Namban Art

Questa tesi si propone di illustrare le influenze che il Giappone subì, tra XVI e XVII secolo, a seguito dell’ingresso dei portoghesi e di altri europei nel paese. I portoghesi furono infatti i primi europei ad entrare in contatto col popolo nipponico in un momento in cui le due civiltà vantavano grossomodo lo stesso livello di sviluppo tecnologico e culturale. Furono soprattutto i missionari gesuiti ad operare nella terra del Sol Levante, portando avanti il loro tentativo di evangelizzazione che durerà quasi un secolo: un’eccezione nella storia delle relazioni tra Occidente e Giappone, in quanto nessun altro potrà godere di questo privilegio dal 1639 al 1854, periodo in cui il Giappone proibì l’ingresso di qualsiasi straniero al suo interno.
Per mostrare quali furono le influenze che seguirono a questo primo contatto, si partirà dando, nel I capitolo, una panoramica del contesto storico in cui portoghesi e missionari si ritrovarono ad operare, per passare poi ad un resoconto abbastanza dettagliato delle vicissitudini dei missionari in Giappone. Nel II capitolo verranno riportate le preziose testimonianze sul Giappone di Fernão Mendes Pinto, commerciante e avventuriero portoghese vissuto nel XVI secolo, il quale nella sua opera, la Peregrinação, dà uno spaccato molto vivido e interessante dei giapponesi e di alcune loro usanze. Infine, nell’ultimo capitolo verranno illustrati nel dettaglio tutti i campi in cui la cultura nipponica venne influenzata da quella portoghese/europea. Nello specifico, si vedrà quali furono le influenze passeggere e quali quelle che invece perdurarono nel tempo, rintracciando i principali canali di comunicazione tra le due culture. Infine, si cercherà di individuare le motivazioni per cui l’evangelizzazione del Giappone fallì.

Namban screens, a well-known Japanese art form, were painted by skillful Japanese artists from the late 16th century to the 17th centuries.  Approximately 90 of these screens have been handed down up to the present.  Not only they show some important historical scenes of European commercial activities in the Far East for the first time, but they also depict representational pictures of Portuguese ships during the Age of Discovery.  Although the ships’ images on the screens are roughly acceptable, the details are often strangely anachronistic.  The same images could be found in some Western maps in the 16th century.  Judging from the similarity, perhaps, Japanese painters, who had never seen actual ships themselves in ports, did manage to copy the images from ones on those maps, which were brought to Japan by the well known Tensho embassy.  This was the first Japanese embassy that was sent to Europe; the diplomats left Japan in 1582 and arrived at Portugal in 1584. They met with Pope Gregory XIII and his successor, Pope Sixtus V, in Rome, and then returned back to their homeland in 1590.  In the following year the embassy members succeeded in seeing Hideyoshi Toyotomi, who was the leading political ruler in Japan at that time.  They gave him some souvenirs from Europe, including the maps.  It seems that some official court painters had a chance to see those gifts, from where Japanese artists could have obtained an idea of the ships’ images that appear in the Namban Screens.

In response to the arrival of Iberian traders and missionaries on the Japanese archipelago in the sixteenth century, local craftsmen developed a unique type of lacquer, called nanban, for European export. They adapted traditional techniques to produce chests, writing desks, reliquaries and oratories for this new peripatetic clientele. This paper explores the assimilation of East Asian lacquered objects within the Iberian world, treating the physical and ontological transformations that occurred as they travelled throughout the vast Iberian mercantile empire in the Indo-Pacific.
The development of new descriptive terms for lacquer in Spanish and Portuguese reflected the deeper challenge of integrating foreign craft techniques and materials with local paradigms of taste in a globalizing empire. This paper emphasizes the visual language of ornamental surface in the cross-cultural context: traditionally used for coating sacred objects in East Asia, lacquer also became a painterly ground for Iberian ritual artifacts.  The very portability of such lacquered objects engendered new realms of artistic experimentation. Like the layered quality of lacquer itself, these mobile works served as vehicles of material assemblage and hermeneutic accumulation, gathering new receptions and identities and as they traveled through the Pacific networks. Greater attention to cross-cultural craft practice in the decorative arts can reveal these encounters of distant artistic traditions on a single material surface.

Abstract: Traditionally, nanban art has been seen as a simple product of exchanges between Japan, Portugal and Spain. The historiography tends to solely focus on artistic contributions of the Society of Jesus due to the foundation of a painting school in Japan. Thereby, the relevance of the Indo-Portuguese route in the cross-cultural history has been emphasized. However, the research advances of the last decades identify that nanban works consist of artistic inheritances from diverse regions of the world which were connected through the Portuguese and Spanish transoceanic routes. Similarly, Japanese nanban art influenced the artistic productions on the other side of the world. In summary, nanban art cannot be understood without taking into account its global implications. This paper clarifies the changes in epistemological understanding of nanban art, and its redefinitions through a historiographical review. This work also shows the important role of Spanish America in the artistic exchange mechanisms; these interactions occurred reciprocally. Therefore, the New World was one of the regions where Japanese art significantly influenced local productions. To exemplify this phenomenon, we address the influence of nanban art on the mural painting The great martyrdom of Japan in 1597 in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico.

Resumen: Tradicionalmente, el arte namban ha sido visto como un simple producto de intercambios entre Japón, Portugal y España. La historiografía tiende a centrarse únicamente en las contribuciones artísticas de la Compañía de Jesús por establecer una escuela de pintura en Japón. De este modo, se ha enfatizado la relevancia de la ruta indo-portuguesa en la historia intercultural. Sin embargo, los avances de investigacion en las ultimas décadas identifican que las obras namban se conforman de herencias artisticas de diversas regiones del mundo que estaban conectadas a traves de las rutas transoceanicas portuguesa y espanola. De igual modo, el arte namban japones influyo en las producciones artísticas del otro lado del mundo. En resumen, el arte namban no puede entenderse sin tener en cuenta sus implicaciones globales. Este articulo dilucida los cambios en la comprensión epistemologica del arte namban y sus redefiniciones mediante una revision historiografica. Tambien resalta la importancia de America hispanica en los mecanismos de intercambio artistico. Estas interacciones se dieron de manera mutua, ya que el Nuevo Mundo es una de las regiones donde el arte japones tuvo una influencia significativa en las producciones locales. Para ejemplificar este fenomeno, este trabajo aborda la influencia del arte namban en la pintura mural El gran martirio de Japon en 1597 en Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico.

Abstract  | Among the multiple influences and sources of inspiration that may have sparked the development of the art of Pasto varnish, this paper focuses particularly on those belonging to the Japanese export lacquer known as namban style (c.1580-c.1630). For that purpose, we analyze a Pasto varnish coffer featuring interesting iconographies and inscriptions, and we investigate the possible influences of Japanese lacquer and the erudite world of emblems and moralizing books —widely developed in Spain throughout the sixteenth and seventieth centuries— in the art of Pasto varnish. To complete the iconographic analysis, we examine images based on the Quechua culture, and more specifically, the Amaru serpent. A comparative method was used, since it allowed us to establish two types of parallels: on the one hand, to contrast the techniques and decorative motifs of the namban lacquer with the Pasto varnish; and on the other, to compare the inscriptions and images of the Pasto varnish with Spanish images and emblems dating back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The study highlights the fact that the Pasto varnish is representative of the great capacity of the American viceroyalties to absorb different cultures, thus demonstrating that —at the material level, in this case— they were a consequence of the fusion between European, Asian and Indigenous cultures that took place in the New World. We conclude that, in spite of the absence of documentary evidences of settlements of varnish artisans in the central Andes and of the styles cultivated there, the Pasto varnish coffer analyzed —bearing the image of Amaru— is as a significant proof that could lead to future in-depth research about the possible presence and elaboration of this mixed technique in the aforesaid region.

Resumen | Dentro de los múltiples influjos y fuentes de inspiración que pudieron existir para el desarrollo del arte del barniz de Pasto, este estudio se centra en identificar en él las huellas presentes del estilo namban, un tipo de laca japonesa de exportación (ca. 1580- ca. 1630). En esa medida, al analizar una arqueta de barniz de Pasto adornada con unas iconografías e inscripciones muy singulares, se indagan por los posibles influjos de la laca japonesa y del erudito mundo de los emblemas y libros moralizantes —desarrollados ampliamente en España durante los siglos XVI y XVII— en el arte del barniz de Pasto. Para completar el análisis iconográfico también se tuvieron en cuenta las imágenes basadas en la cultura quechua, en concreto, la de la serpiente Amaru. Tales averiguaciones se adelantaron mediante el método comparativo, ya que este permitió establecer dos tipos de paralelos: por un lado, contrastar las técnicas y motivos decorativos de la laca namban con los del barniz de Pasto; y por el otro, comparar las inscripciones e imágenes de este último con las imágenes y emblemas españoles de los siglos XVI y XVII. El estudio evidencia que el barniz de Pasto es representativo de la gran capacidad de los virreinatos americanos para absorber diferentes culturas, demostrando así que —a nivel material, en este caso— ellos fueron consecuencia de la fusión producida en el Nuevo Mundo entre la cultura europea, la asiática y la autóctona. El texto concluye que a pesar de la ausencia de evidencias documentales sobre los asentamientos de barnizadores en los Andes centrales y de los estilos cultivados allí, la arqueta analizada con la imagen de Amaru, se muestra como una prueba significativa para iniciar indagaciones a fondo sobre la posible presencia y elaboración de esta técnica mixta en dicha región.

Il presente lavoro di ricerca mira ad approfondire e arricchire, mediante nuove acquisizioni, lo studio in merito alle opere pittoriche di committenza gesuitica custodite presso le fondazioni palermitane dell'Ordine: chiesa del Gesù a Casa Professa, Collegio Massimo dei Gesuiti, chiesa di

Este ensaio visa focar-se numa análise literária, tendo em conta o conceito de ekphrasis e o poema Os Biombos Namban da autoria de Sophia de Mello Breyner Andersen e como estas se interligam. Como bibliografia passiva utilizar-se-á textos de apoio acerca da presença portuguesa no Japão, comprovando assim os traços culturais que lá foram deixados na época dos Descobrimentos e os que de lá se importaram para a cultura portuguesa, e de contextualização, como suporte de pesquisa e comprovação de ideias retiradas.

In response to the arrival of Iberian traders and missionaries on the Japanese archipelago in the sixteenth century, local craftsmen developed a unique type of lacquer, called today Nanban, for European export. They adapted traditional techniques to produce chests, writing desks, reliquaries and oratories for this new peripatetic clientele. This paper will explore the assimilation of East Asian lacquered objects within the Iberian world, treating the physical and ontological transformations that occurred as they travelled throughout the vast Iberian mercantile empire in the Indo-Pacific. The very portability of such lacquered objects engendered new realms of artistic experimentation. Like the layered quality of lacquer itself, these mobile works served as vehicles of material assemblage and hermeneutic accumulation, gathering new receptions and identities as they traveled through these Pacific networks and beyond.

Nanban byōbu, screen paintings depicting the arrivals of Europeans in late 16th - early 17th century Japan, constitute one of the most numerous genres of Japanese painting. Long admired for their visual accounts of the brief encounter between Japan and Europe in the age of exploration, Nanban screens have opened avenues of research for the study of genre painting, the Momoyama period, and the history of European maritime exploration and missionary activity in East Asia. This lecture will approach Nanban screens from the perspective of the history of early modern Japanese painting, addressing questions of artistic competition and collaboration and the thematic adjustments that underlay what these works of art say about their time and audience.

Per Namban Art si intende un’espressione artistica sorta in Giappone a metà del XVI secolo dall’incontro con la civiltà occidentale, a seguito della missione evangelizzatrice condotta da san Francesco Saverio, in cui elementi della tradizione figurativa occidentale si uniscono alle tecniche e ai materiali tipicamente orientali (come le lacche, la carta, etc.). Questo studio propone, nella fattispecie, un raffronto tra un esemplare di arte Namban appartenente al Fondo edifici di culto del Ministero dell'Interno, custodito nella residenza dei Gesuiti presso la chiesa del SS. Nome di Gesù all’Argentina, a Roma, e un altro ascrivibile al tardo manierismo siciliano, custodito nella chiesa del Gesù a Casa Professa, Palermo, opera di Giuseppe Spatafora jr. I dipinti in questione sono accomunati dal medesimo soggetto iconografico, ossia il martirio dei tre gesuiti giapponesi, Paolo Miki, Giacomo Kisai e Giovanni Soan di Gotò, proclamati compatroni della città di Palermo nel 1629.

This research aims to deepen and enrich, through new acquisitions, the study about the jesuitical paintings commission kept at the foundations of the Order in Palermo: Jesus church in Professed House, Collegio Massimo of the Jesuits, St. Stanislaus Kostka church and St. Francis Xavier church. Added to these are the paintings commissioned by the Company transferred to other locations. A further aim is to organize in a more organic way the discussion of artistic commissions of the Order in Palermo, which presented itself dispersed and fragmented. Among the most significant results includes the discovery of a series of frescoes, dating between the third and fourth decade of the seventeenth century and presumably by Orazio Ferraro from Giuliana S. J., in the Jesus church in Professed House. Another noteworthy finding concerns an eighteenth-century altarpiece attributed to Gioacchino Martorana, found in the same site. It should also be taken over the new proposal for the award of the frescoes placed along the side walls of the chapel of the Crucifix, always in the aforementioned church, previously attributed to Paolo Bramè and that, instead, the archive researches refute, attributing the authorship to Orazio Ferraro from Giuliana and his jesuit brother Giovanni Domenico Monastra. Unpublished iconographic comparisons, the result of research conducted between Spain and Portugal, reaching beyond the borders of Europe, by comparing the so-called Namban Art − artistic expression arose in Japan in the mid-sixteenth century by the encounter with Western civilization, following the evangelizing mission led by St. Francis Xavier − and the late sicilian mannerism. Unpublished documents kept at the A.R.S.I. (Archivum Romanum Societatis Jesu) help to shed light on a modus operandi that manifests its own peculiarities when it interfaces with local instances.