The 44th Society for the Study of Japonisme Award (2023)

 

Recipient: SUZUKI Junji, Japonisme in Horticulture: In the Footsteps of the Meiji Gardner HATA Wasuke, Heibonsha, March 24, 2023.

Reasons for Award

A culmination of many years of research on the subject by SUZUKI Junji, professor emeritus of French literature at Keio University, this book is sure to become a standard reference for many years to come, a work very much worthy of the Society for the Study of Japonisme Award.

The greatest achievement of the book is its comprehensive presentation of HATA Wasuke’s long career in France through a staggering amount of hitherto unknown materials. Born in 1865 in present-day Yokohama, Hata moved to France on the occasion of the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889, and remained there until his death in 1928 in the suburbs of Paris. He created a number of large-scale Japanese gardens mainly in France, along with small Japanese-style buildings and bridges for those gardens. His wide-ranging work also included horticulture, bonsai, and bamboo baskets, earning a strong reputation in the horticultural community in France.

Thanks to this book, Hata will be remembered as a figure in the history of cultural exchange between Japan and France. Like the art dealer HAYASHI Tadamasa and the painter FOUJITA Tsuguharu, he set his roots in French society and had an influence on the people around him.

In his research on Hata Wasuke and his associates, the author not only scrutinized the writings of Robert de Montesquiou, a prominent socialite and writer at the time, as well as the 369 scrapbooks he left behind, but also the official records of the Expositions Universelles, the French census resident registers, the official documents concerning inheritance, the organ of the Horticultural Society, and the writings of the people involved. This makes for a highly reliable biography of Hata, pieced together from a wealth of primary sources.

The book’s achievement goes beyond the light it sheds on Hata Wasuke. As the title indicates, it offers a comprehensive survey of “Japonisme in Horticulture,” composed of specific details. The details are provided in abundance, all highly interesting. For example, bonsai, initially criticized in France as unnatural, eventually became so popular that the French began to produce it. Immediately after Japan’s opening to the outside world, the country’s chrysanthemums became a vogue in France and were actively bred, while around the time of World War I they began to be offered to the dead on All Saints’ Day in November.

Another important accomplishment of the book is that it brings into focus the circle of Hata’s patrons and their interrelationship. Among those who commissioned him to create Japanese gardens were Robert de Montesquiou, Countess Greffulhe, Hugues Krafft, Edmond de Rothschild, and many writers and artists associated with them, including Edmond de Goncourt and Marcel Proust, who occasionally mentioned a “Hata” in their writings. While much research has been conducted on Impressionists/Post-Impressionists and their network of collectors/art dealers, there is little overlap between these latter and the circle in which Hata moved. From the early 19th century to the early 20th centuries, most Parisian painters and art dealers lived and worked in the northern part of the city, between the Opéra and Montmartre. By contrast, Hata’s patrons, who belonged to a wealthier class, owned vast tracts of land in southwestern Paris and its suburbs, where they had Japanese gardens built. Suzuki provides a concrete image of the living environment, aesthetics, and social interaction of these figures in Japonisme, who have not received due attention until now. The author passed away due to illness on October 3, 2022, while the book was being prepared for publication. The Society for the Study of Japonisme Award is primarily intended for active members and the deceased are usually not considered for selection. Given his close involvement throughout the editorial process of the book, however, this Committee recommends it for the award, to be dedicated to his memory.

(The Committee on the Society for the Study of Japonisme Award)

 

Biography

1952: Born in Tokyo

1979: BA, Department of French Literature, Faculty of Letters, Keio University

1981: MA in French Literature, Graduate School of Letters, Keio University

1989: Assistant Professor, Faculty of Commerce, Keio University

1997: PhD, Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris-IV), dissertation “Marcel Proust et le Japonisme”

1998: Professor, Faculty of Commerce, Keio University

2015: Professor Emeritus, Keio University

2022: Died

 

Selected Publications

Co-translator, Jean-Yves Tadié, Le Roman au XXe siècle, Taishūkan Shoten, 1995.

Co-author, Shin Furansugo dainibu [New French, Part II], Keio Tsūshin, 1995.

Co-author, 19 seiki Furansu bungaku jiten [Encyclopedia of 19th Century French Literature], Keio-daigaku Shuppankai, 2000.

Le Japonisme dans la vie et l’œuvre de Marcel Proust, Keio-daigaku Shuppankai, 2003.

Furansu ni okeru ichi hōjin niwashi no kiseki [The Trajectory of a Japanese Gardener in France], Studies in Japonisme, no. 25 (2005): 10–16.

“Le Jardinier japonais de Robert de Montesquieu – ses évocations dans les milieux littéraires,” Cahiers Edmond et Jules de Goncourt (2011): 103–112.

“Un ‘Jardinier d’art’ japonais en France,” in Le Japonisme architectural en France 1550–1930, ed. Jean-Sébastien Cluzel (Dijon: Éditions Faton, 2018), 242–253.

Engei no Japonisumu o ninatta Furansu zaijū nihonjinHata Wasuke to kyōryokusha tachi [Japanese Residents in France Involved in Horticultural Japonisme: Hata Wasuke and His Collaborators], Studies in Japonisme, no. 40 (2020): 99–108 (Eng. trans. 109–118).

 

The Society for the Study of Japonisme Special Award (2023)

 

KIGI Yasuko and TAKATŌ Mako, eds., Bijutsushō HAYASHI Tadamasa no kiseki 18531906: 19 seiki matsu Pari to meiji Nihon toni hikisakarete [The Trajectory of HAYASHI Tadamasa, Art Dealer, 18531906: Torn Between the Late Nineteenth-century Paris and Meiji Japan], Fujiwara-shoten, December 30, 2022

 

Reasons for Award

The Committee on the Society for the Study of Japonisme Award gives a special award to The Trajectory of Hayashi Tadamasa, Art Dealer, 18531906, a volume co-edited and co-authored by the mother-and-daughter scholarly duo Kigi Yasuko and Takatō Mako, in recognition of their academic achievements. Kigi, even though a non-member, has greatly contributed to our Society through her many years of research and writing on Hayashi, while Takatō, a Society member, has supported and carried on her mothers work.

The trajectory of internationally active art dealer Hayashi Tadamasa holds great importance to the Japonisme studies. This is evident in that to mark its 25th anniversary our Society organized the international symposium Hayashi Tadamasa: Japonisme and His Contributions to Cultural Exchange in 2005, reported extensively with photographs in the November 19 edition of the daily Nihon keizai shimbun. The executive committee for the symposium included Takatō and her then fellow professor at Tokyo Womens University MABUCHI Akiko (later Director of the National Museum of Western Art and our Societys President). The event also featured a lecture by Kigi.

Married to a grandson of Hayashi Tadamasa, Kigi Yasuko has examined the human network around him and his activities as an art dealer, authoring numerous books, including historical novels based on true stories Manshu-in kara [From Manshu-in] (1969), Sōryū no keifu [Genealogy of Blue Dragon] (1976), Hi ga noboru toki [When the Sun Rises] (1984) and Shūsen made [Until the Defeat] (1999), as well as biographies Hayashi Tadamasa to sono jidai [Hayashi Tadamasa and his Time] (1987) and Hayshi Tadamasa (2009). In addition, she has published Hayashis correspondences and related documents. The National Museum of Western Art, to which Kigi has entrusted Hayashis original letters and other related materials in 2019, mounted the exhibition Hayashi Tadamasa: The Paris Art Dealer Who Promoted Japonisme in its prints and drawings gallery. Bijutsushō Hayashi Tadamasa no kiseki, the special award winner, goes far beyond merely making historical documents available. Painstakingly unearthing materials left in the Hayashi family and those of his associates, the editors provide Japanese translation for the letters in French and examine Hayashis writings on the history of advertising in Japan.

In Part I: The Life of Hayashi Tadamasa through Historical Documents, Kigi offers a comprehensive account in six chapters on Hayashis diverse activities, including his personal history, his move to France, his transformation into an art dealer on the occasion of the Paris Expositions Universelles of 1889 and 1900, his international circle of friends, the publications in which he was involved, his return to Japan and death. To Part II: Rereading Hayashi Tadamasa, Takatō discusses over two chapters Art Production in Meiji Japan and Activities of Hayashi Tadamasa and Locating Hayashi Tadamasa in the History of French-Japanese Posters. Part 3: Reading Newly Discovered Letters to Hayashi Tadamasa: Hayashi Tadamasa after the Decline of Japonisme contains reprints of Hayashis writings in their entirety as well as Japanese translations of letters from his friends, situating him in the current of Japans rapid modernization. Hayashi helped promote high-quality Japanese art to connoisseurs abroad and contributed to Utamaro, Hokusai and ukiyo-es recognition as world-class art. His activities are now firmly established in the history of Japonisme, thanks to the tireless efforts of his descendants to discover, interpret, and publish documents.

(The Committee on the Society for the Study of Japonisme Award)

 

Biography

KIGI Yasuko

Born in Mie prefecture in 1929. She studied History and Occidental Philosophy at Tokyo Womens Christian University in 1950s. She started her career as a writer with her first novel From Manshu-in in 1969. In 1976, she was awarded Toshiko TAMURA Memorial Prize for the historical novel, Genealogy of Brue Dragons (in which she described the ancestors of HAYASHI Tadamasa and the Meiji Restoration).  Since then, she has written many books and essays about HAYASHI Tadamasa and the history of cultural exchange between Japan and France.

Books

When the Sun Rises (historical novel about HAYASHI Tadamasa)1984, HAYASHI Tadamasa and His epoc : Paris at the End of the 19th Century and Japanese Arts (1987), HAYASHI Tadamasa: Japonisme and Cultural Exchanges (collaboration) (2007), HAYASHI Tadamasa: Introducing not only Ukiyo-es, but All Kinds of Japanese Arts (2009), Shunga and Impressionists: HAYASHI Tadamasa, Traitor to the Nation who Brought Ukiyo-es Out, 2015, etc.

Supervisions and Interpretations of documents

HAYASHI Tadamasas Collection, 5 vols. 2000, Correspondence Addressed to HAYASHI Tadamasa and Other Documents 2003.

 

Biography

TAKATO Mako

Born in Shizuoka prefecture in 1951. After graduating from Waseda University majoring in Philosophy in 1975, she obtained a masters degree in French Literature in 1981 at the same university with a thesis titled Medieval Thinking and Expression in Works of Chrétien de Troyes: A Try of Consideration of Anti Modern Realism. Professor Emerita at Japan Womens University since 2020.

Books (Writings and Translations)

G.Duby & M.Perrot, History of Women in Occident, the 2nd and 3rd vol. (co-translations), 1994-1995
Correspondence Addressed to HAYASHI Tadamasa (translation), 2003
Brigitte KOYAMA, Dreamed Japan:
Édmond de GONCOURT and HAYASHI Tadamasa, (co-translation), 2006
For the Students of French Medieval Literature (co-translation), 2007
Marie DARRIEUSSECQ, Police Report (translation), 2013
What have we learned from French Civilization?: Report of an International Symposium at the School of Humanities of Toyama University (collaboration), 2015
etc.

Papers

Life Traces of Masatomo HAGUIWARA, HAYASHI Tadamasas Brother: the Turning Point of Culture, Society and Life by Examining Correspondence Addressed to HAYASHI Tadamasa, Toyama Literature, No.35, 2017
The Devil in the Flesh in Brussels: Another Cabaret of the End of Century in The Interdisciplinary Journal of Social Sciences, No.33, 2021
etc.