Wow. As I went through the essays and prints of Yokohama and those by Kiyochika, I was fascinated by the difference in perspective concerning the rapid changes occuring in Japan, by the artists and also by the art critics. On one hand, the Yokohama prints portrayed a colorful, fantastical version of what was imagined or expected of foreigners by the general Japanese population, which, in a way, reminds me of the fervor for travel scenes during the ukiyo-e period. The Yokohama prints were made by artists who never actually visited that location, much like how travel prints were in vogue, yet, most were wholly imagined landscapes; the artists actually never traveled to Yokohama nor had ever seen foreigners. On the other hand, critical viewers of Kiyochika’s work claim that his prints at the time represent a more realistic dreary, dark, and lonely reality of loss occurring throughout Japan. 

While seeing the Western conventions in Japanese prints throughout the essays and galleries, I was reminded of a term I had heard when I was studying Japanese art in college. Japonisme: the fascination, obsession, and commercialization of all things Japanese in the West during its initial "opening," and subsequently, it resurfaced in the U.S. after the end of our own Civil War. I was inspired to actually crack open a book I had bought over a decade ago, but had not yet read, Japonisme Comes to America: The Japanese Impact on the Graphic Arts 1876-1925 by Julia Meech and Gabriel P. Weisberg. While the West was fascinated by the arts of the East, Japanese artists were also picking up Western conventions in art. Kiyochika, for example, experimented with and began producing woodblock prints that were initially mistaken as oil paintings, while eliminating perfectly registered contour lines. He also became fascinated with portraying light, much like the Impressionists. Many of his prints depict night scenes, with multiple gradations of gray to black, in order to emphasize the bright light emanating from the newly installed gas lit lanterns and to play with the new found concept of chiaroscuro. 

My AHA moment was when I was viewing Kiyochika’s prints for the first time, and I was reminded of the first time that I saw a Caravaggio. While the Yokohama prints stuck with conventional Japanese aesthetics, Kiyochika integrated Eastern and Western modes of representation and technique with a truly innovative spirit and unique perspective of the time.

I was reading the review of Yokohama: Prints from Nineteenth-Century Japan by Ann Yonemura and I had read the entire first page before realizing it had nothing to do with woodblock prints. The first page of the reading referred to the nanshoku (male love) literary genre and speaks of its disappearance around the start of the Meiji period, most likely due to prevalent homophobia. This may be an aside from our topic; however, I am fascinated by the more recent phenomenon of yaoi in Japan, which has now spread globally. Yaoi, also known as "boy love" features homo-erotic relationships between male characters. The genre originated in Japan in the 1970s and is now extremely popular. Numerous high quality TV adaptations of yaoi  web novels and web comics have been produced in Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, and Korea. Even China has produced quality adaptations of yaoi web novels, of course, after eliminiating the homo-erotic aspects and creating "bromance" relationships.

Yaoi is mainly written by women, for women, and is not marketed to gay men; although, there are also male fans of yaoi. In Japan, female fans are called fujoshi, while male fans are called fudanshi. While I was studying Japan in college, I was assigned a book to read (I cannot remember the name now, sorry) and my professor kept alluding to the term "fetish" during our discussions. I am curious as to whether the popularity of this genre would align with this. I am also curious as to whether the decline of nanshoku during the Meiji period had something to do with Western influence.

I can't get in too.

I was really looking forward to this.