Sculpture had always existed with great purpose in Japan, beginning in the Jomon period with cooking vessels decorated with chord-marking to tea bowls in the 16 th and 17 th centuries to the myriad of sculptures created in today’s culture. Sculpture also found its place of importance in the Meiji period. Beginning in 1868, the Meiji period lasted until 1912. During this time, sculpture had renewed social recognition and sculptural works were created in large quantities through the influence of the government, because of the artists of the time, and with the help of western influences.

            Art during the Meiji period, including sculpture, receive vast amounts of support from the Japanese government. In 1893, the government subsidized production costs to increase the monetary support for the artists. In 1907, the Art Exhibition of the Ministry of Education, also known as the Bunten, was the first exhibition under government auspices and held works by newer artists, both traditional and radical in nature, meant to encourage young artists reach their full potential. This exhibition was then held annually until 1947. Also in 1907, the Tokyo Industrial Exhibition was held which continued the tradition of Domestic Cultural Expositions (Earle, 23). Japan also began attending every major show in the world. “When the Meiji government first began to participate in international expositions [their artists’ work] made an immediate and profound impression on foreign observers and attracted much favorable comment” (36). Also, education was made mandatory and by the end of the Meiji period there was ninety-eight percent attendance in schools as a result of social reform (Smith, 257). This brought great support to the Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko (or the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music) as well as a great many other schools. The government also worked hard to “balance production for domestic use as well as for export” of art and sculpture (Smith, 290) which greatly effected the Meiji artists.

            The artists of this period could typically be placed in one of five categories: Netsuke masters, who created small craft-like images; makers of festival dolls or hina ningyo; court artists, who typically worked architecturally; Buddhist masters; and teachers or professors in Japanese universities (The Dictionary of Art). The most popular of these artists tended to be those that were considered to be progressive, including: Asakura Fumio (1883-1964), Tatehata Taimu (1880-1942), Ogiwara Morie, Yamazaki Choun (1867-1954), and Yonehara Unkai. The majority of these artists were considered to have a western style and their works did not convey a strong consciousness of Japan, instead they were heavily influenced by the west (Artists of the World, 81). Many of these artists including Ogiwara Morie traveled to Europe and the United States to study. The sculptures of this time were typically created using bronze or wood. And often times bronze was used for incense burners, vases, basins, figures, jars, and cabinets (Earle, 100-113). Also, “with the advent of Meiji rule, Buddhist sculptors, who had received subsidies in the past, found themselves without a livelihood for the new government placed its faith in science and social reform,” and turned toward the more commercial ideals of the west when it came to art (Seiroku, 192). Most Buddhist sculptors chose other occupations of created things commercially, like dolls or toys.

            These western influences mostly came from Europe and the United States, as opposed to the earlier western influence of China, thanks to the world exhibitions. In the late nineteenth century, French sculpture was popular through the works of Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel, one of Rodin’s more famous students. Rodin was the most successful and influencial sculptor in all of Europe during this time. He was interested in stylizing the human body for expressive purposes, not much unlike the expressive quality of Asakura Fumio’s The Suspended Cat, where suspended in midair the cat’s frustration and discomfort can be clearly seen, and Evolution, where the human form is used expressively to convey the closeness of the human connection and the way the bodies seem to grow out of the earth from a wide base to a point is a symbol of evolution. Much like Japanese sculpture during the Meiji period, European sculptures were also made largely out of bronze, including Claudel’s The Waltz, and Henri Matisse’s La Serpentine. Launched in the early 1890’s, Art Nouveau was also a huge European influence that found its way into the world exhibitions. It “permeated all aspects of European art, architecture and design” and it “sought new aesthetic forms that would retain a preindustrial sense of beauty while also appearing fresh and innovative” (Stokstad, 1041). This was not unlike the sculpture of Asakura Fumio and his contemporaries, in that their work, especially Asakura Fumio’s, was fresh and progressively innovative, but was also created purely for a sense of beauty. And when Japan began to industrialize, adopting capitalism and many other western ideas, the people then began to realize that they were actually creating a new culture based on their past, but also keeping in step with their present ideals, much like the principals of Art Nouveau (Yamada, 568).

            Without these western influences, the talented artists of the time, and the Japanese government’s support and influence, the art of the Meiji period would not have been the same. It was a period of great reform in Japan and there were “many competing visions of what constituted Japanese art and architecture and who should have the authority to shape its course” (Guth, 16). Also, it is important to keep in mind that this modernization was not simply about proving that the new way of art was better than the old, but it was a kind of self-conscious process, because it seemed that the whole world was watching.

The Waltz, by Camille Claudel. 1892-1905. Bronze, height 25cm. Neue Pinakothek, Munich.