<p> When an object is introduced to a new culture for the first time, how does it transition from the status of a foreign import to a fully integrated object of that culture? Does it ever truly reach this status, or are its foreign origins a part of its identity that are impossible to overlook? What role could the arts of that culture play in adapting a foreign object into part of the culture? I propose to address these questions in specific regard to early modern Japan (1550&ndash;1850) through a black lacquered <i> &omacr;tsuzumi</i> drum decorated with a gold powder motif of intersecting arquebuses and powder horns. While it may seem unlikely that a single piece of lacquerware can comment on the larger issues of cultural accommodation and appropriation, careful analysis reveals the way in which adopted firearms, introduced by Portuguese sailors in 1543, shed light on this issue. </p><p> While the arquebus&rsquo;s militaristic and economic influence on Japan has been firmly established, this thesis investigates how the Kobe Museum&rsquo;s <i> &omacr;tsuzumi</i> is a manifestation of the change that firearms underwent from European imports of pure military value to Japanese items of not just military, but also artistic worth. It resulted from an intermingling of Japanese-Portuguese trade, aesthetics of the noble military class, and cultural accommodation between Europeans and Japanese that complicates our understandings of influence and appropriation. To analyze this process of appropriation and accommodation, the first section begins with a historical overview of lacquer in Japan, focusing on the Momoyama period, and the introduction of firearms. The second section will go into the aesthetics of lacquerware, including the importance of narrative symbolism and use in the performing arts with a particular emphasis on the aural and visual aesthetics of the drum. Finally, I will discuss this drum in the global contexts of the early modern era, which takes into account the tension between the decline in popularity of firearms as well as the survival of the drum. Pieced together, these various aspects will help to construct a better understanding of this unique piece&rsquo;s place in the Japanese Christian material culture of early modern Japan.</p>

<p>The work of Japanese contemporary artist Aida Makoto (1965-) has been shown internationally in major art institutions, yet there is little English-language art historical scholarship on him. While a contemporary of internationally-acclaimed Japanese artists Murakami Takashi and Nara Yoshitomo, Aida has neither gained their level of international recognition or respect. To date, Aida?s work has been consistently labeled as otaku or subcultural art, and this label fosters exotic and juvenile notions about the artist?s heavy engagement with Japanese animation, film and manga (Japanese comic book) culture. In addition to this critical devaluation, Aida?s explicit and deliberately shocking compositions seemingly serve to further disqualify him from scholarly consideration. This thesis will argue that Aida Makoto is instead a serious and socially responsible artist. Aida graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music in 1991 and came of age as an artist in the late 1980s during the start of Japan?s economic recession. Since then Aida has tirelessly created artwork embodying an ever-changing contemporary Japanese identity. Much of his twenty-three-year oeuvre explores the culturally significant social sign of the shojo or pre-pubescent Japanese schoolgirl. This thesis will discuss these compositions as Aida?s deliberate and exacting social critiques of Japan?s first and second ?lost decades,? which began in 1991 and continue into the present.