16 Japanese Art


A Portuguese Trading Ship Arrives in Japan, unidentified artist, pair of six-panel folding screens, ink, colour, gold and gold leaf on paper, Japan, Momoyama to Edo period, early 17th century, each screen 160 x 367.4 cm, Feinberg Collection. Photography by the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution


Hiroshi Sugimoto Gates of Paradise


by Martin Barnes Lorber


On the occasion of its 110th anniversary on May 19, 2017, Japan Society is presenting the world premiere of Hiroshi Sugimoto: Gates of Paradise,


an exhibition


commemorating one of the earliest documented moments of cross- cultural exchange between Japan and the West. Hiroshi Sugimoto (b 1948) is a complex,


multidisciplinary


contemporary artist, using varying combinations of photography, painting, installation and architecture. As an artist and photographer, he is interested in how we see things – and to explore this, he often uses a large- format camera with long exposures to produce iconic black and white tonal photographs (gelatin silver prints) which often force the viewer to look long and hard to determine what is there … or what is not. Te human mind perceives images in context of how it is presented, and it is, in fact, a way of perceiving a specific subject through four different pairs of eyes. In the case here, he combines some or all of those four different disciplines mentioned above to create in the viewer’s mind multiple perceptions of that one specific subject. Sugimoto’s photographs are basically the contemplation of time and history and which serve as a visual analogy of the Japan Society’s mission since it was founded 110 years ago. Time is very much a central theme


of Sugimoto’s photography and his iconic photographs have bridged Eastern and Western ideologies and styles. One such photographic work in the exhibition is a five-panel screen from 1999-2012, Te Last Supper: Acts of God. Measuring 3 feet 10 ½ inches x 23 feet ¼ inch, it depicts in photographic format Sugimoto’s reinterpretation of Leonardo da Vinci’s fresco, Te Last Supper. He has created large gelatin silver prints of people in the same positions as in the original fresco. Each panel has been partially


overlaid with swaths of


white pigment which gives a somewhat corroded view of the entire scene.


All-in-all, it is highly


interpretive, allowing us to see the composition of the original through new eyes with the faces of living


ASIAN ART OCTOBER 2017


their trading station on Deshima, an island in Nagasaki Bay, where they remained peacefully until 1856. One positive result of the Catholic


presence was the development of a new and brief art form known as Namban,


European styles and shapes with Japanese techniques,


which blended both mainly for


objects for religious use. Tese were executed by Japanese converts using traditional Japanese lacquer and inlay techniques and this exhibition has some great examples of this hybrid art form. Te name itself, Namban, was originally used as a derogatory term, ‘Southern Barbarians’,


so-named


Gates of Paradise 1, Adam and Eve (2016) by Hiroshi Sugimoto, gelatin silver print © Hiroshi Sugimoto


people rather than the imagined faces in the original.


Te basis of this exhibition is a


nearly forgotten moment in international history, the so-called Tensho Embassy. It was organised in Japan by a resident Jesuit missionary, Alessandro Valignano, together with the help of Christian-converted feudal lords (daimyo). It was a plan to bring four Catholic-convert Japanese boys to Europe to experience Western Christianity. Te boys’ journey to Europe was part of a broader programme of religious, economic, political, and cultural interchange, spurred by the Jesuit Mission in Asia. Te Embassy itself was named after the Emperor who was reigning at the time, Tensho (1586-1611). It was a poignant mission for the Jesuits because the Japanese authorities had long demanded that they stop their incessant attempts at conversion. Tey paid no heed and by the early 17th century, both the Portuguese and Spanish (who had other European nationalities with them) were permanently expelled from Japan, leaving only the Protestant and not conversion-minded, Dutch at


EMBASSY IS A NEARLY FORGOTTEN MOMENT IN INTERNATIONAL


HISTORY AND IS THE BASIS OF THIS EXHIBITION


THE TENSHO


because Europeans were considered as barbarians who arrived on their boats from the south, having made their way from the Iberian Peninsula, bypassing Africa and India and around Southeast Asia to Japan. Te eight years of the Embassy began in Italy. Te four boys and their Jesuit guide/chaperones went to historic sites, such as the Pantheon in Rome, the Villa Borghese and the Leaning Tower in Pisa, and from there through the papal and princely courts of Western Europe. Te roots of this present exhibition began by sheer accident for in the spring of 2015, nearly 500 years later, when Sugimoto was travelling through Italy. He came across a 1585 fresco documenting the Japanese tour. Tis sparked his cultural and historical curiosity, leading him to investigate the boys’ journey in greater detail. As


a result of his findings, he realised that he had already photographed many of the sites that the boys had visited and was now inspired to and determined to photograph all of the remaining ones.


Sugimoto has included


photographs taken by him in his sojourn to capture the sites seen by the Embassy and they include images of all of the ten panels of Ghiberti’s famous doors, Gates of Paradise, in the baptistry of the Duomo in Firenze, the Scala Real at the Villa Farnese, Michaelangelo’s La Pietà, the Duomo and the baptistery at Firenze, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Pantheon in Rome, among others. It is a condensed Italian Grand Tour recreated. Te Villa Farnese (1568) in Caprasola in northern Italy is a pentagonal structure that began as a fortress, but completed as a massive villa designed by Giacomo da Vignola. Te Gates of Paradise, from which the title of this exhibition is taken, is a pair of gilded bronze doors (created between 1425 and 1452), designed by the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti for the north entrance of the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence. Upon their completion, they were installed at the east entrance. Tese predate Raphael’s School of Athens fresco (1509-1522), long considered the first painted use of linear perspective. With Ghiberti, the Gates ignore the mediaeval use of quatrefoil panels, but instead chose square panels depicting Old Testament scenes in


European King and Members of His Court, artist unknown, six-panel folding screen, colour and gold on paper, Japan, Momoyama period (1601-14), 127 x 333.6 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Fenollosa-Weld Collection. Photograph © 2017 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston


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