Art History paper based on article

The Smithsonian Institution

Portraits of Foreigners by Kawahara Keiga Author(s): Michael L. Browne Source: Ars Orientalis, Vol. 15 (1985), pp. 31-45 Published by: Freer Gallery of Art, The Smithsonian Institution and Department of the History of Art, University of Michigan Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4543045 Accessed: 05-01-2018 21:11 UTC

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PORTRAITS OF FOREIGNERS BY KAWAHARA KEIGA

BY MICHAEL L. BROWNE

A PORTRAIT CONNOTES A LIKENESS. LIKENESS IS A RELA-

tive term, however, depending on one's vision, and the ideals of Western portraiture seldom were those of Japan. Traditionally, the Western artist sought to capture in his portrait a verisimilitude that included both the details of an individual's

physiognomy and the nuances of spirit, intelli- gence, and uniqueness of character. The concept of illusion was central to a convincing rendering of a three-dimensional form on a two-dimensional

plane, and to this end Western artists developed techniques of modeling through half-tones and chiaroscuro.

The Japanese portrait tradition was quite differ- ent. Instead of employing illusionistic techniques, it maintained the integrity of the two-dimensional plane almost solely by means of linear modula- tion. Scientific exactness was irrelevant to the ex-

pression of an inner spirit best described through idealization. While it is true that in certain Bud-

dhist portraits of Zen priests (called chinzoa) indi- vidual characteristics were stressed in order to em-

phasize the specific personality of the sitter, in the more traditional Japanese portrait method phys- ical peculiarities that might identify the individ- ual were suppressed in favor of generalized forms considered expressive of the person's true virtues or social station. Portraiture was intended to ex-

press the sitter's achievements rather than his in- ner spirit, and anyone worthy of having his or her portrait painted was worthy of being given per- fected form and features.

From this established tradition a young painter by the name of Kawahara Keigab departed rad- ically and introduced to the Japanese a remark- able new method of seeing. His vision was that of neither the East nor the West, but an interesting amalgamation of the two. He painted portraits both of his kinsmen and of Europeans residing in Japan. Paintings of his kinsmen (called ezoc) and Japanese associates will be discussed elsewhere; here we shall restrict discussion to the foreign sub- jects.

Keiga's portraits represent an especially remark- able achievement when considered in the context

of the isolatibnist, xenophobic society in which he lived. From the time of the edict of the third

Tokugawa shogun Iemitsu in 1639, the Policy of National Seclusion (sakoku seisaku)d virtually

sealed Japan off from the rest of the world. The seclusion laws forbade all Westerners, with the ex- ception of the Dutch, to reside in Japan; and in 1641 even the Hollanders were obliged to restrict their activity to a single locale-a tiny fan-shaped, man-made island called Deshima that projected into Nagasaki Harbor. Foreign trade thenceforth was conducted exclusively with Dutch and Chi- nese merchants, and in addition to their control over what was imported, the Japanese exercised their own rigorous censorship in determining what foreign knowledge was acceptable. The town of Nagasaki grew from a provincial seaport to the center for all exotica, the only place in the nation where actual evidence of a world beyond Japan could be found.

Into this exclusive milieu Kawahara Keiga was born in 1786.' His father seems to have been an

artist by profession and was his son's first teacher. Though nothing remains of the elder Kawahara's work, he is given indirect distinction as an associate of Araki Gen'yte (1728-94), the official appraiser of foreign pictures (kara-e mekiki)r in Nagasaki from 1766, when he inherited the position from his father, Araki Genkeig (1698- 1766). Gen'yta's heir, Ishizaki Yashih (1768- 1864), also held the government office of mekiki and chronicled the artifacts and activities of

the Hollanders residing on Deshima until his retirement from the post in 1832. At an early age, probably twenty-four or thereabouts, Keiga became Yoshi's disciple, establishing what would be a lifelong relationship with his popular and prosperous mentor. Yoshi's sponsorship permitted Keiga access to

the Dutch compound on Deshima, a proximity to the Hollanders enjoyed by few Japanese. Such contact enabled him to observe the foreigners first- hand and to examine directly Western pictures, a rare opportunity he put to good advantage. By the age of thirty he had achieved a reputation as a portrait painter through his numerous renderings of foreigners. The earliest extant portrait illustrating Keiga's

occupation as chronicler of Europeans in Japan is that of Hendrik Doeff, opperhoofd (chief executive officer) of the Dutch East India Trading Company on Deshima (fig. 1). An inscription written in Dutch on the elegantly inlaid picture frame

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32 MICHAEL L. BROWNE

informs the viewer: "Hendrik Doeff Junior, Opperhoofd from 1803 A.D. until the year ... ," indicating that the work was completed between 1803 and 1817, the year Doeff left Japan. This small picture shows the best qualities of miniature portrait painting, including an exquisiteness of detail that is a delight to examine. A floral motif on the waistcoat, gold braid and buttons on the frock coat, feathers on the quill pen, the wood grain of the table, the gold decorated bindings of the books, and, most of all, the crisp delineation and controlled fine line of facial features all contribute to the delicate effect.

Although the subject is a Westerner, the tech- nique is not exclusively Western-inspired; proto- types for both composition and technique can be found in Japanese portraiture. A figure placed amid accoutrements selected to suggest the schol- arly personality of the sitter is a method of depic- tion seen as early as the ninth century in the priest portraits imported from China, wherein the figure is often shown seated on a dais with sutra scrolls, stand, brushes, and other writer's paraphernalia surrounding him. The manner of composition is typically Japanese in origin: detailed patterns are juxtaposed against broad, flat areas of solid color. Perspective is also handled in traditionally Japanese isometric, or "reverse," recession, evi- dent in the drawing of the bookcase. Basically, then, the conception is consistent with canons of Japanese taste. What would have been considered exotic-in addition, of course, to the subject- is the introduction of shading: arcs of shadow extend outward from the eye area on both sides of the nose, and shading of the cleft chin and frenulum of the upper lip gives a distinct defini- tion that is more than five o'clock shadow. The

source of this shading technique need be sought no further than the Obaku Buddhist priest por- traits (chinzo) or the Nagasaki ancestor portraits (ezo) that Keiga was painting at the time that he was executing portraits of Europeans.2 Certain in- novative touches, however, such as the highlights in Doeff's eyes created by flecks of white, are not found in chinzo. Some influence closer to the

Western idiom would seem probable and can, in fact, be surmised, though not specifically proven.

In China access to Europeans and European art methods was less restricted than it was in Japan, and the postrevolutionary French portrait tradi- tion was known indirectly to Japanese through the China trade in the first half of the nine-

teenth century. European styles, though frowned upon by "serious" Chinese artists, were adopted

as novelties, especially in the port cities where foreigners traded. One of the earliest Chinese painters who adopted the European style of por- trait painting was a figure known to history as Spoilum, about whom no biographical details have been uncovered beyond the fact that he was working in Canton between 1785 and 1810.3 The subjects of his numerous portraits were primar- ily Western and Chinese hong merchants of Can- ton. Spoilum's works became popular, and ex- amples were carried on merchant ships through- out the world-including, most likely, Nagasaki, where Keiga could easily have had opportunity to examine them.

The portrait by Spoilum of a member of the British East India Company is a typical example of his work (fig. 2). Conceived in an oval format like Keiga's picture of Doeff, it is remarkable for the meticulous rendering of gold-braid design and buttons against the dark coat, the shading around the nose and eyes, similar to that used by Keiga, and the distinguishing highlights of white in the eye pupils that contribute to the extraordinarily mobile character of the face. Further, the light area of background setting off the face, which is drawn in three-quarter view, is another technique employed by Keiga in a number of his portraits of foreigners. It would seem likely that Keiga was familiar with Spoilum's work, that he did indeed have foreign models for his art beyond the priestly portraits of the Obaku sect, and that, in his typically eclectic manner, he assimilated them into his style.

When Hendrik Doeff's term as opperhoofd ex- pired in 1817, he was replaced by Captain Jan Cock Blomhoff (1779-1853), who, disregarding Japanese law, dared to bring with him his wife Titia, his infant son Johannes, and the child's nursemaid Petronella Munts.4 Within months of

their arrival, Titia, Petronella, and baby Johannes were deported, sent back to Europe on the first ship available-the same vessel that carried Doeff to retirement-while Blomhoff was obliged to re- main behind to serve out his term until 1823.

Brief though it was, the visit of the Blomhoff family made a phenomenal impression on the Japanese, who had never before beheld a West- ern woman. For decades after their departure, the print shops of Nagasaki continued to crank out versions of the female foreigners.

Ishizaki Ynshi and Keiga, two of the very few who enjoyed direct access to the Deshima inhabi- tants and who were, in addition, among the most accomplished artists of Nagasaki, understandably

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KAWAHARA KEIGA 33

produced the most sympathetic renditions of Western women. One of Yoshi's versions, dated to 1817 and now owned by the Kobe City Mu- seum of Nanban Art, is the more lively, its sketchy brushwork imparting an animation to the fam- ily group that is worthy of the Japanese narra- tive handscroll tradition.5 Keiga's work is more formal in format and execution, painted on a free-standing screen (fig. 3). Taken individually, each figure reveals Keiga's characteristically deli- cate line, minute detailing, and soft shading. Jan Cock Blomhoff sits rigidly at left, gripping the chair arm with his right hand while gesturing to- ward his son with his left, this faint attempt at communication being the only connecting link among any of the figures. The child's nanny stands stolidly between husband and wife, while the fam- ily's Indonesian servant Maraty squats catlike at lower right before the sofa. Details of costumes, textiles, and furniture are rendered with expert and astonishing dexterity of brush. The overall effect is not unlike that of the exquisite Doeff por- trait.

An interesting copy of-or perhaps prototype for-this composition bears the signature of Ishizaki Yoshi. Yoshi's portrait omits the seated opperhoofd but contains an identical grouping of Titia, Petronella, Maraty, and Johannes. The exis- tence of this painting further supports the close re- lationship assumed to have existed between Yashi and Keiga at the beginning of the latter's career.6

As a portrait composition in the Western idiom, however, Keiga's work is stiff and disturbing. The five individuals are encapsulated in poses that are totally aloof, without group cohesiveness. Each stares blankly into space, acknowledging neither the viewer nor the others, the intense blue of the Westerners' eyes augmenting the exotic, trancelike effect. This haunting isolation is probably no less a result of Keiga's failure to penetrate the European psyche than it is the natural consequence of his employing the formula for the rendering of individual portraits to create a group; each figure, in effect, is a portrait by itself.

But while the Blomhoff figures fail to relate psychologically as members of a family, the effect of the painting is an interesting pattern of interrelated shapes. Keiga's organization of the figures into bold, flat forms, each embellished with richly textured fabrics and contrasted against the stark gold ground, recalls a Japanese sense of pattern seen in such works as the Bugaku Dancers screen by the early seventeenth-century master Tawaraya Sotatsu.i7 Keiga similarly uses

brilliant colors whose repetition dazzles the eye and creates a pleasing cadence of movement across the flat, gold surface. If Keiga has lost introspective portraiture, he has instead created a work marvelously reflective of the Japanese aesthetic.

On the reverse side of this free-standing screen is Keiga's famous depiction of Nagasaki Harbor. One signature sufficed for both pictures. On the lower right corner of the Blomhoff portrait are Keiga's distinctive seal and signature: a top hat with the characters for "Keiga" interwoven into the design and, beneath the top hat in roman letters, the Slavic-looking name "M. E. R. To- josky." While the meaning of the initials remains enigmatic, "Tojosky" is the Dutch rendering of Keiga's Japanese given name, Toyosuke.

That Keiga's portrait of the Blomhoff family is indeed based on direct observation is evidenced

by a second portrait of Titia and Maraty that bears Keiga's two most commonly used seals, "Taguchi"i and "Keiga," and is currently housed in the Nagasaki Prefectural Museum (fig. 4). Titia's dress has changed, but the style is the same, ruffles and lace modestly trimming the hem of her skirt, sleeves, and neckline, a single string of beads about her neck, rings in her pierced ears, and her upswept hair half covered by a lace mantilla. She is distinguished by her brilliant blue eyes, chalk- white skin, and long nose, but at the same time she is generalized, for the exaggeration of the nose, and of the eye and skin colors, forms a type of iconography employed by many Japanese artists when drawing foreign women. As one Nagasaki author wrote:

Western women have very long noses and white complex- ions. Though extremely beautiful, they neither talk nor smile. They move people by inner emotions, which they are careful never to reveal outwardly. For this reason, artists can draw only their countenances and are unable to reach their inner feelings.8

Although there seems little doubt that the lady in- tended is Titia, Keiga in his rendering neverthe- less has adhered as much to generalized beliefs as to observation. So, too, her companion Maraty, shorter in stature, with dark skin, flaring nostrils, and beautiful black eyes, forms a common motif accompanying depictions of the Europeans.

The Dutch woman and her servant provided a unique theme in Japan, and the arrangement of the composition was no doubt based on the more common sight of the Dutch official, usu- ally a captain, and his servant. This genre was so familiar that it formed the single most popular

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MICHAEL L. BROWNE

subject of the woodblock prints sold to tourists visiting Nagasaki, and a great number of paint- ings, too, were executed in similar composition, a good many by Keiga himself. Among the nu- merous extant representations by Keiga, we illus- trate one that forms a pair with a second hanging scroll representing a Chinese merchant and his at- tendant posed in much the same manner, although the companion scroll could as easily have been the portrait of Titia and Maraty (fig. 5). The cen- tral figure, wearing formal attire, stands stiffly in three-quarter view, a cane held smartly in his right hand, his left thrust halfway into a pocket. Behind him his dark-skinned Javanese servant waits pa- tiently, a sun-shade resting on his shoulder, his at- tention diverted by something beyond the confines of the picture; his less formal posture, large dark eyes, and melancholic expression provide a foil for the rigid European, much as Maraty sets off the chalk-white features of Titia. The stance, compo- sition, and iconography are identical to those used by innumerable artists who seem, like the public, never to have tired of these renditions. One has

only to consider the grotesque images of foreign- ers hawked on street corers or sold in souvenir

shops during Keiga's time to appreciate the qual- ity of his achievement.9

A common representation of the Dutch-master- and-servant theme depicts the captain in waist- coat, broad-brimmed hat, and leggings standing with feet splayed, grasping a walking stick in one hand, a clay pipe in the other, and attended by a Javanese holding a sun-shade or tray with a bot- tle of good Dutch gin. The origin of this popular pose may be traced to Nanban screen painting of two hundred years earlier, in which the first Eu- ropean traders, the Portuguese, were given simi- lar stances and demeanor. Whatever minor vari-

ations exist within these pictures, there seem to have been well defined poses, gestures, clothing, and accoutrements that made up the "correct" representation of the Hollander-and-servant "set piece." In spite of the fact that Keiga was sur- rounded by foreigners who might have inspired a wealth of innovative poses and situations, he chose to adhere to accepted traditions. His conservative stand in this, as well as in other subjects that he developed in his art, is perhaps what prevented him from becoming a more exciting innovator.

In 1823 the man who was to become Keiga's closest associate among the Europeans arrived in Japan. Philipp Franz von Siebold was a German physician and botanist serving the Dutch East India Trading Company and one of the few

Westerners passionately interested in the customs as well as the flora and fauna of his host country. He was followed two years later by the European artist Carolus de Villeneuve, who was summoned to assist von Siebold in illustrating his botanical observations. Little is known of the details of de

Villeneuve's activities, but surely in the course of his work he met Keiga, and it is not unreasonable to assume that de Villeneuve, an illustrator, may have instructed the talented Keiga in some basic principles of European art. One piece of evidence suggesting such a relationship is Keiga's portrait of von Siebold (fig. 6), which is based on a portrait by de Villeneuve (fig. 7). Keiga's work, like that of de Villeneuve, reveals generalized modeling in light and shadow; features, however, are exaggerated, and a fine, sharp line delineates the contours of nose, eyes, lips, and ears. Such linear treatment serves to flatten the forms in a manner typical of the Japanese portrait style. Clothing, too, reflects a Japanese sensibility in the unmodeled shapes with their rich color harmonies: bright blue uniform with gold braid, epaulettes, and buttons; black collar and cape thrown over the left shoulder, the finely textured details handsomely contrasted with the broad areas of flat, opaque color. Perhaps invoking artistic license, Keiga gave von Siebold rich chestnut-brown hair instead of the wispy blond depicted by de Villeneuve; the darker color would certainly have been more agreeable to Japanese tastes. Less meticulously- and exquisitely-conceived than the porcelainlike features of Hendrik Doeff, the portrait suggests a kind of primitive intensity, particularly in the gazing eyes, that imparts a compelling sense of life to the image.

Looking beyond Keiga's renditions of portraits to his European figure compositions, another source of Western inspiration can be determined concretely. At some point in the 1820s, a series of lithographs entitled Les grimaces was brought to Deshima, perhaps by de Villeneuve. Among them were some of the most extraordinary images executed by the French artist Leopold L. Boilly (1761-1845).10 Keiga studied these picture thor- oughly, using them in various combinations: he practiced making close copies, selected individual faces for inclusion in his own compositions, and embellished and augmented the groupings to cre- ate his own statements.

Les amateurs de tableaux, Boilly's caustic car- toon of art critics, is perhaps the best example of a work that Keiga copied directly (fig. 8). Six faces form a diagonal from lower right to upper left,

34

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KAWAHARA KEIGA 35

all peering at a single work of art whose content is denied us, for only the back of the frame is presented to the spectator. We "read" the paint- ing solely through the reactions of the six crit- ics, which run a gamut from bemusement to re- pugnance, shock, scorn, and amusement; only the woman remains noncommittal. The psychologi- cal depth of Boilly's work, highlighted so vividly through the use of chiaroscuro, is attempted in Keiga's rendition through caricaturing the figures with a more linear method (fig. 9). Keiga em- ploys poses identical to Boilly's but brings his faces closer to the surface plane, enlarges them, eliminates much of the shadow, and defines fea- tures with an outline. The result, here as in all his re-creations from Western works, is a concentra- tion on broader, flatter shapes and surface pattern. Faces are curiously akin to the treatment in tradi- tional narrative handscrolls, and less reflective of the probing, psychologically insightful portrayals seen in Boilly's original work. In imitation, per- haps, of the florid script giving the French title in Boilly's work, Keiga sighed his painting in Dutch at the lower left: "Getekent Door Tojosky U Nan- gasaky" ("painted by Tojosky of Nagasaki"). Among Boilly's most memorable lithographs are groupings of heads that individually suggest different emotions but are given cohesion by the haunting repulsiveness of the total image (fig. 10). Thus, anger, hatred, disgust, avarice, and idiocy form a companionable group in Les grimaces no. 2, from which Keiga borrowed faces separately to compose a number of works of his own design. The central face of Boilly's work was used by Keiga in an entirely different context to express pain on the face of a luckless patient being treated by a medical doctor (fig. 11). The theme of a Dutch doctor probing with a knife the tourniqueted arm of his victim was derived from the numerous woodblock portrayals of Dutch medical practices that never ceased to astonish, impress, and dismay the Japanese. A typical hand-colored woodblock print executed by an anonymous illustrator depicts a barbarian doctor methodically severing his patient's arm with a hacksaw. Ishizaki Yeshi sketched a similar

scene that he himself may well have witnessed."' In Yushi's interpretation, a table is heaped with medical supplies-surgical instruments, bottles, and bandages-along with a gratuitous sprinkling of the objects that formed the iconography of Hollanders: a stemware cup, long-stemmed pipe, and tall top hat. To the right of the table the doctor saws away at the arm of a patient who is

pinioned in a chair by three assistants, while blood spurts into a pan placed on the floor beneath the victim's wriggling toes. Around the five foreigners a group of seven Japanese stands gaping at the scene with undisguised fascination. From YQshi's sketch Keiga seems to have borrowed simply the theme and general position of the main characters, omitting the grisly details. The physiognomy of the doctor resembles Keiga's portrait of von Siebold sufficiently to surmise that he is the person intended. Unlike the patients in typical ukiyo-e popular prints, who register little emotion on their faces, Keiga's patient grimaces in apparent torment, a remarkably novel adaptation surely never imagined by Boilly when he conceived his original grimace.

One of the more interesting lithographs by Boilly is a bust portrait of three figures: a woman in center stage, a man at left making ardent advances to her, and a female at right slyly and disapprovingly observing the action (fig. 12). It is titled Finissez donec ("Oh, stop it!"), a title that could be construed as uttered by either of the two ladies. The chief figure, in any case, is a wily coquette who repulses her paramour while leaning toward him voluptuously. The love duet is full of hands: she smothers his face, he paws her arm and shoulder. Behind the pair, the barmaid-type wench, who resembles the man enough to be his sister, flashes at the lovers a look compounded of disgust and envy. The picture appealed to Keiga enough for him to use it as a central motif in a more complicated scheme executed on silk (fig. 13). He transformed the busts into full- length figures, discarded the barmaid, and added three males, creating an entirely new composition. Peering intently at the pair is the bug-eyed madam from Les grimaces no. 4 (fig. 14), changed only by the addition of a cap. The other two males are pastiches of Boilly characters: the hand of the finger-biting scholar type appears, for example, in both Les amateurs de tableaux and Les grimaces no. 4. From the waist down, the figures are Keiga's own invention, and here the realistic style of the upper portion gives way to the generalized stroke- shadow technique that one finds in Obaku priest portraiture.

The success of the picture lies in Keiga's improved technical achievement; one has only to compare the fresh, mobile faces created with delicate color, shading, and highlights with the earlier rendition of the patient grimacing under the doctor's knife to see how Keiga has mastered the subtleties of facial expression. In this respect

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36 MICHAEL L. BROWNE

his art appears not inferior to that of Boilly. Where Keiga proves less successful, here as earlier, is in rendering his characters' states of mind. It is easy enough to imagine a variety of emotional interactions unifying the Boilly group; in Keiga's work, all four men concentrate on the woman, but with such diverse expressions that their thoughts are rendered ambiguously. Although the men study the lady in the same manner as the art critics examining Les amateurs de tableaux, the tongue-in-cheek humor, shorn of psychological insight, becomes traditional Japanese caricature dressed in Western clothing. Keiga appears to have exhausted the limits of his experiments with Boilly without ever having fully mastered the more subtle and exciting possi- bilities of European techniques applied to the ren- dering of human emotions in a purely Japanese context. As we have seen, the power of Boilly's lithographs lies in the psychological states of mind he was able to convey. His figures generally rep- resent strong emotions-lust, greed, anger, hate-- all negative aspects of personality. One can only wonder what went through Keiga's mind as he studied these pictures. In view of the attitudes toward Europeans held by most Japanese at that time, Keiga might even have misconstrued the pic- tures as realistic renderings of authentic Western emotional expressions, missing entirely the ironic fact that Boilly's Grimaces are considered to lie within the romantic tradition of early nineteenth- century Western caricature. If we assume that he understood the hyperbole intended, we then must ask why these characteristics were not emphasized in his own renditions. Why is the acerbic wit evident in the lampooning of Boilly's Les ama- teurs de tableaux so diluted in Keiga's copy? Why does the flirtatious wench of Finissez done become

in Keiga's hands merely a pretty girl? One can assume that he failed to grasp the full implica- tions of bitterness behind the masks. Japanese caricature displays marvelous wit in lampoon- ing human foibles, exotica, and weaknesses-the cuckold, the fop, the quack, the Chinese, the man suffering from loose teeth or diarrhea-but rarely is the sarcasm directed against states of mind.

We who view Boilly's drawings through West- ern eyes perceive affinities with the work of Dau- mier or Goya in their bitterness of conception and social comment. We must bear in mind, how- ever, that such conditioning was never a part of Japanese consciousness. There simply was noth- ing in the Japanese tradition that could have

prepared Keiga for transposing emotions such as loathing, disgust, or fury into caricature. But despite his failure to probe deeply into the psy- che, Keiga nevertheless must be accorded credit for conceiving what was at that time the nearly inconceivable, for attempting something new to Japanese portrait painting: illusionistic, three- dimensional verisimilitude tinged with psycholog- ical overtones, though far removed from the West- ern models he emulated.

The works discussed thus far have all been paint- ings, Keiga's primary medium of expression. In creating them he used a water-based paint in the traditional Japanese method, eschewing all exper- iments in the exotic medium of oil practiced by some of his contemporaries, such as Araki Jogenk (1773-1824). Occasionally, however, he ventured into another realm where Japanese artists excelled, fashioning ukiyo-e designs for woodblock prints. As a final example of his portraits of foreigners, we illustrate the seventh and last print of a se- ries entitled Auspicious Ceremony of the Russian Mission, executed around 1853, when Keiga was sixty-seven (fig. 15). It is a portrait of the Rus- sian admiral Euphimius Putiatin, bearing in the lower right corner in roman script Keiga's "for- eign" name, "Tojosky."12

Admiral Putiatin arrived in Nagasaki in August 1853 with four warships. Unlike Perry, who a year earlier had steamed into what is now Tokyo Bay despite the Japanese law expressly forbidding foreign warships from entering any port except Nagasaki, Putiatin attempted to abide by the rules; he allowed the Japanese to inspect his ships and sent a letter to the shogun respectfully requesting trade relations. For his pains he was informed that he might try again five or six years hence, but that Nagasaki was the only port open to trade and only Dutch and Chinese would ever be permitted there. Six days after the rebuffed admiral departed for home, Commodore Perry entered Tokyo Bay for the second time, on this occasion with an impressive fleet of American warships that proved more persuasive than polite negotiations.

In Keiga's portrait, Putiatin is seen seated in a chair, flanked by his flag-bearer and an armed guard. It would seem most unlikely that the admiral sat for his portrait. If he had posed formally, it is likely that he would have chosen to be represented in a grouping that included his officers and advisors rather than

a rifleman and flag-bearer. Probably the only opportunity Keiga had to observe him was during

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KAWAHARA KEIGA 37

the parade, at which time he presumably sketched the various groups that appear as four other prints from this series. The final "informal" portrait was most likely Keiga's own invention. Although it is probably imagined, it nevertheless is executed with the artist's habitual precision of line and specificity of detail based on observation of uniforms, flag, and individual physiognomies. The formality of the pose can readily be compared to the portrait of the Blomhoffs painted more than two decades earlier (fig. 3). Both illustrations share the same posed isolation of parts. No figure relates in any way to the others in the Putiatin trio. The attendants, however, at least manage to establish eye contact with the viewer. Two of the men are drawn in the traditional three-

quarter view, while the flag-bearer appears en face, a rare position in Japanese figure portraits. The techniques of shading used to define facial features and garment folds are similar to those employed in The Seduction (fig. 13). Both use lines to demarcate folds of cloth and swatches of shading to indicate depth and provide a sense of volume. In The Seduction ink and color on silk produce a compatible degree of realism, the medium allowing for the effect of softness in the garments. In the printed format of the Putiatin composition swordlike forms inevitably appear flatter and lines more rigid, with folds of cloth, especially in the flag and trousers, perfunctorily drawn. The pants of the Russian uniforms were designed to be

baggy in any case, though probably not quite as diaper-like as Keiga rendered them. While Keiga's shading technique suffers in transference to the print medium, the quality of printing is nevertheless good.'3

Kawahara Keiga's position in the history of Japanese art is something of an anomaly. His understanding was that of a nineteenth-century Japanese artist trained in a long tradition of linear portrait style. To his native method he added foreign techniques of modeling and made an effort to master psychological expression. But although he embellished his art with foreign touches, they remained technical innovations, never becoming integral parts of the total artistic fabric. The full mastery of Western art techniques and their assimilation into Japanese consciousness was to begin less than a decade after his death when, in the Meiji period (1868-1912), artists were at last permitted to travel abroad to absorb foreign concepts firsthand, then return home to make them a part of their own styles. Had Keiga had the benefit of such experience, his paintings, too, would likely have been even more important landmarks in the development of the East/West manner. Speculation on what might have been, however, is otiose. At most, Keiga was a painter of marked talent who in his own time contributed significantly to a portrait tradition in transition. 14

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38 MICHAEL L. BROWNE

Notes

1. The year of Keiga's birth has been calculated from a date equivalent to 1860 written by Nakajima Hirotaril (1792- 1864) on Keiga's portrait of a woman named Nagashima Kikuko'n (1776-1862), and from Keiga's own inscription on the same painting stating that he was then seventy-five years old. Taking into account the Japanese practice of counting a person one year old at birth, Keiga was thus born in 1786.

2. Obaku Zen portraits were first brought to Japan by Chi- nese priests fleeing political unrest and persecution dur- ing the seventeenth century. The manner of composition and iconography followed the earlier chinzo tradition that had been developing in Japan since the Kamakura period (1185-1333). Simply stated, the bodies of such figures are conceived as broadly defined, flat shapes, articulated with textile designs and given paraphernalia connoting of- fice and rank. To the earlier style, however, Obaku chinzo added the use of wash in the facial area to create shad-

ows and to impart a greater sense of three-dimensionality to the subject. This method of portraying individual fea- tures derived ultimately from the European influence on Chinese art.

3. Carl L. Crossman, The China Trade (Princeton, 1972), pp. 15-23.

4. Cal French, Through Closed Doors: Western Influence on Japanese Art (Rochester, Mich., 1977), p. 87.

5. A reproduction of Yashi's painting can be seen in ibid., pl. 24, p. 74.

6. The painting is housed in the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, but because it is privately owned, the author was not permitted to photograph it; to my knowledge, it has not been reproduced anywhere.

7. An illustration of Sotatsu's Bugaku Dancers can be found in Hiroshi Mizuo, Edo Painting: Sotatsu and Korin (New York and Tokyo, 1972), pl. 7, pp. 18-19.

8. Sato Charyo,n in a section entitled "Ranga"o ("Dutch Painting") in his Charyo manroku,P reprinted in Nihon zuihitsu taisei, ed. Junsaburo Hayakawa, 41 vols. (Tokyo, 1929), vol. 30 (pt. 3, vol. 2), p. 69.

9. There are many. The earliest extant woodblock depiction of a Hollander and his servant was issued by the Hariyaq publishing house around 1750 (reproduced in French, Through Closed Doors, pl. 7, p. 38).

10. Adaptations of caricatures in the Les grimaces series of 1823 were based on the principles of Charles le Brun (1619-90). Many of the emotions can be found in le Brun's Traites des passions (Paris, 1698). Le Brun, a cofounder of the French Royal Academy, published in 1698 a treatise setting forth the principles of French caricature titled Mithode pour apprendre c dessiner les passions proposte dans une confirence sur l'expression gintrale et particulibre.

11. The print is illustrated and discussed in French, Through

Closed Doors, p. 46. Yoshi's sketch is in his book, Nagasaki kokon shuran meisho zue' [A collection of marvelous and famous things from ancient and modern times]. The manuscript, completed around 1841, is housed in the Nagasaki Municipal Museum. The printed text appears in Nagasaki kokon shuran meisho zue, ed. Tetsuya Etchu (Nagasaki, 1975). The picture is illustrated on pp. 192-93.

12. Though it is of different size and vertical, rather than horizontal like the others, this print seems to be part of a set of seven, the others depicting, respectively, a parade of the admiral's marching band, flag-bearers, armed guards, and soldiers bearing slippers and chairs, plus two more depicting the Russian ships in Nagasaki Harbor. Five are reproduced in French, Through Closed Doors, pp. 54-57. All seven (Putiatin's portrait in color) are found in Kobe Shiritsu Nanban Bijutsukan zuroku, vol. 3, pp. 35, 52.

13. The print was executed by Isono Bunsai,s master of the Yamatoya' publishing firm, whose name appears in the seal in the lower right corner: "Bunsai Yamatoya." Yamatoya was the most accomplished and successful of all the Nagasaki printing firms, and Isono Bunsai was the master artist as well as proprietor from the early 1840s until his death in 1857. He had received his tWaining in Edo, and when he returned to Nagasaki he brought back craftsmen to work for him, thus vastly raising the standards of Yamatoya and ultimately producing the finest woodblock prints in Nagasaki.

14. The author wishes to express sincere thanks to Professor Mamoru Kaneshige for his invaluable research assistance in Japan and to Professor Calvin L. French and Dr. Gail C. Weigl for seeing him through so many phases of this essay.

Glossary

a. ITO + Hn. WWP-, x

b. )II ,V o.MA c. p. _

e. k r.

fg s11'J g. 5* k,, . bi

h. t. 7cfH4

i.

j. [fl H k. X b-

m. k A - <

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KAWAHARA KEIGA

FIG. 1. Portrait of Hendrik Doeff. By Kawahara Keiga. Ca. 1803-17. Kobe City Museum of Nanban Art.

39

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40 MICHAEL L. BROWNE

FIG. 2. Portrait of a member of the British East India

Company. By Spoilum. Ca. 1785-1810. Collection of Graham Hood.

FIG. 4. Portrait of Titia Blomhoff and

Maraty. By Kawahara Keiga. Ca. 1818. Nagasaki Prefectural Museum of Art.

Seals: "Taguchi," "Keiga."

FIG. 3. Portrait of Jan Cock Blomhoff and family. By Kawahara Keiga. 1818. Kobe City Museum of Nanban Art. Note the characters for "Keiga" (within the top hat) and the name

"M. E. R. Tojosky" in roman letters.

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KAWAHARA KEIGA 41

FIG. 5. Portrait of a Hollander and

Servant. By Kawahara Keiga. Ca. 1823. Nagasaki Prefectural Museum of Art.

FIG. 6. Portrait of Dr. Philipp Franz von Siebold. By Kawahara Keiga. Ca. 1824. Nagasaki

Municipal Art Museum.

FIG. 7. Portrait of Dr. Philipp Franz von Siebold. By Carolus Hubert de Villeneuve. 1823. Nagasaki Prefectural Library.

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42 MICHAEL L. BROWNE

FIG. 8. Les amateurs de tableaux. By Louis Leopold Boilly. 1823. The British Museum, London.

FIG. 9. Art Critics. By Kawahara Keiga. 1825. Signed "Getekent Door Tojosky U Nangasaky." Ushijima Collection,

Nagasaki.

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76

m

p w

FIG. 10. Les grimaces, no. 2. By Louis Leopold Boilly. 1823. The British Museum, London.

Fli;. 11. Dutch Doctor. By Kawahara Keiga. Ca. 1825. Nagasaki Prefectural Museum of Art. The seals are partially obliterated, but the top portion of the top hat with the characters for "Keiga" is

visible.

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44 MICHAEL L. BROWNE

FIG. 12. Finnissez donc. By Louis Leopold Boilly. Ca. 1823. The British Museum, London.

FIG. 13. The Seduction By Kawahara Keiga. Ca. 1825. Signed "Chogetsuro Keiga." Hirano Masakichi Museum, Akita. Seals:

"Kawahara no in," "Keiga."

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KAWAHARA KEIGA 45

FIG. 14. Les grimaces, no. 4. By Louis Leopold Boilly. 1823. The British Museum, London.

FIG. 15. Portrait of Admiral Putiatin, panel 7 in the series Auspicious Ceremony of the Russian Mission. By Kawahara Keiga. Published by Yamatoya (1853). Kobe City Museum

of Nanban Art.

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