Assistant Professor
Bi-College Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Haverford College
“Art Journals as Interlocutors of Change: White Birch and Modern Japanese Art”
Founded in April of 1910, the art journal White Birch (Shirakaba) redefined modern Japanese art for a new generation of artists and writers. One of the first art journals to reproduce the works of Rodin, Cézanne, van Gogh, Gauguin, and Matisse, White Birch provided a critical framework for introducing and discussing European modernism. In this paper I will examine the function of the art journal as a new medium of artistic exchange within early 20th century Japan. I will argue that the dual role of the art journal – as both a physical object and a virtual space – aspired to create new audiences and foster the exchange of ideas through the development of alternative spaces and artistic communities. Through their affiliation with White Birch aspiring artists and writers reframed the debate on modern art by subverting government established styles and exhibition formats that reinforced the cultural and political objectives of Japan’s nation building efforts. In the process, these activities opened a critical space that allowed artists and writers to explore and complicate the changing status and boundaries of modern art in Japan and East Asia more broadly.
