State of the Art and Art of the State: Komuro Suiun (1874–1945) and Nanga in Imperial Japan

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the painting, writing and activism of Komuro Suiun (1874–1945), one of the primary actors in the revival of nanga (“Southern-style painting”), a mode of Japanese painting derived from Chinese literati painting among other sources that unfolded between the late Meiji (1868–1912) and Taishō (1912–1926) periods, and continued to develop into wartime Japan. Chapters Two and Three discuss how the ideals of literati painting were constructed and reinterpreted by successive generations of artists and theorists in China and Japan before Suiun and his peers began re-evaluating them within the context of the developing art world and Japan’s emerging role as a modern state and empire. The following two chapters examine Suiun’s efforts to reinvent nanga as a form of national painting as an individual artist at the centre of the government salon as well as through his leadership of the Nihon Nangain (Japan Nanga Institute), which he led from 1922 to 1936. As Japan’s imperial and military aggrandisement escalated, nanga lent itself to the task of affirming national policy. Chapter Six explores Nanga Kanshōkai (Nanga Appreciation Society), founded by Suiun in 1932 and active until 1944. Established primarily as a correspondence painting course for amateurs in Japan and its colonies, this organisation was premised on Suiun’s belief in the value of nanga as an edifying accomplishment for all people. As with Suiun’s painting practice, the tone and content of Nanga Kanshōkai were augmented by Japan’s progressive militarisation at home and abroad. From the mid-1930s the journal increasingly became a mediator of ultranationalism, pan-Asianist discourse, and propaganda supporting the war.