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[Image: Felice Beato "Yakunins and Servant" (year of production unknown) albumen print, Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art]

Felice Beato photographs: people, landscapes, and Japanese Western-style paintings

Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art

Finished

Artists

Felice Beato

Felice Beato (1834–1909) lived in Japan from the late Edo period into the Meiji era, and from his base in Yokohama he photographed widely in cities such as Edo (present day Tokyo) and Nagasaki, as well as other areas around the country, capturing images of landscapes and scenes of the daily life and customs. His photographs have great appeal for viewers today due to the glimpses they offer of day-to-day life in Japan at that time.

Photography has played an important role in modern Japanese visual arts and modes of expression. The techniques of oil painting and photography were introduced to Japan from the late Edo Period into the Meiji era, and Japanese Western-style oil painters were known to use photographs for reference when visualizing landscapes, learning about composition and perspective, and executing oil paintings of high aesthetic and artistic quality.

This exhibition will present roughly 180 photographs - with a focus on people and landscapes - that are taken from three albums in the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art collection, as well as 18 Western-style oil paintings produced in Japan around the same time as these images. This is an opportunity to consider anew the interrelationship between Eastern and Western culture, while comparing how Western eyes saw Japan and, in response to those images, how artists acquired new visions that led to the creation of a new art of their own, born in Japan.

Schedule

Sep 9 (Sat) 2017-Dec 3 (Sun) 2017