The Lens Within the Heart : The Western Scientific Gaze and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan

This work, I hope, is not an ordinary history of art: it is not a history ofordinary art. We are to be concerned with things that were viewed onlylightly in their own time. The project demands retrieval of what seemedfruitless or trivial in its own day, from popular storybooks to fairgroundgoods to brothel memorabilia. But the words of Isaac Titsingh, who was inJapan in the early 1780s, are to the point: if I “lead the reader to suppose theJapanese sink the more important matters in an ocean of frivolities,” then,“before he adopts so harsh a notion ... he ought to consider their presentsituation, and to acquire a smattering at least of their history.” More thantwo centuries later, the warning could not be more apt. Although ourconcern here is with the popular, that is things outside the purview ofauthoritarian institutions, the objects are not vain. My argument is, indeed,that the data furnished here were precisely at the core of later eighteenth-century thought. I make no claims to methodological originality in thisposition. Yet I do believe that what is offered here has not been attemptedbefore in the field of East Asian art. I cannot, of course, speak for my levelof success, but the project, I am convinced, has been worth the undertaking.Many of the documents presented here have not been studied since theywere written, and although I have greatly benefited from the work of otherpeople, there has also been much sailing in uncharted waters. The difficultyof reading some of the materials has been extreme, and occasional citationsbelow would assuredly have admitted of interpretations other than the onesI give them. But as Sugita Genpaku wrote when he published the ground-breaking treatise on European thought in 1774, “Reader, if there is anythinghere resistant to reasonable interpretation, then come, as long as I am yetliving, and dispute it with me.” Presenting a revised edition with a new preface of this important work, previously available only in hardback. It has long been assumed that Japan's closed country policy meant that Japan was isolated from the influence of the outside, and in particular the Western, world. However, this study of 18th century Japan, using sources wholly unstudied since their writing, reveals the profound influence that the introduction of Western technology and scientific instruments including glass, lenses and mirrors had on Japanese notions of sight, and how this change in perception was reflected most clearly in popular culture. Screech goes to the core of later eighteenth century thought through popular objects and the propositions which many considered groundbreaking on the book's first publication in 1996 have yet to be substantially challenged. "It has long been assumed that Japan's closed country policy meant that the country was isolated from the influence of the outside, and in particular, the western world. However, this study of 18th century Japan, using sources wholly unstudied since their writing, reveals the profound influence that the introduction of western technology and scientific instruments including glass, lenses and mirrors, had on Japanese notions of sight, and how this change in perception was reflected most clearly in popular culture. Screech offers interpretations of 18th century thought through popular objects, and makes propositions which many scholars considered groundbreaking on the book's first publication in 1996. The conclusions reached here have yet to be substantially challenged."--BOOK JACKET. A revised edition with a new preface of this important work, previously available only in hardback. Screech goes to the core of later eighteenth century thought through popular objects, using sources wholly unstudied since their writing.