What is that circular disk which early medieval samurai wear over their swords? Is it a weight, to keep it from flopping around while horseriding?

That’s my best guess at this point. I’ve done a little research on this, but haven’t come up with answers, but my collection’s a bit thin on armor parts.

I’ve seen it in the Heiji Scroll, and a few other pre-Warring States images, but I don’t recall seeing it after about the Onin War.

I get this question every time I show my students the War Scrolls, but I’ve never had a good answer. Help?

The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco has been targeted by an anonymous artistic and political intervention that parodies the current Lords of the Samurai exhibition with a well designed website and a series of pamphlets distributed in San Francisco. The website is worth exploring, and becomes particularly interesting when paired with an interview with the anonymous critics on the 8Asians website.

Many in the museum world will feel that the parody is entirely unfair. The museum is a non-profit organization dedicated to education, and museum staff include many of Asian heritage as well as many respected scholars who have advanced degrees in Asian art history. In addition, some recent exhibitions at the museum have attempted to deal (not always very explicitly) with the history of Orientalism, such as the recent one on photographs of Asia, particularly South Asia.

One might also respond that at present museum exhibitions are not subject to the same kinds of peer review and scholarly criticism that help improve other forms of educational production. Other than the occasional newspaper review of a blockbuster exhibition, and the odd blog post by a volunteer scholar/critic, exhibitions and their catalogs rarely receive the kind of critical attention that they deserve. I have long argued that museums are probably the most important scholarly site in the world we live in for mass education about other nations and cultures. (TV and films reach more people, but are usually less grounded in scholarship and have less of a veneer of objectivity and authenticity.) A good specialty academic monograph might sell a few thousand copies. Many copies will go to academic libraries, where they might be read by multiple generations of students (we hope!). A big museum exhibition, on the other hand, might draw in 10s or even 100s of thousands of visitors. The AAMSF’s 2007 exhibition “Yoshitoshi’s Strange Tales,” for example, attracted almost 80,000 visitors, or approximately 931 per day according to The Art Newspaper‘s “Exhibition Attendance Figures,” 189 (March 2008) . Bigger Asian art exhibitions, such as the Freer Gallery of Art’s exhibition “East of Eden: Gardens in Asian Art” brought in well more than 200,000 visitors.

Most museum professionals are entirely aware of the incredible responsibility they have in putting on exhibitions that often substitute for a nation’s entire history. Curators know that visitors might feel that having visited a show on the samurai, they have in effect visited Japan itself. This is the wonderful power and also the great danger of the museum; it reduces social and cultural complexity, not to mention historical variation and diversity, to a few beautiful objects.

Topics like the samurai and the geisha are certainly valid subjects for museum exhibitions, and in these difficult financial times, must be attractive themes as guarantees of significant visitor traffic. But why not call attention to the problematic mythologization of these figures, as the Pacific Asia Museum’s 2009 exhibition “The Samurai Re-Imagined: From Ukiyo-e to Anime” did? Why not, as the parody of AAMSF’s exhibition suggests, pay attention to less well known aspects of samurai culture and history, whether that be sexuality, the reality of war, Japanese aggression in Korea, or modern wartime appropriations of the samurai image? Or why not, as the interview suggestions, highlight the more nuanced scholarship of Tom Conlon or Hal Bolitho instead of the work of Thomas Cleary? These are valid and important questions, and the controversy illustrates the need for more scholarly and critical attention to the politics of display of Japanese art.

Michelle Damian, who I met at ASPAC, has a new post up in her project journal with an intriguing mystery:

One type of vessel that has intrigued me is the massive yakatabune, boats used for pleasure gatherings on the river. They have a solid superstructure with heavy supporting posts and cross timbers, usually decorated with lanterns bearing the names of the restaurants that had dispatched them, and are often shown with smaller craft alongside used to ferry patrons or cook the food. … What is unusual, though, is the notch at the tip of the stempost. These vessels almost always have an extra protrusion at the end.

If the mystery ended there I could chalk it up to simply the convention for the yakatabune – perhaps just aesthetic, perhaps for whatever reason just an additional visual cue to the boat’s purpose. On a model of a similar ship in Tokyo’s maritime museum (Fune no Kagakukan), though, the stempost is apparently made of two separate pieces of wood scarfed together with a notch exactly like the tip of the stemposts in the prints. It is as though the boats shown in the prints had removed that extra piece of wood, leaving the uneven notch exposed. … If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions to help solve this mystery, I would be most grateful to hear them!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jetalone/ / CC BY 2.0

Go to her project journal for the proper illustrations (the ones here are just some that I found on Flickr) and more detail.

My theory? I think the stem, because of its size, was removable. So when it might block the view of patrons, as in a fireworks-viewing trip, it was taken off the vessel, but when it was a pleasure cruise in which the patrons were more focused on the activity inside, it was left on for elegance.

One of my projects this summer has to do with the use of images in history classes: I’m trying to improve my teaching, and perhaps help others, by scanning pictures¹ and identifying online sources for good images, as well as trying to figure out ways to do more with the images in the classroom. There’s been some great discussion of powerpoint and images in the classroom at Edge of the American West over the last week, the upshot of which is that images don’t really help all that much, unless you use them well. Not a surprising result, but the fact is that I use images sparingly in the classroom (and have never used powerpoint) because my training — and natural talents, I think — is heavily textual. I love a good map or chart, and I do use art in class both for cultural history and as historical documentation, but not enough. It’s not about “appealing to visual learners” as much as it is my belief that visual and physical materials are going to be increasingly important in historical analysis, both as sources and as forms of presentation. This isn’t cutting edge theory, or at least it shouldn’t be.

Anyway, that’s by way of preface for some of the stuff I hope to be posting here² over the next few months: images from my collection, and discussions of what they might mean, historically and pedagogically; other resources for visual materials and commentary on potential uses; links to other discussions of visual analysis; that sort of thing.

So, here’s my first collection of links:

• The North American Clearing Coordinating Council Japanese Image Use Guide is a great set of definitions and resources, especially for publication purposes. Their comparative discussion of copyright law is worth a quick look, even before you start thinking about publication.
• The Asian Art Museum of Tokyo (via pmjs) has a small online collection, but the commentary is solid and you can click through to some very high resolution and complete images, which is very unusual for museum sites.
• As noted here³ , the Tohoku modern map collection is a pretty rich source, though still spotty in places. There’s a bunch of interesting material which isn’t yet online, and the navigation is kind of finicky.
• The Gapminder World economic history animations are extremely cool, and fairly adaptable. It’s a bit of a time sink, though, I warn you: it’s a toy! I’m tempted to set my world history students loose on it, and see what happens.
• From the PMJS list, courtesy of Helen Moss, a wealth of material on historical hairstyles: Izutsu Costume Museum (which also has great material on clothing), Kushi Matsuri, and the ultimate source, the Nihongami Museum.
• I went looking for him and found Claremont Library Digital Resources Ukiyoe Page
• The Joseph Berry Keenan Digital collection at Harvard Law School, including photographs: aerial images of Hiroshima and Nagoya, village and temple scenes, and lots of meeting and banquet shots.
• Finally, a catalog of Educational and Cultural Video sites

1. both from books, which has copyright limitations, and from my own collection of slides and digital pictures, which doesn’t (at least for me, which is what matters!)
2. and at the other Frog blogs
3. peacay, who sent me that link, is a one-stop visual resource too.

The Bowers Museum in southern California opens a new exhibition this Sunday, “Art of the Samurai: Selections from the Tokyo National Museum.” In conjunction, the museum is hosting a range of samurai-related events. Sword fetishists, get ready!

All lectures are free to Members and with paid admission unless otherwise noted.

Sunday, April 19
1:30 PM
OPENING DAY LECTURE:  ART OF A WARLORD, SHOGUN, AND DEITY:  TOKUGAWA IEYASU (1546-1616) AND THE POLITICS OF SAMURAI CULTURE
Dr. Morgan Pitelka, Chair of the Asian Studies Department at Occidental College and a cultural historian of pre-modern Japan, explores the art collecting, patronage, and memorialization of the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, the military regime that governed Japan from 1603 to 1868. Tokugawa Ieyasu was a collector of paintings and ceramics, a fan of the Noh theatere, a grudging participant in tea ritual, and a passionate devotee of falconry.

Saturday, April 25
SPIRIT OF THE SWORD, CONVERSATIONS WITH TWO RENOWNED BLADEMAKERS
Widely revered for their fine craftsmanship of Japanese-style swords, father and son Phill and Phil Hartsfield share insight, stories, the science, and the spirituality behind their over 30 years of blade making. A live demonstration will follow the lecture.

Sunday, May 3
1:30 PM
WARRIOR VENDETTAS AND THE TOKUGAWA ORDER

Using the Incident of the Forty-Seven Ronin and other vendettas as examples, Dr. Samuel H. Yamashita, Henry E. Sheffield Professor of History, Pomona College, describes how Tokugawa authorities attempted to control the warriors’ vengeful feelings and how they reacted when such feelings led to impermissible behavior.
Thursday, May 14
6:30 PM

AN INTRODUCTION TO JAPANESE SAKE & SAKE TASTING
Curious about Japanese sake but not sure where to begin?  Meher McArthur, specialist in the art and culture of East Asia, explores the history of sake (rise wine), how and where it is made, drinking etiquette, and its importance in Japanese culture.  McArthur will introduce you to eight different kinds of sake.  Learn the difference between regular and premium, unfiltered and unpasteurized, as well as the best ways to drink sake – hot or cold.  Space is limited.  Members $18; General $22.  Pre-payment is required.  Space is limited.  Please send reservations to Education Department, Bowers Museum, 2002 North Main Street, Santa Ana, CA 92706.  For more information, please contact wbrown(at)bowers.org.

Saturday, May 16
1:30 PM
JAPANESE CASTLES AND THEIR CONTENTS:  SAMURAI ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE
Dr. Bruce Coats, Scripps, discusses the way in which the 17th century Japanese samurai class constructed enormous castle complexes throughout Japan, and filled them with spectacular paintings, fine furniture and ceramics, and extraordinary arms and armor. This lecture will explore some of these domains of the military, with particular emphasis on Kobori Enshu (1579-1647) who built castles, gardens, temples and teahouses for the shogun and provincial governors.

Sunday, May 31
1:30 PM
JAPANESE SWORDS AND ARMOR
Dr. Bruce Coats, Scripps College, surveys the development and fabrication of Japanese swords from ancient to modern times. Attention will also be given to sword mountings, body armor, and battle tactics to gain a broader perspective on the lives and deaths of samurai. Japanese swords are among the world’s finest weapons

Sunday, June 14
1:30 PM
LESSONS FROM THE PAST
Renowned Japanese kimono designer and stylist Nobuaki Tomita introduces the history and evolution of samurai clothing worn during the Meiji Restoration in Edo period Japan, along with that of the kimono during the Taisho, Showa, and Heisei eras.  Accompanying this program will be a collection of clothing, modeled and displayed.