This dissertation is the first monographic study in any language of Japans official war painting produced during the second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 through the Pacific War in 1945. This genre is known as sensô sakusen kirokuga (war campaign documentary painting). Japans army and navy commissioned noted Japanese painters to record war campaigns on a monumental scale. Military officials favored yôga (Western-style painting) for its strength in depicting scenes in realistic detail over nihonga (Japanese-style painting). The military gave unprecedented commissions to yôga painters despite the fact that Japan was fighting the materialist West. Large military exhibitions exposed these paintings to civilians. Officials attached national importance to war documentary paintings by publicizing that the Emperor had inspected them in the Imperial Palace.
This study attempts to analyze postwar Japanese reluctance to tackle war documentary painting by examining its controversial and unsettling nature. The art community has been hesitant to reflect on its alignment with the regime by relegating responsibility for wartime collaboration to individual artists. That hesitance has resulted in a critical gap in the history of modern Japanese art. This study attempts to fill the void by examining artistic and political circumstances surrounding war documentary painting from three perspectives as follows.
(1) Art historical significance: Yôga war documentary paintings offer a record of yôgas development since the Meiji period. Critics say that yôgas expression during the war was exceptional, but I show it was consistent with yôgas history.
(2) Nationalistic pragmatism toward art: Modern Japanese leaders were often motivated by nationalism. This study illustrates that the alliance forged between the wartime regime and the art community was a continuation of Meiji governing tradition.
(3) Ideological and propaganda aspects: By analyzing documentary paintings of what officials called the Holy War (Seisen) of 1937-1945, this study demonstrates central propaganda mechanisms in the images. Without a single portrayal of the Emperor, Japanese war documentary painting expressed the absolute importance of the imperial order over the individual.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-08192005-082911 |
| Date | 06 July 2006 |
| Creators | Tsuruya, Mayu |
| Contributors | J Thomas Rimer, Katheryn M. Linduff, Helen Hopper, Karen M. Gerhart, Barbara McCloskey |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-08192005-082911/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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