Gunpowder flask with figures in Portuguese dress, EA1983.243 © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Gunpowder flask with figures in Portuguese dress, EA1983.243 © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

This lacquered wood gunpowder flask (kayaku-ire) was produced in Japan. It is artistic in form but with an important practical use. The flask gives a useful insight into a fascinating period of Japanese history and reflects the history of contact between Europe (especially Portugal) and Japan. It depicts Portuguese figures, in exaggerated poses, on the front and back panels of the flask. The two flat lacquered panels are affixed to a wooden body, rounded at the sides and bottom.  It is an example of an artistic style known as Nanban, which developed during this period of initial European contact (1543‒1639), although it is possible the object was produced later than this date. Apart from the wood and lacquer, it also includes copper, which was used to make the spout and side pin (likely for attachment to a belt or equivalent). It was acquired by the museum in 1983, purchased at auction with the help of the Friends of the Ashmolean.

Historical Background

The period of initial European contact with Japan coincided with what the Japanese call the Sengoku jidai, ‘the Age of Warring States’. This was a protracted period of civil strife lasting almost one hundred and fifty years up to around the early 1600s. Japan at this time, although ruled nominally by an Emperor who commanded the loyalty of the nobility, was in practice ruled by a shogun, a powerful lord who was the supreme commander of the armed forces and acted as a head of government in whom most practical power rested. The Japanese term for the shogun’s government (shogunate) was bakufu, which literally means ‘tent-government’ and came to refer to the host of bureaucrats and court officials who worked under the shogun. The sixteenth century in Japan was characterized by the instability resulting from the collapse of one shogunate and the rise of another. This gunpowder flask was produced around 1600, when the warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616) was establishing his rule, beginning the era of the Tokugawa shogunate (1615–1868). This period is also known as the Edo period, as the new government was based in the city of Edo (modern Tokyo), as opposed to Kyoto, the former capital where the emperor still lived. The period saw the initial contact between Japan and Europeans, the Portuguese having come upon Japan in the 1540s. As their arrival coincided with this period of conflict and upheaval, the Portuguese were able to initiate trade with the Japanese, as well as engage in Christianization, courting provincial rulers (daimyō) and even negotiating control of Nagasaki in the 1580s, although this was short-lived.

Nanban panel attributed to Kano Naizen, Image: © National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon, Wikimedia Commons

Besides the significant social and cultural exchanges that followed the Portuguese arrival in Japan, there was also a marked economic interaction. The Portuguese were enthusiastic for Japanese goods such as porcelain (and there was also a significant trade in Japanese slaves) but there was very little in the way of European items imported into Japan. The Europeans’ main contribution was to act as middle men for other Asian goods such as silk from China. The main exception to this rule was the trade in gunpowder weapons: specifically the European matchlock heavy arquebus, known as the musket. The general term for gunpowder weapons in Japan was Tanegashima, after the island where they were said to have been first introduced, but other names included hinawajū, ‘fire-rope gun’, and teppō, ‘iron cannon’ or ‘metal gun’. Teppō would subsequently become the standard term. Although the Chinese had pioneered the use of gunpowder technology, the matchlock, the first firearm with a trigger, was a European innovation which was introduced to Asia (India and likely also China) through the Ottoman Turks. However, the first documented trade of firearms in Japan was conducted by the Portuguese in 1543, when a Chinese pirate/trader vessel with several Portuguese on board was shipwrecked near Tanegashima and the local daimyō was much taken with the weapons and purchased them for a huge sum. Print designer Katushika Hokusai (1760–1849) imagines the incident in the work below.

‘First Guns in Japan’, Katsushika Hokusai, 1817, Image: © Noel Perrin Giving Up the Gun, Wikimedia Commons

Firearms were transported to Japan from the Portuguese bases in Goa and Malacca, where armouries and workshops were able to produce these guns in significant numbers. By the 1560s gunpowder weapons were being used in large numbers in Japanese battles by Japanese foot soldiers (ashigaru). Their advantages and drawbacks in Japanese warfare were much the same as with European. They were dangerous to the user, inaccurate, slow to load and reload, and could be very unreliable in wet weather. Conversely, they were easy to manufacture, easy to use (meaning people of low status and no military background could be instructed in their use) and had superior penetrative power compared to other missile weapons like bows. Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582), a successful military leader of this period, recognised the potential of muskets early on and won repeated successes using large numbers of musket-wielding troops, most famously at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575.

Japanese ashigaru, Image: © Noel Perrin Giving Up the Gun, Wikimedia commons

Purpose

The flask under discussion is a gunpowder flask, used in the loading of matchlock guns. To fire the weapon, one pulls a lever or trigger attached to the bottom of the weapon. The action of pulling the trigger moves a second lever, causing a match (burning cord) to be lowered into the flash pan where the priming powder sits. The flash from the lit priming powder moves through the vent and ignites the main powder charge in the gun barrel. This reaction expels the projectile down the barrel and out of the muzzle. The powder flask is used to accurately apply a measure of powder to the weapon via the narrow spout. As the smaller amount of priming powder had to be of finer quality, typically the user would have two flasks, one with priming powder, and one with coarser powder used as the main charge. The most efficient way to use the flask was to prepare cartridges containing the right amount of powder before battle so one did not have to fumble around with multiple flasks in the middle of an engagement.

Production and Design

To make Japanese lacquerware, objects are covered with the treated sap of the lacquer tree or sumac. The objects can be of any material: wood, paper, leather, textiles and ceramics. Wood was the preferred medium for Japanese artisans.

Lacquer Tree, Toxicodendron vernicifluum, formerly, Rhus verniciflua. It is indigenous to China but has been found across East Asia since ancient times, Image: © Takami Torao, 15 August 2009, all rights released, Wikimedia Commons

In Japan the tree is called urushi, a name from which the name of the oily allergenic compound urushiol comes. Urushiol, contained in the tree’s sap, is toxic but vital in the production of the distinctively hard-wearing East Asian lacquer. The tree bark is cut and the sap collected: the sap is an almost clear liquid which releases a poisonous vapour and is then refined by sieving and evaporating to reduce the water content from around 30% to 3%, by which time it is more viscous and completely colourless. This process must be performed in a dust-free environment with very high relative humidity. Pigmentation can be achieved by adding dyes, metallic oxides, ash or cinnabar.[1]

‘Harvesting lacquer in Mikawa province’, from the woodblock printed book Products and Industries of Japan (Dai Nippon Bussan Zue), 1877, by Utagawa Hiroshige III, EA1964.224. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Japan already had a highly developed lacquerware tradition by the time of initial contact with Europeans, 1543‒1639. With the arrival of the musket, and foreign traders who prized Japanese lacquered objects for trade, the powder flask rapidly became a well-established item of lacquer production. As there was no surface treatment equivalent to lacquer in Europe, lacquered objects were prized for their quality, rarity and exotic character and therefore fetched very high prices in European markets. Objects that were produced for sale to Europeans, initially the Portuguese, were known as Nanban wares. Nanban, which translates as ‘Southern barbarian’, was the term used to refer to these early European visitors.  Originally coming from Chinese, the term was used in China and Japan to refer to South Asian peoples, or any foreigner who was not Chinese, Japanese or Korean. However, by the sixteenth century in Japan it came to be used in reference to Europeans, specifically the Portuguese. The subsequent interactions between these two groups gave rise to the production of a distinctive type of art: Nanban art. Typically, Nanban-style objects comprised thick black lacquer, as seen on the side panels of the flask.

The figures on both the front and back of the flask wear the distinctive bombacha trousers worn by the Portuguese in the East, which were notable to the Japanese eye. Both the clothes and poses of the figures seem to be exaggerated for humorous effect. This light-hearted depiction of foreigners suggests that this item may have been made for the domestic market, a theory supported by the fact that the likely date of production of the flask is after the expulsion of the Portuguese from Japan in 1639. Beyond the obvious association between the Europeans and the firearms they introduced, there is no clear connection between the figures on the object and the purpose of the flask.

Historical epilogue

The Portuguese were not able to monopolize contact with Japan for long, as other European powers – the Spanish, Dutch and English – were keen to muscle in on the lucrative opportunities in the Indian Ocean and the Far East. With the end of civil war, and the restoration of a strong central government in Japan in the early 1600s, the Japanese authorities clamped down on the presence of foreigners in the country. This policy came to be called sakoku (‘closed country’ or ‘national isolation’), following an edict of 1635. It has traditionally been thought to have been due to a desire to minimize foreign influences, whether political religious or economic, but recent scholarship has also highlighted that this was part of the centralizing agenda of the Bakufu: being part of a range of policies aimed at limiting the power of the local lords (daimyō). In any case, of the four European powers involved in Japan, the English left first, in 1623, voluntarily because they were not profiting from their trading post in Hirado. Subsequently the Spanish were expelled from Nagasaki in 1624, and likewise the Portuguese in 1638 because of continued illicit missionary work which the Japanese government had forbidden. Only the Dutch were left.

The Japanese had a different term for the Dutch: kōmō, meaning ‘red hair’, more to suggest a demonic nature than to describe the actual colour of all the Dutch visitors’ hair. Although the Dutch had shown no desire to interfere politically or religiously in Japan, and were only interested in trade, they were limited to occupying a tiny artificial island in Nagasaki harbour called Deshima (next to a slightly larger island reserved for the Chinese). For the next two centuries or so, it was the Dutch who monopolized the European trade of Japanese goods. This tiny outpost also allowed the Japanese to retain a tenuous connection with the West and to enable transmission of Western technology: see the term Rangaku (literally: ‘Dutch learning’).

‘Dish with Dutch East India Company monogram’, EA1994.103 © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

This porcelain plate of the late seventeenth century bears the emblem of the Dutch East India Company in the centre (VOC,  for Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie). It is an example of Japanese export porcelain, a valuable trade commodity which the Dutch were the only Europeans legally entitled to export to Europe. The plate is currently on display in the Ashmolean’s ‘West Meets East’ gallery (Gallery 35).

• Ben Skarratt, UEP Museum Assistant, responsible for collections and object teaching support across the Ashmolean’s Eastern Art, Western Art and Antiquities departments.

[1] Process description taken from Japanese Export Lacquer 1580-1850, Impey and Jörg, Hotei Publishing, Amsterdam, 2005, p. 75

Bibliography

Japanese Export Lacquer 1580-1850, Impey and Jörg, Hotei Publishing, Amsterdam, 2005

Giving Up The Gun: Japan’s Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879, Noel Perrin, Godine, New Hampshire, 1979

The Namban Art of Japan, Yoshitomo Okamoto, translated by Ronald K Jones, Weatherhill/Heibonsha, New York & Tokyo, 1972

Lacquer: technology and conservation: a comprehensive guide to the technology and conservation of Asian and European lacquer, Marianne Webb, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, 2000

To give you an idea of what happens in one of our demonstrations, here is a diary of a typical ‘Tea Demo Day’.

15 June 2017

Night before. Remember to get matcha powdered green tea out of the freezer. We stock up with really good matcha in London or – even better – in Japan, and it keeps surprisingly well in the freezer. Otherwise the startling green tea with its distinctive aroma oxidises to a slightly dingy khaki colour. I just have to remember to take it out well in advance so that it isn’t too cold and damp on the day.

8.30 am. I pop into the garden to see what flowers I can find to arrange in the display alcove of the tea house. One of the key ideas behind the Japanese tea ceremony is wabi, the notion of finding beauty in the humble, the simple and the imperfect. Everything used in a tea gathering is carefully selected to express this mood, even the flowers. So it’s important not to choose anything too flashy or scented. At this time of year Japanese anemones work well; perhaps cherry blossom in the spring, or delicate acer leaves in the autumn. I know that one of our volunteers, Masayo-san, will bring something in too – she has a garden full of lovely Japanese plants. I find some pretty white astrantia that should look good against the ochre-coloured walls of the tea house – fingers crossed it will survive the bike ride into the Ashmolean.

9.00 am. Before the museum opens to the public I give the tea house a quick clean. It’s remarkable how dusty it gets! I keep a set of special dusters and brushes and cloths that are used only for this purpose and a gentle dusting of the surfaces and wipe-down of the tatami floor with a damp cloth is all that’s needed. I like to feel there is something a little Zen-like about this task. It’s really very peaceful inside the tea house, with a faint smell of wood and tatami straw matting.

9.30 am. I get hold of the list of attendees from colleagues in the Education Department, which oversees the event. We limit numbers to make sure that all our guests can get a really good view of the tea house, and the demonstrations are almost always fully booked.

10.00 am. I set to work on creating handouts for the event, as we like to give visitors a brief record of our tea gathering to take away with them. Traditionally, tea hosts and guests in Japan would keep records of the tea gatherings they attended, carefully noting details of the event, such as the utensils selected, flowers arranged and guests invited. Through the careful selection of these different elements, a tea host can demonstrate his or her taste and create a particular mood, depending on the season, the time of day and the atmosphere they want to create. There is a lovely Zen phrase used in tea circles, ichigo ichie (一期一会), literally ‘one time, one meeting’, that expresses how each tea gathering is a unique occasion, a one-off, transient moment to be treasured. Our handouts are inspired by these tea diaries and list all the utensils we have selected for each demonstration. Like the historical tea masters, we make sure to update the list for each demonstration.

10.30 am. Our demonstrators start to arrive to get ready for the day. Every month I am impressed by their knowledge, dedication, kindness and adaptability. There are many challenges to making tea in a museum setting and the team members are unfailingly positive in the face of all of them. They are often joined by other fantastic helpers from the University Museum Volunteer Service, who provide invaluable assistance with setting up and serving tea, and generally making sure the day goes smoothly.

Masayo-san arrives first, with an armful of beautiful seasonal flowers from her garden. She disappears upstairs to arrange them in the hanging vase in the tea house. Tea flowers are very informally arranged, to look as if they have been simply ‘thrown into’ the vase.

11.00 am. Meanwhile, Satomi-san starts to rinse the metal kettle used to heat the water for the tea and boils mineral water (instead of hard Oxford tap water!) to fill thermos flasks ready to use later.

Midday. Miyuki-san arrives. Another key member of our team, she is our kimono expert. Putting on a kimono is a complex process and many Japanese women are not able to dress themselves completely alone. The tying of the obi sash is particularly tricky. For the next hour, my office becomes a changing room.

Mitsuko-san starts carrying tea bowls and other equipment up to the Japanese galleries, where front-of-house colleagues have set up a table and stools for us. A proper tea room would have its own preparation area, like a small kitchen, but we make a temporary preparation area in the gallery next to the tea house.

Meanwhile, someone sieves the tea to get rid of any lumps, then piles it carefully into the lacquer tea container. The tea is supposed to be piled up like an elegant mountain inside the container, and there is even a special word for how it looks – keshiki, or ‘landscape’. Someone else selects the sweets to be used; as the tea is quite bitter, a sweet is always eaten before the tea is drunk. The sweets are often designed to reflect the season, so might be moulded in the shape of autumn maple leaves, winter snowflakes or spring blossoms. Today’s sweets are in the shape of green leaves and rippling water.

1.00 pm. The guests assemble at the tea house and we head off to one of the Eastern Art Department study rooms so that I can give a brief introductory talk: about the history of tea drinking in Japan, the notion of wabi that informs the tea ceremony, and what happens in a real tea gathering. We also handle some tea wares from the Ashmolean’s collection.

We head back to the gallery, where stools have been set up in front of the tea house. We ask one visitor to volunteer to be a guest inside the tea house (somebody who is happy to kneel for a while). Other visitors sit on the stools to watch the demonstration, but everyone receives a bowl of tea – if not made inside the teahouse then in the nearby preparation area.

At its core, the tea gathering is an act of hospitality, a way of leaving the stresses and chaos of everyday life behind for a while to enjoy a delicious bowl of tea in good company in the tranquil surroundings of the tea house. A full tea gathering can last several hours and includes a meal and two different types of tea. We can’t attempt to recreate a ‘proper’ tea ceremony at the Ashmolean, but we can certainly offer hospitality to our visitors through carefully prepared bowls of tea.

There is no chatting during a tea ceremony, with just a few set phrases exchanged between guest and host. The focus is entirely on the preparation and drinking of the tea within the tea house, so chitchat isn’t encouraged. Yet there is by no means complete silence; instead there is a kind of gentle background music made by the water bubbling in the kettle and being poured from the ladle, the tapping of the tea scoop on the side of the bowl, and the whisking of the tea. I always keep my fingers crossed that that there is not too much noise in the surrounding galleries to drown out these subtle sounds.

© Mr and Mrs H Shikanai

The name Ningendō was given to the teahouse by the gallery’s sponsors, Mr and Mrs Hiroaki Shikanai, who kindly introduced us to the craftsmen who made the teahouse. The character nin 仁 means humanity or benevolence; gen 玄 means mystery and dō 堂 means house or hall. The phrase, which is taken from the writings of the ninth century Buddhist Monk Kūkai, is hard to translate, but can be interpreted to describe the way that within the teahouse human existence, in all its insignificance, is united with the vastness of the universe. Mr Shikanai did the calligraphy for the plaque, choosing the archaic form of calligraphy known as tensho, or Chinese seal script. This was then intricately carved onto a beautiful wooden panel chosen for its distinctive woodgrain with the appearance of rippling water.

After the demonstration, we try to answer any questions our visitors may have. Every group responds slightly differently to the demonstrations and I am struck by how each tea gathering really is a unique experience. We invite anyone who is interested to step inside the tea house. Ningendō, at just under 2m² with one and three quarter tatami floor mats, is the smallest standard-size tea house. Although it looks tiny from the outside, it feels surprisingly spacious when you’re sitting inside. It’s made entirely from traditional Japanese materials – cedar, cryptomeria, pine, and bamboo – with roughly plastered walls and paper lattice windows that allow light to filter softly into the room. The timber framework was first constructed at master carpenter Amakasu-san’s workshop near Tokyo, then taken apart and shipped to England, where it was painstakingly reconstructed inside the Japanese gallery by a team of specialist craftsmen. Amakasu-san and his assistant carpenter were joined by a master plasterer who used plaster made from special river and mountain sand to achieve an undulating surface of bright ochre colour. And a master paperer pasted hand-made Japanese paper onto the walls – white for the host and deep blue for the guests.

Each area within the tea house has a particular function. There is an area for the display of a scroll and flowers, an arched doorway at the back for the host, and a small door at the side for guests. This guest door (nijiriguchi) is traditionally built very low, so that all guests, whatever their social standing, are forced to bow down to enter the room. There is also a hearth for the kettle that heats the water for the tea. This would normally be laid with a charcoal fire, but for obvious reasons we use an electric heater instead. A real tea house would be located within a tea garden that allows guests physically to separate themselves from the outside world as they enter the world of tea. Of course we can’t provide a garden, but the teahouse is separated from the gallery by a tiny strip of beaten earth, and entered by stepping up onto a large stone sourced from North Wales. And it really does feel like a different world inside.

15 November 2016 to 26 March 2017

Gallery 29 | Admission Free

Mount Fuji, an active volcano and Japan’s highest mountain, has long been praised by poets and depicted by artists for its beautiful shape and sacred status. In the mid-1800s, the great landscape print designer Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) produced numerous views of Mount Fuji in different seasons and weather conditions. These were probably inspired by his contemporary Hokusai, whose ground-breaking series ‘Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji’ was hugely successful in the 1830s.

A special exhibition in the Ashmolean’s Eastern Art Prints and Paintings Gallery (Gallery 29) shows a selection of Hiroshige’s views of Mount Fuji, drawn from the Ashmolean’s own collection. The exhibition includes views of Mount Fuji from several different Hiroshige series, some devoted entirely to Fuji and others in which Fuji appears in views of Edo, or seen from the Tōkaidō Road, Japan’s major highway. It is the second in a series of displays highlighting the Ashmolean’s collection of Hiroshige landscape prints.

Inume Pass in Kai Province (Kai Inume tōge 甲斐犬目峠)
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji
Date: 1858
Colour woodblock print
Presented by Mrs Allan and Mr and Mrs H. N. Spalding, EAX.4389
© Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Travellers walk along the edge of Inume Pass on a chilly autumn day. A flock of geese flies in front of Mount Fuji, adding to the melancholy autumnal atmosphere. Hiroshige is known to have travelled to this area in the spring of 1841 and in his diary he described its awe-inspiring beauty. Hiroshige absorbed a wide range of artistic influences, evident in this work: the fluffy clouds in the ravine and the shading on Mount Fuji are probably influenced by Western copper-plate prints, but the dots on the craggy rocks are more reminiscent of Chinese ink painting.

By Hiroshige’s time, the Japanese print industry was booming and ukiyo-e woodblock prints depicting the lively popular culture of the urban pleasure districts could be purchased for the price of a large bowl of noodles. However, the landscape print was a new genre, pioneered by Hiroshige’s contemporary Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Hiroshige’s own breakthrough came with the publication of his series ‘Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō’, which appeared between 1832 and 1834 and depicted scenes at the fifty-three post stations along Japan’s major highway. In his work Hiroshige captured quite brilliantly the effects of season, weather and time of day. He took full advantage of recent technical developments in his work, in particular the introduction of a new Western pigment known as Berlin or Prussian blue, which became commercially viable in Japan from the mid-1820s. The brilliantly coloured Prussian blue gave artists much greater freedom of expression in the depiction of sky and water. The new blue was particularly effective when it was applied using a method of sophisticated colour gradation known as bokashi, in which printers wiped and diluted the amount of pigment applied to the woodblock. The success of Hiroshige’s designs depended largely on the skilful use of bokashi colour gradation to enhance the mood of rainfall, mist or snow.

The ‘Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō’ was so successful that Hiroshige continued to produce series of landscape prints of well-known locations for the rest of his life. His final series of prints was the ‘Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji’ (Fuji Sanjū-rokkei 富士三十六景), produced for the publisher Kichizō (Kōeidō) from around 1858 to 1859. It was made in conjunction with Hiroshige’s pupil, Hiroshige II, and indeed was probably finished by him after Hiroshige’s death in 1858.

The subject of Mount Fuji, shown in different seasons and weather conditions from a variety of different places and distances, had already been made popular by Katsushika Hokusai in his famous series of 1830–1833, the ‘Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji’ (Fugaku sanjū-rokkei) and later in his book One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei). Hokusai himself was probably influenced by an earlier illustrated book entitled One Hundred Fujis (Hyaku Fuji), written by Kawamura Minsetsu in 1767. The notion of a set of 36 was a traditional format, referring back to the group of 36 revered poets selected in the early twelfth century as models of Japanese poetic ability.

Hiroshige had himself already produced a version of the 36 views of Fuji in small horizontal format at the end of 1852, and Mount Fuji also featured in many of his views of Edo and views along the Tōkaidō. However, this final series devoted entirely to the sacred mountain was designed in vertical format. This allowed him to show off the bold compositional skills he had developed in the 1850s, in particular his fondness for balancing foreground elements with landscape backgrounds.

The Sagami River (Sagamigawa さがみ川)
Series: Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji
Date: 1858
Colour woodblock print
Presented by Mrs Allan and Mr and Mrs H. N. Spalding, 1952 EAX.4384
© Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
This print is unusual within this particular series for its focus on human activities, as two men punt log-rafts along the river. Hiroshige has layered multiple visual planes in this composition, starting with the egret and reeds at the front, and ending with Fuji at the back. This device creates a sense of depth in the composition without resorting to Western linear perspective. The column of smoke from the fire divides the print vertically and the unexpected colours evoke a bright spring morning. This print was famously included in the background of van Gogh’s 1887 oil portrait of Père Tanguy.

Mount Fuji, an active volcano that last erupted in 1707, is the highest mountain in Japan at 3776m. It has long been praised by poets and depicted by artists for its beautiful shape and sacred status. In June 2013, it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage cultural site in recognition of the way in which it has ‘inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries’. Fuji is located just 70 miles from Hiroshige’s hometown of Edo (modern-day Tokyo) and on a clear day can be seen from many points in the city. It was also visible from many parts of the Tōkaidō Road that linked Edo with the ancient capital of Kyoto.

Mountains have traditionally been considered sacred in Japan, thought of as homes to spirits and gods, and by the seventh century Mount Fuji was being worshipped by wandering ascetic monks who climbed the mountain as a form of worship. By the early 1600s a Fuji cult, known as Fuji Shinkō, had developed in Edo. The Fuji Shinkō, which combined elements of Buddhist and Shinto belief, believed that Fuji protected Edo and the prosperity of the whole country, and established organizations of Fuji worshippers to provide rituals, prayers and pilgrimage practices for their members. These Fujikō groups, as they were called, were also responsible for the construction of a number of artificial Fuji-shaped hills in parks throughout Edo. These ‘mini-Fujis’ allowed citizens unable to travel to the actual mountain the chance to make substitute pilgrimages, or simply to enjoy them as a kind of theme park. There were ten of these replicas in Edo in Hiroshige’s day and he depicted them in several of his prints. Many purchasers of printed views of Fuji may have belonged to branches of these Fuji associations, which had around 70,000 members in Edo in Hiroshige’s day. One branch was led by a leading publisher of the early nineteenth century, Nishimuraya Yohachi (Eijudō), who produced several of Hiroshige’s print series (although not this one).

The Sea at Satta in Suruga Province (Suruga Satta kaijō 駿河薩多海上)
Series: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji
Date: 1858
Colour woodblock print
Presented by Mrs Allan and Mr and Mrs H. N. Spalding, EAX.4387
© Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Here Mount Fuji is framed by a giant curling wave in the foreground. The design recalls Hokusai’s famous depiction of Fuji, commonly known as ‘The Great Wave’. Hiroshige’s version is calmer and more detached. The water has been printed with great sophistication, with three different shades of blue contrasting with the white wave crests, which in turn harmonize with the white peak of Mount Fuji in the background. The marks of the baren printing tool are clearly visible on the slopes of the mountain.

Gallery 29 | Admission Free

2016 is the Year of the Monkey according to the traditional Chinese lunar calendar. While the lunar calendar and its twelve zodiac animals are distinct to East Asia, images of monkeys feature in the mythology, folklore, art and literature of many cultures around the globe.

This exhibition, drawn from the Ashmolean’s collections of Asian art, celebrates the Year of the Monkey by showing images of monkeys from across Asia. It includes depictions of monkeys in their natural environment and highlights two of the mythical monkey figures best known outside Asia: the Monkey King of Chinese literature and the Hindu monkey warrior Hanuman.

Monkeys in the wild

There are many different species of ape and monkey native to the forests and mountains of Asia, ranging from baboons in the Arabian Peninsula to orangutans in the rainforests of Borneo, long-armed gibbons in China and India, and many varieties of macaque across the whole region. They are widely celebrated in poetry and literature and represented in art.

Ohara Koson (1877–1945), Monkey on a willow branch
Japan, colour woodblock print, 1900, EA1989.177
This print shows a Japanese macaque, a species of monkey that is native to Japan. Ohara Koson was a prolific printmaker, best known for his depictions of birds and flowers. Especially in his early work, Koson’s prints had a very painterly feel. When this print was made around 1900, Japanese prints were made by division of labour; Koson was the print designer who worked with blockcutters and printers under the direction of a publisher.
© Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Monkey King

The Monkey King is the main character in the famous Chinese novel, Journey to the West. First published in the 1500s and attributed to the author Wu Cheng’en, the tale also became enormously popular in Japan. It relates how the Monkey King, after being cast out of heaven, redeems himself by helping the Tang dynasty monk Xuanzang on his pilgrimage to India in search of sacred Buddhist texts. The Monkey King is accompanied by his companions, Pigsy and Sandy and the Dragon Prince, who transforms himself into a white horse for Xuanzang to ride on.

From a set of nine papercuts showing scenes from Journey to the West
China, cut paper, 1980s
The papercut is a distinctive Chinese visual art form, in which artists cut detailed designs in paper using scissors or engraving knives. This set of papercuts depicts characters from the Chinese novel Journey to the West, attributed to Wu Cheng’en (1505–1580). In this tale the Tang Buddhist monk Xuanzang (602–664) and his four disciples, Monkey King, Pigsy, Sandy and the Dragon Prince (disguised as a white horse), head westward in search of scriptures. The Monkey King, also called Sun Wukong, possesses superhuman powers and can travel great distances through the air riding on the clouds.
Presented by John Gittings, ea2008.42.d
© Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839 – 1892), The monkey Son Gokū with the rabbit in the moon (Songokū gyokuto), From the series ‘One Hundred Aspects of the Moon (Tsuki hyaku sugata)’
Japan, colour woodblock print, 1889
Here the Monkey King is dramatically framed against an enormous moon. In the background is the ‘Jade Rabbit’, which the Japanese see in the moon’s markings, instead of a ‘man in the moon’. As there is no myth that involves these two characters together, it seems to be Yoshitoshi’s idea to bring them together. This series of 100 prints was one of Yoshitoshi’s final works. The subjects, linked only by the presence of the moon in each print, are drawn from various sources in Japanese and Chinese history and literature, Kabuki and Nō theatre.
Presented in memory of Derick Grigs, EA1971.170
© Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Hanuman

One of the most popular Hindu gods is Hanuman the Monkey, in some tales described as a manifestation of Shiva. Revered for his bravery, strength, loyalty and dedication to justice, Hanuman’s heroic exploits are told in the great Hindu epic Ramayana, in which he is depicted as a warrior fighting for King Rama against the evil demon king Ravana. He is also mentioned in several other texts. Some scholars believe that Hanuman mythology might be the origin of the Chinese Monkey King story.

Hanuman sets fire to Lanka with his tail, Ravi Varma Press, Bombay and Lonavla, India
Chromolithograph, Early 1900s
The heroic Hanuman went to spy out Ravana’s fortress of Lanka, secretly visiting Rama’s wife Sita in captivity. He was then caught and Ravana’s son wrapped his tail in an oiled cloth and set it alight. But Hanuman escaped and set the city ablaze as he flew off. The Ravi Varma Press greatly popularised the work of the painter Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906), who interpreted Hindu mythological scenes in a Europeanised academic style. The eye-catching mass-produced prints deriving from his paintings became widespread in 20th century India, adorning households, shops and tea-houses. Gift of the Church Missionary Society, EA1966.52.113
© Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

The Chinese lunar calendar

China and other East and Southeast Asian countries have traditionally used a lunar calendar. This calendar is composed of a repeating twelve-year cycle, with each year corresponding to one of twelve zodiac animals (rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig). Each zodiac animal is believed to represent particular characteristics and people born in a certain year are believed to take on these characteristics. People born in the Year of the Monkey are thought to be lively, intelligent, sociable and at times self-centred.

Monkey King Opera mask, From a set of ten papercuts depicting Beijing opera masks
1980s, dye on cut xuan paper
This papercut shows the Monkey King in the facial make-up of the Beijing opera. The Monkey King is a very popular character in Beijing opera – a type of traditional theatre integrating music, performance, literature and face-painting which rose to prominence in the late 1700s is portrayed as an intelligent, righteous, brave and faithful figure, inaugurating the auspicious tidings of the year of the monkey.
Presented by John Gittings, EA2008.53.j
© Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Gallery 29, until 5 June 2016

‘Tokyo Station’, Onchi Kōshirō (1891–1955), 1945
Presented by Christopher Dyment, EA2015.28 © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

The spring 2016 exhibition in the Ashmolean’s Eastern Art Prints and Paintings gallery highlights a set of fifteen Japanese woodblock prints published in December 1945, just after the end of World War II. During the war, Tokyo suffered serious bomb damage and the series shows nostalgic views of famous places in Tokyo as they appeared before the wartime air raids. Half of the prints had already been published in the late 1920s, after the Great Kanto Earthquake devastated Tokyo in 1923, and were reworked for this series; the views depicted are therefore doubly nostalgic.

The prints were published with both Japanese and English titles in order to appeal not just to Japanese audiences but also to the Allied Occupation forces stationed in Japan at the time. It is thought that the title ‘Scenes of Last Tokyo’ may in fact have been a mistake for ‘Scenes of Lost Tokyo’. It is worth noting that the artists’ statement accompanying the portfolio, which contains a heartfelt expression of loss at the destruction of Tokyo and of nostalgia for Japan’s imperial past, appears only in Japanese.

The nine artists who collaborated on this portfolio all belonged to the Sōsaku Hanga (Creative Print) movement. This art movement emerged in the early 1900s, emphasizing the importance of individual artistic expression. Creative Print artists insisted on designing, cutting and printing their own work, unlike traditional Japanese ukiyo-e print designers, who worked with skilled block cutters and printers under the direction of commercial publishers. The main catalyst for the modernization of Japanese prints came from the West. Japanese artists were by now very well informed about international art movements, with many artists travelling abroad and numerous art magazines introducing works by Western printmakers such as William Nicholson, Félix Valloton and Edvard Munch. As a result, not all Creative Prints were particularly technically accomplished; far more important to their makers was the act of creating an original work of art.

EA2015.27 ‘Night of Shinjuku’, Maekawa Senpan (1888–1960), 1945
Presented by Christopher Dyment, EA2015.27 © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

‘Scenes of Last Tokyo’ was presented to the Ashmolean Museum in 2015 by Christopher Dyment, a long-time collector of Sōsaku Hanga Creative Prints.  The prints are complemented in the exhibition by a display of four artists’ books, selected from a set of nine volumes published between 1941 and 1943 to commemorate ten years of publishing by the art publishers Aoi Shobō. Entitled ‘Collection of Nine ‘Window of Writing’ Print Albums (Shosō hanga-chō jūren-shū), this set contains works by many of the leading Sōsaku Hanga artists of the day, including five of the artists who contributed to the ‘Scenes of Last Tokyo’ series. Each book contains ten works, accompanied the artist’s own text.

Clare Pollard, Curator of Japanese Art

Click HERE to purchase prints on demand from the Ashmolean shop.