Kyoto Asian Studies Group June meeting

[niels van steenpaal]

Dear colleagues,

 

The speaker for the June meeting of the Kyoto Asian Studies Group is Philippe Depairon, who will present “Snow, Blossoms, Smoke: Describing Yoshino in the Early Modern Period, 1580 - 1700” (see abstract below).    

 

The talk will be held on Friday, June 21st, 17:30-19:30 Seminar Room 8 (第8演習室), on the basement floor of Research Bldg. No. 2 (総合研究2号館), on the Kyoto University Main Campus (see link below for access information).

 

 

Abstract

 

Snow, Blossoms, Smoke: Describing Yoshino in the Early Modern Period, 1580 - 1700

 

As an exercise in the consolidation and legitimization of his power, Toyotomi Hideyoshi organized a cherry-blossom viewing excursion (hanami) to Yoshino, a town which lays at the foot of the eponymous mountain range, in the month of march of 1594. Yoshino’s historical and literary prestige, its ties to the imperial family and important monastic institutions, proved an easy choice for such a purpose. Yet, these storied associations did not prevent its deforestation, starting in the 1580s, as Conrad Totman reports in his seminal The Green Archipelago: on the contrary, this was one of a series of drastic changes the site underwent beginning in the 1580s. This paper centers on Yoshino as an example of an utamakura whose descriptions, visual and literary, attended to these changes – and to the experience of displacement itself in the first century of the Edo period. I first trace the socioeconomic and environmental conditions of Yoshino at the turn of the 17th century before examining paintings in the rakuchū rakugai genre to underline how painters attended to its economic growth and diversification. I then turn to literary descriptions by Matsuo Bashō, Ihara Saikaku and Kumazawa Banzan to underline how the changes wrought to Yoshino were echoed in their descriptions of the landscape, which, in return, indexed moral decline and social etiolation. The poignant displacement of Yoshino, from a lofty utamakura to a town whose economy catered to the spheres of pleasure and commerce, I ultimately argue, made it a symbol of change. It also made it a motif through which painters like Watanabe Shikō and Tosa Mitsuoki could position themselves within the budding history of painting within the realm.

 

Philippe Depairon is a PhD student in the History of Art and Archaeology Department of Columbia University (starting Fall 2024).      

 

For access information see: 

https://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/access/main-campus-map

(the venue is on the south side of the basement floor of the building listed on the map as nr. 34)    

 

Please refrain from bringing food into the meeting room.    

 

Contact: Niels van Steenpaal, nielsvan...@hotmail.com

 

 

About the Kyoto Asian Studies Group:

The KASG is a long-standing Kyoto-based research network that hosts monthly research presentations by experts from various Asian Studies fields. Emphasizing long Q&A sessions, we aim to provide an informal atmosphere in which scholars can freely exchange ideas concerning both finished and in-progress research. Admission is free, and we always welcome new members and presenters.