Critical Perspectives on Classicism in Japanese Painting

Book excerpt: In the West, classical art - inextricably linked to concerns of a ruling or dominant class - commonly refers to art with traditional themes and styles that resurrect a past golden era. Although art of the early Edo period (1600-1868) encompasses a spectrum of themes and styles, references to the past are so common that many Japanese art historians have variously described this period as a classical revival, era of classicism, or a renaissance. How did seventeenth-century artists and patrons imagine the past? Why did they so often select styles and themes from the court culture of the Heian period (794-1185)? Were references to the past something new, or were artists and patrons in previous periods equally interested in manners that came to be seen as classical? How did classical manners relate to other styles and themes found in Edo art? In considering such questions, the contributors to this volume hold that classicism has been an amorphous, changing concept in Japan - just as in the West. Troublesome in its ambiguity and implications, it cannot be separated from the political and ideological interests of those who have employed it over the years. The modern writers who firs