12. Tadamasa Hayashi’s Dream: The First Wave of Impressionism in Japan

Kato​, Yukiko

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12. Tadamasa Hayashi’s Dream: The First Wave of Impressionism in Japan

Yukiko Kato

Globalizing Impressionism: Reception, Translation, and Transnationalism

Japan has been associated with many unfortunate episodes in the legacy of impressionism. During the Bubble Economy of the 1980s into the early 1990s, Japanese corporate leaders and entrepreneurs purchased large numbers of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings for...

Author

Yukiko Kato

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00198.016

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-20014

Chapter subject tags:JaponismHayashi, Tadamasa, 1853-1906Gogh, Vincent van, 1866-1911Impressionism (Art)--JapanImpressionism (Art)--FranceArt dealers--19th centuryArt--Collectors and collecting--Japan--19th centuryKōbu Bijutsu GakkōArt criticism--Japan--History--19th centuryKuroda, Seiki, 1866-1924Art--Public opinion--Japan--20th century

12. Tadamasa Hayashi’s Dream: The First Wave of Impressionism in Japan

Yukiko Kato

Japan has been associated with many unfortunate episodes in the legacy of impressionism. During the Bubble Economy of the 1980s into the early 1990s, Japanese corporate leaders and entrepreneurs purchased large numbers of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings for then unbelievably high prices. In a case capturing the attention of the international media, paper company president Ryōei Saito (1916–1996) created an uproar around the world when he boasted that, when he died, he intended to have masterpieces by Vincent van Gogh and Pierre-Auguste Renoir (purchased for over 10 billion yen each) buried with him.1 Tomoyasu Sato, Gōbatsu: Chihō Gōzoku no Network (Tokyo: Rippū Shobō, 2001), 181. However outlandish, this case would be significant for the late twentieth-century global market for French impressionism, since Japan acquired some of the world’s largest collections of this art at that time.

Among the most significant early museum collections of impressionism in Japan are the Ōhara Museum of Art (1930), the Bridgestone Museum of Art (1952), and the National Museum of Western Art (1959).2 The Bridgestone Museum of Art changed its name to the Artizon Museum in July 2019. From the 1970s onward, and coinciding with the economic boom in Japan, corporate collections began to invest in impressionist art, which they then gifted to new institutions such as the Hiroshima Museum of Art (1978) and the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum (1983), both of which already had French impressionist paintings and works on paper at the core of their collections. Public museums such as the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art (1978), the Museum of Modern Art, Saitama (1982), and the Yokohama Museum of Art (1989) also boasted large impressionist collections.

The popularity of French impressionism and post-impressionism in Japan has been attributed to the supposed proximity of these styles to Japanese aesthetics and traditional conceptions of beauty in nature.3 Taiji Kimura, Inshōha to iu Kakumei (Tokyo: Shueisha, 2012), 46–47. In tandem, impressionist and post-impressionist paintings tend to eschew the Judeo-Christian religious subjects that Japanese audiences often find difficult to appreciate from their typically non-monotheistic worldview. Yet such reasons fail to fully explain the exceptional love Japanese audiences have shown for impressionism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In fact, the reason so many people in Japan appreciate impressionist art may be attributed to viewers’ aspirations to Western culture, which continues to be considered refined and high class, and indeed branded as such. As early as the 1920s the reason so many Japanese middle-class collectors acquired impressionist art may be attributed to their desire for social “distinction,” as identified by Pierre Bourdieu.4 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction, trans. Richard Nice (London: Routledge, 2010), 49: “Thus, the aesthetic disposition is one dimension of a distant, self-assured relation to the world and to others which presupposes objective assurance and distance. It is one manifestation of the system of dispositions produced by the social conditioning associated with a particular class of conditions of existence when they take the paradoxical form of the greatest freedom conceivable, at a given moment, with respect to the constraints of economic necessity. But it is also a distinctive expression of a privileged position in social space whose distinctive value is objectively established in its relationship to expressions generated from different conditions. Like every sort of taste, it unites and separates.” For much of the twentieth century, impressionism acted as an “agent” in the struggle for class distinction. However, when impressionism first began to enter Japan, it was not so easily accepted. This is illustrated by the struggles of Tadamasa Hayashi (1853–1906), an art dealer who not only exported ukiyo-e to France at the end of the nineteenth century, but who also imported impressionism into Japan.

HAYASHI’S HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AS AN EXPORTER OF JAPANESE ART

Japan did not open its borders to foreign trade until after the U.S. fleet commanded by Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry arrived in 1854 and forced the Edo Bakufu government (1603–1867) to engage in international trade.5 Edo Bakuhu was the samurai government started by Ieyasu Tokugawa in Edo (Tokyo) in 1603. The government closed the country from 1639 to 1853. In this period, the government closed off international trade and prohibited Japanese citizens from leaving and foreigners from entering. Some mutual relations with Korea, China, and Holland were exceptions. In the history of art, the 1854 arrival of Perry has tended to be seen as crucial to artistic exchange between Japan and the West. As Edo Bakufu came to be replaced by the Meiji government (1868–1912), Western cultural influence started to be seen in Japan. Along with the opening of the country, Japanese elites increasingly felt threatened by the prominence of Western art and culture in their country. These insecurities led to the establishment of Bansho Shirabesho (Institute for the Study of Western Books). At the institute, research was also conducted on Western painting methods. When the Meiji government was instated, it established in 1876 the country’s first art school, named the Kōbu Bijutsu Gakkō.

Contemporaneous with the expanded study of and appreciation for Western art and culture in Japan, Europe was beset by a craze for Japanese art, which would soon be embraced by French avant-garde artists. Among the first indications of this new Japonisme was Édouard Manet’s inclusion of an ukiyo-e print in the background of his Portrait of Zola (1868).6 Katsumi Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha, 2007), 42–43. At this time of initial cultural exchange between Japan and the West, Tadamasa Hayashi was a small child growing up in the city of Takaoka in Ettchū (Toyama prefecture). Born in 1853, the year of Commodore Perry’s first voyage to Japan, Hayashi (birth name Shigeji Nagasaki) was the second son of Dr. Gentei Nagasaki. In 1870 he was adopted by Tachū Hayashi (1840–1916), a feudal retainer to the lord of Toyama prefecture, and his name was changed to Tadamasa Hayashi. In 1871 Hayashi entered the school of Hidetoshi Murakami, Japan’s first scholar of the French language.7 Yasuko Kigi, Hayashi Tadamasa to sono Jidai (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1987), 3–4.

In 1878 Hayashi accompanied the vice president of the Kiryū Koshō Kaisha (Kiryu Industrial and Commercial Company), Kanesaburō Wakai, for whom he acted as an interpreter, on a visit to that year’s Exposition universelle in Paris. He remained in Paris, and in 1884, together with Wakai, he formed the Wakai–Hayashi Shōkai art dealership, specializing in sales of Japanese art. Wakai was based in Japan and sourced art objects that Hayashi then sold to an elite French clientele. Edmond de Goncourt’s Journal first mentioned the dealers in an entry dated January 25, 1883, in which he commended their connoisseurial skills.8 Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt, Journal: Mémoires de la vie littéraire (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1989), 2:986 (January 25, 1883): “Il est, parmi les collectionneurs de japonaiseries, un prétentieux insupportable et un gobeur imbécile, c’est le nommé Gonse. Denièrement, il montrait un foukousa à Wakaï, en lui disant que le dessin étant d’Hokousaï. Quand les Japonais sont retors, ils le sont mieux que nous. Donc, Wakaï ne broncha pas devant l’assertion de Gonse. Il se livra seulement à un roucoulement guttural, dont la traduction faite par Hayashi était ceci: ‘En effet, Hokousaï avait fait des dessins pour des broderies. . . . Et maintenant, il se rappelait, ce n’était pas un foukousa qu’il avait inventé: c’était deux. . . .’ Le second, Gonse peut être sûr qu’il lui sera rapporté par Wakaï à son premier voyage au Japon! C’est ce Wakaï qui me proposait un sabre, dont la monture était composée de pantins en fer minuscule, très joliment articulés, et qui me faisait raconteur que ce sabre avait été fabriqué pour amuser un daïmio très célèbre tombé en enfance dans sa vieillesse.” From then, Goncourt mentioned Hayashi more than forty times (Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga, 128). Edmond de Goncourt first met Hayashi in 1878 and started their correspondence in 1884; see Yasuko Kigi and Mako Takatō, eds., Hayashi Tadamasa Ate Shokan Siryōshū (Tokyo: Sinzansha, 2003), 505. For more details about the relationship between Hayashi and Goncourt, see Brigitte Koyama-Richard, “Edmond de Goncourt–Hayashi Tadamasa: Regard sur une enrichissante correspondence,” Musashi Daigaku Jimbungakukai Zasshi 30, no. 4 (1999): 93–146; Brigitte Koyama-Richard, “Edmond de Goncourt-Hayashi Tadamasa Correspondance II,” Musashi Daigaku Jimbungakukai Zasshi 31, no. 3 (2000): 41–105; Brigitte Koyama-Richard, Japon rêvé: Edmond de Goncourt et Hayashi Tadamasa (Paris: Hermann, 2001). Following a move to the rue de Victoire at the center of Paris in 1885, the shop was successful enough to expand the initial exhibit space of the first floor to a larger area from the basement up to the fourth floor.9 Taketoshi Sadazuka, Umi wo Wataru Ukiyo-e: Hayashi Tadamasa no Shōgai (Tokyo: Bijutsu Kōronsha, 1981), 56.

At first, the Wakai–Hayashi Shōkai dealership handled Japanese antiques such as maki-e, lacquerware, ceramics, woodcarvings, and metal works. However, in light of the boom in ukiyo-e at the time in France, they soon added woodblock prints to their stock.10 Hayashi was very careful of his relationship with Siegfried Bing, who had been dealing in Japanese art since the 1870s. For example, see the Goncourt journal entry from September 30, 1891, which records that Hayashi declined to assist with Goncourt’s book on Hokusai, as it threatened Bing’s publication. See de Goncourt and de Goncourt, Journal, 3:630 (September 30, 1891): “Voilà mes études japonaises arrêtées! . . . Hayashi, auquel j’ai acheté follement ces années-ci et auquel même donné 300 francs sur les 1200 francs que m’a rapportés la publication d’OUTAMARO, m’a avoué qu’il lui était impossible de me donner des renseignements sur Hokusaï, parce que Bing préparait une étude sur cet artiste et que ses relations commerciales avec lui pourraient en souffrir.” Hayashi is estimated to have taken some 150,000 works of ukiyo-e overseas to sell.11 De Goncourt and de Goncourt, Journal, 3:246. His granddaughter, Yasuko Kigi, an art historian and novelist, has further noted that Hayashi’s brisk export of these prints made him the target of scurrilous criticism until recent years.12 Yasuko Kigi, “Hayashi Tadamasa to Nihon no Kindai,” Hayashi Tadamasa: Japonisme to Bunkakoryū (Tokyo: Brücke, 2007), 13.

When the magazine Paris illustré devoted a special edition to Japan (Le Japon) in May 1886, Hayashi contributed all the French texts introducing his native country, including items on its history, religions, art, and customs. He also designed the cover of the magazine, which carries the ukiyo-e of Eisen (famously copied by Van Gogh, who happened to be visiting Paris at the time, in his Courtesan of 1887) (figs. 1, 2). The magazine was popular enough that all twenty-five thousand copies were sold out.13 “Le Japon,” special issue, Paris illustré, May 1, 1886; Sadazuka, Umi wo Wataru Ukiyo-e, 73–126. Van Gogh’s Courtesan is now in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (F373).

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Description: Le Japon, cover of Paris Illustré by Unknown

Fig. 1. “Le Japon,” special issue, Paris illustré, May 1, 1886. Institut national de histoire de l’art, bibliothèque/Collections Jacques Doncet, Paris.

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Description: Courtesan (after Eisen) by Gogh, Vincent van

Fig. 2. Vincent van Gogh, Courtesan after Eisen, 1887. Oil on canvas, 105.4 × 60.3 cm (41 1/2 × 23 3/4 in.). Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

In addition to this special issue, Hayashi acted as a cultural consultant to Goncourt when the latter wrote his books on reputed ukiyo-e artists Kitagawa Utamaro (1891) and Katsushika Hokusai (1896).14 Atsushi Miura, “Nohon to Inshōha—France Kindaikaiga Collection to Nichifutsu Bunkakoryū,” in Nihon ga Aishita Inshōhaten Hōkokusho, ed. Atsushi Miura, Masato Satsuma, and Hiroshi Kumazawa (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Miura Atsushi Kenkyūshitsu, 2016), 25. In Utamaro, Goncourt praises Hayashi as “intelligent, knowledgeable, and kind” and acknowledges his help in the book’s publication.15 Edmond de Goncourt, Outamaro, Hokousaï (1891, 1896; repr., Paris: Union Général d’Éditions, 1986), 90. Here and elsewhere, unless otherwise indicated, translations are mine. Hayashi’s reputation and connections in France led the Japanese government to appoint him administrative minister for the Japanese pavilion at the 1900 Paris Exposition universelle, a role that involved coordinating an exhibition of Japanese art, including ukiyo-e and other media. In the same year Hayashi contributed to the book Histoire de l’art du Japon (1900),16 Tadamasa Hayashi (Commissaire general du Japon à l’Exposition universelle de 1900) et Baron Riyuitchi Kouki [Ryūitchi Kuki] (Directeur general du Musée Impérial), ouvrage publié par la Commission imperial du Japon. à l’Exposition universelle de Paris. (Tadamasa Hayashi [General Commissioner of Japan at the 1900 World Fair] and Baron Riyuitchi Kouki [Ryūitchi Kuki; General Director of the Imperial Museum], a work published by the Imperial Commission of Japan at the Universal Exhibition in Paris). demonstrating once again the crucial role he played in the development of Japonisme in Paris.17 The French version of the first complete history of Japanese art, Kōhon Nihon Teikoku Bijutsu Ryakushi (1901), was published for the Paris Exposition universelle in 1900. Hayashi wrote a short introduction exclusively for the French version. In the introduction, Hayashi talks about his pioneering efforts in finding French technical words for Japanese art as well as the existence of certain characteristics of Japanese art independent from other Asian countries. At first, the chief editor of the book was Tenshin Okakura, but in 1897 editorial supervision was shifted to the Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan. See Kigi and Takatō, Hayashi Tadamasa, 465–69.

From the mid-1880s on, Hayashi expanded the range of his commercial and scholarly activities to elsewhere in Europe as well as the United States. For example, in 1884 he was temporarily hired by the British government to classify Japan-related documents in the British Museum. Contemporaneous with this post, he was engaged as an advisor on Japanese artworks owned by the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Leid[en] Museum [sic], the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and the Art Institute of Chicago.18 Yasuko Kigi, Hayashi Tadamasa: Ukiyo-e wo koete Nihonbijutsu no subete wo (Tokyo: Minerva Shobō 2009), 93: Hayashi’s CV says: “Meiji 17(1884) nen ni eikoku seifu no syokutaku wo motte London no ryō hakubutsukan syozō no nihonhin wo seirisu, sonota Doitsu Hamburg hakubutsukan-chō, Oranda Leid hakubutsukan-chō, Belgium, Brussels hakubutsukan-sanji tou no isyoku wo uke, Nihonbijutsu-jō no torishirabe setsumei wo nasesino rui sukunakarazu. Mata, Beikoku Chikago Bijutsuin Hutchinson-shi to hakari, dōsho hakubutsukan-nai he Nihon bijutsuhin wo chinretsu seshimetari.” In short, Hayashi’s knowledge had won the respect of art institutions worldwide. Hayashi disseminated Japanese art across Europe. He sold artworks in Britain that did not find a ready market in France. In Britain, Sir John Rutherford Alcock, who was the first British diplomatic representative to live in Japan, showed his Japanese art collections in the London World Exposition in 1862. Since then, the country has held Japanese art in high esteem, which happened relatively earlier than in France.19 Kigi, Hayashi Tadamasa, 92–93.A large number of these unsold artworks were also bought by the German ethnographer Ernst Grosse (1867–1927), whose collections now occupy a central place at the Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, Cologne.20 Yasuko Kigi, ed., Hayashi Tadamasa Collection (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō, 2000), 5:105. In 1886 Hayashi bought Chinese art in Europe and the United States,21 Sadazuka, Umi wo Wataru Ukiyo-e, 54. and in 1893 the World’s Columbian Exposition appointed Hayashi to the post of curator of Japanese art.22 Kigi, Hayashi Tadamasa, 274f.

HAYASHI’S STRUGGLE IN AN UNFAVORABLE ERA FOR WESTERN ART IN JAPAN

In tandem with his work to introduce Japanese art to France, other European countries, and the United States, Hayashi began collecting Western art in the early 1880s. A motivating factor was a group of prints by the illustrator Paul Renouard (1845–1924) that Hayashi received from Louis Gonse (1841–1926) in return for his help with the latter’s book on Japanese art, L’art japonais (1883).23 Miura, “Nohon to Inshōha”; Akiko Mabuchi, “Hayashi Tadamasa no Seiyō Bijutsu Collection to Berthe Morisot,” in Hayashi Tadamasa: Japonisme to Bunka Koryū, ed. Tadamasa Hayashi Symposium Executive Committee (Tokyo: Brücke, 2007), 325. Gonse’s L’art japonais was one of the earliest research publications on Japanese art in Europe. He was also a chief editor of the magazine Gazette des beaux‐arts, which was a major wing of the Japonisme movement in France. In the 1890s Hayashi started more seriously and actively to assemble a collection of Western art—mainly French art—with the intention of creating a museum in Japan. While Hayashi’s dream of transforming his personal collection into a public museum of Western art remained just that, it marked a critical moment in the conception and later construction of such museums in Japan (including those aforementioned).

Included in Hayashi’s collection were works by Camille Corot and the Barbizon artists as well as Orientalist scenes by Jean-Léon Gérôme. Corot and the Barbizon artists laid the foundation for modern art collections, and indeed localized conceptions of impressionism, in other parts of the world as well, for instance, the Netherlands and Brazil as discussed in chapters 2 and 3 of this anthology. Yet the core of his collection would be works by the impressionists: paintings, pastels, watercolors, drawings, and prints by Manet, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Armand Guillaumin, and Mary Cassatt.24 Miura, “Nohon to Inshōha,” 25–26; Mabuchi, “Hayashi Tadamasa,” 325–49. Yasuko Kigi, ed., Hayashi Tadamasa Collection, vol. 4, Hayashi Tadamasa Shūshū Seiyō Kaiga Mokuroku [Catalogue of Western Painting] (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō, 2000). This catalogue—not for sale—was published in 1908. He especially adored landscapes and female portraits. But Hayashi’s appreciation for Western art sharply contrasted with more nationalist trends in Japan. From around 1880, Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908) and Tenshin (Kakuzo) Okakura (1862–1913) fomented patriotism in the arts that led to a move to reject Western art. In 1882, when the first Naikokukaiga Kyōshinkai national art exhibition was held, it was open only to Japanese-style paintings; those who submitted Western-style paintings (Yōga) were rejected.25 Tetsuo Ōga, ed., Nihon no Inshōha: Genshoku Nihon no Bijutsu (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1977), 5:143.

In 1883 the Kōbu Bijutsu Gakkō, the art school where oil-painting methods were first taught in Japan, closed, due in part to financial difficulties connected to the rise of nationalist sentiment. It was replaced by the Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkō (art college) (established in 1887 in the Ueno district of Tokyo), which did not have a Western-style oil-painting (Yōga) department until 1896. The belated introduction of this style of painting may be attributed to Tenshin Okakura’s position as the school’s principal in 1890 (Okakura resigned the position in 1898).

In the second half of the Meiji era, people began to criticize the Westernization movement and the so-called “Bunmei Kaika” (Civilization and Enlightenment) policy that had been promoted in the first half of the era. In 1894 the prominent poet and critic Tōkoku Kitamura warned against the dangers of Westernization, and in 1911 author Sōseki Natsume publicly regretted Bunmei Kaika. Leading thinkers like these then cautioned against blind acceptance of Western civilization.26 Hiroshi Minami, Taishō Bunka 1905–1927 (Tokyo: Keisō Shobō, 1987), 35–38.

According to Yasuko Kigi, Hayashi supported the Oni Seibatsu movement, which opposed the beliefs of the director of the Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan (Tokyo Imperial Museum), Ryūichi Kuki (the character “oni” [ogre, demon] in “Oni Seibatsu” is the same as the “Ki” in Kuki’s name).27 The Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan (Tokyo Imperial Museum) started in 1872, the first museum in Japan. Besides a few exceptions, this museum exclusively specializes in Japanese and Asian collections. Kuki followed the tenets of Fenollosa and Tenshin Okakura, namely that Western painting was not art appropriate for Japan, that it was destroying Japanese art, and that Japanese artists who studied Western-style oil painting were traitors to the nation.28 Kigi, “Hayashi Tadamasa,” 17. Kuki and his fellow nationalists had formed the Ryūchi-kai (Dragon Pond Society) in 1878 as a patriotic art society. In opposition to this society, in 1889 a group including many Japanese painters who had studied in Paris formed the Meiji Bijutsu-kai (Meiji Art Society) to promote the spread of Western-style oil painting. Hayashi supported the Meiji Bijutsu-kai, offering financial assistance to further Oni Seibatsu.29 Sadazuka, Umi wo Wataru Ukiyo-e, 190–91.

It is worth remembering that the Western oil paintings and watercolors shown in the exhibitions held by the Meiji Bijutsu-kai in the decade from 1889 to 1898 numbered a mere eighty-eight works.30 Miura, “Nohon to Inshōha,” 25. In short, there was not a sufficient supply of Western-style paintings to meet Japanese collectors’ already brisk demands for this type of art. For example, in 1889 the number of the supporting members who were not artists was eighty-three in July, and 134 in November. Hayashi was included among these members, though most of them were anonymous laypersons.31 Shigeru Aoki, ed., Kindai Nihon Art Catalogue 008 Meiji Bijutsukai (1890–98; repr., Tokyo: Yumani Shobō, 2001), 506. According to the exhibition catalogues of the society, most of the works shown in the society were Western-style paintings by Japanese painters.32 Among them, there are paintings by Takeshirō Kanokogi, Kunishirō Mitsutani, and Hōryū Goseda. See Aoki, Kindai Nihon Art Catalogue. However, there were a few exceptions, including, interestingly, Corot and Sisley.33 Aoki, Kindai Nihon Art Catalogue.

Not all within the Meiji Bijutsu-kai agreed with Hayashi. Masakazu Toyama—who was also a supporting member (sanjo kaiin) of the society—criticized Yōga in a lecture titled “Nihon Kaiga no Mirai” (The future of Japanese painting) on April 27, 1890. Toyama lambasted the Yōga paintings exhibited in the art division of the Naikoku Kangyō Hakurankai (Third National Industrial Exhibition) at Ueno Park, Tokyo as lacking color and vitality as well as proper themes based on Japanese culture.34 Masakazu Toyama, “Nihon Kaiga no Mirai” (May 1890), in Nihon Kindai Shisō Taikei 17, ed. Shūichi Kato (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1989), 122–52. For example, Toyama criticizes Naojirō Harada’s Kiryū Kannon (The kannon on a dragon) as a mere mimicry of Laocoön. Hayashi, who had temporarily returned to Japan, countered these complaints with a call to uphold Japanese Yōga painting in his lecture “Toyama Hakase no Enzetsu wo Yomu” (Reading Dr. Toyama’s lecture) on May 21, 1890.35 Shūichi Kato, Nihon Kindai Shisō Taikei 17, 153–66. Not all the members are supportive to Yōga painting. For more details about Toyama’s lecture, see Shino Kamei, “Shisōga toshiteno Jōkei: Toyama Masakazu ‘Nihon Kaiga no Mirai’ ni tsuite,” Hokkaido University Bungakubu Kiyo 46, no. 3 (March 1998): 1–82. While he did not return home from 1878 to 1886,36 Sadazuka, Umi wo Wataru Ukiyo-e, 108. starting in the latter year, he often traveled between France and Japan to buy Japanese art in his home country for his Paris gallery and to spur Japanese artists and collectors to take an interest in Western art.

In 1898 Hayashi, then in Japan, was called upon to lecture at a meeting of the Nihon Bijutsu Kyōkai (Japan Art Association), made up primarily of Ryūchi-kai members. On this occasion he bravely spoke out against the rejection of Western painting, accusing the Japanese art establishment of having erroneously labeled all things Western as unsophisticated. He further indicted the Nihon Bijutsu Kyōkai, insisting that Japanese artists would do well to study, see, and experience Western art with their own eyes.37 Tadamasa Hayashi, “Ronsetsu Paris Daihakurankai nitsuki Bijutsudan Hayashi Tadamasa-kun En,” Nihon Bijutsu Kyōkai Hōkoku 122 (May 1898): 16. In this way, Hayashi encouraged the Japanese public to first learn about Western art and art theory before denouncing them.

AN ERA OF UNPOPULARITY FOR IMPRESSIONISM

As for Western-style artists working in Japan, one of the leading Yōga painters, Seiki Kuroda, had worked in France for ten years before returning to Japan in 1893. In Paris, he could have seen some of the exhibitions of the impressionists. Kuroda had studied under the academic painter Raphaël Collin (1850–1916), who had been an apprentice of Alexandre Cabanel (1823–1889). From Collin, Kuroda had learned a bright, plein-air style, albeit one still distinctly different from impressionism.38 Hayashi rated impressionism highly; however, he was also a close friend of Collin. Collin wrote an introduction for the sales catalogue of Hayashi’s collection in 1913. For example, Kuroda’s Spring (1903) recalls Collin’s plein-air nudes, but the smooth finish, clear outlines, and allegorical theme are at odds with the impressionist aesthetic (fig. 3). Later, in 1916, Kuroda confessed that what he wanted to achieve in a work such as this was not a sketch but a painting.39 Seiki Kuroda, “Sketch ijōni susumitai: Dai 10 kai Bunten ni taisuru Kansō,” Bijutsu 1, no. 1 (November 1916): Kuroda Seiki, Master of Modern Japanese Painting: The 150th Anniversary of His Birth (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 2016), 36. Kuroda’s Wisdom, Impression, Sentiment (1899)—exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exposition universelle—was the culmination of such painting synthesizing Japanese traditional screen paintings (byōbu-e) and Collin’s academic style.

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Fig. 3. Seiki Kuroda, Spring, 1903. Oil on canvas, 104.8 × 65.8 cm (41 1/4 × 25 15/16 in.). Private collection.

Poet and playwright Mokutarō Kinoshita (1885–1919) described the relationship between Kuroda and impressionism, recalling that “long before this, Professor Seiki Kuroda had imported that new Murasaki school style [Kuroda’s plein-air style] from France.”40 Mokutarō Kinoshita quoted in Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 164. Japan’s Yōga painters—many of whose works are now commonly compared to French impressionism—would thus be led by Kuroda, who had actually trained under a French academic artist. Despite Kuroda’s embrace of painting en plein air, he did not actively advocate that Hayashi’s collection of impressionist artworks be retained for Japan.41 Kigi, “Hayashi Tadamasa,” 18.

The dislike that Kuroda and Collin had for impressionism was not something that would have interested the general populace in Japan, but among some of Japan’s literati there was knowledge of another fact that could have changed the map of the Japanese art world. The literati understood there still to be a tension between academicism and impressionism. In a 1905 edition of the art magazine Bijutsu Shinpō, Yōga artist Takeshirō Kanokogi (1874–1941) reported that Cabanel, Benjamin Constant, and Jules Laurens, all members of the French Academy and formerly regular exhibitors at the Paris Salon, despised the supposedly devilish impressionists.42 Takeshirō Kanokogi, “Gūkan (4) Yōgakai no Mōmoku,” Bijutsu Shimpō 3, no. 20 (January 1905), repr. in Nihon no Inshōha: Meijisue Taishōshoki no Yusaiga (Shimonoseki: Simonoseki City Museum 1999), 123. Kanokogi further dismissed Collin, by then elderly and outmoded, as a minor painter in the Salon and implied that Kuroda had followed the wrong person. Kanokogi also mocked the impressionists as “losers” (shippaisya), without clarifying which artists fell under the label “impressionism.” Through publications like these that disseminated information about the French art scene, even those far from France understood that a fierce opposition persisted between academicism and impressionism there.43 Kanoko, “Gūkan (4) Yōgakai no Mōmoku.”

Kanokogi as a painter venerated select French academic paintings while wholly disdaining impressionist works. Not all agreed with Kanokogi. The Japanese avant-garde poet and sculptor Kōtaro Takamura (1883–1956), who was a proponent of Auguste Rodin, perceived that Kuroda and Collin were different from the impressionists. Takamura stated that in 1910, “Kuroda was the first to bring impressionist elements of painting into Japan, it might be assumed that people, like his teacher Collin, were adamant advocates of that movement, but in fact they were not. Collin hated the Impressionists and supposedly became enraged when Kuroda and others of his school visited the gallery of Paul Durand-Ruel.” Takamura also pointed out that Kuroda and his fellow students later returned to Collin’s academicism, despite their exposure to Monet, Manet, Renoir, and Degas.44 Kōtaro Takamura, “France kara kaette,” Bungaku Sekai 5, no. 4 (March 15, 1910), repr. in Takamura Kōtarō Zenshū 4 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1995), 17–18. The fact that Kuroda and others such as Keiichirō Kume (1866–1934) had studied in France under Collin, maintained an allegiance to their former teacher, and then supported the rise of Yōga in Japan could be an important reason that impressionism was not accepted in Japan until after World War I.

Though impressionism and its influence remained contentious in Japan, as early as 1910 some already condemned it as an outmoded style of painting. As Katsumi Miyazaki has detailed, Monet’s name seldom appeared in print in the avant-garde art magazine Shirakaba. Instead, Shirakaba focused largely on introducing the post-impressionists Paul Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin, as well as Rodin.45 Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 181. In 1910, the same year that Takamura discussed the relationship between Kuroda and the impressionists, he explained that “impressionist” simply meant “modern things.” Yet Takamura and his colleagues now declared themselves to be interested in an even more modern art. While Monet’s paintings still looked beautiful, Takamura and, indeed, many artists and writers in Japan no longer considered Monet and the impressionists as part of the vanguard of modern art.46 Kōtarō Takamura, “AB HOC ET AB HAC,” Subaru 2 (February 1, 1910): 7. Takamura contributed an article titled “Midoriiro no Taiyō” (The green sun), which manifested his position as a post-impressionist who denied local colors. An artist such as Ryūzaburo Umehara (1888–1986), for example, studied in France under Renoir in 1908 but also made the acquaintance of Pablo Picasso and started visiting the latter’s studio in 1911.47 Hanako Shimada, ed., Umehara Ryūzaburō to Renoir (Tokyo: Chuōkōron Bijutsu Shuppan, 2010), 189. Umehara also collected avant-garde art, including works by Renoir but also by Cézanne, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Klee, and others who worked in broadly post-impressionist styles.48 Mitsubishi Ichigōkan Museum, Haikei Renoir Sensei (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Ichigōkan Museum 2016), 43. In his 1917 memoir of his time in Paris, Umehara recalls that, during his first visit to the Musée du Luxembourg in 1908, he was impressed only by Degas, Cézanne, and a few impressionists, and not by the other artists. His essays on Renoir from 1917 to 1939 mainly talk about Renoir’s later works around 1910. See Ryūzaburō Umeraha, “Tsuioku no Renoir,” in Shimada, Umehara Ryūzaburō to Renoir, 7–62. Renoir gave a small painting of roses to Umehara in 1913, when the latter traveled back to Japan (fig. 4). The rough touch and bright reds of this late impressionist painting may seem to be a departure from the artist’s earlier style—and, indeed, the treatment here may seem close to Umehara’s own paintings.

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Description: Roses by Renoir, Pierre-Auguste

Fig. 4. August Renoir, Roses, before 1913. Oil on canvas, 21.5 × 17.5 cm (8 7/16 × 6 7/8 in.). Ryūzaburō Umehara Collection.

THE DISPERSION OF THE HAYASHI COLLECTION

Around the turn of the twentieth century, the Japonisme craze in France that Hayashi had helped launch came to an end. The “Triple Intervention” by France, Germany, and Russia in the wake of the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) and the ensuing fear of the Yellow Peril—Western loathing for Asian peoples starting in the late nineteenth century and enduring beyond World War II—led Europe to regard Japan and its increased military might with caution and suspicion.

Following his time as administrative minister for the Japanese pavilion at the 1900 Paris Exposition universelle, Hayashi decided to leave Paris. On February 24, 1904, a farewell party was held among Japanese art collectors; the card of farewell messages sent to Hayashi included the names of Henri Vever, Siegfried Bing, Louis Gonse, and Raymond Koechlin, all of whom admired (and some of whom sold) Japanese art.49 Sadazuka, Umi wo Wataru Ukiyo-e, 268. In 1905 Hayashi repatriated to Japan, where he soon died from a stomach ailment.50 Kigi and Takatō, Hayashi Tadamasa Ate Shokan Siryōshū, 16; Akira Nakano, Maboroshino Godai Bijutsukan to Meiji no Jitsugyōka tachi (Tokyo: Shōdensha 2015), 272.

Hayashi had hoped that after his death the Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan would acquire his collection of Western art. But his dream was not to be realized—at least not fully.51 Kigi, Hayashi Tadamasa, 286. By the time Hayashi returned to Japan in 1905, his formidable collection included some six hundred works. In 1910 his family sold twenty-five pictures to the family of Marquis Maeda. Then, in 1913, in connection with the Nakayama Trading Company and the American Art Association, 165 works were auctioned in New York; 157 of these were eventually sold. The illustrated auction catalogue was published by the American Art Association in 1913.52 Illustrated Catalogue of the Important Collection of Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels, Drawings, and Prints, Collected by the Japanese Connoisseur, the Late Tadamasa Hayashi of Tokyo, Japan (New York: American Art Association, 1913). Copies of the catalogue are held in the archives of Artizon Museum (the former Bridgestone Museum of Art) and the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Writing in the catalogue foreword, Raymond Koechlin recorded that “T. Hayashi was . . . the only Japanese who really loved and understood the arts of Europe.”

Sold that fateful day were works of the caliber of Degas’s Bather Stepping into a Tub (c. 1890; “Baigneuse”: lot 85; fig. 5) for $3,100, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Renoir’s Portrait de Jeanne Samary (c. 1879–80; “Femme demi-nu”: lot 86) for $1,675; and Sisley’s Allée of Chestnut Trees (1878; “Allée sur fleuve”: lot 138; fig. 6) for $2,100, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the Havemeyers’ collection of French impressionist works also eventually hung.53 The auction prices can be seen in the digital collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which are written in pencil in the catalogue. In 1915 many of the remaining works were donated to the Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, thereby making Hayashi’s dream a partial reality (Mabuchi, “Hayashi Tadamasa,” 327). As the catalogue made clear, Hayashi especially appreciated impressionist landscapes and depictions of women. Although female nudes were then shocking to Japanese audiences, Hayashi collected a number of them. In Japan, especially before the Japanese ukiyo-e gained high esteem in Europe, ukiyo-e, notably Shunga (erotic ukiyo-e), was low art, which was sold for next to nothing, and never entered the field of high art.54 For Hayashi’s attitude toward Shunga, see Yasuko Kigi, Shunga to Inshōha: “Shunga wo utta Kokuzoku” Hayashi Tadamasa wo megutte (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 2015). This thread within his collection reveals Hayashi’s sincere appreciation for Western conventions of painting, including idealized and heroized nudes, much like his appreciation for naked courtesans in ukiyo-e prints.

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Description: Bather Stepping into a Tub by Degas, Edgar

Fig. 5. Edgar Degas, Bather Stepping into a Tub, c. 1890. Pastel and charcoal on blue laid paper, mounted at perimeter on backing board, 55.9 × 47.6 cm (22 × 18 3/4 in.). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. H. O. Havemeyer Collection, bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929.

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Description: Allée of Chestnut Trees by Sisley, Alfred

Fig. 6. Alfred Sisley, Allée of Chestnut Trees, 1878. Oil on canvas, 50.2 × 61 cm (19 3/4 × 24 in.). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Robert Lehman Collection, 1975.

The Japanese press lamented the 1913 auction as a national loss. Just before the 165 works from Hayashi’s collection were sent to New York, the circle involved with the avant-garde magazine Shirakaba reviewed the works and was deeply moved by their artistic quality. Member of the House of Peers Moritatsu Hosokawa (1883–1970) tried to purchase this part of Hayashi’s collection in its entirety, but Hosokawa’s offer came too late; the auction in New York had already ended.

The New York Times featured the auction prominently in an article titled “Hayashi Art Gems to Be Exhibited: Works of Renoir, Degas, and Monet in Late Japanese Connoisseur’s Collection in American Galleries,” published on November 30, 1912.55 “Hayashi Art Gems to Be Exhibited: Works of Renoir, Degas, and Monet in Late Japanese Connoisseur’s Collection in American Galleries,” New York Times, November 30, 1912: “One of the most interesting exhibitions of the season is to open Jan. 3 at the American Art Galleries. It will comprise the oil paintings, water colors, pastels, drawings, and prints collected by late Tadamasa Hayashi, the Japanese Connoisseur, who was Chief Commissioner for the Japanese Government, to the Exhibition Universelle, Paris, 1900. Hayashi was born in 1853 and studied French literature and politics with the purpose of engaging in public affairs. In 1883 he established an art firm in Paris and made his own collection of European masters with the purpose of affording the Oriental public an opportunity to become familiar with the Occidental art. His relations with the French Impressionists were extremely friendly, and as their pictures at the time were not in demand and their love of Japanese art was thoroughly awakened, exchanges were effected. Claude Monet and Degas gave paintings in return for prints and pottery and Moronobu albums. These paintings and many others he intended for Japan, but his death has caused them to be dispersed and Western collectors will have an opportunity to reclaim for this hemisphere many works of distinction and personal charms.” The article announced: “One of the most interesting exhibitions of the season is to open Jan. 3 at the American Art Galleries.” The anonymous author further highlighted Hayashi’s close relations with the French impressionists, explaining that the dealer-collector had “established an art firm in Paris and made his own collection of European masters with the purpose of affording the Oriental public an opportunity to become familiar with Occidental art.”56 “Hayashi Art Gems to Be Exhibited,” 8. Koechlin’s introduction to the auction catalogue further confirmed Hayashi’s close friendship with Monet and Degas, who had frequented his showroom.

Nevertheless, as Katsumi Miyazaki has explained, Hayashi’s collection was limited in scope: it included only one post-impressionist painting—Gauguin’s Côte rocheuse (1886)—and no works by Cézanne, Van Gogh, Georges Seurat, or the Nabis.57 Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 138. In short, those in Japan who were aware of the latest developments in avant-garde Western art were right to see Hayashi’s collection as outmoded. The first museum in Japan wholly dedicated to Western art would be the Ōhara Museum of Art, which opened in 1930. Hayashi’s dream, then, came at the wrong time. To Japan’s post-1900 avant-garde, the pictures were far from radical, but from the standpoint of the Japanese museumgoers and the public availability of Western art, Hayashi’s collection would be thoroughly ahead of its time.

THE POPULARIZATION OF WESTERN PAINTING, 1918–23

Roughly a decade after Hayashi died, Japan entered the Taishō era (1912–26), which brought a new period of Westernization. Hayashi had struggled to introduce Western material culture, but by the interwar period both Westernization and the love of impressionism would become marks of class distinction in Japan. In a 1913 issue of the magazine Mita Bungaku, author Kafū Nagai satirized the fad for Western culture: if someone claimed a headache from drinking too much champagne the night before, it would actually improve the person’s image by suggesting that he or she had connections in high society. But if someone attributed a similar headache to an excess of Japanese rice wine, that person would receive the scorn of others. It was a categorical admission of the perceived virtue of all things Western.58 Kahū Nagai, “Kawaya no Mado, Zakkan Issoku,” Mita Bungaku 4, no. 8 (August 1913): 115f.

This worship of Western art and culture in the Taishō era went hand in hand with the development of Western-style capitalism in Japan. As historian Hiroshi Minami has explained, growth in business, better infrastructures across the country, the expansion of public organizations, and the development of culture-related business created intellectual production, which, accompanied by higher levels of education and increased income (compared to the low wages earned by manual laborers), resulted in the creation of a “petit-bourgeois” class. In 1920 the petit-bourgeoisie had grown to about 7 or 8 percent of the country’s population.59 Minami, Taishō Bunka, 183. As Japanese society became more affluent, the arts were brought into the home, leading to the growth of what would be called “home culture.”60 Minami, Taishō Bunka, 51. The Taishō era thereby created a culture industry that connected the culture of the elite to that of the masses.61 Minami, Taishō Bunka, 63.

This interest in culture, coupled with a booming economy, led to the formation of many personal collections of Western modern art from 1918 to the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. Katsumi Miyazaki has dubbed the resulting rush to purchase Western art in this period the Taisei Meiga no Oonami (Tidal Wave of Western Masterpieces), explaining that this rapid acquisition resembled the bubble economy of the 1980s and early 1990s.62 Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 8, 312. In October 1920, the France Kindai Kaiga Chōso Tenrankai (Exhibition of Modern French Paintings and Sculptures) in Osaka would be the first to exclusively display Western art. The exhibition included paintings by Renoir and sculptures by Rodin collected by the businessmen Kichiemon Kishimoto and Hikoyoshi Nakazawa.63 Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 286.

Similarly, the 1922 Taisei Meiga Tenrankai (Exhibition of Western masterpieces) brought together 111 works purchased by Japanese collectors before and after World War I. Organized by the Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun newspaper (predecessor of today’s Mainichi Shimbun), this exhibition celebrated the completion of the newspaper company’s new building. Some eight thousand people were invited to the grand opening of the new building. The exhibition was well-received and sparked new interest in and admiration for impressionist and other Western art, while helping to further popularize Western art among the Japanese public.64 Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 286.

Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun featured the 1922 Taisei Meiga Tenrankai in a series of articles that all praised Western art. These articles hinted at the legacy left by Hayashi. For example, the article on October 28 entitled “Taisei Meigaten Monogatari” (The story of the Western masterpieces exhibition) relayed that five works once owned by Hayashi’s gallery were exhibited in Taisei Meiga Tenrankai, including Manet’s Nude (now owned by the Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo). Hayashi’s son Tadao reported in this article that he was impressed that Manet’s nude could be publicly shown only eighteen years after his father’s death, whereas this painting had been the cause of so much controversy during Hayashi’s lifetime.65 “Taisei Meiga Monogatari,” Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun, October 28, 1922, 9.

In a subsequent article in the series, published in 1922, Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun listed the owners of the paintings shown in Taisei Meiga Tenrankai. These included Tadao Hayashi, who exhibited the Manet, as well as landscapes by Renoir and Gustave Courbet.66 “Taisei Meiga Monogatari,” Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun, November 5, 1922, 3. The following year, Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun published four volumes of the catalogue Taisei Meiga Taikan, including most of the illustrations of works exhibited in Taisei Meiga Tenrankai.67 Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun, ed., Taisei Meiga Taikan, 4 vol. (Tokyo: Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun, 1923). National Diet Library, Tokyo, owns the catalogue.

This period also witnessed the rise of great collectors such as Kojirō Matsukata (1866–1950) and Magosaburō Ōhara (1880–1943). Matsukata was the third son of Prime Minister Masayoshi Matsukata. Due to his great wealth, Kojirō Matsukata studied at Rutgers University and the graduate school of Yale University; he later received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale. He was appointed president of the shipbuilding company Kawasaki Zōsenjo in 1896 and eventually became a millionaire through selling war ships during World War I. In 1916 he started collecting paintings, prints, sculptures. The “Matsukata collection” eventually totaled more than 2,700 Western artworks. The collection, which spanned modern art from Courbet to the post-impressionists, had been acquired from dealer galleries in London, Paris, and Berlin.68 The Matsukata Collection: Complete Catalogue of the European Art (Tokyo: National Museum of Western Art, 2018), 1:27–39. This catalogue includes the biographical information of Matsukata. Moreover, Matsukata actually bought paintings once owned by Hayashi. The works that Matsukata acquired from Hayashi included Collin’s Danse sur la plage grand (1892), Guillaumin’s Prairie à Breuillet (n.d.), and Pissarro’s Maison de paysan (1892).69 Matsukata Collection, cat. nos. 263, 538, 860.

This “Tidal Wave of Western Masterpieces” was suddenly stopped, however, for two unanticipated reasons. One was the devastating destruction caused by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, and the other was the import tax on luxuries initiated in July 1924, which devastated the market for Western art. The tax rate was as high as 100 percent of the imported products. As a result, Kōjirō Matsukata retained his collections of seven hundred artworks in London and Paris.70 Among these collections, three hundred works in London were destroyed in a fire in the Pantechnicon warehouse in October 1939. The list of the destroyed works was discovered at the Tate Archive in London in 2016. See Matsukata Collection, 1:18.

Following such natural and economic interruptions, however, the Westernization of Japan continued into the 1930s.71 Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 327. Although Matsukata was insistent that Western art could enlighten the Japanese public, he died in 1950 before realizing his dreams. In 1951, at the San Francisco Peace Treaty, Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida demanded the return of the Matsukata collection, which had been requisitioned by the French government after Japan’s defeat in World War II. Matsukata’s collection of impressionist art would act as the foundation for the Bridgestone Museum (Artizon Museum from 2019), which opened in 1952, and the National Museum of Western Art, established in 1959. Hayashi’s dream of creating a museum of Western art in Japan was finally realized through the delayed dreams of Matsukata and Ōhara.

1 Tomoyasu Sato, Gōbatsu: Chihō Gōzoku no Network (Tokyo: Rippū Shobō, 2001), 181. »

2 The Bridgestone Museum of Art changed its name to the Artizon Museum in July 2019. »

3 Taiji Kimura, Inshōha to iu Kakumei (Tokyo: Shueisha, 2012), 46–47. »

4 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction, trans. Richard Nice (London: Routledge, 2010), 49: “Thus, the aesthetic disposition is one dimension of a distant, self-assured relation to the world and to others which presupposes objective assurance and distance. It is one manifestation of the system of dispositions produced by the social conditioning associated with a particular class of conditions of existence when they take the paradoxical form of the greatest freedom conceivable, at a given moment, with respect to the constraints of economic necessity. But it is also a distinctive expression of a privileged position in social space whose distinctive value is objectively established in its relationship to expressions generated from different conditions. Like every sort of taste, it unites and separates.” »

5 Edo Bakuhu was the samurai government started by Ieyasu Tokugawa in Edo (Tokyo) in 1603. The government closed the country from 1639 to 1853. In this period, the government closed off international trade and prohibited Japanese citizens from leaving and foreigners from entering. Some mutual relations with Korea, China, and Holland were exceptions. »

6 Katsumi Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha, 2007), 42–43. »

7 Yasuko Kigi, Hayashi Tadamasa to sono Jidai (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1987), 3–4. »

8 Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt, Journal: Mémoires de la vie littéraire (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1989), 2:986 (January 25, 1883): “Il est, parmi les collectionneurs de japonaiseries, un prétentieux insupportable et un gobeur imbécile, c’est le nommé Gonse. Denièrement, il montrait un foukousa à Wakaï, en lui disant que le dessin étant d’Hokousaï. Quand les Japonais sont retors, ils le sont mieux que nous. Donc, Wakaï ne broncha pas devant l’assertion de Gonse. Il se livra seulement à un roucoulement guttural, dont la traduction faite par Hayashi était ceci: ‘En effet, Hokousaï avait fait des dessins pour des broderies. . . . Et maintenant, il se rappelait, ce n’était pas un foukousa qu’il avait inventé: c’était deux. . . .’ Le second, Gonse peut être sûr qu’il lui sera rapporté par Wakaï à son premier voyage au Japon! C’est ce Wakaï qui me proposait un sabre, dont la monture était composée de pantins en fer minuscule, très joliment articulés, et qui me faisait raconteur que ce sabre avait été fabriqué pour amuser un daïmio très célèbre tombé en enfance dans sa vieillesse.” From then, Goncourt mentioned Hayashi more than forty times (Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga, 128). Edmond de Goncourt first met Hayashi in 1878 and started their correspondence in 1884; see Yasuko Kigi and Mako Takatō, eds., Hayashi Tadamasa Ate Shokan Siryōshū (Tokyo: Sinzansha, 2003), 505. For more details about the relationship between Hayashi and Goncourt, see Brigitte Koyama-Richard, “Edmond de Goncourt–Hayashi Tadamasa: Regard sur une enrichissante correspondence,” Musashi Daigaku Jimbungakukai Zasshi 30, no. 4 (1999): 93–146; Brigitte Koyama-Richard, “Edmond de Goncourt-Hayashi Tadamasa Correspondance II,” Musashi Daigaku Jimbungakukai Zasshi 31, no. 3 (2000): 41–105; Brigitte Koyama-Richard, Japon rêvé: Edmond de Goncourt et Hayashi Tadamasa (Paris: Hermann, 2001). »

9 Taketoshi Sadazuka, Umi wo Wataru Ukiyo-e: Hayashi Tadamasa no Shōgai (Tokyo: Bijutsu Kōronsha, 1981), 56. »

10 Hayashi was very careful of his relationship with Siegfried Bing, who had been dealing in Japanese art since the 1870s. For example, see the Goncourt journal entry from September 30, 1891, which records that Hayashi declined to assist with Goncourt’s book on Hokusai, as it threatened Bing’s publication. See de Goncourt and de Goncourt, Journal, 3:630 (September 30, 1891): “Voilà mes études japonaises arrêtées! . . . Hayashi, auquel j’ai acheté follement ces années-ci et auquel même donné 300 francs sur les 1200 francs que m’a rapportés la publication d’OUTAMARO, m’a avoué qu’il lui était impossible de me donner des renseignements sur Hokusaï, parce que Bing préparait une étude sur cet artiste et que ses relations commerciales avec lui pourraient en souffrir.” »

11 De Goncourt and de Goncourt, Journal, 3:246. »

12 Yasuko Kigi, “Hayashi Tadamasa to Nihon no Kindai,” Hayashi Tadamasa: Japonisme to Bunkakoryū (Tokyo: Brücke, 2007), 13. »

13 “Le Japon,” special issue, Paris illustré, May 1, 1886; Sadazuka, Umi wo Wataru Ukiyo-e, 73–126. Van Gogh’s Courtesan is now in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (F373). »

14 Atsushi Miura, “Nohon to Inshōha—France Kindaikaiga Collection to Nichifutsu Bunkakoryū,” in Nihon ga Aishita Inshōhaten Hōkokusho, ed. Atsushi Miura, Masato Satsuma, and Hiroshi Kumazawa (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Miura Atsushi Kenkyūshitsu, 2016), 25. »

15 Edmond de Goncourt, Outamaro, Hokousaï (1891, 1896; repr., Paris: Union Général d’Éditions, 1986), 90. Here and elsewhere, unless otherwise indicated, translations are mine. »

16 Tadamasa Hayashi (Commissaire general du Japon à l’Exposition universelle de 1900) et Baron Riyuitchi Kouki [Ryūitchi Kuki] (Directeur general du Musée Impérial), ouvrage publié par la Commission imperial du Japon. à l’Exposition universelle de Paris. (Tadamasa Hayashi [General Commissioner of Japan at the 1900 World Fair] and Baron Riyuitchi Kouki [Ryūitchi Kuki; General Director of the Imperial Museum], a work published by the Imperial Commission of Japan at the Universal Exhibition in Paris). »

17 The French version of the first complete history of Japanese art, Kōhon Nihon Teikoku Bijutsu Ryakushi (1901), was published for the Paris Exposition universelle in 1900. Hayashi wrote a short introduction exclusively for the French version. In the introduction, Hayashi talks about his pioneering efforts in finding French technical words for Japanese art as well as the existence of certain characteristics of Japanese art independent from other Asian countries. At first, the chief editor of the book was Tenshin Okakura, but in 1897 editorial supervision was shifted to the Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan. See Kigi and Takatō, Hayashi Tadamasa, 465–69. »

18 Yasuko Kigi, Hayashi Tadamasa: Ukiyo-e wo koete Nihonbijutsu no subete wo (Tokyo: Minerva Shobō 2009), 93: Hayashi’s CV says: “Meiji 17(1884) nen ni eikoku seifu no syokutaku wo motte London no ryō hakubutsukan syozō no nihonhin wo seirisu, sonota Doitsu Hamburg hakubutsukan-chō, Oranda Leid hakubutsukan-chō, Belgium, Brussels hakubutsukan-sanji tou no isyoku wo uke, Nihonbijutsu-jō no torishirabe setsumei wo nasesino rui sukunakarazu. Mata, Beikoku Chikago Bijutsuin Hutchinson-shi to hakari, dōsho hakubutsukan-nai he Nihon bijutsuhin wo chinretsu seshimetari.” »

19 Kigi, Hayashi Tadamasa, 92–93. »

20 Yasuko Kigi, ed., Hayashi Tadamasa Collection (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō, 2000), 5:105. »

21 Sadazuka, Umi wo Wataru Ukiyo-e, 54. »

22 Kigi, Hayashi Tadamasa, 274f. »

23 Miura, “Nohon to Inshōha”; Akiko Mabuchi, “Hayashi Tadamasa no Seiyō Bijutsu Collection to Berthe Morisot,” in Hayashi Tadamasa: Japonisme to Bunka Koryū, ed. Tadamasa Hayashi Symposium Executive Committee (Tokyo: Brücke, 2007), 325. »

24 Miura, “Nohon to Inshōha,” 25–26; Mabuchi, “Hayashi Tadamasa,” 325–49. Yasuko Kigi, ed., Hayashi Tadamasa Collection, vol. 4, Hayashi Tadamasa Shūshū Seiyō Kaiga Mokuroku [Catalogue of Western Painting] (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō, 2000). This catalogue—not for sale—was published in 1908. »

25 Tetsuo Ōga, ed., Nihon no Inshōha: Genshoku Nihon no Bijutsu (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1977), 5:143. »

26 Hiroshi Minami, Taishō Bunka 1905–1927 (Tokyo: Keisō Shobō, 1987), 35–38. »

27 The Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan (Tokyo Imperial Museum) started in 1872, the first museum in Japan. Besides a few exceptions, this museum exclusively specializes in Japanese and Asian collections. »

28 Kigi, “Hayashi Tadamasa,” 17. »

29 Sadazuka, Umi wo Wataru Ukiyo-e, 190–91. »

30 Miura, “Nohon to Inshōha,” 25. »

31 Shigeru Aoki, ed., Kindai Nihon Art Catalogue 008 Meiji Bijutsukai (1890–98; repr., Tokyo: Yumani Shobō, 2001), 506. »

32 Among them, there are paintings by Takeshirō Kanokogi, Kunishirō Mitsutani, and Hōryū Goseda. See Aoki, Kindai Nihon Art Catalogue. »

33 Aoki, Kindai Nihon Art Catalogue. »

34 Masakazu Toyama, “Nihon Kaiga no Mirai” (May 1890), in Nihon Kindai Shisō Taikei 17, ed. Shūichi Kato (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1989), 122–52. For example, Toyama criticizes Naojirō Harada’s Kiryū Kannon (The kannon on a dragon) as a mere mimicry of Laocoön. »

35 Shūichi Kato, Nihon Kindai Shisō Taikei 17, 153–66. Not all the members are supportive to Yōga painting. For more details about Toyama’s lecture, see Shino Kamei, “Shisōga toshiteno Jōkei: Toyama Masakazu ‘Nihon Kaiga no Mirai’ ni tsuite,” Hokkaido University Bungakubu Kiyo 46, no. 3 (March 1998): 1–82. »

36 Sadazuka, Umi wo Wataru Ukiyo-e, 108. »

37 Tadamasa Hayashi, “Ronsetsu Paris Daihakurankai nitsuki Bijutsudan Hayashi Tadamasa-kun En,” Nihon Bijutsu Kyōkai Hōkoku 122 (May 1898): 16. »

38 Hayashi rated impressionism highly; however, he was also a close friend of Collin. Collin wrote an introduction for the sales catalogue of Hayashi’s collection in 1913. »

39 Seiki Kuroda, “Sketch ijōni susumitai: Dai 10 kai Bunten ni taisuru Kansō,” Bijutsu 1, no. 1 (November 1916): Kuroda Seiki, Master of Modern Japanese Painting: The 150th Anniversary of His Birth (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 2016), 36. »

40 Mokutarō Kinoshita quoted in Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 164. »

41 Kigi, “Hayashi Tadamasa,” 18. »

42 Takeshirō Kanokogi, “Gūkan (4) Yōgakai no Mōmoku,” Bijutsu Shimpō 3, no. 20 (January 1905), repr. in Nihon no Inshōha: Meijisue Taishōshoki no Yusaiga (Shimonoseki: Simonoseki City Museum 1999), 123. »

43 Kanoko, “Gūkan (4) Yōgakai no Mōmoku.” »

44 Kōtaro Takamura, “France kara kaette,” Bungaku Sekai 5, no. 4 (March 15, 1910), repr. in Takamura Kōtarō Zenshū 4 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1995), 17–18. »

45 Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 181. »

46 Kōtarō Takamura, “AB HOC ET AB HAC,” Subaru 2 (February 1, 1910): 7. Takamura contributed an article titled “Midoriiro no Taiyō” (The green sun), which manifested his position as a post-impressionist who denied local colors. »

47 Hanako Shimada, ed., Umehara Ryūzaburō to Renoir (Tokyo: Chuōkōron Bijutsu Shuppan, 2010), 189. »

48 Mitsubishi Ichigōkan Museum, Haikei Renoir Sensei (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Ichigōkan Museum 2016), 43. In his 1917 memoir of his time in Paris, Umehara recalls that, during his first visit to the Musée du Luxembourg in 1908, he was impressed only by Degas, Cézanne, and a few impressionists, and not by the other artists. His essays on Renoir from 1917 to 1939 mainly talk about Renoir’s later works around 1910. See Ryūzaburō Umeraha, “Tsuioku no Renoir,” in Shimada, Umehara Ryūzaburō to Renoir, 7–62. »

49 Sadazuka, Umi wo Wataru Ukiyo-e, 268. »

50 Kigi and Takatō, Hayashi Tadamasa Ate Shokan Siryōshū, 16; Akira Nakano, Maboroshino Godai Bijutsukan to Meiji no Jitsugyōka tachi (Tokyo: Shōdensha 2015), 272. »

51 Kigi, Hayashi Tadamasa, 286. »

52 Illustrated Catalogue of the Important Collection of Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels, Drawings, and Prints, Collected by the Japanese Connoisseur, the Late Tadamasa Hayashi of Tokyo, Japan (New York: American Art Association, 1913). Copies of the catalogue are held in the archives of Artizon Museum (the former Bridgestone Museum of Art) and the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. »

53 The auction prices can be seen in the digital collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which are written in pencil in the catalogue. In 1915 many of the remaining works were donated to the Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, thereby making Hayashi’s dream a partial reality (Mabuchi, “Hayashi Tadamasa,” 327). »

54 For Hayashi’s attitude toward Shunga, see Yasuko Kigi, Shunga to Inshōha: “Shunga wo utta Kokuzoku” Hayashi Tadamasa wo megutte (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 2015). »

55 “Hayashi Art Gems to Be Exhibited: Works of Renoir, Degas, and Monet in Late Japanese Connoisseur’s Collection in American Galleries,” New York Times, November 30, 1912: “One of the most interesting exhibitions of the season is to open Jan. 3 at the American Art Galleries. It will comprise the oil paintings, water colors, pastels, drawings, and prints collected by late Tadamasa Hayashi, the Japanese Connoisseur, who was Chief Commissioner for the Japanese Government, to the Exhibition Universelle, Paris, 1900. Hayashi was born in 1853 and studied French literature and politics with the purpose of engaging in public affairs. In 1883 he established an art firm in Paris and made his own collection of European masters with the purpose of affording the Oriental public an opportunity to become familiar with the Occidental art. His relations with the French Impressionists were extremely friendly, and as their pictures at the time were not in demand and their love of Japanese art was thoroughly awakened, exchanges were effected. Claude Monet and Degas gave paintings in return for prints and pottery and Moronobu albums. These paintings and many others he intended for Japan, but his death has caused them to be dispersed and Western collectors will have an opportunity to reclaim for this hemisphere many works of distinction and personal charms.” »

56 “Hayashi Art Gems to Be Exhibited,” 8. »

57 Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 138. »

58 Kahū Nagai, “Kawaya no Mado, Zakkan Issoku,” Mita Bungaku 4, no. 8 (August 1913): 115f. »

59 Minami, Taishō Bunka, 183. »

60 Minami, Taishō Bunka, 51. »

61 Minami, Taishō Bunka, 63. »

62 Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 8, 312. »

63 Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 286. »

64 Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 286. »

65 “Taisei Meiga Monogatari,” Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun, October 28, 1922, 9. »

66 “Taisei Meiga Monogatari,” Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun, November 5, 1922, 3. »

67 Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun, ed., Taisei Meiga Taikan, 4 vol. (Tokyo: Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun, 1923). National Diet Library, Tokyo, owns the catalogue. »

68 The Matsukata Collection: Complete Catalogue of the European Art (Tokyo: National Museum of Western Art, 2018), 1:27–39. This catalogue includes the biographical information of Matsukata. »

69 Matsukata Collection, cat. nos. 263, 538, 860. »

70 Among these collections, three hundred works in London were destroyed in a fire in the Pantechnicon warehouse in October 1939. The list of the destroyed works was discovered at the Tate Archive in London in 2016. See Matsukata Collection, 1:18. »

71 Miyazaki, Seiyōkaiga no Tōrai, 327. »

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