GOLD POWDER AND GUNPOWDER: THE APPROPRIATION OF WESTERN

FIREARMS INTO JAPAN THROUGH HIGH CULTURE

by

Seth Robert Baldridge

A thesis submitted to the faculty of

The University of Utah

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

in

Art History

Department of Art and Art History

The University of Utah

August 2015

1

1

Copyright © Seth Robert Baldridge 2015

All Rights Reserved

2

2

The University of Utah Graduate School

STATEMENT OF THESIS APPROVAL

The thesis of Seth Robert Baldridge

has been approved by the following supervisory committee members:

Winston Kyan , Chair May 27th

, 2015

Jessen Kelly , Member June 17th

, 2015

Mamiko C. Suzuki , Member

and by Brian Snapp Chair/Dean of the

Department/College/School of Art and Art History

and by David B. Kieda, Dean of the Graduate School.

Date Approved

Date Approved

Date Approved

ABSTRACT

When an object is introduced to a new culture for the first time, how does it

transition from the status of a foreign import to a fully integrated object of that culture?

Does it ever truly reach this status, or are its foreign origins a part of its identity that are

impossible to overlook? What role could the arts of that culture play in adapting a foreign

object into part of the culture? I propose to address these questions in specific regard to

early modern Japan (1550-1850) through a black lacquered ōtsuzumi drum decorated

with a gold powder motif of intersecting arquebuses and powder horns. While it may

seem unlikely that a single piece of lacquerware can comment on the larger issues of

cultural accommodation and appropriation, careful analysis reveals the way in which

adopted firearms, introduced by Portuguese sailors in 1543, shed light on this issue.

While the arquebus’s militaristic and economic influence on Japan has been

firmly established, this thesis investigates how the Kobe Museum’s ōtsuzumi is a

manifestation of the change that firearms underwent from European imports of pure

military value to Japanese items of not just military, but also artistic worth. It resulted

from an intermingling of Japanese-Portuguese trade, aesthetics of the noble military class,

and cultural accommodation between Europeans and Japanese that complicates our

understandings of influence and appropriation. To analyze this process of appropriation

and accommodation, the first section begins with a historical overview of lacquer in

Japan, focusing on the Momoyama period, and the introduction of firearms. The second

iv

iv

section will go into the aesthetics of lacquerware, including the importance of narrative

symbolism and use in the performing arts with a particular emphasis on the aural and

visual aesthetics of the drum. Finally, I will discuss this drum in the global contexts of the

early modern era, which takes into account the tension between the decline in popularity

of firearms as well as the survival of the drum. Pieced together, these various aspects will

help to construct a better understanding of this unique piece’s place in the Japanese

Christian material culture of early modern Japan.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………...iii

LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………...……....vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………...……………………...………ix

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………….…………..……1

PART 1. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE KOBE ŌTSUZMI

OVERVIEW OF JAPANESE LACQUERS…………………….……………………..…5

MOMOYAMA LACQUERWARE………...……………………………………………15

THE ARRIVAL OF THE ARQUEBUS……………...…………………………………19

PART II. NARRATIVE, PERFORMANCE, AND YŪGEN: THE AESTHETICS OF

THE KOBE ŌTSUZMI

NARRATIVE IMAGERY AND THE AESTHETICS OF WARRIOR CULTURE.…...25

THE LACQUER DRUM IN PERFORMANCE ARTS…………………………………29

THE LACQUER DRUM AND YŪGEN………………………………………………32

PART III. DECLINE, SURVIVAL, AND ACCOMMODATION

THE DECLINE OF THE GUN ………………………………………….……………39

THE SURVIVAL OF THE ŌTSUZUMI……………………………….…….…………45

THE ŌTSUZUMI IN GLOBAL TRADE..……………………………….………..……54

vi

vi

MUTUAL ACCOMMODATION AND JAPANESE CHRISTIAN MATERIAL

CULTURE: THE KOBE ŌTSUZUMI REVISITED…………………………………....58

CONCLUSION…………………………...……………..…………………….…..……66

KANJI GLOSSARY……………………………………………………………………..71

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………..………74

vi

vi

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1. Black lacquered drum base with gun motif, 16th

to early 17th

century, Kobe

Museum……………………………………………………………………………………4

2. Writing utensil box with design of Hatsuse mountain landscape and monkeys,

late 16th

century, Tokyo National Museum………………………...…………….…...….10

3. Portable chest of drawers for incense with design of autumn grasses, late 16th

to early 17th

century, Tokyo National Museum…………………………...….…………..11

4. Mitamaya (Spirit House), ca. 1594, Kōdaiji temple, Kyoto...……………..…...…......12

5. Tankard, 1600-1620, Victoria and Albert Museum…………………………….……...13

6. Set of shelves with designs from the Tale of Genji, late 16th

to early 17th

century,

Tokyo National Museum……………………………………………………………...….14

7. Detail from The Battle at Nagashino, 17th

century, Tokugawa Art Museum…..……..24

8. Saddle with designs of river, bridge, and willow, 1585, Equine Museum of

Japan, Kanagawa……………………………………………………………….…......….28

9. Detail from Splashed Ink Landscape, Sesshū Tōyō, 1495, Tokyo National

Museum………………………………………………………………………..…………38

10. Ichikawa Ebizō as Saitō Dōsan, Utagawa Kunisada, 1836, British Museum,

London…………………………………………………………………………………...44

11. Writing utensil box with maki-e motif of Southern Barbarian and dog, early

17th

century, Kobe City Museum………………………………………….……………..52

12. Matchlock pistol, early 17th

century to mid-19th

century, Asian Art Museum

of San Francisco.………….………………………………………………….....………..52

viii

viii

13. Drum body, dated 1566, Tokyo National Museum…...…………...……………...….53

14. Coffer, late 16th

century to early 17th

century, Victoria and Albert Museum……...…57

15. Nambanji, late 16th

century, Kobe City Museum………………..………………..…64

16. Young Japanese, 1620, Caramulo Museum………………………………………….65

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I want to thank my advisor and chair of my committee, Winston Kyan.

Thank you for all of your encouragement, insight, and the many hours you’ve spent on

helping me write this. My writing and research skills have improved by leaps and bounds

because of your support. I also want to thank my other chair members: Jessen Kelly, for

her wonderful classes that helped me discover the object discussed in this thesis, and

Mamiko C. Suzuki, for her invaluable perspectives on Japanese culture.

Additional thanks go to other faculty members of the Department of Art and Art

History, Lela Graybill and Elena Shtromberg, for their challenging and illuminating

classes. I also want to thank Jeff Lambson, one of my amazing mentors who encouraged

me to pursue a graduate degree in art history. Special thanks to my colleagues, Rachel

Povey, Aubrey Hawks, Alexandria Lang, and Jennifer Sales, for their friendship and

support through this academic mountain climb (additional thanks to Jennifer for her

French translation skills).

Most of all, I’d like to thank my wonderful parents, Steve and Debbie Baldridge.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to pursue my academic goals and for your

years of love and encouragement. Thanks Dad, for encouraging me to keep going, even

when the going gets tough. Thanks Mom, for your academic accomplishments that made

me want to earn my own master’s degree. I love you both.

1

INTRODUCTION

When an object is introduced to a new culture for the first time, how does it

transition from the status of a foreign import to a fully integrated object of that culture?

Does it ever truly reach this status, or are its foreign origins a part of its identity that are

impossible to overlook? What role could the arts of that culture play in adapting a foreign

object into part of the culture? I propose to address these questions in specific regard to

early modern Japan (1550-1850) through a black lacquered ōtsuzumi (hand-drum base)

decorated with a gold powder motif of intersecting arquebuses and powder horns (Fig. 1).

It is currently held in the Kobe City Museum’s Namban art collection.

According to the museum, this piece was made sometime during the Azuchi-

Momoyama period (or just Momoyama period), which began around the 1560s and

ended in the early 1600s. The drum is 27.8 centimeters tall, and 11.1 centimeters in

diameter. It has a cylindrical shape like an hourglass, or two goblets joined at the necks in

perfect vertical symmetry. The wooden frame is coated in lustrous black lacquer, and

although some ripples can be seen, it is overall very smooth. Several images of

arquebuses, the early forerunners of the musket, crisscross with powder horns across the

black surface, creating dynamic patterns. Cords are scattered on different parts of the

frame, some coiled up in a loop, some weaving behind the guns. This asymmetry had

become very popular in the decorative arts by the end of the Momoyama period.1 The

1 Melvin and Betty Jahss, Inro and Other Miniature Forms of Japanese Lacquer Art (Rutland and Tokyo:

Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1971), 65.

2

arquebuses are made of gold powder that has been sprinkled over the lacquer in an

apparently non-relief technique that was also common at the time. Also like similar drum

bases from the time, the execution of the two motifs would have likely required two

different processes. The first motif would have needed to be applied and allowed to

harden before the other motif could be added. 2 The artist used needles to etch out the fine

lines and shapes of the rifles, and likely used varying mixtures of metal powders to create

both smooth-looking and grainy-looking surfaces. The gold of the rifles is well balanced

with the dense, black lacquer, neither color overpowering the other. The style of imagery

is consistent with the typical Momoyama aesthetic, which preferred a two-dimensional

perspective without shading.3 The flat profile view from the side makes all the different

components of the objects (the stocks, the triggers, the matchlocks) distinguishable. The

attention to detail could suggest a strong personal interest in guns on the part of the artist,

who undoubtedly designed the image using real firearms as models. But rather than

focusing on representing these heavy objects in a realistic space, the artist has the rifles

ethereally suspended in an otherwise empty space.

The exact history of this object is unknown, but it has the potential to speak to the

level of impact that firearms had on early modern Japan. While the arquebus’s militaristic

and economic influence on Japan has been firmly established, this thesis investigates how

the Kobe Museum’s ōtsuzumi is a manifestation of the change that firearms underwent

from European imports of pure military value to Japanese items of not just military, but

also artistic worth. It resulted from an intermingling of Japanese-Portuguese trade,

aesthetics of the noble military class, and cultural accommodation between Europeans

2 Andrew M. Watsky, Chikubushima: Deploying the Sacred Arts in Momoyama Japan (Seattle and

London: University of Washington Press, 2004), 183-84. 3 Jahss, Inro and Other Miniature Forms of Japanese Lacquer Art, 27.

3

and Japanese that complicates our understandings of influence and appropriation. To

analyze this process of appropriation and accommodation, the first section begins with a

historical overview of lacquer in Japan, focusing on the Momoyama period, and the

introduction of firearms. The second section will go into the aesthetics of lacquerware,

including the importance of narrative symbolism and use in the performing arts with a

particular emphasis on the aural and visual aesthetics of the drum. Finally, I will discuss

this drum in the global contexts of the early modern era, which takes into account the

tension between the decline in popularity of firearms as well as the survival of the drum.

Pieced together, these various aspects will help to construct a better understanding of this

unique piece’s place in the Japanese Christian material culture of early modern Japan.

4

Figure 1. Black lacquered drum base with gun

motif, 16th

to early 17th

century. Black lacquer

on wood with gold maki-e, 27.8 x 11.1 cm.

Kobe City Museum. After

http://www.city.kobe.lg.jp/culture/culture/institu

tion/museum/meihin_new/413.html.

5

OVERVIEW OF JAPANESE LACQUERS

Since the Jōmon period (ca. 8000 to 300 B.C.), Japanese artisans have been

producing works covered by lacquer.4 According to Beatrix Von Ragué, the earliest

known lacquers can be dated from the third century B.C. and the fourth century A.D.

Most of these works were tools or weapons that benefited from the protective qualities of

lacquer, but after the establishment of Buddhist culture in the sixth century, lacquer

began to see use in the crafting of fine works of art. With influences from both the

Chinese and Koreans, Japanese lacquerworks eventually evolved to achieve extremely

high standards of craftsmanship.5

The earliest examples of lacquerworks are shrines and sculptures, objects built for

religious functions.6 More secular treasures such as musical instruments, boxes, and

weapons were also common in the early days of lacquer.7 Some works were undecorated,

but there were others that were beautifully detailed with silver and gold inlays with

motifs of mostly flora and fauna.8 Mother-of-pearl inlays were adapted from Chinese

works, and the use of this technique went in and out of style as the centuries passed.9 The

early use of ground gold and silver powder was called kingin-e (gold and silver design),

which originated in China and marked a step toward the typical black, gold, and silver

4 Andrew J. Pekarik, Japanese Lacquer, 1600-1900: Selections from the Charles A. Greenfield Collection

(New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980), 12. 5 Beatrix Von Ragué, A History of Japanese Lacquerwork (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto

Press, 1976), 4-5. 6 Ibid., 6-7.

7 Ibid., 10.

8 Ibid., 12-14.

9 Ibid., 14.

6

color schemes that Japanese lacquers would become famous for.10

This developed into

the more permanent technique of maki-e (sprinkled design) later on in the Heian period

(794-1185).11

Typically, the laborious process behind maki-e decoration requires that the

design be first drawn in the lacquer, then metal powder, usually gold, silver, or a mixture

of both, is sprinkled into the design before the lacquer hardens. The powder sticks to the

drawn portions, and becomes an equally smooth part of the surface once it has been dried

and polished.12

Centuries later, in the short yet crucial Momoyama period, a wealth of new

artistic influences accompanied the arrival of Europeans and the invasions of Korea by

the powerful daimyō (a feudal lord) and unifier of Japan Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-

1598).13

Despite the influx of new ideas, many past traditions of lacquer were preserved.

Additionally, the uses of lacquer during this time were seemingly limitless. To help early

Westerners understand just how important lacquer was to Japan, the Jesuit missionary

João Rodrigues (1561-1633) wrote “there is a universal art throughout the whole

kingdom that has something in common with painting. This is the art of varnishing,

which we call here uruxar, from the word urush.” 14

He continues to describe that this

“varnish” is used in crafting “all their tableware, such as bowls, tables, and other vessels

and utensils, as well as the tables and trays from which they eat” to “the handles of lances,

and the sheathes of their blades, and a multitude of other things.” 15

And according to this

10

Ibid., 15-16. 11

Ibid., 18. 12

Andrew Pekarik, “Lacquer and Metalwork,” in Japan’s Golden Age: Momoyama, ed. Money L.

Hickman (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 237. 13

Ragué, A History of Japanese Lacquerwork, 142. 14

Watsky, Chikubushima, 166. 15

Ibid., 167.

7

third-party observer, the beauty of Japanese lacquerwares exceeded even that of the

Chinese.16

Lacquerworks from the Momoyama period are often divided into groups, which

can vary in number depending on the scholar. Ragué identifies three groups: the

traditional style, the Kōdaiji style, and Namban lacquers.17

The so-called traditional style is often a blanket term for lacquerware styles that

had been developed previous to the Momoyama period and saw continued use among the

new trends that began to spring up (Fig. 2). Barbra Teri Okada, however, refers to this

group as the Higashiyama style, which was introduced during the Muromachi period

(1336-1573) and exemplified by the works of Igarashi Shinsai (active in the mid-fifteenth

century). Flourishing under the indulgent Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1436-1490),

Higashiyama lacquer designs derived inspiration from popular contemporary painters

such as Tosa Mistsunobu (1434-1525), Nō’ami (1397-1471), Sō’ami (died 1525), and the

Kanō school, whose style was based on Chinese painting techniques.18

However, as the

popularity of the newer Kōdaiji style increased, patronage for the Igarashi family

eventually subsided.19

Kōdaiji style works broke the bonds of traditional styles by using new techniques

and new subjects, and were said to be particularly prized by Hideyoshi and his wife (Fig.

3).20

The name is derived from the Kōdaiji temple (completed, c. 1605) in Kyoto, which

housed several lacquer objects in this style. Still existing parts of the ruined Fushimi

16

Ibid., 172. 17

Ragué, A History of Japanese Lacquerwork, 143. 18

Barbra Teri Okada, A Sprinkling of Gold: The Lacquer Box Collection of Elaine Ehrenkranz (Newark:

The Newark Museum, 1983), 32. 19

Barbra Teri Okada, Symbol and Substance in Japanese Lacquer: Lacquer Boxes from the Collection of

Elaine Ehrenkranz (New York: Weatherhill, Inc., 1995), 30. 20

Ragué, A History of Japanese Lacquerwork, 149.

8

Castle (completed, c. 1594) were incorporated into the temple structure, and of special

note is the Mitamaya room (Fig. 4). Lacquer covers several parts of the interior, including

the stairs, banisters, and the doors. Blades of grass and crests decorate the glossy black

surfaces.21

Other common motifs associated with Kōdaiji lacquers are chrysanthemums,

pines, bamboo, and other autumn plants. They are not usually depicted as part of a

landscape, but rather hang in an untethered space. They also lack any literary allusions.22

The techniques that go into making Kōdaiji lacquers are also notably simple. Rather than

polishing the gold powder after it has been sprinkled on, the artist controls the density

while sprinkling.23

Artists also used needles to pick out fine lines in the surface before it

completely dries.24

Generally speaking, Namban lacquers are works that were inspired by the

relations with the Portuguese, who arrived in 1543. The Japanese called these foreign

visitors Namban (southern barbarians), a word borrowed from Chinese that generally

referred to the less-developed peoples of Southeast Asia.25

Within this lacquer group,

there are three subcategories. Some works depicted foreigners or things associated with

them. There were also objects commissioned by foreigners for international trade or use

in Christian worship. Finally, there were lacquerwares that were influenced by the

Western presence, but despite neither representing foreigners nor serving their purposes,

are still categorized as Namban works for stylistic reasons.26

Foreign techniques such as

mother-of-pearl inlays and geometric patterns were favored over traditional lacquer-

21

Ibid., 151. 22

Ibid., 152. 23

Ibid., 154. 24

Ibid., 154. 25

R.S.C., “Nanban Art,” Bulletin (St. Louis Art Museum), New Series, 8:6 (1973): 90. 26

Ragué, A History of Japanese Lacquerwork, 154-55.

9

making techniques (Fig. 5). Unfortunately, due to the ban on Christianity and the

subsequent iconoclasm of Christian objects, there are relatively few existing examples.27

In addition to these three groups, Andrew J. Pekarik suggests a fourth group that

consists of works associated with designer and connoisseur Hon’ami Kōetsu (1558-1637).

While they are crafted using traditional techniques, the subjects are typically taken from

classical literature, usually in the form of isolated close-ups (Fig. 6).28

In addition to

lacquers, Kōetsu was also known for his love of poetry and literature, and had an

impressive collection of both printed and handwritten scrolls.29

This might explain why

the lacquer objects associated with him often depicted literary scenes. According to

Michael Knight, Kōetsu, along with Tawaraya Sōtatsu (active early seventeenth century)

would go on to establish the Rimpa school, which would produce many fine Edo period

(1603-1868) lacquerwares out of Kyoto.30

27

Okada, Symbol and Substance in Japanese Lacquer, 29. 28

Pekarik, “Lacquer and Metalwork,” 238. 29

Miyeko Murase ed., Turning Point: Oribe and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan (New York: The

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003), 14. 30

Michael Knight, East Asian Lacquers in the Collection of the Seattle Art Museum (Seattle: Seattle Art

Museum, 1992), 23.

10

Figure 2. Writing utensil box with design of Hatsuse mountain landscape and

monkeys, late 16th

century. Lacquer on wood base, hiramaki-e, takamaki-e, applied

metal, 22.4 x 21.2 x 4.5 cm. Tokyo National Museum.

11

Figure 3. Portable chest of drawers for incense with design of autumn grasses, late 16th

to early 17th

century. Lacquer on wood base, hiramaki-e, 18.8 x 24.4 x 19.2 cm. Tokyo

National Museum.

12

Figure 4. Mitamaya (Spirit House), ca. 1594. Decorated in black lacquer

with maki-e. Shrine in the Kōdaiji temple, Kyoto, originally in Fushimi

Castle.

13

Figure 5. Tankard, 1600-1620. Wood covered with black and gold lacquer inlaid

with mother of pearl, 18.5 x 16.5 x 10.5 cm. © Victoria and Albert Museum,

London.

14

Figure 6. Set of shelves with designs from the Tale of Genji, late 16th

to early 17th

century. Lacquer on wood base, hiramaki-e, takamaki-e, mother-of-pearl inlay,

applied metal, 65.5 x 72.5 x 33 cm. Tokyo National Museum.

15

MOMOYAMA LACQUERWARE

Lacquerware developed the most during the Momoyama period; demand for them

was high and resources were plentiful. Naturally, the demand for lacquerware meant a

demand of lacquerers. Lacquerers were a highly specialized class of artisans, receiving

honorary titles in spite of the relatively low social strata they occupied in feudal society.31

They were often commissioned by daimyō and would commit great amounts of time for

the sake of their craft. During the Momoyama period, lacquerers were so prized and

respected that daimyō not only supplied them with generous payment, but even the

valuable materials that went into making lacquer items. The daimyō never needed to rush

the artists, because the artists were driven by their love for their craft and their lords.32

The objects themselves were so valuable that they were happily accepted in lieu of land

grants as rewards by vassals for services to their lords.33

Naturally, this meant that the

common people could never hope to afford them.34

Raw materials needed to make

lacquer were so valuable, that the industry itself was controlled by the government, and

official acts regulated the cultivation of lacquer trees.35

The raw materials were not the only reason why lacquers were so precious.

Making them was an arduous process, as described by Pekarik:

31

Jahss, Inro and Other Miniature Forms of Japanese Lacquer Art, 21-23. 32

N. H. N. Mody, “Japanese Lacquer,” Monumenta Nipponica, 3:1 (1940): 294. 33

Jahss, Inro and Other Miniature Forms of Japanese Lacquer Art, 43. 34

Tomio Yoshino, Japanese Lacquer Ware (Tokyo: Japan Travel Bureau, 1959), 15-16. 35

Martha Boyer, Japanese Lacquers in the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore: The Walters Art Gallery, 1970),

10-11.

16

Lacquer-making is a demanding and exacting art. Raw lacquer, the sap of

the lacquer tree, is difficult to handle because it induces allergic reactions

in most people. A lacquerer must develop and maintain immunity through

constant exposure. The viscous sap is thinly applied to a surface, and

hardens in an atmosphere of very high humidity. During the hardening

process it is susceptible to stray fragments of dust that would mar its

surface. Once it has set it must be polished, usually with water and small

pieces of soft stone or charcoal. Layer on layer is applied and polished as

well. Altogether a high-quality lacquer object can take from months to

years of effort as it advances through all the necessary stages from the

preparation of a wooden base to the final polishing.36

Clearly, when considering the level of preparation and care that goes into lacquerware,

artists had to choose their motifs carefully. Such a great investment of time and material

needed an assurance of quality, and they could not afford to craft anything that did not

meet the artistic standards and discriminations of the time. These artistic standards likely

overlapped with ideals of the military class as well, which helps us better contextualize

the decorative guns and powder flasks made with maki-e.

Aside from the military standards of the time, there may be another reason why

the arquebus motif was selected for this particular work. Initially, lacquerware was

subject to strong Chinese influences both in terms of technique and subject matter. But by

the late seventeenth century, Japanese lacquerers had completely divorced themselves

from these foreign roots, having found that the aesthetic sensibilities of Japan had

changed overtime. They chose to portray their own traditions and ways of life, and tried

to come up with new, original motifs.37

The Kobe Museum’s ōtsuzumi appears to be a

step toward Japanese lacquerers’ attempts to bring new innovations into an age-old

artistic tradition. Figure 6, which depicts a scene from Murasaki Shikibu’s (978-1016)

The Tale of Genji (c. 1010), one of Japan’s most famous works of literature, is another

36

Pekarik, “Lacquer and Metalwork,” 237. 37

Jahss, Inro and Other Miniature Forms of Japanese Lacquer Art, 30-31.

17

example of artists breaking away from Chinese traditions. The drum is not just depicting

an interesting new object; it also represents an exciting new era in Japanese history

marked by global exchange and decades of war.

Let us further examine the Kobe museum’s drum by revisiting the different

Momoyama lacquer categories and comparing examples of each. These four categories of

lacquerware may be helpful in analyzing the Kobe Museum’s drum from a formal

perspective. The first category, the Higashiyama style, consists of pictorial traditions that

had existed for many years, such as leaves, flowers, reeds, waves, mountains, animals,

and other such things found in nature (Fig. 2).38

Kōdaiji style lacquers used similar

decorations, but were typically composed with finer lines and patterns that were drawn

with needles to save time (Fig. 3). Namban lacquers were objects that were

commissioned by Europeans (mainly Portuguese) for export or use in Catholic churches

in Japan, or other objects otherwise influenced by the Namban exchange. Mother-of-pearl

inlay was a very popular feature in these works (Fig. 5). Kōetsu style works featured

themes from classical literature and used atypical designs and materials (Fig. 6).39

It could be asked, “is there a particular category into which the Kobe ōtsuzumi can

neatly fit?” According to a catalogue entry about a similar ōtsuzumi, there were no prior

traditions that defined typical designs, so images on ōtsuzumi were often unique.* In fact,

the decoration of these drums had only recently begun; before, they were mostly

undecorated.40

The total absence of flowers and animals on this drum suggests that it

38

Okada, A Sprinkling of Gold, 35. 39

Pekarik, “Lacquer and Metalwork,” 237-238. * It is worth noting, however, that there are examples of tsuzumis decorated with karuta (playing card)

motifs from the same period. Other imported items such as tobacco pipes and grapes were also used as

decorative designs on lacquerware, so there may have been certain foreign motifs that were especially

popular at the time of the Namban exchange. 40

Ibid., 248.

18

doesn’t fit well with Higashiyama or Kōdaiji style lacquerwares, since nature motifs were

the dominant theme of these styles. Because of its Western motif, the ōtsuzumi currently

occupies a place in the Namban art collection at the Kobe Museum. But there are several

unique features that separate it from other Namban artworks and grant it a somewhat

ambiguous place in its historical context.

19

THE ARRIVAL OF THE ARQUEBUS

As Momoyama lacquers emerged from Chinese and Japanese interaction, this

leads to another equally important point of cultural exchange: namely the East-West

exchange in Japan that began in 1543 when Portuguese traders landed at the island of

Tanegashima in southern Japan.41

As contact between Japan and Portugal continued, the

Portuguese introduced to Japan several new customs and commodities such as spices,

crops, sciences, and Christianity. But of all the imports flooding into the archipelago,

none was more readily received than the arquebus.

In fact, the arquebus appears to have been the very first Western commodity that

seized the attention of the Japanese, according to the Teppōki (Record of the Musket,

1606), a report written for the sixteenth Lord of Tanegashima by the Confucian scholar

Nanpo Bunshi (1555-1620). On September 23rd

1543, an unidentified ship crewed by

roughly 100 people landed in Nishinomura Bay on the southeastern tip of the island.

Among them was a scholar named Gohō, who used written Chinese to communicate with

the people in the village. Nanpo remarks on some of the unusual habits of the visitors, but

concludes that they are harmless.42

But the main focus of Nanpo’s report was not so much the nature of these foreign

visitors, but the objects they carried with them:

41

Kenneth M. Swope, “Crouching Tigers, Secret Weapons: Military Technology Employed during the

Sino-Japanese-Korean War, 1592-1598,” The Journal of Military History, 69:1 (2005): 19. 42

Olof G. Lidin, Tanegashima: The Arrival of Europe in Japan (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2002), 36, 96.

20

They had in their possession an object which was about two or three shaku

(about 30 cm.) in length. As for its shape, it was straight on the outside

with a passage inside, and made of a heavy substance. Even though its

inside was hollow, its bottom end was closed. There was an aperture at its

side, through which fire was applied. Its shape could not be compared with

anything else. When used, some mysterious powder was put into it and a

small lead pellet was added. At first, a small white target was set up on a

bank. When it was discharged, the man gripped the object with one hand,

straightened his posture, and squinted with one eye. When thereupon fire

issued from the opening, the pellet always hit the target squarely. The

explosion seemed like lightning, and the sound like rolling thunder. All

bystanders covered their ears.43

After finishing his description of the arquebus’s appearance and function,

Nanpo further noted its destructive power and practical use in hunting or combat.

According to him, “the many ways this object can be used in the world cannot

possibly be counted.” 44

Nanpo’s father Lord Tokitaka (1528-1579), intrigued by this new device,

asked the sailors to teach him how to shoot it. Days later, Tokitaka demonstrated

the gun at a festival, where he successfully hit his target. The people watching

were afraid at first, but by the end of the demonstration, they all declared they

wanted to learn to shoot as well. Tokitaka purchased two rifles for himself and

kept them as precious treasures in his home. After incessant days of practicing,

Tokitaka was able to hit 100 targets out of 100 shots.45

Tokitaka was so taken with these new weapons that he introduced it to some

ironworkers, who were able to craft their own versions after months of study and

guidance from a Portuguese blacksmith. A traveling merchant’s apprentice stayed in

43

Ibid., 37-8. 44

Ibid., 38. 45

Ibid., 38-39.

21

Tanegashima for one or two years, and, after becoming an expert marksman himself,

spread the word about the firearms throughout the provinces.46

The importance of the role of these new weapons in Japan during this period

cannot be overstated. Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) was a powerful daimyō, an

enthusiastic admirer of Western objects, and the first of the three great conquerors

responsible for uniting Japan. He purchased a large order of firearms from the Portuguese

and developed a system of rotating volleys that assured constant fire (twenty years before

Europeans would invent such a system). Nobunaga implemented this new tactic at the

Battle of Nagashino (1575), during which his 3,000 riflemen decimated the reputedly

invincible cavalrymen of the powerful Takeda clan.47

Proving the indisputable superiority

of firearms on the battlefield, the events at Nagashino ushered in a new age of modern

warfare in Japan (Fig. 7). By 1582, an estimated one-third of soldiers in the armies of all

the major competing warlords were riflemen.48

Fifty years after the introduction of

firearms, Japan was successfully unified under one ruler.49

This Western commodity

indelibly influenced the history of Japan.

Encounters between Europeans and non-European cultures sometimes result in

attempts of colonization, but this was never the case with Japan. The Portuguese’ initial

impressions of the Japanese were very favorable. Francis Xavier (1506-1552), an early

Jesuit visitor to Japan, wrote highly of them in a letter:

By the experience which we have had of this land of Japan, I can inform

you thereof as follows – Firstly, the people whom we have met so far, are

the best who have yet been discovered, and its seems to me that we shall

46

Ibid., 40-41. 47

Delmer M. Brown, “The Impact of Firearms on Japanese Warfare,” The Far Eastern Quarterly, 7:3

(1948): 245. 48

Ibid., 239. 49

Wendell Cole, Kyoto in the Momoyama Period (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967), 41.

22

never find among heathens another race to equal the Japanese. They are a

people of very good manners, good in general, and not malicious; they are

men of honor to marvel, and prize honor above all else in the world...They

are a people of very good will, very sociable, and very desirous of

knowledge; they are very fond of hearing about things of God, chiefly

when they understand them. 50

The Japanese people’s initial impressions of the Jesuits more closely resembled

cautious curiosity rather than the kind of admiration expressed by Xavier. But what is

important is that they did not view them as potential threats, and these first impressions

would lead to a profitable relationship.

These men are traders of Seinamban (Southwest Barbary). They

understand to a certain degree the distinction between Superior and

Inferior, but I do not know whether they have a proper system of

ceremonial etiquette. They eat with their fingers instead of with chopsticks

such as we use. They show their feelings without any self-control. They

cannot understand the meaning of written characters. They are people who

spend their lives roving hither and yon. They have no fixed abode and

barter things which they have for those they do not, but withal they are a

harmless sort of people. 51

The Portuguese found themselves quite welcome among the Japanese, much more

so than they did among the Chinese, who looked down on them as barbarians.52

After

leaving Japan for China to preach the Gospel, Xavier wrote that “[Japan] is the only

country yet discovered in these regions where there is hope of Christianity permanently

taking root.” 53

The Japanese, on the other hand, recognized the value of the Jesuits as

essential intermediaries in global trade and teachers of Western learning.54

At one point,

Hideyoshi even requested the Jesuits to give him control of two Portuguese carracks to

aid in his conquest of Korea and China. In return, Hideyoshi promised the Jesuits he

50

C.R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan: 1549-1650 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951),

37-38. 51

Ibid., 29. 52

Ibid., 31. 53

Stuart D.B. Picken, Christianity in Japan: Meeting, Conflict, Hope (Tokyo and New York: Kodansha,

1983), 32. 54

Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 78, 179, 183.

23

would build Christian churches in his conquered lands and force the populace to convert

to Christianity.55

By not reacting with immediate hostility toward one another, the two

cultures were able to begin and sustain a profitable and culturally significant exchange,

eventually coming to view each other as equals.56

Their accommodations toward each

other were based on commercial interests, religious ambitions, and mutual respect. This

relationship is the reason why objects like the Kobe museum drum exist today.

55

Ibid., 141. 56

Ibid., 209.

24

Figure 7. Detail from The Battle at Nagashino, 17

th century. Six-fold screen, ink and

colors on paper, 157.9 x 366.0 cm. Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya.

25

NARRATIVE IMAGERY AND THE AESTHETICS OF WARRIOR CULTURE

It is possible that the gun imagery on the Kobe ōtsuzumi is not just a literal image,

but also is a referential one. Many lacquerworks from this age have decorative motifs that

are often connected with specific themes or dynamic narratives, and the Kobe ōtsuzumi

may be one such work. To explore some examples of this, let us revisit the writing-box

decorated with an image of Hatsuse Mountain (Fig. 2).

Because writing boxes were vessels containing implements like brushes and ink

stones for composing poetry, it was customary to decorate them with imagery inspired by

poems. This lacquered writing box has been linked to a poem written by Fujiwara no

Yoshitsune (1169-1206), describing the beauty of the scattering blossoms and the light of

the moon. Faithfully invoking the imagery of the poem, a silvery moon can be seen

peeking behind the mountaintop, while blossoms drawn out of scale are shown to be

unattached to any branches.57

Another example of lacquerware emphasizes the importance of narrative imagery

to the samurai class: a lacquer saddle, designed with a river, bridge, and willow,

references a bridge over Uji River, outside of Kyoto (Fig. 8). In addition to being a scene

from The Tale of Genji, the bridge is also believed to be the location of a bloody battle

fought in the twelfth century, recounted in The Tale of Heike (c. 1240), a dramatization of

the war fought between the Taira and Minamoto clans. Samurai relied heavily on horses

57

Pekarik, “Lacquer and Metalwork,” 239.

26

during the battles of the Momoyama period, and decorating their saddles with scenes of

battle may have been a way of paying homage to the deeds of past warriors.58

They may

have also been trying to channel that past courage through a kind of sympathetic magic, a

concept that will be further explored in the next section.

With so many of these lacquer objects having such direct references to scenes and

battles, could it be supposed that the Kobe museum ōtsuzumi’s motif is meant to allude to

a particular narrative or event? While there are no illustrative clues pointing to specific

locations on the ōtsuzumi, the use of guns and powder horns could suggest that it was

meant to reference contemporary battles fought by the great daimyō of the time. Wars

often inspired great works of classical drama, such as the war that was dramatized in The

Tale of Heike. While there are no texts of any plays about the exploits of Momoyama

daimyō, it is known that such plays were written. For example, Hideyoshi, who inherited

Nobunaga’s military legacy and eventually united Japan, had several plays written about

himself and his military exploits, and he likely performed in them as himself

(unfortunately, any physical texts of such plays about Hideyoshi are not known to

exist).59

As these plays were being performed, an object like the Kobe Museum’s lacquer

drum would have been able to play a unique role as a visual reminder of the importance

of firearms in these battles.

Hideyoshi’s interest in the performing arts was not unusual. Japanese nobility of

the Momoyama period were not just expected to be skilled in the martial arts, but also in

arts such as music, literature, poetry, calligraphy, flower arranging, and the tea ceremony.

They were not just patrons of the arts, but they also participated in them as well. The Zen

58

Ibid., 242. 59

J. Thomas Rimer, “What More Do We Need to Know about the Noh?” Asian Theatre Journal, 9:2

(1992): 220.

27

Buddhism culture that had developed from the Muromachi period produced many of the

art forms practiced by samurai. These arts developed from religious practices, but

eventually took on more secular roles, becoming major methods of meditation with

supposed spiritual and psychological benefits.60

Furthermore, music, which had

previously been described as an asobi (amusement) for the nobility, had developed into a

severe discipline through Buddhism and bushido (the samurai code).61

Noh, frequently

patronized and performed by the military elite, is a prime example of how serious art had

become.62

In the next section, we will look at some of the key stylistic principals of noh

theater, its patronage by the warrior class, and analyze how the Kobe ōtsuzumi might

have had a unique use in this context.

60

Paul Varley, Japanese Culture, 4th

ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000) 138-139. 61

Henry Johnson, “The Sounds of Myujikku: An Exploration of Concepts and Classifications in Japanese

Sound Aesthetics,” Journal of Musicological Research, 18:4 (1999): 292. 62

Andrew Pekarik, “Noh Masks,” in Japan’s Golden Age: Momoyama, ed. Money L. Hickman (New

Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 291.

28

Figure 8. Saddle with designs of river, bridge, and willow, ca. 1585. Lacquer on

wood base, hiramaki-e, 37.6 x 30 cm. Equine Museum of Japan, Kanagawa.

29

THE LACQUER DRUM IN PERFORMANCE ARTS

Arguably the most prominent form of performing arts during this time, the roots

of noh go back several hundred years. Donald Keene has described noh performances as

“dramatic poem(s) concerned with remote or supernatural events, performed by a dancer,

often masked, who shares with lesser personages and a chorus the singing and

declamation of the poetry.“ 63

Rather than focusing on realism or lively entertainment,

noh focuses on symbolism and highly ritualized speech and movement. Elegant,

mysterious, and deep are just some of the words that could be used to describe this

sophisticated and courtly style of drama. Because noh was regarded as one of the

pinnacles of refinement in medieval Japanese culture, the objects associated with noh

were also expected to be of the highest quality.64

Lacquer could not have been a more

appropriate medium for noh instruments, as lacquer objects held substantial value due to

the worth of the raw materials and the tremendous labor that went into making them.

One of the benefits drawn from practicing arts was the mental and spiritual

preparation for a soldier about to head into battle. Shura (warrior) plays, one of the five

types of noh plays, were sometimes performed for this purpose. According to Eric C.

Rath:

Noh actors in the sixteenth century ritualized their performances by

changing accepted modes of staging and dress in ways that included

donning armor and using real weapons. For example, actors wore armor

63

Varley, Japanese Culture, 114-115. 64

Kazuie Furuto ed. et al., The Shogun Age Exhibition (Tokyo: The Shogun Age Exhibition Executive

Committee, 1983), 155.

30

and brandished actual weapons to perform the dance piece Yumiya tachiai

(The Archery Competition) before battles. Like the pieces performed at

Tonomine, Yumiya tachiai was often used as a competition piece, as its

name indicates. However, its celebration of martial qualities made it

suitable for rousing the spirits of warriors heading off into battle, and the

use of actual weapons and armor may have worked a sympathetic magic to

ensure victory. 65

Another type of performing art favored by the samurai was the kōwakamai,

dances set to music to illustrate tales of heroic adventure. With a similar aesthetic to noh,

these dances also employed slow, stylized movements and a single drummer. It is widely

held that Nobunaga, on the eve of the Battle of Okehazama (1560), performed a

kōwakamai himself as a way of preparing his mind and body for the battle, just as Rath

described.66

These could be the kinds of performances and situations for which this ōtsuzumi

was made. Like other Japanese art objects, this black lacquer ōtsuzumi is not a static item

that was created for the sake of its appearance.67

It is utilitarian, and it serves as one of

the four essential instruments in noh drama. Rath mentioned sympathetic magic, in which

a person or group attempts to bring about a result by producing something that resembles

that result. For example, it is widely held that prehistoric cave paintings of wild animals

were intended to increase the supply of hunting game or increase the skill of the

hunters.68

In a noh performance, in addition to the actors who would have performed the

characters dressed in armor and armed with weapons, there would have also been

musicians in the background, playing the traditional noh instruments: the nōkan

65

Eric C. Rath, “Warrior noh: Konparu Zenpo and the ritual performance of shura plays,” Japan

Forum¸18:2 (2006): 178. 66

Cole, Kyoto in the Momoyama Period, 112. 67

Jahss, Inro and Other Miniature Forms of Japanese Lacquer Art, 42. 68

James D. Keyser and David S. Whitley, “Sympathetic Magic in Western North American Rock Art,”

American Antiquity, 71:1 (2006): 4-5.

31

(transverse flute), the kotsuzumi (shoulder-drum), the taiko (stick drum), and of course,

the ōtsuzumi.

These musicians are usually placed in the back of the stage, so if a musician were

to be playing this particular ōtsuzumi during a performance, the audience members would

not have been able to see its gun motif very well. So we cannot assume that the message

contained in the drum was intended for the entire audience. But for the person playing the

drum, the image of the gun could have had an intimate psychological impact.

The drum is played by striking it with the palm and fingers of the right hand,

while the left hand holds it against the hip. The left hand fingers control the tension on

the drumhead cords by squeezing them to control the pitch and sound.69

Much like the

actions of the noh actors, the musicians’ motions were ritualistically focused and

deliberate. To play this drum, a certain degree of skill with the hands was needed, not

unlike the arquebus, which also required great skill and concentration to use. In this sense,

the object takes on a dual function, that of a musical instrument, and a representation of

the physical activity of operating a gun.

69

Furuto, The Shogun Age Exhibition, 155.

32

THE LACQUER DRUM AND YŪGEN

In the descriptive text of the ōtsuzumi by the Kobe Museum, there is an

acknowledgement of a connection between the beat of the drum and the crack of a

gunshot.70

It seems unlikely that the ōtsuzumi was designed to literally imitate a gunshot,

since these drums had been used in plays long before the Japanese ever had access to

firearms. However, the aesthetics of sound in traditional Japanese music encourages

listeners to think in broader terms. Like in several other cultures, many Japanese

instruments are believed to perform extra-musical functions in dramatic performances.

Some of these functions include mimicking or symbolizing weather conditions, locations,

characterizations, situations, or actions. They could enhance scenes or moods in the

narrative in subtle ways. In addition, there was a close association between music and

nature, and musical sounds were often believed to represent nature in some manner.71

For

example, in Zeami Motokiyo’s (1364-1444) treatise on noh, Hachijō Kadensho (The

Book of Transmission of the Flower, dated between 1573-1591), * he proposes that each

part of the musical ensemble represents one of the five principal elements of the universe:

the lead actor represents the void, the flute represents wind, the shoulder-drum represents

70

“Description of black lacquered drum base with gun motif,” Kobe City Museum, translated by author,

accessed February 13, 2014,

http://www.city.kobe.lg.jp/culture/culture/institution/museum/meihin_new/413.html. 71

Johnson, “The Sounds of Myujikku,” 295-296. * According to Rath, the Kadensho was apocryphally attributed to Zeami, but was not actually authored by

him. However, today they are still associated with one another.

33

fire, the hip-drum represents water, and the stick drum stands for earth.72

These five parts

are not meant to be literal representations for each of these forces of nature. But together,

they do represent the entirety of nature, and everything encompassed by it, including

guns.

While these are musical concepts that would have existed before the arrival of the

Portuguese, it is certainly plausible for Japanese musicians to have used sound aesthetics

to represent firearms to some degree. The sounds produced by instruments could have

been interpreted as effects representing several dynamic elements. For example, in the

noh play Adachi-ga Hara (alternatively, Kurozuka), the full instrumental ensemble is

implemented to announce the arrival of an enraged ogre. The ogre’s dialogue (spoken by

the lead actor and the chorus) gives the audience an idea as to what they should be

imagining as they watch the scene unfold:

Ogre: Stop, you fleeing mountain priests! You looked inside my bedroom

although I sternly forbade you to do so. I will inflict revenge on you for

breaking your promise!

The flames of rage burning in my heart are as furious as the smoke emitted

from the palace in Xiangyang which burned for months at the time of the

collapse of the Qin Dynasty. The flames furiously blazed up in the sky.

Chorus: The gust comes through a field and down from the mountain.

Ogre: Thunder and lightning fill the earth and sky.

Chorus: Clouds suddenly cover the sky, and a hard rain strikes the ground

at night.

Ogre: The ogre tries to gulp down the mountain priests at one swallow.

Chorus: Her footfalls approach.

Ogre: Her raised iron stick horribly…

Chorus: moans in the air. It is so terrible.73

72

Eric C. Rath, “Legends, Secrets and Authority: Hachijō Kadensho and Early Modern Noh,” Monumenta

Nipponica 54:2 (1999): 172. 73

“Kurozuka (Black Mound),” published 2009, accessed November 27, 2014, http://www.the-

noh.com/en/plays/data/program_035.html, 11-12.

34

In this scene of storms and calamities raging at the arrival of a supernatural

creature, the elements of nature are described as swirling in a chaotic torrent. To help

achieve this effect, the instruments play all together in an intense and rapid style.

It is not unreasonable to venture that this same musical method could be used to

illustrate the chaos of a battlefield. Like in the coming of the fearsome mountain ogre,

during which the instruments (and symbolically, the elements) came together in a full and

buoyant burst of energy, they could do the same to represent the eruption of a battle,

filled with charging horses, raging flames, pouring blood, cries of warriors, and blasts of

gunfire. In such a performance, it would not have been unexpected for audiences to

compare the beats of drums to the sound of gunshots. This is not to say that each

drumbeat is intended to represent a gunshot. Drums are also used in the quieter scenes,

and possess the potential to represent many things, not just loud noises. However, the

range of interpretive possibilities lies with each audience member, and is not set in stone.

Many of the connections that have been made between the potentiality in objects,

symbolic functions, and sound aesthetics have been suggested without firm knowledge

that this ōtsuzumi drum was made for these purposes. However, unapparent meanings

like these are part of an important aesthetic principle called yūgen. The exact definition of

this term is debatable, and there is no direct translation into English, but it has been

described as “half-revealed or suggested beauty, at once elusive and meaningful, tinged

with wistful sadness.” 74

Yūgen has its roots in poetry, but it was integrated into noh by

Zeami, who developed the concept by combining it with existing noh ideals such as

monomane (mime or imitation). Zeami continued to enlarge and elevate his concept of

74

Andrew T. Tsubaki, “Zeami and the Transition of the Concept of Yūgen : A Note on Japanese

Aesthetics,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 30:1 (1971): 57.

35

yūgen in noh, developing it into an aesthetic that emphasized subtlety over obviousness.75

Other experts have described it as beauty found in hidden depths, mystery, profundity

that is like darkness, and impossible to fully comprehend with physical sight alone. There

are also connotations of insubstantiality and impermanence, as well as a rejection of

useless decoration.76

Audience members and performers would have arrived at the interpretive

possibilities* I described earlier only through careful thought and consideration (subtlety

over obviousness). These representational aspects of the ōtsuzumi, combined with the

dichotomy of the physical (the arquebus motif) and the metaphysical (the void), make

this object an appropriate manifestation of the yūgen aesthetic. In addition, there are

formal qualities of the drum that indicate the influence of yūgen.

In order to understand how the Kobe Museum drum visually exemplifies yūgen,

let us first examine an example of sumi-e (monochrome ink painting), a genre of art that

adheres to the philosophies of yūgen. A particularly well-known sumi-e is Sesshū Tōyō’s

(1420-1506) Splashed Ink Landscape (1495) (Fig. 9). In sumi-e, there is a tension

between the object, which is given substance with ink, and the void, which is created

through the absence of ink. These two sides are believed to represent the opposing forces

yang and yin in Daoism, a major influence over Asian aesthetics.77

In Sesshū's painting,

we can see this tension created through different light values in the ink. An open sky and

a body of water are suggested by the blank spaces of the painting. Jet black strokes

construct a building on the bank, thick layers of foliage, and a tiny boat with two seated

75

Ibid., 55. 76

Steve Odin, “The Penumbral Shadows: A Whiteheadian Perspective on the Yūgen Style of Art and

Literature in Japanese Aesthetics,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 12:1 (1985): 74-75, 84. * I avoid using the word “conclusions” because that would seem to contradict what yūgen is about.

77 Ibid., 81.

36

figures. The rest of the landscape and the vegetation are created through lighter, yet still

discernible strokes of grey. The left side of the frame shows traces of light ink splashes,

giving it a misty quality. This haze continues upward, gradually solidifying into a group

of mountain peaks.78

This transparent layer conceals the boundaries between the physical

and the spiritual, creating an “unobstructed interfusion of solid and void.” 79

In the lacquer ōtsuzumi, we can see a similar representation of the object and the

void. The base color of the ōtsuzumi is black, which represents the incomprehensive

darkness that yūgen emphasizes so heavily. Meanwhile, the rifles, powder horns, and

cords laid out in gold powder are objects of unquestionable visibility and substance.

There are no unnecessary decorations to distract the viewer, and no extra details that

would even attempt to create a sense of realism. There is no physical plane depicted

within the drum’s frame for the rifles, so they are suspended in an undefined space. This

is where the tension between the physical and the metaphysical is represented, and this is

where yūgen and the aesthetics of noh and sumi-e manifest themselves in the ōtsuzumi.

It is important to note, however, that there are several differences that exist

between these two mediums. While the object and the void are both present in the lacquer

ōtsuzumi, they are much more firmly divided than in a sumi-e painting. Varying degrees

of thickness in the ink application of sumi-e create a seamless flow between abstraction

and reality, whereas in the ōtsuzumi, the outlines of the objects are well-defined. In

addition, the designs of the arquebuses in the ōtsuzumi are not abstracted to the same

degree that subject matter is in sumi-e. The qualities of raw emotion, lack of intention,

78

Yukio Lippit, “Of Modes and Manners in Japanese Ink Painting: Sesshū’s Splashed Ink Landscape of

1495,” The Art Bulletin, 94:1 (2012): 54. 79

Odin, “The Penumbral Shadows,” 79.

37

and spontaneity, which are prominent features of sumi-e, are not as obvious in our

ōtsuzumi.

Even so, we can still see in the ōtsuzumi a similar kind of dichotomy of the

tangible and intangible that exists in sumi-e paintings. And it should be emphasized that

one of the most treasured qualities of yūgen is the inability to completely comprehend it.

But despite the difficulty in assessing its presence in works of art, it has had lasting

impacts on more than just painting, but also poetry, drama, gardens, tea ceremony, and

other activities. Sumi-e is just one of, albeit arguably the most effective, means of

visually portraying this abstract concept.80

But that does not necessarily make it the only

one.

80

Odin, “The Penumbral Shadows,” 78.

38

Figure 9. Sesshū Tōyō, detail from Splashed Ink Landscape, 1495.

Vertical hanging scroll, ink on paper, 147.9 x 32.7 cm. Tokyo National

Museum.

39

THE DECLINE OF THE GUN

Despite the potential layers of meaning within the Kobe Museum’s lacquer

ōtsuzumi, it is the only example of an artwork that features the arquebus in such a

prominent and focused way. So it begs the question: why would such a remarkable and

era-defining object like the arquebus receive so little attention in the arts? According to

Noel Perrin, there are multiple reasons, many of them pertaining to the aesthetic

sensibilities of the Japanese.

While many people may take this for granted, it is helpful to be reminded that the

samurai had deep-set traditions relating to conduct and honor on the battlefield. Rather

than two forces colliding in a chaotic fray, combatants often paired off, resulting in

dramatic duels that were decided by individual skill and quality of equipment. It was also

customary to introduce oneself to one’s opponent, a formality done out of respect. It was

from such traditions that many of Japan’s heroic narratives originated.81

The introduction of firearms changed all of this. Brave warriors who charged into

the battle were at a sore disadvantage, as unskilled yeomen were able to kill samurai

simply by pulling a trigger. The one-on-one battles that could earn honor and distinction

were taken away, and highly trained samurai were outraged to learn that they could be so

easily killed by the lower classes. Conflicting attitudes about firearms emerged, some

At least in my own research, which has been expansive across Japanese lacquerworks, there has been

nothing like this object. 81

Noel Perrin, Giving Up the Gun: Japan’s Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879 (Boston: David R. Godin,

Publisher, 1979), 23-24.

40

recognizing their superiority as long-range weapons, and others insisting that they were

not weapons of a true warrior.82

Perrin lists 5 reasons why Japan decided to turn away from the development of

firearms:

1. The samurai felt that firearms were getting out of hand, and making up a

sizeable portion of the population (at least in comparison to the warrior

classes of Europe), the voice of opposition against guns was greater.83

2. The samurai felt that they were fully capable of defending themselves

from foreign invasion with conventional weapons. They had proven to the

Chinese, and the Koreans, and even to the Spanish that they were not a

force to be trifled with, and did not worry about being threatened with

invasion. In addition, the Sengoku (warring states) period, during which

guns had been used to the greatest extent, had ended, so civil conflicts

were no longer a high priority.84

After 1637, firearms were not widely

used again until the nineteenth century.85

3. The symbolic value of Japanese swords would have been too much to lose

if they were replaced by guns. Swords were considered to be the very

embodiment of personal and family honor, ideals which were reflected in

their exquisite craftsmanship. Swords were often given as gifts from the

government to reward the most exceptional acts of service. But even the

82

Ibid., 25. 83

Ibid., 33-35. 1467-1603. While the Muromachi and Momoyama periods refer to the people who were in power at the

time, Sengoku refers to the century and a half of civil war. The term “Sengoku” originates from the ancient

Chinese period of warring states. 84

Ibid., 35. 85

Ibid., 65.

41

most ornate and luxuriant swords were not meant purely for display; they

were also made to be used in battle.86

4. Guns, along with Christianity and Western business practices, were

rejected by many as outside ideas.87

The Sakoku Edict, which began a

period of national isolation when foreign relations were strictly regulated

and limited to the port city of Nagasaki, is the most apparent effect of

these attitudes.

5. The symbolic value of swords aside, the aesthetics of martial arts and

body movements associated with swordplay were held in high regard.88

There were very rigid rules about how one should sit, stand, and kneel,

and these rules were expressed in rituals like noh and the tea ceremony.

While the movements made by a soldier wielding a two-handed sword

will adhere to the aesthetics of body movements, a person firing an

arquebus will not. This is evidenced by a late sixteenth-century manual

that was made to instruct soldiers on how to properly use firearms. The

manual is full of comments that actually apologize to the reader for having

to assume uncomfortable and aesthetically displeasing positions. However,

the author does try his hardest to keep the prescribed movements as close

to those used in swordsmanship. Wars demanded “ugly efficiency,” but

when the wars ended, tastes were refined once again.89

86

Ibid., 36-38. 87

Ibid., 41-42. 88

Ibid., 42. 89

Ibid., 42-45.

42

Perrin’s findings show that there were divided attitudes about the position that

guns should have in early modern Japanese society. While firearms did experience an

explosive period of popularity during the height of the Sengoku period, they receded as

the wars were replaced by the peace of the Edo period. Olof Lidin notes that in the

eighteenth century, some gun foundries were allowed by the government to produce

hunting guns for private commerce, but the number of gun-producing families and

foundries decreased overall.90

This would help explain why there are so few examples of

artworks that focus on firearms in the way that our ōtsuzumi does.

Despite the opposition against guns, there still were many voices that supported

their use. Firearms in the hands of unskilled peasants allowed them to have opportunities

to serve their lords on the battlefield, which surely would have been welcome to many. In

addition, the nature of the lacquer medium, according to Melvin and Betty Jahss, is a very

personal one. “A masterpiece of painting or handicraft is not simply a work of art to be

placed in a museum but the symbolic representation of the artist’s inner religious and

aesthetic feelings toward his subject matter.” 91

The Kobe Museum has no information on

the creator of its lacquer ōtsuzumi, but there are some things that we can reasonably

assume: the artist liked or at least appreciated and understood guns. Perhaps he or

someone he knew was able to improve their lot in life by serving in battle, and firearms

may have made it possible to do so. Judging from the articulate details of the motif, and

the time period that the object was made in, the artist himself may have very well owned

a gun.

90

Lidin, Tanegashima, 153. 91

Jahss, Inro and Other Miniature Forms of Japanese Lacquer Art, 55.

43

While art featuring firearms made at the height of their popularity is scarce, there

are some examples made centuries later. For example, there are at least three existing

nineteenth-century ukiyo-e (wood block prints) works produced by the Utagawa school

featuring kabuki actors dressed as characters holding guns. To an extent, these prints

indicate that firearms were able to retain a place in Japanese arts and culture well after

gun production began to decline. One such print is held in the British Museum (Fig. 10).

In this print, the kabuki actor Ichikawa Ebizō (1791-1859) portrays the samurai Saitō

Dōsan (1494-1556). Posed in a typical kabuki stance, he holds a rifle pointed barrel-down

in his left hand. The rifle is held vertically down the middle of the print, placing it in a

position of notable prominence.

44

Figure 10. Utagawa Kunisada, Ichikawa Ebizō as Saitō Dōsan, 1836. Half of color

woodblock print diptych. British Museum, London.

45

THE SURVIVAL OF THE ŌTSUZUMI

The widely divided opinions on firearms may have been why there are so few

existing objects like the Kobe ōtsuzumi, but many artworks also influenced by the

Namban exchange were actively sought out and destroyed for other reasons. The earliest

examples of Namban art are gone, though it is assumed that most of what was lost was

religious in nature. After the missionaries were exiled from Japan, the Tokugawa

shogunate illegalized Christianity and a mass iconoclasm of Christian images destroyed

much of what had been created during the Namban exchange. Even objects of a secular

nature were destroyed, and most of what exists today had been hidden away.92

Would images of Western firearms been viewed with the same xenophobia as

images of Jesus Christ or other Western subjects? Opinions on this matter were most

likely divided. By the time of the official expulsion edict that banned Christian

missionaries, guns had been an established part of the Japanese military, and gunsmiths

had mastered their craft. Previously, the daimyō had relied on appeasing foreigners to

acquire these weapons. Some daimyō converted to Christianity just to get more of them.

Even years after the declaration of the Sakoku Edict, guns may have been acknowledged

as a Japanese item, rather than a foreign import. Since guns had become such an

important and common part of life in Japan, images of guns may not have been seen by

all as a blemish left behind by the “barbarians from the south.”

92

Money L. Hickman, “Painting,” in Japan’s Golden Age: Momoyama, ed. Money L. Hickman (New

Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 146.

46

Despite the usefulness of firearms, they may have still retained a lingering

association with Christianity that some of the daimyō would have had a hard time

ignoring. Perfectly embodying this association is an arquebus decorated with imagery

inspired by events from the life of Jesus Christ, such as his teaching ministry and the

Passion. The barrel is divided into six sections, the first of which represents Christ’s face

on the Veil of Veronica. The second section depicts grapes on a shield (referencing

Christ’s transformation of water into wine in the New Testament). The third section

shows several objects present at the Crucifixion, including the dice used by the Roman

soldiers to determine who would keep Christ’s clothing, the Lance of Longinus, the

branch attached to the vinegar soaked sponge, and the bag of 30 silver coins given to

Judas. The fourth section consists of the cross, the crown of thorns, the tools used to nail

Christ to the cross, a skull (referencing the name of Golgotha, “the place of a skull”), and

the cock that crowed when Peter denied him. The fifth section is marked by the Virgin

Mary surrounded by an oval rosary, and the sixth section shows the Sacred Heart under a

winged angel, a block of stone, a cross, a dove, and five fish and two loaves of bread

from the feeding of the crowd (in the Biblical account, Christ used two fish and five

loaves, so this was obviously an error on the part of the artist, who may not have had

access to a Bible).93

The rifle was apparently commissioned by the Arima clan, the governing power

of the Harima province.94

The daimyō, Harunobu (1567-1612), was just one of the

several who were baptized by the Jesuits during their time in Japan. However, unlike

93

John Harding, “A very important and very rare Japanese Namban arquebus from the Momoyama period,

representing the instruments of the Passion of the Christ,” translated by Jennifer Sales, Bulletin 41 (1993):

10-12. 94

Ibid., 13.

47

many of his peers, who only feigned faith to get access to more weapons, Harunobu

stayed a faithful Christian until his execution, but his successor, his son Naozumi (1586-

1641), recanted his Christian belief and reluctantly aided in the persecution of Japanese

Christians.95

The Shimabara Rebellion of 1637 represented the greatest fears of the shogunate

in the wake of the expulsion of the missionaries. Twenty years after the expulsion edict,

several thousand landless samurai and about 20,000 Christians banded together in an

armed uprising, seizing Hara Castle (completed, c. 1616) and an armory consisting of

several hundred guns. They managed to hold out for a time, killing thousands of

besiegers, but were eventually wiped out by the government army, who also would have

used firearms.96

In such a bloody conflict over religion, weapons like the arquebus commissioned

by the Arima clan would have carried powerful symbolic meaning for both Christians

and anti-Christians. For Christians, it would have been a symbol of their faith, both in

God, and in the power of the miraculous weapons that made it possible for the lowliest

peasant to defeat their oppressors, the highly trained samurai. For the shogunate, the

sacred icons covering the barrel of the inelegant killing tool was a reminder of what their

foreign visitors had left behind them: a dangerous religion and the means to fight for it.

Since the rebellion failed, it is miraculous that the gun has survived the centuries (most

likely it was kept secret by a hidden Christian).

The rebellion was a terrible reminder of the power that guns had to transform a

rabble of disgruntled commoners into a powerful force. Fear of future rebellion would

95

Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 315. 96

Perrin, Giving Up the Gun, 65.

48

have motivated the shogunate to strictly regulate the production of firearms. This event

surely would have further complicated the divided opinions on gun control during the

Edo period. While guns gave confidence to the rebels at Shimabara, guns also helped to

put them down. For some, firearms would have been viewed as a tool for sparking

dishonorable conflicts; for others, it would have represented a means for maintaining the

peace.

Unlike the Arima family arquebus, which reinforced the connection between

Christianity and firearms, the Kobe ōtsuzumi represents a visual disassociation between

the two. The absence of figures in the frame is an aspect worth noticing. Many of the

Namban lacquer works that feature some kind of European subject matter are decorated

with images of Portuguese people. They are immediately recognizable by their billowing

pantaloons, lace collars, hats, stockings, or Western swords (Fig. 11). However, most of

the weapons they are shown to be holding are either swords or spears. Meanwhile, the

lacquer drum with the arquebus motif contains no images of figures at all. It is almost as

if the Portuguese visitors and the valuable weapons they brought with them were being

separated from each other by the Japanese through visual arts. Alexandra Curvelo

observes that in art produced in Japan before relations were established with the

Portuguese, foreigners were represented in a distant territory, outside of the kingdom.

After the Portuguese made contact, the “other” was no longer there, but “here,” becoming

part of the human landscape in painting.97

In the case of the lacquer drum, the firearm

that was once brought over by the “other” is now left on its own—its foreign origins have

been omitted from the frame. The disassociation of the guns from the Portuguese may

97

Alexandra Curvelo, “The Disruptive Presence of the Namban-jin in Early Modern Japan,” in Journal of

the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55(2012): 591-2.

49

have helped to mark the arquebus as a Japanese item, rather than an import with ties to a

dangerous foreign religion.

Lacquer was a commonly used material in the decoration of armor and weapons.

Scabbards, helmets, even firearms themselves were sometimes coated in black lacquer

and decorated with gold powder (Fig. 12). Just like instruments associated with noh were

expected to be of the highest quality, the same standard may have been held to

instruments of war (at least to a certain degree). As most samurai were considered the

noble class of the time, it can be expected that they could afford weapons and armor

made of the finest materials. The special importance placed on the relationship between a

samurai and his weapons would amplify their desire to acquire such expertly made

objects. Finely decorated weapons would have also served as a sign of the wealth, rank,

and power of a samurai’s family.98

There is one other quality of lacquer works that makes them a fitting medium for

the appropriation of a foreign motif into another culture—they are built to last. Lacquer

possesses a natural resistance to dampness and heat, and is very durable. Many lacquer

works crafted in ancient times are still in good condition, such as the lacquer paintings

kept in the 1300-year-old Tamamushi-no-zushi shrine at the Hōryūji temple (completed,

c. 607) in Nara.99

Sometimes artists will craft cheap imitations, but these will not hold up

as well as genuine lacquerware. There was an incident in the Meiji era during which the

Japanese government sent specimens of old and new* lacquer works to the Vienna

Exhibition of 1872. During their voyage back to Japan on the S.S. Nile, the ship was

98

“Matchlock pistol,” Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, accessed November 7, 2014. 99

Yoshino, Japanese Lacquer Ware, 16. * The “old” likely refers to the lacquer works made by patient masters of the premodern period, and “new”

to the works that had been created in a rush to satisfy the demands of the foreign market of the nineteenth

century.

50

wrecked just off the coast. After 18 months underwater, the works were recovered. The

ones that had been crafted in the old style were completely undamaged, while the new

works had been ruined.100

In the 1930s, it become known that lacquer could resist the

corrosive effects of sea air, and came to be used in the interior decorating of Japanese

passenger boats.101

There is no written evidence that says our particular lacquer drum was made in

the old, masterly style, but there are clues that indicate that it was. We know that

instruments created for noh drama were expected to be of the highest quality, so cutting

corners while making this drum would not have been permitted. According to Watsky,

pre-Momoyama era lacquers were known for their intricate and complex design. A 1566

lacquered drum base decorated with holly leaves and diamond shapes provides an

example of this high quality (Fig. 13).102

Much like the Kobe Museum drum, this drum is

decorated with overlapping images placed in an undefined space. The serrated edges of

the leaves placed against the straight lines of the diamonds form small pockets, revealing

the lustrous black background. Watsky observes that the two overlapping motifs are

depicted with different types of gold powder. In order to give the motifs clearly defined

borders, the artist would have had to sprinkle, lacquer-coat, and wait for the first motif to

harden before he could start on the next one. In addition, painstaking precision was

needed to carefully outline each motif over the curved surface of the drum.103

We can see

that the Kobe drum base was made with the same rigorous technical standards. Finally,

the fact that the drum still exists today supports the claim that it was not cheaply made.

100

Mody, “Japanese Lacquer,” 294. 101

Yoshino, Japanese Lacquer Ware, 17. 102

Watsky, Chikubushima, 183-4. 103

Ibid., 184.

51

The permanence of the medium of high-quality lacquer hints at the idea that the arquebus

motif captured within the work was meant to be a lasting one.

52

Figure 11. Writing utensil box with maki-e motif of Southern Barbarian and dog,

early 17th

century. Lacquer on wood base, gold maki-e, 4.1 x 22 x 20.9 cm. Kobe

City Museum.

Figure 12. Matchlock pistol, early 17th

century to mid-19th

century. Iron, wood, lacquer,

gold, and silver, 9.5 x 32.4 cm. Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

53

Figure 13. Drum body, dated 1566. Maki-e lacquer on

wood. Tokyo National Museum.

54

THE ŌTSUZUMI IN GLOBAL TRADE

While this ōtsuzumi bears a motif inspired by a Western commodity and would

have been valued by Western collectors for its elegant design, the function of the object

suggests that it was not commissioned as an item for trade. During the Namban exchange,

there was no shortage of fine lacquerware that would have better catered to a global

market. The previously mentioned black and gold lacquer tankard, commissioned by the

Portuguese and crafted in the same era as the drum, is just one example (Fig. 5). In

addition, it was unlikely that any Portuguese had any interest in bringing back noh to

their homeland. Father Luís Fróis (1532-1597), the missionary and scholar, wrote that

“we cannot stand the music of the Japanese nobility.”104

To those unfamiliar with it, noh

can seem painfully slow in execution and overly thin in narrative.105

While considering what is present in the object’s design is invaluable in its

analysis, it is also worthwhile to discuss what is missing from the object. Many Namban

lacquer works were inlaid with mother-of-pearl to increase the value. There are numerous

examples of this, such as the tankard (Fig. 5). A Namban coffer, held by the Victoria and

Albert Museum, is another example of fine lacquerware with mother-of-pearl (Fig. 14).

Both of these objects are Western in shape and function, but distinctly Eastern in terms of

decoration and material, marking them as objects designed for Western patrons. Oliver

Impey notes in Modern Asian Studies that certain inventory records revealed that Dutch

104

Clive Willis, “Captain Jorge Alvares and Father Luís Fróis S.J.: Two Early Portuguese Descriptions of

Japan and the Japanese,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 22:2 (2012): 432. 105

Varley, Japanese Culture, 114-115.

55

trade from the 1630s onward was dominated mostly by cabinets, coffers, and flat-topped

chests.106

While these documents would have been created a few decades after the

Momoyama period, they still stand as strong evidence of the popularity of Western

objects with Eastern ornamentation―as long as the object itself functioned within the

cultural practices of Western society.

Conversely, objects with a Japanese cultural function, such as the writing utensil

box (Fig. 2), chest of drawers for incense (Fig. 3.), and the shelves with the Genji motif

(Fig. 6), were designed without any pearl. While this may not be the absolute threshold

marking whether an object was intended for international or domestic markets, it does

seem to indicate that there was a trend toward using mother-of-pearl for exports.

An entry from The Rijksmuseum Bulletin sheds some further light on why mother-

of-pearl was seen mostly on exported items:

The Europeans’ fascination with Oriental objects never stopped them from

interfering in the way things looked…The combination of lacquer work

and mother-of-pearl was influenced by Gujarat work from India:

varnished objects lavishly inlaid with pieces of mother-of-pearl, in which

Portuguese had already been actively trading before they arrived in Japan,

and which they had doubtless taken with them to Japan as examples. The

shapes of the namban lacquer work objects…are almost always

European...Namban lacquer work is thus an interesting outcome of the

contact between Japanese lacquer workers and Portuguese traders.107

Our ōtsuzumi drum’s lack of mother-of-pearl indicates that it was not likely

intended as an export. In fact, adding the hard shells would have likely been viewed as

impractical, since the drum would have been regularly handled by a performer. It is

possible that the quality of the sound may have also been affected by adding the extra

weight of this type of adornment. Additionally, since mother-of-pearl was so clearly

106

Oliver Impey, “Japanese Export Art of the Edo Period and Its Influence on European Art,” Modern

Asian Studies, 18:4 (1984): 687. 107

“Acquisitions: Fine & Decorative Arts,” The Rijksmuseum Bulletin, 57:4 (2009): 344.

56

popular with foreign patrons, it would have been more lucrative for merchants to keep it

within the international markets.

It is important to note, however, that lacquer works decorated with mother-of-

pearl were not something that began with the Namban trade. It actually goes back as far

as the eighth century.108

What we can gather from this is that during the Namban trade,

works decorated with mother-of-pearl were in higher demand in the international market.

The drum thus would have likely been made with the intent of keeping it within the

sphere of use in Japanese drama.

108

Mody, “Japanese Lacquer,” 291.

57

Figure 14. Coffer, late 16

th to early 17

th century. Wood covered with plates of shell held

by gilded copper rivets and black and gold hiramaki-e lacquer, gilt metal fittings, 85.2 x

116.5 x 45 cm. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

58

MUTUAL ACCOMMODATION AND JAPANESE CHRISTIAN MATERIAL

CULTURE: THE KOBE ŌTSUZUMI REVISITED

In terms of the cultural exchange between Japan and Portugual, I have focused

primarily on the ways in which the former was influenced by the latter. When writing

about this period, this seems to be the angle that most scholars focus on because it seems

to be the most readily apparent result of the exchange. Firearms and Christianity played

significant roles in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, but there seems to be

nothing to parallel these two things that was brought from Japan to Europe. However,

that is not to say that Portuguese did not adopt anything Japanese during their time there.

For example, we already know that lacquerwares were popular trade items that spread all

throughout the European market. Another popular commodity, Faience (fine glazed

earthenware), was another popular commodity that Japan supplied to Europe.109

Japanese

exports had a very visible effect on the art market. In addition, Japanese folding screens

gained popularity among Europeans. These screens initially made it over to Europe as

gifts from the Japanese, but there are also recorded commissions of Japanese-style

screens depicting Rome and other European capitals.110

While firearms were what initially sparked trade between Japan and Portugal, it

was not the central commodity of the entire exchange. In fact, the firearms trade was

deemphasized after Japanese smiths learned how to make them themselves. The Japanese

109

Robert C. Smith, The Art of Portugal: 1500-1800 (New York: Meredith Press, 1968), 236. 110

Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 201.

59

continued friendly relations with the Portuguese in order to acquire Chinese, Indian, and

other Western goods.111

On the other side, the Portuguese wanted to continue their

profitable trade relations as well, and the Jesuits were additionally motivated by the

desire to convert the whole of Japan to Christianity, in order the counteract the loss of

European nations to the Protestant Reformation.112

With both sides determined to keep up

the friendship between Japan and Portugal, both nations adopted policies of cultural

accommodation toward each other.

Cultural accommodation toward the Japanese by the Portuguese began with

Francis Xavier, who realized early during his time in Japan that his usual approach to

introducing Christianity to a new culture needed to be adjusted to meet the standards of

the Japanese. When trying to seek an audience with the emperor, he was turned away

because his tattered robes, regarded as a sign of piety and noble self-imposed poverty by

his own people, was seen as nothing but a sign of low rank. After procuring himself a

fine new robe, he met with the daimyō Ōuchi Yoshitaka (1507-1551) of Yamaguchi, and

impressed him so much that he was allowed to teach there.113

Further policies of accommodation to the Japanese culture were implemented by

other Jesuit leaders, but none are remembered for this so well as the Italian Jesuit

Alessandro Valignano (1539-1606) who recorded much of these policies in his handbook

Advertimentos e avisos acerca dos costumes e catangues de Jappão (1580). The manual

contained reforms regarding the daily behavior of the Jesuits based on observations of the

111

Ibid., 96-97. 112

Ibid., 48. 113

Picken, Christianity in Japan, 29-32.

60

Japanese people. The reforms were varied, covering such things as eating habits and

etiquette to hierarchal relationships in the clergy.114

An entire chapter of Valignano’s manual concerned architecture. Many Jesuits,

including Valignano, greatly admired Japanese architecture. Luís Fróis, for example,

wrote long praises of Nobunaga’s Gifu Castle (first completed, c. 1201), comparing it to

Solomon’s Temple and Dido’s Carthage.115

Valignano ordered that all Jesuit buildings in

Japan be built in Japanese style, so that they may conform to Japanese needs. This

included the appropriate division of social classes and sexes, as well as spaces to perform

the tea ceremony, an indisputable part of Japanese hospitality.116

Because of the persecutions and iconoclasms that destroyed much of the Christian

objects created in Japan, all the Jesuit buildings that were erected during this time were

demolished. But in addition to the textual evidence of hybrid Christian/Japanese

buildings, there are pieces of visual evidence still preserved today. One piece is held in

the Kobe City Museum, in the Namban art collection (the very same collection as the

lacquer drum). A painted senmen (folding fan) depicts the Church of Our Lady of the

Assumption, better known today as the Nambanji (Temple of the Southern Barbarian), a

Jesuit church built after the Japanese style in Kyoto (Fig. 15). While having the outward

appearance of a Buddhist temple, Alexandra Curvelo tells us that it was built ao modo

romano, meaning that it followed the principles of Roman architecture.117

This could

mean that it aligned with guidelines proposed by Valignano, who admired the beauty of

114

Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America: 1542-1773 (Toronto,

Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 63. 115

Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 59-60. 116

Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America, 63. 117

Alexandra Curvelo, “Copy to Convert: Jesuits’ Missionary Practice in Japan,” in The Culture of

Copying in Japan: Critical and Historical Perspective, ed. Rupert Cox (London and New York: Routledge),

113.

61

Japanese architecture, but believed “it would be improper to imitate them, since theirs are

synagogues of Satan and ours are churches of God.” He ordered that the nave and choir

of their churches be built lengthwise, rather than widthwise as in the case of Buddhist

temples, which helped to distinguish the two types of buildings from each other.118

This example of Japanese/Jesuit hybrid construction does not only represent

accommodation by the Jesuits to the Japanese-the reverse is also represented here. The

Nambanji was built in Kyoto, the capital city of the time and home to many temples

belonging to different Buddhist sects. The construction of the Nambanji was only

possible because of permission granted to the Jesuits by Nobunaga, who had seized

control of Kyoto in 1568.119

In 1569, Nobunaga issued a decree authorizing the Jesuits to

proselytize in the capital.120

Later, with Nobunaga’s permission, the Jesuits established

the Nambanji in 1576. By allowing the Jesuits to build this church and propagate their

faith, he was able to secure his relationship with Western traders and deliver a blow to his

Buddhist enemies in a single act.

What Valignano and Nobunaga had in common was that their acts of

accommodation toward each other’s culture were underlined with self-interest: Valignano,

to establish a permanent Christian presence in the Far East, and Nobunaga, to gain

political and military power. The Nambanji may have been viewed as a symbol of

cooperation between the two nations, but it also could have been viewed by the Japanese

as an edifice to subversion (this is not unlikely, seeing as it was destroyed later on). In

other words, while the Nambanji’s construction was, at the time, sponsored by the state, it

118

Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America, 64. 119

Christine Guth, “Portraiture,” in Japan’s Golden Age: Momoyama, ed. Money L. Hickman (New Haven

and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 65. 120

Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 61.

62

still represented a threat to alter social norms. Buddhism had enjoyed a well-established

presence in Japan for centuries, and Nobunaga’s accommodation toward the southern

barbarians was viewed by some as a threat to national harmony. These views eventually

materialized into the anti-Christian edicts laid down by Hideyoshi and his successor

Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616).

The use of borrowed European imagery would only continue to serve as symbols

of anti-establishment. Another example of such use was undertaken by a class of

individuals who lived outside of the traditional social hierarchy, whether by

marginalization or by choice. These individuals, known as kabukimono, expressed their

dissatisfaction with their place in society through their unconventional fashion sense. The

form of theater they would later invent, kabuki, was also associated with a nonconformist

attitude. 121

One image of a kabukimono, held in the Caramulo Museum of Portugal, depicts a

young man in a feminine pose wearing a cross over his chest (Fig. 16). It would seem that

this is a portrait of a Japanese convert to Christianity, but the legend on the back of the

painting references a call for the protection of Hachiman, a Shinto deity of war.

According to Curvelo, this means that the figure has appropriated the Christian symbol at

a time near the anti-Christian edict, giving it a subversive meaning. The fact that the

Christian mission was no longer active at the time of this painting’s creation supports this

interpretation.122

When we juxtapose the image of the kabukimono, the rifle decorated with

Christian imagery, the Christian persecutions and the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637, we

121

Curvelo, “The Disruptive Presence of the Namban-jin in Early Modern Japan,” 595-596. 122

Ibid., 596.

63

can assume that the place of guns in Japanese society at the time would have been

somewhat uncertain. In specific regard to the Kobe Museum drum, we can only wonder

what it would have represented to the people who viewed it. Despite the lack of explicit

Christian imagery and Western figures, were there some who still would have believed it

to be subversive? Was it treasured as a tribute to modern warfare by the ruling classes, or

did it narrowly avoid destruction like so many other surviving pieces of the Japanese-

Christian material culture?

64

Figure 15. Nambanji, late 16th

century. Fan painting; ink, colors, and gold on paper. 20

x 50.5 cm. Kobe City Museum.

65

Figure 16. Young Japanese, 1620. Painting on

paper mounted on wood. 39.1 x 18.3 cm.

Caramulo Museum.

66

CONCLUSION

At the beginning of this paper, I asked a set of questions. When an object is

introduced to a new culture for the first time, how does it transition from the status of a

foreign import to a fully integrated object of that culture? Does it ever truly reach such a

status, or are its foreign origins a part of its identity that are impossible to overlook?

What role could the arts of that culture play in adapting a foreign object into part of the

culture? In response to these questions, I have proposed the thesis that the Kobe

Museum’s lacquer drum provides a vehicle to examine the role of firearms during a time

of cultural exchange between Japan and Europe.

In this sense, Robert S. Nelson has written that the term appropriation

encompasses “rendering to,” and “to make one’s own.” In other words, it means “to take

something for one’s own use.” He also adds that the word appropriation is annexed to the

adjective “appropriate,” meaning suitable or proper.123

However, etymologically, the

word proper is concerned with the personal, which can create semiotic instability. Even

when an object is reappropriated into a new context, that does not mean that it will

always remain unaltered.124

The opinions of viewers will be diverse, and already diverse

opinions of many will fade out or change as time goes by.

123

Robert S. Nelson, “Appropriation,” in Critical Terms for Art History, ed. Robert S. Nelson and Richard

Shiff (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 161-2. 124

Ibid., 163.

67

Michael Baxandall’s writings remind us that even before appropriation occurs

“cultures do not impose uniform cognitive and reflective equipment on individuals.” 125

Opinions and perceptions can vary widely depending on a myriad of factors, such as

religion, social status, occupation, personal experiences, and so on. In the case of guns

and Christian imagery, they represented cultural hybridity and cooperation, as well as

nonconformism and antigovernment. These perspectives could change very easily.

Nelson and Baxandall both question whether or not appropriation is ever truly

successful, a question I brought up at the beginning of this paper. I believe that my

analysis has addressed a large majority of the issues that would need to be evaluated in

order to measure the success of the appropriation of firearms into Japan through a cultural

lens. But was the appropriation a true success? Nelson notes that when appropriation does

succeed, “it works silently, breaching the body’s defenses like a foreign organism and

insinuating itself within, as if it were natural and wholly benign.” 126

This idea reminds us

of another question raised at the beginning of this paper, “are the foreign origins of an

object impossible to overlook?” In our previous analysis of the decline of firearms in the

seventeenth century, we find that we cannot deny that the foreign origins of guns, in

addition to their dangerous potential in the hands of the masses, may have contributed to

their regression. But we also know that it was not the only factor, which makes the

answer a somewhat gray area.

Unfortunately, with any amount of research, it is virtually impossible for us to

completely know whether or not the appropriation of this image of firearms through a

noh drum was a truly successful one. This is because we are analyzing it from the view of

125

Michael Baxandall, Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures (New Haven and

London: Yale University Press, 1985), 107. 126

Nelson, “Appropriation,” 164.

68

an observer, rather than a participant. Baxandall explains how widely separated the views

of participants are from observers:

The participant understands and knows his culture with an immediacy and

spontaneity the observer does not share. He can act within the culture’s

standards and norms without rational self-consciousness, often indeed

without having formulated standards as standards...The observer does not

have this kind of knowledge of the culture. He has to spell out standards

and rules, making them explicit and so making them also coarse, rigid and

clumsy...On the other hand, what the observer may have is a perspective-

precisely that perspective being one of the things that bars him from the

native’s internal stance...the participant is not likely to have the same

sense of some institutions in his life being constants of human society and

others being local peculiarities of his time and place.127

While discussing appropriation, he also discusses how the semiotics of an object

changes as it is appropriated from one context to another. The object becomes the

signifier of a new signified.128

As the image is moved from one appropriation to another,

it experiences what Nelson refers to as “semiotic distortion.” 129

He believes that as

objects undergo this process, knowledge of the previous sign survives, even when a new

sign becomes attached to it.

There are a number of ways that firearms experienced this semiotic distortion

through the medium of the lacquer drum. Lacquer is a medium that has long-standing ties

to narrative traditions, and by juxtaposing firearms with this medium, the artisan help

firearms to assume a limited role in narrative tradition. The physical shape of the drum,

linking it to noh’s associated narrative traditions, loans additional strength to this

signification, as well as a distinct sense of “Japanese-ness.” The extreme notions of

wealth that are also associated with lacquer helped to assign great value to firearms,

elevating them to the status of priceless national treasures that are often rewarded for

127

Baxandall, Patterns of Intention, 109-10. 128

Nelson, “Appropriation,” 163. 129

Ibid., 170.

69

great service to the state. The permanence linked to lacquerware (in other words, its

resistance to decay and weathering) ascribes intransience. With the impact firearms had

on Japan from their initial arrival, there must have been some people who expected them

to be around forever.

However, we cannot assume that these aesthetic associations were widely

accepted. Firstly, there is a severe lack of concrete evidence. As was noted before, much

of the art associated with the “southern barbarians” was lost, so evaluating the success of

the appropriation is difficult to say the least. In addition, gun production saw a decrease

due to the peace established by the Tokugawa shogunate, the unattractive martial

aesthetic of firearms, and the rejection of Western influences.

Because of the complex relationship between Japan and the West during this

historically tumultuous time, it may be better to look at the role of guns from the angle of

negotiation rather than appropriation. Appropriation has more long-lasting implications,

but because guns were first welcomed then rejected by the Japanese, it does not seem like

the most suitable term. As relations between the Portuguese and the Japanese changed

during their exchange, both sides had to make adjustments so as to protect their

respective interests. This proved to be especially difficult for the Jesuits, as the constant

changes in leadership in Japan often resulted in abrupt changes in attitude toward them.

The Portuguese and the Japanese were in a continual state of negotiation with the

Japanese, which was reflected in not just political relations, but also in the arts.

The Kobe Museum drum’s lack of Portuguese figures and religious imagery,

combined with its important function as an instrument of noh, likely helped it avoid

destruction. But there is still the chance that it could have been viewed negatively by

70

some Japanese. While the flattened dimensions and dynamic overlapping of the objects

represented on the drum’s smooth surface certainly adhered to the stylistic standards of

the time, it is difficult to say if this would have been viewed as a welcome integration, or

a perversion. Peoples’ views of the drum probably would have been subject to

circumstances like social class and personal experience. Some may have viewed guns

with contempt, some with admiration, and maybe some with indifference: for some

people, guns might have just been viewed as an everyday mundane object. Whether or

not the drum represents a perfectly harmonious relationship between Japan and Portugal

is debatable, but at the very least, it remains a long-lasting testament to a period of

significant cultural exchange and accommodation between two great societies.

But there is room for further research. There may be historical materials not yet

translated into English that could be very enlightening, and may help to better understand

how the Japanese felt about guns during this turbulent time. But one thing we can be

fairly certain of is that there were at least a few people at the time that saw something in

guns that wasn’t just crude or utilitarian, but something dynamic, venerable, and perhaps

even beautiful.

71

KANJI GLOSSARY

Adachi-ga Hara 安達が原

Arima Clan 有馬氏

Arima Harunobu 有馬晴信

Arima Naozumi 有馬直純

Ashigaru 足軽

Ashikaga Yoshimasa 足利義政

Asobi 遊び

Azuchi-Momoyama Period 安土桃山時代

Battle of Nagashino 長篠の戦い

Battle of Okehazama 桶狭間の戦い

Bushidō 武士道

Daimyō 大名

Edo Period 江戸時代

Fujiwara no Yoshitsune 藤原の良経

Fushimi Castle 伏見城

Gohō 五峯

Hachijō Kadensho 八帖花伝書

Hachiman 八幡

Hara Castle 原城

Harima Province 播磨国

Hatsuse Mountain 初瀬山

Higashiyama 東山

Heian Period 平安時代

Hon’ami Kōetsu 本阿弥光悦

Hōryūji 法隆寺

Ichikawa Ebizō 市川海老蔵

Igarashi Shinsai 五十嵐信斎

Jōmon Period 縄文時代

Kabuki 歌舞伎

72

Kabukimono 歌舞伎者

Kanō School 狩野派

Kingin-e 金銀絵

Kōdaiji 高台寺

Kotsuzumi 小鼓

Kōwakamai幸若舞

Kurozuka 黒塚

Maki-e 蒔絵

Minamoto 源

Mitamaya Room 御霊舎

Monomane 物まね

Murasaki Shikibu 紫式部

Muromachi Period 室町時代

Nagasaki 長崎

Namban 南蛮

Nambanji 南蛮寺

Nanpo Bunshi 南浦文之

Nō’ami 能阿弥

Noh 能

Nōkan 能管

Oda Nobunaga 織田信長

Ōtsuzumi 大鼓

Ōuchi Yoshitaka 大内義隆

Rimpa 琳派

Saitō Dōsan 斎藤道三

Sakoku 鎖国

Sengoku Period 戦国時代

Senmen 扇面

Sesshū Tōyō 雪舟等楊

Shaku 尺

Shimabara Rebellion 島原の乱

Shinto 神道

Shura 修羅

Sō’ami 相阿弥

Sumi-e 墨絵

Taiko 太鼓

73

Taira 平氏

Takeda Clan 武田氏

The Tale of Genji 源氏物語

The Tale of Heike 平家物語

Tamamushi-no-zushi Shrine 玉虫厨子

Tanegashima 種子島

Tawaraya Sōtatsu 俵屋宗達

Teppōki 鉄砲記

Tokitaka 時尭

Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康

Tokugawa Shogunate 徳川幕府

Tonomine 砥峰

Tosa Mitsunobu 土佐光信

Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉

Uji River 宇治川

Ukiyo-e 浮世絵

Utagawa School 歌川派

Yamaguchi 山口

Yūgen 幽玄

Yumiya tachiai 弓矢立合

Zeami Motokiyo 世阿弥元清

Zen 禪

74

BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Acquisitions: Fine & Decorative Arts.” The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 57:4 (2009): 342-367.

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. “Matchlock pistol.” Accessed November 7, 2014.

Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America: 1542-

1773. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 1999.

Baxandall, Michael. Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures.

New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985.

Boxer, C. R. The Christian Century in Japan: 1549-1650. Manchester: Carcanet in

association with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1993.

Boyer, Martha. Japanese Lacquers in the Walters Art Gallery. Baltimore: The Walters

Art Gallery, 1970.

Brown, Delmer M. “The Impact of Firearms of Japanese Warfare.” The Far Eastern

Quarterly 7:3 (1948): 236-253.

Cole, Wendell. Kyoto in the Momoyama Period. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,

1967.

Curvelo, Alexandra. “Copy to Convert: Jesuits’ Missionary Practice in Japan.” In The

Culture of Copying in Japan: Critical and Historical Perspectives, edited by Rupert

Cox, 111-127. London and New York: Routledge, 2008.

Curvelo, Alexandra. “The Disruptive Presence of the Namban-jin in Early Modern Japan.”

In Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55 (2012): 581-602.

“Description of black lacquered drum base with gun motif.” Kobe City Museum website.

Translated by author. Accessed February 13, 2014.

http://www.city.kobe.lg.jp/culture/culture/institution/museum/meihin_new/413.html.

Furuto, Kazuie, Yoshiki Terashima, Toru Noguchi, Naotake Ohya, Akira Mita, Yoneo

Haraguchi, Chiyuki Kubo, Akio Nakajima, Masao Nakayama, Kyoko Muramoto, ed.

The Shogun Age Exhibition. Tokyo: The Shogun Age Exhibition Executive

Committee, 1983.

75

Harding, John. “A very important and very rare Japanese Namban arquebus from the

Momoyama period, representing the instruments of the Passion of the Christ.”

Translated by Jennifer Sales. Bulletin 41 (1993): 10-13.

Hickman, Money L., ed. Japan’s Golden Age: Momoyama. New Haven and London:

Yale University Press, 1996.

Jahss, Melvin and Betty. Inro and Other Miniature Forms of Japanese Lacquer Art.

Rutland and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1971.

Johnson, Henry. “The Sounds of Myujikku: An Exploration of Concepts and

Classifications in Japanese Sound Aesthetics.” Journal of Musicological Research

18:4 (1999): 291-306.

Impey, Oliver. “Japanese Export Art of the Edo Period and Its Influence on European

Art.” Modern Asian Studies 18:4 (1984): 685-697.

Keyser, James D. and David S. Whitley. “Sympathetic Magic in Western North

American Rock Art.” American Antiquity 71:1 (2006): 3-26.

Knight, Michael. East Asian Lacquers in the Collection of the Seattle Art Museum.

Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 1992.

Lidin, Olof G. Tanegashima: The Arrival of Europe in Japan. Copenhagen: NIAS Press,

2002.

Lippit, Yukio. “Of Modes and Manners in Japanese Ink Painting: Sesshū’s Splashed Ink

Landscape of 1495.” The Art Bulletin 94:1 (2012): 50-77.

Mody, N. H. N. “Japanese Lacquer.” Monumenta Nipponica 3:1 (1940): 291-294.

Murase, Miyeko, ed. Turning Point: Oribe and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan. New

York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.

Nelson, Robert S. “Appropriation.” In Critical Terms for Art History, edited by Robert S.

Nelson and Richard Shiff, 160-173. Chicago and London: University of Chicago

Press, 2003.

Odin, Steve. “The Penumbral Shadows: A Whiteheadian Perspective of the Yūgen Style

of Art and Literature in Japanese Aesthetics.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies

12:1 (1985): 63-90.

Okada, Barbra Teri. A Sprinkling of Gold: The Lacquer Box Collection of Elaine

Ehrenkranz. Newark: The Newark Museum, 1983.

76

Okada, Barbra Teri. Symbol & Substance in Japanese Lacquer: Lacquer Boxes from the

Collection of Elaine Ehrenkranz. New York: Weatherhill, Inc., 1995.

Pekarik, Andrew J. Japanese Lacquer, 1600-1900: Selections from the Charles A.

Greenfield Collection. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980.

Perrin, Noel. Giving Up the Gun: Japan’s Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879. Boston:

David R. Godine, Publisher, 1979.

Picken, Stuart D.B. Christianity in Japan: Meeting, Conflict, Hope. Tokyo and New

York: Kodansha, 1983.

R.S.C. “Namban Art.” Bulletin (St. Louis Art Museum) 8:6 (1973): 90-92.

Ragué, Beatrix Von. A History of Japanese Lacquerwork. Toronto and Buffalo:

University of Toronto Press, 1976.

Rath, Eric C. “Legends, Secrets, and Authority: Hachijō Kadensho and Early Modern

Noh.” Monumenta Nipponica, 54:2 (1999): 169-194.

Rath, Eric C. “Warrior noh: Konparu Zenpo and the ritual performance of shura plays.”

Japan Forum 18:2 (2006): 167-183.

Rimer, Thomas J. “What More Do We Need to Know about the Noh?” Asian Theatre

Journal 9:2 (1992): 215-223.

Smith, Robert C. The Art of Portugal: 1500-1800. New York: Meredith Press, 1968.

Swope, Kenneth M. “Crouching Tigers, Secret Weapons: Military Technology Employed

during the Sino-Japanese-Korean War.” The Journal of Military History 69:1 (2005):

11-41.

The Noh.com. “Kurozuka (Black Mound).” Accessed November 27, 2014.

http://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/data/program_035.html.

Tsubaki, Andrew T. “Zeami and the Transition of the Concept of Yūgen: A Note on

Japanese Aesthetics.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 30:1 (1971): 55-67.

Varley, Paul. Japanese Culture. 4th

ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000.

Watsky, Andrew M. Chikubushima: Deploying the Sacred Arts in Momoyama Japan.

Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2004.

77

Willis, Clive. “Captain Jorge Alvares and Father Luís Fróis S.J.: Two Early Portuguese

Descriptions of Japan and the Japanese.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 22:2

(2012): 391-438.

Yoshino, Tomio. Japanese Lacquer Ware. Tokyo: Japan Travel Bureau, 1959.