Maximum embodiment : yōga, the western painting of Japan, 1912-1955

__Maximum Embodiment__ presents a compelling thesis articulating the historical character of Yoga, literally the “Western painting” of Japan. The term designates what was arguably the most important movement in modern Japanese art from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Perhaps the most critical marker of Yoga was its association with the medium of oil-on-canvas, which differed greatly from the water-based pigments and inks of earlier Japanese painting. Yoga encompassed both establishment fine art and avant-gardist insurgencies, but in both cases, as the term suggests, it was typically focused on techniques, motifs, canons, or iconographies that were obtained in Europe and deployed by Japanese artists. Despite recent advances in Yoga studies, important questions remain unanswered: What specific visuality did the protagonists of Yoga seek from Europe and contribute to modern Japanese society? What qualities of representation were so dearly coveted as to stimulate dedication to the pursuit of Yoga? What distinguished Yoga in Japanese visual culture? This study answers these questions by defining a paradigm of embodied representation unique to Yoga painting that may be conceptualized in four registers: first, the distinctive materiality of oil paint pigments on the picture surface; second, the depiction of palpable human bodies; third, the identification of the act and product of painting with a somatic expression of the artist’s physical being; and finally, rhetorical metaphors of political and social incorporation. The so-called Western painters of Japan were driven to strengthen subjectivity by maximizing a Japanese sense of embodiment through the technical, aesthetic, and political means suggested by these interactive registers of embodiment. Balancing critique and sympathy for the twelve Yoga painters who are its principal protagonists, __Maximum Embodiment__ investigates the quest for embodiment in some of the most compelling images of modern Japanese art. The valiant struggles of artists to garner strongly embodied positions of subjectivity in the 1910s and 1930s gave way to despairing attempts at fathoming and mediating the horrifying experiences of real life during and after the war in the 1940s and 1950s. The very properties of Yoga that had been so conducive to expressing forceful embodiment now produced often gruesome imagery of the destruction of bodies. Combining acute visual analysis within a convincing conceptual framework, this volume provides an original account of how the drive toward maximum embodiment in early twentieth-century Yoga was derailed by an impulse toward maximum disembodiment. Content: ""Front Cover"" ""Contents"" ""Illustrations"" ""Acknowledgments"" ""Note on Translations and Names"" ""Introduction YÅ?ga, the Intercultural Art of Embodiment and Disembodiment"" ""Chapter 1 Strong Flesh at the Ready: Body and Self in Self-Portraiture"" ""Chapter 2 Accelerating the Heartbeat: Erotic Nationalism and the Japanese Nude"" ""Chapter 3 Creating Oriental Beauty: Chinese Passages to Imperial YÅ?ga"" ""Color plates (12)"" ""Chapter 4 The Feast of Fierce Massacre: Maximum Disembodiment"" ""Epilogue The Collapse of YÅ?ga Embodiment"" ""Notes"" ""Selected Bibliography""""Index"" ""About the Author"" ""Back Cover "" Front Cover 1 Contents 8 Illustrations 10 Acknowledgments 14 Note on Translations and Names 18 Introduction Yōga, the Intercultural Art of Embodiment and Disembodiment 20 Chapter 1 Strong Flesh at the Ready: Body and Self in Self-Portraiture 44 Chapter 2 Accelerating the Heartbeat: Erotic Nationalism and the Japanese Nude 82 Chapter 3 Creating Oriental Beauty: Chinese Passages to Imperial Yōga 119 Color plates (12) 130 Chapter 4 The Feast of Fierce Massacre: Maximum Disembodiment 159 Epilogue The Collapse of Yōga Embodiment 194 Notes 200 Selected Bibliography 226 Index 238 About the Author 250 Back Cover 252 Introduction : Yōga, The Intercultural Art Of Embodiment And Disembodiment -- Strong Flesh At The Ready : Body And Self In Self-portraiture -- Accelerating The Heartbeat : Erotic Nationalism And The Japanese Nude -- Creating Oriental Beauty : Chinese Passages To Imperial Yōga -- The Feast Of Fierce Massacre : Maximum Disembodiment -- Epilogue : The Collapse Of Yōga Embodiment. Bert Winther-tamaki. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Presents a compelling thesis articulating the historical character of Yoga, literally the "Western painting" of Japan. Balancing critique and sympathy for the twelve Yoga painters who are its principal protagonists, this investigates the quest for embodiment in some of the most compelling images of modern Japanese art. Book annotation not available for this title. Title: Maximum Embodiment Author: Winther-Tamaki, Bert Publisher: Univ of Hawaii Pr Publication Date: 2012/01/31 Number of Pages: 217 Binding Type: HARDCOVER Library of Congress: 2011032951