, 280076 Gadan (art establishment), 1-2, 5, 26, 46, 47-48, 54, 61, 98, 101, 105, 107, 109, 115, 118, 124, 138-43, 173, 175, 188, 205, 218, 249, 250, 298039 Galleries: Galerie Der Sturm, 33, 34, 277047; Galerie van Diemen, 36; Gallery Kudan, 110, 228, 2920135; Neumann Gallery, 34; Twardy Gallery, 36, 3020111 Gauguin, Paul, 21 Gekidan (theater establishment), 139 Gender roles, 6, 8, 133, 160, 178, 243, 319086 Germany: avant-garde art in, 32-37, 43, 44, 47, 57, 108, 159, 160, 185: Japanese artists in, 3, 7, 29, 32-37. 135. 159. 162, 185, 233, 234, 274011, 2930144, 317062; and performing arts, 37, 224, 225, 233, 234, 239, 314016, 317059; and World War I, 145. See also Weimar Germany Gleizes, Albert, 52 Gluck, Carol, 257 Goll, Ivan, 277039 Gollerbakh, Erik, 220, 31309 Goncharova, Natalia, 280067 Gorky, Arshile, 256 Gorky, Maxim, 226 Goseda Yoshimatsu, 27005 Goto Shinpei, 87, 93 Government. See State Graphic design, 70, 85, 96, 120, 186, 188, 190, 194- 97, 200, 307075, 308081 Great Kanto Earthquake, 7, 77-80, 86-87, 93' 95 125, 143-45, 149, 161, 227, 281082, 285033 Greenberg, Clement, 256 Grosz, George, 32, 37, 139, 159, 297032 Guggenheim Museum, New York, 260 Gutai group, 258, 261 Habermas, Jurgen, 171 HagaToru, 13, 322027 Hagiwara Kyojiro, 97-98, loi, 116, 119, 124, 126, 143-44, 148, 154, 155-58, 184, 197, 200, 214, 243 2900099,100 Hagiwara Tokutaro, 48 Hairstyle, 115, 165, 178, 249, 3050040,41 Hakkasha (Association of the Eight Flames), 48, 279061, 280070, 298039 Hamada Masuji, 214 Hamaguchi Osachi, 251 Hani Motoko, 30-31 Harada Naojiro, 27005 Hariu Ichiro, 260 Harootunian, H. D., 140 Hasegawa Gyo, 322027 Hasegawa Nyozekan, 53-54, 154, 190, 220, 242, 281079 Hashimoto Kenkichi (Kitasono Katue), 100 Hashimoto Kinei, 290092 Hatsuda Torn, 203, 205 Hayama Yoshiki, 165, 195 Hayashi Fusao, 108, 165 Hayashi Masao, 141 Hazama Inosuke, 273035 Heartfield, John, 32 Hedonism (kyorakushugi), 7, 91, 124, 219, 241, 253 See also Pleasure Hegel, G.W.E, 158 Heine, Carl, 226 “Heretic Artists” exhibition, 255, 321023 High-Red-Center group, 258 Hijikata Yoshi, 220, 226-27, 31201, 3140013,21, 315029 Hikosaka Naoyoshi, 258-59 Hind, C. Louis, 21 Hirato Renkichi, 50 Hirohito (emperor of Japan), 305035 Hishida Shunso, 17 Historicism, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21, 27005 Hoch, Hannah, 33, 241, 317059 Hollander, Felix, 37, 233 Honma Masayoshi, 255-56, 257, 260, 321027, 322035 Hosoi Wakizo, 190, 309087 Huelsenbeck, Richard, 158-59 Humanism, 154 Huyssen, Andreas, 171 Ibsen, Henrik, 227 Ibsen Society, }i'jn}6 Ichikawa Sadanji, 3i5n30 Ichiuji Giryo, 118, 119, 141 Identity, artistic: and autonomy, 150; and construc- tivism, 43; and expressionism, 33, 43; and indi- vidualism, 253; and mass media, 172-75, 178- 80; and political relations, 43, 150, 154, 160, 249, 253; and sexuality, 175; and social relations, 14- 15, 33, 42, 43; andjoga (Western-style painting), 13. i53 Impekoven, Niddy, 37, 38, 233, 236, 3l7n59 Imperial Art Academy (Teikoku Bijutsuin), 26, 143 Imperialism, 21, 24, 126 Imperial Museum (Teishitsu Hakubutsukan), 13 Impressionism, 14, 16, 21, 47, 51, 74 Individualism: and abstract expressionism, 256; and alienation, 19—20; and anarchism, 149, 161; and artistic identity, 253; and artistic practice, 163; and autonomy, 123; and collectivism, 249, 253; and dadaism, 3011186; and expressionism, 20; and futurism, 48; and Fyuzan-kai (Sketch Society), 22; and literature, 19-20; and Mavo, 249; and nationalism, 19, 20, 272n27; and naturalism, 19-20; and pleasure, 219; and post- impressionism, 20; and sexuality, 242; and Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), 20, 21, 86; and state policy, it, 20, 253, 2720026,27; and subjectivity, 126, 150; and j/oga (Western-style painting), 19, 22, 253 Individuality: and autonomy, n, 19, 20, 43, 123, 124, 149, 150, 154, 161, 219; and constructivism, 42, 43-44; and expressionism, 224; and Mavo, 3, ii, 42, 124, 224, 249; and Nietzsche, 43-44; and Nika-kai (Association of the Second Section), 22; and political relations, 21, 154, 253; and Shirakaba- ha (White Birch Society), 20-21; and social relations, ii, 19-20, 22, 25, 154, 253; and yoga (Western-style painting), 15, 19, 20, 22 Industrialization, 24, 33, 47, 57, 86, 125-26, 130, 133. 149 Institute for Development (Kaiseijo), 27003 Institute for the Investigation of Western Books (Yosho Shirabesho), 270113 Institute for the Study ot Barbarian Documents (Bansho Shirabesho), 12 Institute tor Western Learning (Yogakusho), 12 Inten (Japanese Art Academy Exhibition), 48 Interiority: and artistic practice, 124; and autonomy, 19; and constructivism, 44-45; and Mavo, 25; and Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), 21; and yoga (Western-style painting), 16, 19 International exhibitions, 14, 34-36, 44, 48-49, 275020, 279-80065, 280066, 289085 Internationalism, 2, 36, 46, 322034 Ishida Takeshi, 30 Ishii Baku, 234, 296016, 317063 Ishii Hakutei, 279060 Italy: futurism in, 34, 46, 47, 49, 70, 235, 275016, 278056, 280066; and yaga (Western-style painting), 12-13 Ito Junzo, 48 Ito Michio, 317063 IwamuraToru, 172, 304024 Japan Art Academy (Nihon Bijutsuin), 14, 17, 48, 99 Japan Art Association (Nihon Bijutsu Kyokai), 13 Japan Art School (Nihon Bijutsu Gakko), 60 Japanese Association for Commercial Art (Nihon Shogyo Bijutsu Kyokai), 214 Japanese Communist Party, 161, 251, 252, 253, 32009 Japan Photography Association (Nihon Shashinkai), 208 Japan Writers’ Association (Nihon Bungeika Kyokai), 252 Junge Rheinland group, 275020 Kabuki theater, 238, 31304, 3150024,30 Kadowaki Shinro, 2, 59, 63, 67, 71, 72, 28201 Kaiser, Georg, 37, 119, 211, 220, 224, 225, 3110116 Kambara Ariake, 315036 KambaraTai, 99, 100, 103, 104, 109, 115-16, 144, 217, 278-79056, 279060, 2910115, 2940163, 296020, 316050 Kameido Incident, 78 Kamenskii, Vasilii, 280065 Kandinsky, Wassily, 34, 43, 44-45, 49, 224-25, 277047, 289085, 304022, 314-15022 Kaneko Yobun, 54 Kant, Immanuel: memorials to, 88, yo, 91, 287-88065 Kashiwagi Hiroshi, 322027 Kassak, Lajos, 92, 159-60, 162, 220, 301094, 3020110 Kasza, Gregory, 139 Katayama Koson, 158-59 Kato Hiroko, 228 Kato Kazuo, 150, 208 Kato Masao, 60, 61, 75, 76, 80, 81, 92, 136, 737, 150, 232, 239, 288065 Kawabata Yasunari, 309088 Kawahata Naomichi, 196, 308076, 309092 Kawai Gyokudo, 298046 Kawaji Ryuko, 63, 102-3, i43> 298046 Kawakami Togai, 27005 Kawakita Michiaki, 17 Kawase Hideharu, 13 Khlebnikov, Alexander, 226 Kikuchi Kan, 309088 Kimoto Itaru, 244 Kimura Shohachi, 272n35, 2/'^n^6 Kinoshita Mokutaro, 297030 Kinoshita Shuichiro; and participation in Futurist Art Association, 46, 47, 48, 49-50, 54, 55, 56, fif, 61, 63, 67, 2780053,55, 280069, 2820088,89, 2900106; and participation in Mavo, 63, 64—65, 129, 12p, IJ2, 133, 179-80, 2780053,55; and partici- pation in Sanka alliance, 99, loo-ioi, 109, m, 115, 116, II/, 236, 238, 2910117 Kishida Hideto, 91 Kishida Ryusei, 22, 23, 145, 205, 272028, 273035, 279056 Kitagawa Fram, 259 Kitahara Hakushu, 304021 Kitahara Tetsuo, 304021 Kitahara Yoshio, 304021 Kitasono Katue (Hashimoto Kenkichi), too Kitawaki Noboru, 321023 Kitayama Kiyotaro, 304021 Kitazawa Noriaki, 4, 14, 322027 Klee, Paul, 34 Kobayashi Ichizo, 319086 Kobayashi Takiji, 252 Kobayashi Tokusaburo, 273035 Kogenkai (The Association of the Highlands), 308076 Kojima Kikuo, 272028 Kokoroza theater company, 225 Kokoschka, Oskar, 34 Kollwitz, Kathe, 317059 Komaki Omi, 54, 154, 185, 281082 Konoe Fumimaro, 76 Kon Wajiro, 85-86, 93, 125, 247, 2870053-55, 29507 Korean War, 257 Kotoku Shusui, 148, 155 Koyama Shotaro, 27005, 271013 Kozawa Setsuko, 253 Kropotkin, Pyotr, 76, 148, 149 Kuki Rytiichi, 13 Kuroda Seiki, 14-17, i/, 19, 24, 26, 50, 2710010-13, 298046 Kusano Shinpei, 280071 Kyoraku. See Pleasure Kydrakushugi. See Hedonism Laban, Rudolf, 234 Labor relations, 78, 115, 145, 149, 195, 299068 Landscapes, 12, 13, 16, 51-52, 105, 190, 254 Larionov, Mikhail, 236, 280067 Laurens, Jean-Paul, 27005 Lavin, Maud, 213, 215, 241, 307070 League for the Improvement of Daily Life (Seikatsu Kaizen Domeikai), 214 Lefebvre, Raymond, 281082 Leger, Fernand, 256, 295012 Levin, Miriam, 16 Levinger, Esther, 160 Lhote, Andre, 99 Liberalism, 21, 25, 154 Libertarianism, 21 Lieberman, William, 257 Lissitzky, El, 70, 92, 130, 160, 162, 185, 186, 236, 275020, 295012, 296-97025, 3070065,69, 307-8075 Literature: and anarchism, 97-98, 126, 151, 155-58, 3020102; and bimdan (literary establishment), 2, 119, 139, 175; and Buoto group, 119-20; children’s, 30-31, 76, 178, 188, 253, 254, 309083; and expres- sionism, 33, 37; and Iwamura’s novels, 172, 304024; leftist, 37, 54, 97-98, 120, 126, 151, 155-58, 190, 252, 281082, 300075, 3020102, 3090085,87; and magazines, 54, 97, 100, 120, 155, 172, 190, 194, 281078, 3000075,76, 309088; and Matsumoto’s translations, 52; and Murayama’s work, 119—20; and naturalism, 19-20; and publishing, 30—31, 172, 175; and Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), 20, 21; and state policy, 20; and tenko (apostasy), 252. See also Poetry; Theater; Translations Lozowick, Louis, 162, 3020111 Macke, August, 34 Maedako Kochiro, 165 Magazines: art, 36, 100, 160, 172-74, 185, 211, 214, 232, 304021, 307068, 314014, 317056; avant-garde, 33, 36, too, 155, 160, 185, 232, 297025, 306057, 307068, 317056; children’s, 30, 31; cultural, 53- 54, 120, 172-74, 190, 234; dojin (coterie), 181, 184, 188, 3061155; leftist, 54, 97, 120, 151, 155, 185, 190, 281078, 299067, 3000075,76; literary, 54, 97, 100, 120, 155, 172, 190, 194, 281078, 3000075,76, 309088; and Murayama’s work, 194; and Shirakaba- ha fWhite Birch Society), 20, 21, 181; women’s, 173; and Yanase’s work, 53-54, 120, 151, 190. See also Mavo (periodical) Maki Hisao, ill, 114, 120, 206, 207, 2930142, 3110116 Makino Nobuaki, 17 Makishima Teiichi, 2940163 Malevich, Kasimir, 280065 Manchuria, 253, 254 Marc, Franz, 34 Marcuse, Herbert, 171 Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso, 134-35, 186, 231, 275016, 2791156, 280066, 2960019,20 Martial law, 144, 145 Marxism, 2, 53, 118, 119, 120, 123, 151, 154, 155, i6i, 170, 249, 250, 252, 299068, 300075, 3010101, 32003 Marxism-Leninism, 3010101 359 INDEX Masamune Hakucho, 315036 Mass culture, 6, 7, 125, 130, 133, 165, 167-68, 170, 171, 214, 215, 217, 247, 248, 319111 Mass media, 139, 165, 167-68, 172-74, 182, 185, 188, 202, 234, 247, 248, 3031117 Masturbation, 8, 219, 230, 239, 243-44 Materialism, 102 Matisse, Henri, 60, 99 Matsumoto Fumio, 52, 281078 Matsumoto Koji, 108 Matsumoto Shinko, 227 Matsumoto Shunsuke, 253 Matsuoka Hisashi, 27005 Matsuoka Masao, 2910117 Mavo: and academic art, n; and Action group, 99, lOi, 102, 116; and alienation, 26, 124; and anarchism, 27, 76, 83, 87, 91, 95, 97-98, 123, 124, 140, 148-51, 154-55, 158, 162, 175, 185, 241, 247, 249, 284020; and architecture, 80-88, 91-93, no, 185, 231, 286047; and art exhibitions, 65, 66-71, 74-77, 78-80, 87-88, 91-93, 95, 102, no, 174, 203, 277040, 283007,9,13, 286039, 287064, 287- 88065, 289084, 307066; and artistic ptactice, 2, 5, 7, 26, 42, 45, 68-71, 87-88, 91-93, 102-3, 123, 124, 126, 129-30, 133-36, 138-40, 158, 167- 68, 170, 182, 203, 211, 213, 231-32, 243-44, ^45, 247-49; 3nd autonomy, n, 124, 170, 245; and batrack projects, 80-88, 8}, 231-32, 286047; and cafes, 79, 203; and commodification, 130, 133, 168, 170, 214, 248; and constructivism, 3, 12, 42, 65, 66, 67, 70, 71, 75, 83-84, 95, 102, no, 123, 124, 126, 130, 160, 184, 186, 211, 213, 249, 277040, 278055, 284026; and consumerism, 6, 130, 133, 167, 170, 182, 184, 214, 215, 218, 247-48; and critical practice, 138-41, 247, 248; and dadaism, 12, 63, 67, 76, 102, no, 124, 125, 158, 230-31, 234; and daily life, 2, 5, 7, 42, 45, 80, 103, 121, 123, 125, 126, 130, 143, 167, 170, 184, 203, 213, 214, 215, 218, 232, 245, 247, 248, 249, 296017; and dance, 235-36; and design, 76, 96, 168, 170, 182, 186, 188, 196, 200, 203, 208, 211, 213, 214, 247-48, 3120121; disbandment of, 121, 125, 162, 249, 2920138; and drunkenness, 91, 117; and emotionality, 74, 241; and eroticism, 8, 133, 219, 239, 241-45, 248; and expressionism, 12, 24, 67, 74, 91, 141, 234; factions within, 97-98, 249; formation of, 25, 29, 282- 8301; and futurism, 6, 27, 29, 46, 49, 60-61, 63, 67-68, 75, 76, 77, 102, 134-35, 140-41, 148, 230-31, 286047; 3.ndgadan (art establishment), 1-2, 5, 26, loi, 124, 138-43, 218, 249; and indi- vidualism, 249; and individuality, 3, 11, 42, 124, 224, 249; and internationalism, 2, 36; manifesto of, 65-68, 168, i6p: and mass cultute, 6, 7, 130, 133, 167-68, 170, 214, 215, 217; and mass media, 167-68, 182, 247, 248; membership in, 64-65, 76, 77, 97, 120, 2900092,96; and Merz, 297025; and mimesis, 2, 11; name of, 63-64; and naturalism, 45; and negativity, 66, 140, 155; and Nietzsche, 75; and nihilism, 118, 124, 241-42; and Nika, 77; and NNK group, iio-ii, n6, 2920138; and objectivity, 124; and performing arts, 119, 120, 121; and pig image, 79, 83, 194, 286041; and pluralism, 42, 46; and political relations, 25, 26-27, 75~76, 78, 80, 97-98, 120-21, 123-25, 145, 148-51, 170, 175, 214-15, 248, 249, 250, 300071; and psychological relations, 123; and public protest, I, 5-6, 77, 2850030,31; reception of, 71, 74-75, 84-85, 91, 102, 173, 175, 178, 179-80, 235, 243, 255-56, 257, 258, 261; and Sanka alliance, 98, loi, 102, no, 116-20; and self-expression, 42, 140, 249; and self-reflexivity, 232-33; and social relations, ii, 25, 68, 125, 150; song of, 95, 289084; and state tepression, 78, 253; and subjectivity, 2, 25, 247; and tactilism, 134-35; and technology, 102-3, 1^6, 129-30, 133, 182, 295012, 296017; and theater, 6, 7, 213, 217-19, 220, 226, 227, 230-32, 239, 245; and yoga (Western-style painting), 4, ii Mavo (periodical): and advertising, 97, 182, 184, 203, 289086; and anarchism, 95-98, 184, 185; and architecture, 92, 185; censorship of, 97, liy, plate p; and daily life, 184— 85; facsimile edition of, 289089; and factions within Mavo, 97-98; and graphic design, 95, 96, 168, 180-82, 186, 196; and international relations, 36, 160, 185, 297025, 3070068,69; and mass media, 167-68, 180-82, 184, 306055; and Okada’s work, 93; and postwar exhibition, 255; publication of, 95, 97, 2890086,89, 306057; subscriptions to, 289086, 306061; and theater, 92; and Toda’s work, 160, plate 14; and Yanase’s work, 63 Mavo, artists participating in: Hagiwara Kyojiro, 97-98, loi, 119, 124, 143, 148, 154, 155-58, 184, 214, 290099; Hashimoto Kinei, 290092; Kadowaki Shinto, 2, 63, 67, 71, 282m; Kato Masao, 60, 76, 80, 92, 239, 288065; Kinoshita Shuichiro, 63, 64- 65, 129, 133, 179-80, 2780053,55; Maid Hisao, 120; MiuraTozo, 290092; MurayamaTomoyoshi, 2-3, 5-6, 42, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68-69, 70, 71, 74-771 78, 79, 81, 84, 87, 92-93, 95, 97, 98, loi, 118-21, 124, 126, 133-34. 136, 138-40, 150, 162, 175, 182, 184, 185, 235, 236, 239, 282-8301, 285031, 288065, 300071; Nakada Sadanosuke, 184, 185; Ogata Kamenosuke, 2, 63, 67, 70, 71, 76, 78, 93, 97, 28201, 285031; OkadaTatsuo, 60-61, 76, 93, 97, 98, loi, no, 118, 119, 120, 121, 124, 141, 150, 154, 155, 184, 197, 200, 235, 236, 241, 284020, 290096, 295012; Oura Shuzo, 2, 63, 64, 67, 71, 76, 97, lOi, 130, 28201, 285031, 295012; Sawa Seiho, 93, 289083; Shibuya Osamu, 133, 141; Sumiya Iwane, 77, 78-79, 87, 88, 93, 129, 175, 182, 236, 239, 284025, 284-85026, 290096; Takaroizawa Michi- oao, 60, 76, 77, 78, 79, 87, 88, 91, 93, loi, no, 120, 130, 154, 175, 180, 235, 236, 239, 284020, 287-88065; Toda Tatsuo, 76, 93, no, 239; Yabashi Kiroioiaro, 76, 77, 93, 97, loi, 120, 121, 126, 154, 182, 200, 239, 241, 284020, 284-85026, 295011; Yamazato Eikichi, 93, 129, 133, 297025; Yaoase Masamu, 2, 63, 64, 67, 70-71, 76, 78, lOi, 124, 139, 141-42, 145, 150-51, 154, 170, 214-15, 28201, 28307, 299055, 300071 McCarthyisoi, 256 McCray, Porter A., 257 Mechaoizatioo. Techoology, developroeot of Meiji Art Society (Meiji Bijutsukai), 16, 32, 271013 Meiji period, 2, 29, 142, 165, 297030; aod artistic ideotity, 15, 42, 174; aod coosumerism, 130, 167, 204; aod iodividualism, 19—20; aod media, 172, 173, 304021, 308079; aod Meiji Restoratioo, 12, 13, 21; and Meiji state, n, 12, 27003, 271011, 272026; and relation to Edo period, 298052; and relation toTaisho period, 123, 126, 133; and sexuality, 239, 241, 243, 244; and theater, 31304; ^ndjfoga (Western-style painting), n-13, 15 Membership: in Mavo, 64-65, 76, 77, 97, 120, 2900092,96; in Sanka alliance, 115-16, 2910117; in Zokei group, 2940163 Merz, 136, 138, 185, 220, 286051, 296-97025, 307069 Meteor group, 91 Metzinger, Jean, 32 Meyerhold, Vsevolod, 225, 226, 227 Middle class, 5, 24, 79, 160, 167, 184, 203, 248, 303017, 305038 Militarism, 21, 46, 54, 126, 144, 150 Millet, Jean-Fran^ois, 13 Mimesis; and expressionism, 21, 24, 224, 225; Mavo’s critique of, 2, ii; Murayama’s critique of, 42, 45, 138; and post-impressionism, 21, 24; andyo^a (Western-style painting), 4, n, 13, 14, 24, 45 Minegishi Giichi, 107 MiuraTozo, 29on92 Miyamoto Saburo, 254 Mizoguchi Saburo, 31306 Mizue (periodical), 108, 116 Mizusawa Tsutomu, 140, 277045, 322027 Modern dance. See Dance “Modern girl,” 107, 115, 133, 203, 296015, 305041 Modernism, 4, 6, 29, 34, 36, 37, 45, 46, 47, 105, 138, 245, 256, 260 Modernity, 3, 5, 8, ii, 108, 124, 125, 155, 156, 219, 242 Modernization, 33, 57, 126, 138, 156, 242, 247, 298052 “Modernology,” 86, 247, 29507 Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo, 184, 185, 186, 30307, 307065 Mohr, Alexander, 34 MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), New York, 255, 256, 257 Mono-ha artists, 258 Morality: and anarchism, 159; and cafes, 203; and eroticism, 219, 239, 241, 242, 248, 318072; and Nietzsche, 44; and Shitakaba-ha (White Birch Society), 21; and state policy, 20, 248, 253 Moriguchi Tari, 141, 298041 Mori Ogai, 278056, 298046 Morito Tatsuo, 149, 161 Munroe, Alexandra, 260, 261, 323043 Murayama Tomoyoshi: and abstraction, 38, 42, 45, 46, 68, 133-34, 160, 188, 255; and Action group, loi; and anarchism, 3, 44, 120, 161-62; and apostasy, 252; on Archipenko’s work, 34; and architecture, 84, 8$, 87, 92, 179, 286051; artistic practice of, 34-35, 38, 45, 46, 68-69, 12.3, 133- 34, 136, 138, 160, 182, 188, 194, 196-97, 207, 213, 220—21, 313010; artworks by, 34-35, 35, 38, 39-4/, 68-69, 69, 81-82, 82, 126, 133-34, i}4< 136, 160, 182, 188, 189, 194, 196-97, 198-99, 206, 206, 207, 212, 213, 276033, plate I, plate 3, plate 4, plate 23, plate 1$; and August Gruppe, 174; and Bunto group, 119—20; and censorship, 251, 316045; childhood of, 29-31; and Christianity, 29-30, 31, 318072; and conscious constructivism, 3, 7, 29, 37, 42-46, 65, 70, 75, 83-84, 124, 138, 150, 159-60, 163, 249, 277040, 278055, 284026, 289083, 314013; and constructivism, 3, 7, 29, 36, 42-46, 65, 70, 71, 75> 9^, 95, IM, 138, 143, 159, 160, 162-63, ^13, 220, 226, 249, 276031, 284026, 300084, 30200110,111, 313010, 314013; and dadaism, 3, 36, 92, 159, 162, 234, 244, 300084; and dance, 37, 38, 175, 178, 233-36, 243, 276028; death of, 252; and design, 76, 119, 186, 188, 190, 194, 196-97, 206, 207, 211, 220-21, 224-25; education of, 31-32; exhibitions of works by, 34-36, 37-38, 68-69, 7^, 78, 79, 107, 203, 275018, 276031, 28301, 284026, 288065, 2900102, 3020111, 321023; and expressionism, 3, 34, 38. 42., 74, 92. 162, 163, 233-34, 2770039,45, 313010; and futurism, 3, 46, 231, 275026; and gadan (art establishment), 46, 139, 140, 142-43; on Grosz’s work, 139, 297030; hairstyle of, 178, 249, 3050040,41; imprisonment of 252, 320011; and internationalism, 36; on Kandinsky’s work, 44-45, 224-25, 277047, 304022; on Kassak’s work, 301094, 3020110; on Lozowick’s work. 162-63, 3020111; on Marinetti’s work, 231; and marriage to Okauchi Kazuko, 31, 165, 178-79, 188, 252, 305045, 309083; and Marxism, 3, 119, 120, 162, 249, 32003; and mass media, 165, 168, 174-75, 178-80, 305038; and mimesis, 42, 45, 138; and naturalism, 45; on Nietzsche’s work, 43—44; and nihilism, 108; and participation in Mavo, 2-3, 5-6, 42, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68-69, 70, 71, 74- 77, 78, 79, 8t, 84, 87, 92-93, 95, 97, 98, 101, 118- 21, 124, 126, 133-34, 136, 138-40, 150, 162, 175, 182, 361 Murayama Tomoyoshi (continued) 184, 185, 235, 236, 239, 282-8301, 285031, 288065, 300071; aod participatioo io Saoka alliaoce, 99, loi, 108, 109, 116-19, 170, 175, 2920134; aod pluralisoi, 42, 46; aod realism, 45, 278051; recep- tioo of works by, 42, 108, 220-21, 235, 284023; 00 Schwitters’s work, 138, 295-96025; aod socialism, 37, 162; aod stay io Germaoy, 3, 7, 29, 32—37, 135, 159, 162, 185, 233, 234; aod tactilism, 134-35, 296019; aod techoology, 162, 163, 295012; aod theater, 37, 38, 119, 213, 217, 218, 220-21, 224-25, 226, 228, 229, 230, 239, 31100108,116, 313006,10, 3140013,16, 316045, 32003; aod theory of art, 43, 45, 46, 124, 134-35, 136, 138, 157, 158, 159, 160, 162—63, 170; 2LnA yoga (Westero-style paioriog), 31, 32, 37, 45; aod Zokei group, 119, 162 Murobuse Koshio, 241 Murota Kurazo, 214 Museums: Ceotral Art Museum, Tokyo, 259; Guggeoheim Museuoi, New York, 260; loiperial Museum (Teishitsu Hakubutsukao), 13; Museum of Modero Art (MOMA), New York, 255, 256, 257; Natiooal Museum of Modero Art, Tokyo, 255; Sao Fraocisco Museum of Art, 257; Tokyo Metropolitao Art Museum, 322027; Yokohama Museum of Art, 260 Mushaookoji Saoeatsu, 22, 25, 154, 2720028,34 Mythology, 16, 17 Nagai Kafu, 145 Nagaoo Yoshimitsu, 33, 34, 174, 2750018,19, 3020111 Nagata Isshu, 252 Nagayo Yoshio, 272028 Nakada Sadaoosuke, 107-8, 114, 115, 184, 185, 236, 2930144 Nakagawa Kazumasa, 141 Nakagawa Kigeo, 60, 99, too Nakahara Miooru, 99, 103, 104, 105, no, 115, 118, 228, 260, 321024 Nakahara Yusuke, 255, 322027 Nakamaru Seijuro, 27005 Nakamura Fusetsu, 298046 Nakamura Giichi, i Nakamura Juopei, 288080 Nakaoishi loosuke, 195 Nakaoo Shigeharu, 252 Napier, Susao, 124, 126 Narita Ryuichi, 244 Natiooal lodustrial Arts Exhibitioo, 13, 27109 Natiooalism; aod fioe art, 17, 167; aod futurism, 46; aod iodividualism, 19, 20, 272027; aod postwar era, 259; aod Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), 21; aod traditiooal art, 13; aodjo^a (Westero-style paiotiog), 13, 16, 17, 19 Natsume Soseki, 19-20, 22, 271017, 2720026,28 Naturalism, 13, 19-21, 45, 218, 227, 272024, 318073 Nature: aod Saoka alliaoce, 107; 3.nA yoga (Westero- style paiotiog), 4, 14, 19, 24 Negativity, 66, 115, 116, 140, 155, 160 Neo-Coofuciaoism, 21 Neo-Dada Orgaoizers, 258 Neo-Kaotiaoism, 21 Neo-plasticism, 160 Neumaoo Gallery, 34 Newspapers, 5, 54, 115, 172-74, 175, 182, 303017, 308079 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 43-44, 75, 154 Nihilism, 47, 102, 108, 118, 124, 158, 160, 241-42, 284016, 301086 Nihonga (Japaoese-style paiotiog), 14, 17, 48, 99, too, 27008, 273036. 298046, 308081 Nika-kai (Associatioo of the Secood Sectioo), 5, 22, 26, 47-48, 50, 55, 60, 77, 98, 99, too, 141, 143, 174, 205, 251, 275016, 278-79056, 279060, 285028 Nitteo (Japao Art Exhibitioo), 31. See ako Buoteo; Teiteo NNK group, no-ii, 116, 2920138 Nobori Shomu, 225-26, 315027 Nogawa Ryu, too Nudity, 236, 241, 318073 Objectivity, 43, 45, 124, 163 Odake Chikuha, 47, 48, 298039 Ogata Kameoosuke, 49, $8, 59, 61, 70, too, 280071, 2820088,91; aod participatioo io Mavo, 63, 67, 70, 71, 76, 78, 97, 28201, 285031 Okada Saburosuke, 271010, 298046 OkadaTatsuo, 75-76, 108-9, 284016, 2900104, plate 10; aod participatioo io Mavo, 60-61, 76, 93, 94, 97, 98, loi, 110, III, 112, 118, 119, 120, 121, 124, 141, 150, 154, 155, 184, 197, 200, 201—2, 235, 236, 241, 284020, 290096, 295012 Okakura Teoshin, 14, 17, 27008 Okamoto Ippei, 49 Okamoto Juo, 97, 126, 155 Okamoto Taro, 255, 258, 261 Okamoto Toki, 99, 103, 104, 109, no, ni, iii, 116, 119, 252, 2910115, 2940163 Okamura Buozo, 185 0-kappa hairstyle, 115, 178 Okauchi Kazuko (Murayama Kazuko), 31, 165, 178, 188, 252, 305045, 309083 Omuka Toshiharu, 98, 140, 162, 277045, 286051, 313010, 32003, 321024, 322027, 323043 Oochi Koshiro, 188, 200, 308081 Optimism, 43, 44, 68, 119, 130, 171, 250 Osaka lostitute of Art (Osaka Geijutsu Gakuio), 48 Osaoai Kaoru, 220, 226-27, 3150029,30,36 Osugi Sakae, 76, 78, 149-50, 242, 299062, 3010101 Otsubo Shigechika, 207, 207 Oura Shuzo, 50, 57, 57, 63, 64, 67, 208, 209, 211, 212, 282n88: and participation in Mavo, 2, 63, 64, 67, 74, 97, loi, 130, i}i, zSzni, 285n3i, 295ni2; and participation in Sanka alliance, 99, loi, 105, rots', 107 Owen, William, 186 Ova Soichi, 251 Ozaki Masato, 322n27 Pacific Painting Society (Taiheiyo Gakai), 271013 Pacific Western-style Painting Studio (Taiheiyo Yoga Kenkytijo), 32 Pacifism, 21 Palmov, Viktor, 48, 280065, 282088 Paris: international exposition in, 14; Japanese artists in, 21, 32, 34, 304024 Pastoralism, 16, 51, 55, 105, 271013 Peace Preservation Law, 6, 251, 253, 316043 Performativity, 6, 218-19, 2.31-34, 239, 243. See also Theatricality Performing arts. See Dance; Theater Pessimism, 108, 126 Pflugfelder, Greg, 241, 243 Photography, 173-74, 208, 253-54, 321019 Picabia, Francis, 295012 Picasso, Pablo, 256, 275016 Pig image, associated with Mavo, 79, 83, 194, 286041 Piscator, Erwin, 314016 Pleasure (kydraku), 6, 219, 241-42, 317059. See also Hedonism Pluralism, 42, 46 Poetry: and anarchism, 155; and anthologies, 197, 200, 280071; and Choryusha (publisher), 97, 2900104; and eroticism, 244; and expression- ism, 33, 37, 284020; and futurism, 50; and Ha- giwara’s work, 126, 155-58, 197, 200, 290099; and Hirato’s work, 50; and Kandinsky’s work, 277047; and literary magazines, too, 155, 190, 280071; and Mavo, 140; and Ogata’s work, 49, 280071; and Saito’s work, 2900104; and theater, 230; and Wadachi’s work, 274011; and Yabashi’s work, 284020 Pointillism, 51 Political relations: and abstract expressionism, 256; and apostasy, 252, 253; and artistic identity, 43, 150, 154, 160, 249, 253; and artistic practice, 26, 32, 33, 108, 118-19, i54“55' 17O’ 185, 190, 194, 196, 214-15, 249-51, 307065; and class relations, 20-21, 24, 25, 120-21, 149, 250, 273046; and cold war, 256—57, 258; and constructivism, 44, 60, 124, 150, 159-60, 162-63, 307065; and dadaism, 32, 33, 108, 158—60, 258; and expression- ism, 32, 33, 37; and futurism, 47, 54; and gadan (art establishment), 142; and Great Kanto Earth- quake, 144, 145, 148, 161; and individuality, 21, 154, 253; and Mavo, 25, 26-27, 75-76, 78, 80, 97- 98, 120-21, 123-25, 145, 147-51, 170, 175, 214-15, 248, 249, 250, 300071; and naturalism, 20-21; and popular discontent, 19, 24-25, 273044; and postwar era, 256-57, 258; and Sanka alliance, 102, 108-9, iib, 250; and self, 154; and Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), 20-21; and state repres- sion, 78, 145, 251-53; and Yanase’s work, 52-54, 120, 145, 150-51, 154, 170, 190, 194, 214-15, 250, 297032, 309092, 32004; and Zokei group, 118—19, 249. See also Anarchism; Bolshevism; Commu- nism; Democracy; Liberalism; Socialism; Syndi- calism; Utopianism Pollack, Jackson, 256 Popova, Liubov, 60, 207 Portraiture, 13, 19, 22 Portsmouth, treaty of, 19, 25 Positivism, 33 Poster design, 186, 308076, 309092 Post-impressionism, 20, 21-22, 24, 26, 43, 45, 47, 51, 55. 273035^ 275016, 279056 Postwar exhibitions, 255, 257-58, 259-61 Practice, artistic: and anarchism, 116, 118, 154—55, 158-60; and autoeroticism, 243; and autonomy, 4, 5, 26, 154, 245; and Burliuk’s theory, 135, 296022; and commodification, 130, 133, 214, 248; and constructivism, 43, 88, 102, 105, 123, 124, 126, 138, 159-60, 162-63, 2.07; and consumerism, 130, 133, 171, 214-15; and criticism, 138-41, 157, 172, 297030, 304023; and dadaism, 158-60; and daily life, 2, 5, 7, 42, 45, 103, 105, 108, 121, 123, 125, 126, 143, 167, 170, 203, 213, 214, 232, 247, 248, 249, 250; and dance, 233-36; and design, 188, 190, 194-97, 200, 202-3, 206-7, 208, 211, 213, 214, 220-21; and expressionism, 34; and futurism, 34, 46, 52, 56- 57, 59-60, 102, 135; and Hasegawa’s theory, 242; and hedonism, 242; and individualism, 163; and interiority, 124; and Kandinsky’s theory, 44-45; and Marxism, 118, 119, 154; and mass culture, 130, 133, 167—68, 171; and mass media, 167—68; and Mavo, 2, 5, 7, 26, 42, 45, 68-71, 87-88, 91-93, 102-3, 121, 123, 124, 126, 129-30, 133-36, 138-40, 158, 167-68, 170, 182, 203, 211, 213, 232, 243-44, 245, 247-49; 3nd Murayama’s theory, 43, 45, 46, 124, 134-35, 136, 138, 157, 158, 159, 160, 162-63, 170; and objectivity, 43, 45, 163; and political relations, 26, 32, 33, 108, 116, 118-19, 124, 150, 151, 154-55, 170, 185, 190, 194, 196, 214-15, 249-51, 307065; and psychological relations, 16, 123, 136; and Sanka alliance, 102, 103, 105, 107-11, 115, 118, 170; and Schwitters’s theory, 136; and Shibuya’s theory, 135; and social relations, 126, 138, 150, 163; and spirituality, 44-45; and subjectivity, 4, 5, 43, 45, 124, 126, 141, 163; and tactilism, 134-36; and technology, 33, 37, 102, 103, no, 115, 126, 129-30, 363 Practice, artistic (continued) 133, 162, 163, 182, 185, 234, 261, 2951112, 302niii, 3131110; and theater, 218, 220-21, 224-26, 228-32, 245; and Yanase’s theory, 154; ^.nAyoga (Western- style painting), 12-14, 15-16, 17, 19, 27ini3 Practice, artistic, of individual artists: Alexander Archipenko, 34; Asano Mofu, 103; David Burliuk, 56-57, 135; George Grosz, 139; Hagiwara Kyojiro, 214; KambaraTai, 103; Kato Masao, 136; Kino- shita Shuichiro, 116, 236; Maki Hisao, 207; Mura- yama Tomoyoshi, 34-35, 38, 46, 68-69, 87-88, 123, 133-34, 136, 138, 160, 182, 188, 194, 196-97, 207, 213, 220-21, 313010; Nagano Yoshimitsu, 26; Nakada Sadanosuke, 115; Nakahara Minoru, 103, 105, 115; Ogata Kamenosuke, 59; OkadaTatsuo, 200; Okamoto Toki, 103; Oura Shuzo, 57, 105, 107, 130, 208, 211; Kurt Schwitters, 136; Shibuya Osamu, 59, 135-36; Sumiya Iwane, 88, 182; Taka- mizawa Michinao, 88, 91; Yabashi Kimimaro, 182, 200, 243-44; Yanase Masamu, 51-52, 59- 60, 70-71, 105, 115, 145, 151, 190, 194-96, 214-15; Yokoi Hirozo, 105; Yoshida Kenkichi, 105, 107 Prampolini, Enrico, 34, 295012 Printing, 165, 171-72, 180, 181, 186 Private sphere, 19, 178 Proletarian Arts Association (Puroretaria Geijutsu Renmei), 120 Proletariat: and arts movement, 249-52, 322043; and barrack projects, 80, 148; and expressionism, 33; and Mavo, 93, 121, 141, 170, 203, 249; and Murayama’s work, 120, 160, 162, 163; and rele- vance of art, 150, 160, 161, 250, 273046; and Sanka alliance, 108, 118; and theater, 85, 121, 227, 281081, 29507, 32003; and Yanase’s work, 120, 145, 190, 194, 196, 299055, 32004; and Zokei group, 118-19 Propaganda, wartime, 254, 321022 Prostitution, 195, 229-30, 309089, 310095 Psychological relations: and artistic practice, 16, 123, 136 Public sphere, 140, 188, 247 Publishing, 5, 30-31, 97, 98, 157, 171-72, 289089, 304021 Puni, Iwan, 36 “Pure art,” 4, 84, 163 Ragusa, Vincenzo, 12 Rationalization, 126, 129, 130, 214, 219, 295010, 3100104 Rational painting theory, 103, 105 Ravier, August Fran9ois, 12 Realism, 12, 45, 118, 250, 278051 Reception, critical: of futurism, 48, 49, 50, 54—55, 57, 59, 278-79056, 280066; of Mavo, 71, 74-75, 84-85, 91, 102, 173, 175, 178, 179-80, 235, 243, 255-56, 257; and postwar art history, 255-61; of Sanka alliance, 102-3, 107-9, 115-16; of theatrical performances, 220-21, 230, 235, 236, 316050; of yoga (Western-style painting), 13, 17 Reconstruction of the Imperial Capital (Teito fukko soan tenrankai), 87-88, 88-po, 91-93, 107, 288080 Reinhardt, Max, 37, 233 Rice Riots, 273044 Richter, Hans, 160, 163, 275020 Ritchie, J. M., 224 Robertson, Jennifer, 243, 319086 Rockefeller, Nelson, 256 Rockefeller Fund, 257 Rodchenko, AJexandr, 60 Roden, Donald, 173, 243 Rodin, Auguste, 21 Romanticism, 17, 19, 42 Rousseau, Henri, 105 Rubin, Jay, 19 Russia: and avant-garde art, 32, 33—34, 36, 44, 46, 48-49, 54, 60, 70, 91, 160, 162, 185, 207, 279- 80065, 2800066,67, 281085, 2960022,23; and performing arts, 219, 225-26, 227, 236, 313010, 315027; revolution in, 8t, 250, 3010101; and war with Japan, 2, 17, 19, 148, 172, 202. See also Soviet Union Russo-Japanese Art Association (Nichiro Geijutsu Kyokai), 95 Russolo, Luigi, 235, 275016, 279056, 295012 Saito Hideo, 2900104 Saito Kazo, 3110112 Saito Keiji, 2940163 Saito Yori, 142, 272035, 279056, 280-81076 Sakai Toshihiko, 52, 3010101 Sakuno Kinosuke, 2940163 Samurai class, 241 Sandler, Mark, 249 San Francisco Museum of Art, 257 Sanka alliance: and anarchism, 108—9, 115-16; and art exhibitions, 100, 101-3, 105, 107, 109-11, 115-16, 174, 204, 205, 236, 2920134, 2940158, 29507; and artistic practice, 102, 103, 105, 107- 11, 115, ti8, 170; and constructivism, 102, 103, 105; znAgadan (art establishment), 249; Kinoshita’s participation in, 99, loo-toi, 109, lit, 115, 116, iiy, 236, 238, 2900106, 2910117; and Mavo, 98, 101, 102, 110, 116-20; membership of, 115-16, 2910117; Murayama’s participation in, 99, 101, to8, 109, 116-19, 170, 175, 2920134; and nature, 107; Oura’s participation in, 99, 101, 105, 106, 107; and political relations, 102, 108-9, 250; reception of, 102—3, 107-9, 115-16; and relation to proletariat, to8, 118, 250; and “Sanka in the Theater,” 101, 217, 227-31, 243; Yanase’s partici- pation in, 99, 101, 105, 109, 115, 116 Sanka Independent (FAA-sponsored exhibition), 49, 55-57, 59-60, 61, 282n88, 29onio6 Sano Tsunetami, 13 Sasaki Takamaru, 64, 228, 230 Satomi Ton, 272n28 Sawa Seiko, 93, 289083 Schlemmet, Oskar, 295012 Schreyet, Lothar, 33 Schwitters, Kurt, 34, 136, 185, 213, 220, 230, 286051, 295012, 296-97025, 30307, 307070 Science, 12, 45, 105, 115, 129 Sctiabin, Aleksandt, 103 Sculpture, 17, 34, 102, 105, 236, 279062, 298046 Secessionist Architectute Association (Buntiha Kenchikukai), 86 Segi Shin’ichi, 259 Seikatsu. See Daily life Self: and anarchism, 161; and autonomy, 19; and consttuctivism, 42, 43; and Mavo, 75; and natu- ralism, 272024; and political relations, 154; and post-impressionism, 22; and Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), 22; and social telations, 154 Self-expression: and architecture, 92; and autonomy, 19, 20; and consttuctivism, 43; and expressionism, 24, 43; and futurism, 47, 48: and Mavo, 42, 140, 249; and Nika-kai (Association of the Second Section), 22, 24; and post-impressionism, 22, 24; 3.nd yoga (Western-style painting), 3-4, 19, 22, 24 Self-imptovement, 12 Self-portraits, 19, 22 Self-reflexivity, 232-33 Sentimentality, 17 Sexuality: and artistic identity, 175; and autonomy, 19, 133, 149, 245; and cafes, 203; and commodifi- cation, 130; and ctoss-dtessing, 239, 242, 248; and fetishism, 243-45; and liberation, 241- 42; and masturbation, 219, 230, 239, 243-44, 248; and morality, 219, 239, 248, 318072; and performing arts, 219, 234, 239, 241-45; and state policy, 8, 248; and tactilism, 135; and women, 242. See also Eroticism Shea, G. T., 281082 Shibuya Osamu, 49, 57, y8, 59, 99, 232, 133, 135-36, 237, 141, 228, 229, 282089 Shiga Naoya, 272028 Shigematsu Iwakichi, 50, 282088 Shimokawa Hekoten, 228 Shinkankaku-ha (Neo-perceptionists), 309088 Shirakaba (periodical), 20, 21, 181, 2720028,34 Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), 20-22, 25, 30, 86, 154, 2720028,34, 306054 Shiran, 301086 Shirataki Ikunosuke, 26 Showa period, 29, 168, 205, 211, 214, 260, 298052, 3020102, 305035 Signboards, 81-83, 287054 Silverberg, Miriam, 125, 171 Smith, David, 256 Socialism, 21, 26, 37, 52, 78, 80, 123-24, 155, 161, 162, 185, 2810078,82, 284025, 3010101 Social realism, 118, 161, 250 Social relations; and architecture, 92; and artistic identity, 14-15, 33, 42, 43; and attistic practice, 126, 138, 150, 163; and class relations, 20-21, 24, 25, 150, 2730045,46; and constructivism, 163; and consumerism, 167, 171; critique of 138-40, 142; and futurism, 57; and gadan (art establishment), 142; and gender roles, 133, 160, 178; and Great Kanto Earthquake, 80-81; and individuality, ll, 19-20, 22, 25, 154, 253; and Mavo, ii, 25, 68, 125, 150; and migtation, 149, 167; and public sphere, 140; and self 154; and Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), 20-21; and state policy, 139-40, 253; and women, 30, 133 Soga Takaaki, 81, 83 Somiya Ichinen, 230 Sorel, Georges, 149 Soseki, Natsume, 19-20, 272026 Sousha (Crearive Universe Association), 185 Soviet Union, 26, 161, 185, 225-26, 250, 307n65 Spirituality, 44—45 Stage design, 38, 85, 119, 213, 219-21, 222-23, 224- 26, 276026, 281081, 31100108,116, 31306, 3140011,13 Stanislavsky, Konstantin, 227 State: and art education, 12; and art exhibitions, 17, 26, 31, 142, 167, 173, 214; and arts policy, 12, 14, 17, 20, 143; and censorship, 53-54, 97, 116, 248, 251, 2810078,82, 289083, 316043; and class relations, 273044; and economic development, 12, 126; and educational institutions, 12, 27003; and Gteat Kanto Earthquake, 78, 86-87, 93; individual- ism, II, 20, 2720026,27; and international exhibi- tions, 14; and modernization, 138; and motality, 20, 248, 253; and nihonga (Japanese-style paint- ing), 14; and Peace Preservation Law, 251, 253; and political repression, 78, 145, 251-53; and rationalization, 126, 214, 295010; and sexuality, 8, 248; and social policy, 139-40, 253; and technological development, 12, 126; ind yoga (Western-style painting), 12, 14, 17 Steiner, Vera, 34, 275-76026 Steinhoff, Patricia, 252 Stepanova, Varvara, 60 Stirner, Max, 149 Stramm, August, 33 Streets, artistic activity in, 7, 204, 211, 231 Strindberg, August, 227, 314013 Der Sturm (petiodical), 33, 275017, 307068 Der Sturm group, 33, 34, 43, 47, 279057 Subaru (periodical), 24 365 366 D m X Subjectivity: and artistic practice, 4, 5, 43, 45, 124, 126, 141, 163; and autonomy, 19; and construc- tivism, 42, 43, 45, 124; and expressionism, 33, 42; and futurism, 48, 49, 55; and individualism, 126, 150; and Mavo, 2, 25, 247; and Murayama’s theory, 42, 43, 45; and Nika-kai (Association of the Second Section), 22; and post-impressionism, 22; and romanticism, 42; and Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), 86; and yoga (Western- style painting), 19, 22, 45 Sugiura Hisui, 60 Sumiya Iwane, 77, 78-79, 87, 88, Sp. 93, 129, 174, 175, 228, 236, 239, 254, 277n40, 284n25, 284- 85n26, 285nn27,28,29, 2^onn^6,ioo, plate 8, plate 12 Suprematism, 36, 163 Surrealism, 236, 249, 255, 260, 32in23 Swinton, Elizabeth, 3o8n8t Symbolism, 17, 49, 190 Syndicalism, 148, 160 Tactilism, 134-36, 296019 Tada Hokuu, 214 Tada Saburo, 107 Tagawa Suiho. See Takamizawa Michinao Tairov, Alexander, 225, 226, 3131110 Taisho period: and avant-garde, 6, 255, 260, 321- 22027, 322035; and cafes, 203; and daily life, 125, 295010; and department stores, 205; and design, 214; and individualism, 24, 86; and leisure, 167, 202, 211; and media, 172, 173, 304021, 308079; and political activism, 155; and relation to Edo period, 145, 167, 298052; and relation to Meiji period, 123, 126, 133; and sexuality, 241; and social conflict, 25, 150, 27304; and women, 133, 296015 Takahashi Shinkichi, 158, 159 Takahashi Shtiichiro, 200 Takahashi Yuichi, 13, 27005 Takami Jun, 161 Takamizawa Michinao (Tagawa Suiho), 60, 76, 77, 78, 79, 87, 88, 89-po, 91, 93, 101, no, 120, 130, lyi, 154, 175, 180, 235, 236, 239, 254, 2771140, 284020, 287-88065 Takamura Kotaro, 22, 24, 45, 142, 272035, 279056, 298046 Takamura Koun, 298046 Takarazuka Revue, 319086 Takata Masao, 234 Takata Seiko, 234 Takayama Keitaro, 161 Takeda Goichi, 188 Takehisa Yumeji, 280075, 308081 Takeuchi Seiho, 298046 Takiguchi Shuzo, 249, 253 Takizawa Mayumi, 86 Takumi Hideo, 308081 Tama Art University, 258 Tamamura Zennosuke, 99, 108, 118, 308076 Tanabe Hisao, 241 Tanaka Giichi, 251 Tanemaku Into (periodical), 54, 64, 78, 120, 151, 154, 155, 195, 228, 2810081,82, 299067, 3001175 Tatlin, Vladimir, 91, 162, 185, 226, 280065, 2811185, 295012 Tayama Katai, 315036 Taylor, Frederick, 234 Technological Art School (Kobu Bijutsu Gakko), 12-13, 27004 Technology: and artistic practice, 33, 37, 102, 103, no, 115, 126, 129-30, 133, 162, 163, 182, 185, 234, 261, 295012, 3020111, 313010; development of, 12, 78, 126, 165, 167, 261; and mass media, 165, 167, 171-72, 185 Teiten (state-sponsored art exhibition), 26, 45, 142, 173, 250, 279062, 280070. See also Bunten; N.itten Tenshin Academy (Tenshin Dojo), 17 Textile design, 206-7, 31100112,114,116 Theater: and artistic practice, 218, 220-21, 224-26, 228-32, 245; and censorship, 3160043,45; and constructivism,- 119, 213, 220, 226; critical recep- tion of, 220-21, 230, 316050; and dadaism, 217, 230-31; and daily life, 218, 226, 227, 232; and eroticism, 219, 239, 241-45; and expressionism, 7, 37, 224, 225, 239; and face painting, 236, 238; and futurism, 230-31, 236; and gekidan (theater establishment), 139; German, 37, 224, 225, 239; Kabuki, 238, 31304, 3150024,30; and Kandinsky’s theory, 224-25, 314-15022; and Marinetti’s theory, 231; and Mavo, 6, 7, 213, 217-19, 220, 226, 227, 230-32, 239, 245; and mimesis, 224, 225; and natu- ralism, 218, 227; and poetry, 230; proletarian, 85, 121, 227, 281081, 29507, 32003; Russian, 219, 225- 26, 227, 313010, 315027; “Sanka in the Theater,” loi, 217, 227-31, 243; and stage design, 38, 85, 119, 213, 219-21, 222-2}, 114-26, 276026, 2811181, 31100108,116, 31306, 3140011,13 Theater, Japanese artists involved in: KambaraTai, 217, 228, 3161150; Kato Masao, 239; Mizoguchi Saburo, 31306; Murayama Tomoyoshi, 37, 38, 119, 213, 217, 218, 219-21, 224-25, 226, 228, 229, 239, 243, 29507, 31100108,116, 313006,10, 3140013,16, 316045, 320113; Shibuya Osamu, 228, 229; Sumiya Iwane, 228, 239; Takamizawa Michinao, 239; TodaTatsuo, 239; Yabashi Kimimaro, 239; Yabe Tomoe, 228; Yanase Masamu, 228; Yoshida Ken- kichi, 85, 217, 227, 29507, 31306, 314011 Theatricality, 6-8, 119, 218, 224, 230-33. See also Performativity Tiller girls, 234 Toda Kaiteki, 279062, 282088 TodaTatsuo, 76, 93, no, 160, 239, 244, 284023, plate 14 Togawa Shugotsu, 242 Togo Seiji, 34, 255, 275016, 278-79056, 279060 Tokugawa period. See Edo period Tokugawa shoguoate, 12 Tokyo: architecture io, 80-87, I43“44’ 2.04, 231; departroeot stores io, 204—5, 2-o6; aod Great Kaoto Earthquake, 7, 77—80, 86-87, 93' ^^5' 143-45, 148, 2.85033, 289081; aod iodustrializatioo, 126, 149 Tokyo Iroperial Uoiversity, 32, 33, 149, 27008 Tokyo Meroorial Peace Expositioo, 3100104 Tokyo Metropolitao Art Museum, 322027 Tokyo School of Fioe Arts (Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko), 14, 26, 85, 99, 172 Toller, Erost, 37, 98, 197, 3110116 Tomii, Reiko, 261 Tomioka Tessai, 298046 Tooe Yasuoao, 258, 259 Tower. Beeke Sell, 32-33 Traditiooal art, 4, 13, 14, 239, 273036 Traoslatioos, 52, 98, 135, 197, 224, 277047, 278056, 304023, 309091, 314016 Tschichold, Jao, 307070 Tsuboi Shigeji, 97, 155 Tsubouchi Shoyo, 315030 Tsuchioka Shuichi, 278053 Tsuda Seifu, 26, 251 Tsuji Juo, 159, 242 Tsukiji Little Theater (Tsukiji Shogekijo), 85, 119, 217, 220, 226-27, 2.81081, 29507, 3110116, 31306, 314013, 3151119 Twardy Gallery, 36, 3020111 Typography, 95, 96, 168, 185-86, 188, 194-95, 197- 200 Tzara, Tristao, 158, 159 Uchimura Kaozo, 21, 29, 30 Umehara Ryuzaburo, 22, 25, 272028 Uoion of Woveo aod Dyed Art (Shokuseo Geijutsu Reomei), 206 Uoited States, 33, 145, 165, 171, 205, 234, 255, 256-57, 296020 Utopiaoism, 21, 25, 33, 124, 125, 159, 163, 185 Vaillaot-Courturier, Paul, 281082 Vao Doesburg, Theo, 92, 160, 185, 186, 207, 234, 275020, 3070065,69 Vao Gogh, Vioceot, 21 Vasari, Ruggero, 34, 275017, 275-76026 Vesoio, Alexaoder, 225, 313010 Vieooa, ioteroatiooal expositioo io, 14 Vietoam War, 257 Wadachi Tomoo, 33, 34, 274011 Wada Eisaku, 271010, 298046 Wakamatsu Seiichi, 3110114 Waldeo, Herwarth, 33-34, 36, 43, 47, 275017 Warera (periodical), 53-54 Waseda Uoiversity, 60, 61, 85 Wataoabe Daito, 230 Watercolor, 32, 51, 254 Wedekiod, Fraok, 239 Weimar Germaoy, 26, 32 Westeroizatioo, 13, 130, 133, 165, 167, 203, 205-6, 242, 272024, 295010, 295-96014 Westero-style paiotiog. See Yoga White Birch Society (Shirakaba-ha), 20-22, 25, 30, 45' 171034 White Fdorse Society (Hakubakai), 15, 17, 26, 50, 271013 Wigmao, Mary, 233, 234, 276028 Wiodow displays, 50, 202, 203, 211, 213, 219, 220, 314011 Womeo: aod autooomy, 133; aod commodificatioo, 130; aod geoder roles, 178; aod magazioes, 173; aod “modero girl,” 107, 115, 133, 203, 296015, 305041; aod sexuality, 242; aod Westeroizatioo, 130, 133, 203, 206, 295-96014; aod womeo’s rights movemeot, 30, 242, 296015 Workiog class, 24, 25, 161, 250, 273046. See also Proletariat World War I, 81, 125, 139, 145, 167, 172, 231, 257, 29508, 308076 World War II, 253, 254 Wright, Fraok Lloyd, 85 Yabashi Kimimaro, 76, 77, 97, lOl, 120, 121, 126, I2y, 154, 182, 200, 201, 239, 242, 243-44, 24s, 284020, 284-85026, 285028, 295011 YabeTomoe, 99, 228, 2940163 Yajima Shuichi, 188 Yajuguo (Group of Wild Beasts), 317056 Yakulov, Georgii, 225 Yamada Kosaku, 317062 Yamakawa Hitoshi, 3010101 Yamakawa Ryo, 151, 154 Yamamoto Goooohyoe, 78 Yamamoto Hosui, 27005 Yamashita Rio, 27005 Yamashita Shiotaro, 22, 26 Yamazato Eikichi, 93, 128. 129, 133, 297025 Yanagi Soetsu, 272028 Yaoagita Kuoio, 287053, 315036 Yaoase Masamu, 50-54, yz-yi, 59-60, yy), 76, 120, 214-15, 21$, 253-54, 180075, 280-81076, 2810078,79,81, 3210019,23, 2, plates $—7, plate 16; aod graphic desigo, 188, 190, 194-96, i95-97< 153' 309092; aod participatioo io Mavo, 2, Yanase Masamu (continued) 63, 64, 64, 70-71, 72, 73, 76, 78, loi, 124, 139, 141-42, 145, 146-47, 150-51, /;2-53, 154, 170, 282-83111, 283n7, 299n55, 300n7i; and participa- tion in Sanka alliance, 99, loi, 105, 109, 115, 116; and political engagement, 52—54, 120, 145, 150-51, 154, 170, 190, 194, 215, 250, 253, 297n32, 299n55, 300071, 309-10092, 32004; and theater, 228, 316043 Yanase Nobuaki, 281081 Yanov, Alexander, 225 Yashiro Kanoe, 243 Yasui Sotaro, 22 Yoga (Western-style painting), 3-4, 6, 11-17, 19-22, 24-26, 31, 32, 34, 45, 50, 60, 99, too, 108, 253, 27005, 2710010,13, 273036, 279060, 298046, 308081 Yokohama Museum of Art, 260 Yokoi Hirozo (Yokoi Kozo), 99, 105, 108, 116-18 Yokoyama Junnosuke, 100 Yokoyama Taikan, 48, 99 Yorozu Tetsugoro, too, 255, 272-73035 Yoshida Kenkichi, 85, 99, 105, 107, 119, 125, 206, 212, 217, 227, 247, 287054, 2940163, 29507, 3110108, 31306, 314011 Yoshihara Yoshihiko, 2940163 Yoshimura Jirp, 255, 2940163 Yuasa Ichiro, 26 Zdanevich, Ilya, 236 Zenei (avant-garde), 4-5, 255, 259, 260, 321024, 322039, 323043 Zokei group, 118-19, '62, 249, 29400163,164 Zwart, Piet, 307070 TWENTIETH-CENTURY JAPAN The Emergence of a World Power Irwin Scheiner, Editor 1. Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan, by Andrew Gordon 2. Complicit Fictions: The Subject in the Modern Japanese Prose Narrative, by James A. Fujii 3. The Making of a Japanese Periphery, ly^o-ipio, by Karen Wigen 4. The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 189^—1910, by Peter Duns 5. Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan, by Leslie Pincus 6 . Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan, byT. Fujitani 7. Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan, by Fielen Hardacre 8. Japans Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism, by Louise Young 9. Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan, edited by Stephen Vlastos 10. Hiroshima Traces: Time, Space, and the Dialectics of Memory, by Lisa Yoneyama 11. MAVO: Japanese Artists and the Avant-Garde, 1909-19^1, by Gennifer Weisenfeld 12. Reconfiguring Modernity: Concepts of Nature in Japanese Political Ideology, by Julia Adeney Thomas 13. The City as Subject: Seki Hajime and the Reinvention of Modern Osaka, by Jeffrey E. Fianes 14. Perfectly Japanese, by Merry Isaacs White Text 10/15 Adobe Garamond Display Akzidenz Grotesk Design Nicole Hayward Composition integrated Composition Systems Printing + Binding Friesens Corporation Index Andrew Joron GENNIFER WEISENFELD is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and'Art History at Duke University. AN AHMANSON • MURPHY FINE ARTS BOOK Twentieth-Century Japan, The Emergence of a World Power, 11 " • >; . ' ‘V ' Jacket design: Nicole Hayward. Jacket illustration: Mavo members performing “Totentanz” from the third act of Frank Wedekind's play Tod und TeufeJ. Photograph in Mavo, no, 3 (September 1924). Courtesy of the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. ^■1 “Japan’s accelerated modernization in the 1 920s signaled an unprecedented expansion of new cultural forms and diverse artistic experimentation. Gennifer Weisenfeld’s study of Mavo, the archetypal avant-garde movement in Japan at the center of this aotivity, stunningly portrays how mass society established the primacy of everyday life and how everyday life beoame art’s principal vocation.” HARRY HAROOTUNIAN, Professor of History and Director of East Asian Studies at New York University, and author of Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture, and Community in Interwar Japan “In the 1 920s MaTO seized a position in Japan’s art world, by turns attacking and seducing the established arts community and the public at large. Weisenfeld demonstrates how the Mavo members' graphic design, assemblages, demonstrations, and “happenings” tore down the barriers between the fine arts and the mass media, challenged Japan’s class structure, and blurred gender categories. Weisenfeld’s lucid and complex study has set new standards for English-language scholarship on mocierh Japanese visual culture." JONATHAN M. REYNOLDS, Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Southern California, and author of Maekawa Kunio and the Emergence of Japanese Modernist Architecture • “This is the first study that places a modern Japanese artistic community fully, and critically, within the broader historical and intellec- . tual framework of world or international art. of the early twentieth cen- tury. A remarkable and unforgettable achievement, Weisenfeld’s work represents the cutting edge of scholarship on modern Japanese art.” MIMI YtENGPRUKSAWAN, Professor of Art History and Chair of the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University, and author of Hiraizumi: Buddhist Art and Regional Politics in Twelfth-Century Japan ■■I “For too many years Western students of Japanese art have focused on the riches of the past and ignored the extraordinary story of Japan’s mastery of Modernist imagery and arohitecture. Helping to correct this deficiency, Gennifer Weisenfeld has written an absorbing, well-illustrated account of an avant-garde group of the early 1 920s given the enigmatic name of Mavo, vvhose intense convictions prefigured the mighty strides taken by Japanese artists following World War II.” JOHN M. ROSENFIELD, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of East Asian Art, Emeritus, Harvard University, and author of Extraordinary Persons: Works by Eccentric, Nonconformist Japanese Artists of the Early Modern Era ( 1 580 - 1 868) in the Collection of Kimiko and John , Powers - UNIVERStTY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY 94720 . -■ WWW.UCPRESS.EDU PRINTED TN C-Aj N A ;D A - ‘ ISBN D-sso-aaBafl-i 9 790520 223386