Gardens as Spaces of Negotiation: The Categorisation of New Gardens in Japan between 1880 and 1930 as Question of National Self-Definition

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christian Tagsold
• Subject Area: Asian Studies ; Art History
• Term: from 2016 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 315424278

The idea of the Japanese garden is a product of the second half of the 19th century. The notion of a national garden-style has developed through gardens at world's fairs and the Western descriptions and Japanese national representations in a discourse on gardens led not only by North Americans and Europeans but also by Japanese as well. As a consequence it became fashionable in North America and Europe to build Japanese gardens. In the 1930s the "Zen-Garden" element was added to the notion of the Japanese garden to explain the symbolic impression of these spaces. In the last two decades researchers have unveiled this process of cultural translation between the West and Japan. Thus the discourse and Japanese gardensin the West have been well analyzed by now. However the development of gardens in Japan in this period has not yet been researched in depth. The new gardens built between 1890 and 1930 form the counterpart for the process of cultural translation - they are not disconnected from the mentioned processes. Wealthy politicians and artists privately built new gardens with new intentions. Strikingly, garden experts in Japan have long categorized these gardens as eclectic, not as Japanese. However, in the last decades many of these gardens have become national treasures and are seen as Japanese gardens in this context. This project will analyze five gardens as examples to explain these developments. Four levels of analysis are of interest: 1. history of construction; 2. early reactions to the gardens in garden magazines and newspapers; 3. the discussion on the conservations of these gardens leading to their acceptance as national treasures; 4. further preservation, use and Japanization. The research will be able to show at which point the gardens came to be seen as "Japanese garden" and how this categorization was used in discussions. It will illustrate the connection to other fields of discourse which are important for national self-definition in Japan such as nature and the special Japanese love of it. Analyzing gardens as an example, assumptions of nihonjinron (theories about the Japanese) on nature can be scrutinized; these arguments competed with arguments derived from Western nature preservations discourses. Through working in archives and through interviews with experts, the project will clarify questions of cultural (re-)translation and nihonjinron in the practical field.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Japan
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Miyuki Katahira