ARTH 220 - Japan’s Encounter with the West: Cultural and Artistic Exchanges, 1540-1900

FC ARHU CD WINT

4 credits
Since Portuguese traders arrived in the 1540s, Japan had dynamic cultural, commercial, religious, and intellectual interactions with the West. This course explores how these intercultural exchanges shaped Japanese art and material culture throughout periods of diplomatic isolation and re-opening. How did Japan envision the West? Did curiosity or fear of the foreign contribute to artistic experiments and innovations? We will focus on analyzing visual representations of Westerners in Nanban paintings, production and consumption of export porcelains and lacquer wares, European elements in Ukiyo-e woodblock prints, and westernized architecture in the Meiji period.

Prerequisites: one 100-level course in ARTH or EAST.