An encounter with Eastern Art with only the Western Canon to offer guidance.

Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum

When confronted with the name Nagasaki a natural temptation is to think atomic explosion and devastation. Yet this Japanese city has been reconstructed since 1945 and now boasts a contemporary art building to match, if not surpass, many western art galleries.

Founded in 1965 and built on two sides of a canal, the Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum is constructed over two floors and a roof garden which affords expansive views across the city and its harbour. Uniformed Japanese officials and attendants abound proffering help at every corner – a commendable adjunct to any gallery, providing communication is feasible. However, I understand and speak no Japanese and the attendants I approached spoke little to no English.

Never mind, I would resort to the gallery guide and the printed narratives on the gallery walls to provide me with the guidance to Japanese culture which I sorely lack. The guide book was extensive and covered a vast number of works of art, few of which appeared to be on display. They must have been in storage, presumably elsewhere in the building. Nevertheless, at first sight there seemed to be more than adequate narrative on the walls to provide me with an explanation of the works displayed. It was only on closer examination that I discovered these narratives were solely in Japanese. Only in certain, apparently random, instances were the names of the artists and their works also provided in English.

I needed to start somewhere, so I decided to make an overview of the complete gallery. It was 10.00am, and other than the vast number of Japanese attendants present, the gallery was empty of visitors. It didn’t take long to establish that the art museum was divided into three sections: an area defined as ‘public space’, secondly, a section devoted to the museum’s permanent collection, and finally a temporary exhibition area promising a display of Finnish art. This area was, however, sectioned off as the exhibition was due to open the following day.

I made a start with the public space. Three vast light–filled rooms were festooned with Japanese calligraphic works, providing an array of many hundreds of Japanese symbols in either black or varying shades of grey on white paper background. The works were displayed in the fashion of hanging standards, as found in western antiquity, perhaps on Roman buildings between columns, or more recently, adorning the walls of Hitler’s Reichstag. The effect of the sheer number of calligraphic works, together with the stark contrast of black Japanese symbols against a white background, was awe inspiring. If I only knew and understood what was being displayed. The introductory narrative on the walls in each of these three rooms was copious, but of course solely in Japanese. Without that knowledge I felt denied an understanding and excluded from accessing something which might have provided entry into a culture which, to me, continued to be so very elusive.

Feeling, therefore, somewhat shunned, I turned my attention to the permanent collection. Here I encountered items of western art. This was not exactly what I had come to Japan to experience, but I drew some degree of comfort from the fact that in this room I could at least make reference to the western canon. The display included the collection of Yakichiro Suma (1892-1970), a Japanese envoy in Spain during the Second World War. Spanish religious works from Saints Bartholomew to Sebastian all dating from the 16^th Century were in abundance. Without exception, these works were in immaculate condition having been restored to within an inch of their lives. It would appear that this is what the Japanese expect from their art. The paint work and the gilding were as fresh as though applied yesterday. These works were so heavily renovated that it could be argued that they had lost the charm of age, and possibly even the identification of the painter, as the 400 year old paintwork was obscured by a 20^th/ 21^st Century makeover. Despite the immaculate condition of these works, it was, however, evident that their quality did not appear to match western museum standards. In instances where painters’ names were provided in Spanish, many of these works were either described as ‘Attributed to’ named artists or were merely entitled ‘Artists Unknown.’ It was as though Yakichiro Suma had been sold a ‘job lot’.

Daniel Vazquez Diaz- Yakichiro Suma (1941)

To my eye, the most outstanding work in this room was a contemporary portrait of Yakichiro Suma in Japanese costume, resplendent with his samurai sword raised. This portrait was displayed near the entrance to the room, a position where he could both oversee and guard his collection.

The remainder of the permanent collection was an eclectic mix of 19^th and 20^th Century Spanish art including works by Goya, Picasso and Mirό and  displayed alongside Japanese paintings from the turn of the century. Many of the Japanese works revealed a style which accorded with the demands of Art Nouveau in vogue at that time in the west. Although Japanese lettering symbols appeared in many of these works, it was telling that the artists’ signatures employed western script. It was as though these Japanese artists had the western market in mind.

I returned to the public space to immerse myself once more in Japanese calligraphy and the vast array of works by artists unknown to me. Although continuing to feel excluded from any sort of understanding of Japanese culture, I nevertheless felt that in this public room I was surrounded by art which was at one with the environment of this Japanese gallery. Despite my lack of understanding of these calligraphic works or the culture in which they had been spawned, these works seemed, nevertheless, to carry greater meaning in that particular location than 16^th Century Spanish religious portraiture, however immaculately displayed, or the modern art of the west, however elevated the artist. Understanding the narrative is clearly an important step into gaining an insight into Japanese culture, but perhaps a full and complete understanding of that narrative is not always necessary to achieve a feeling for a culture’s aesthetic.