■Topics 2018
2018-12-03 NichibunkenNews
Evening Seminar (November 8, 2018) “A.K. Coomaraswamy and Japan: [Links] between Colonia India and Annexed Korea”
“A.K. Coomaraswamy and Japan: [Links] between Colonia India and Annexed Korea,” Inaga Shigemi (professor, Nichibunken)Inaga Shigemi introduced the little-known links between Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1889–1961), a Sri Lankan native brought up in Britain who became a scholar of Indian art and cultural history, and Japan, from the point of view of thought and craft, sometimes comparing Coomaraswamy’s discourse with that of author of The Book of Tea (1906) Okakura Tenshin (1863–1913) and folkcraft (mingei) movement founder Yanagi Muneyoshi (Sōetsu; 1889–1961). Inaga opened his talk by mentioning the early signs of Orientalism, indicating that Okakura’s attempt to construct an Asian art history must have had significant influence on Coomaraswamy, who was then working as curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Looking back upon Britain’s rule over India and Japan’s annexation of Korea in the 1910s, Inaga’s discussion unfolded the intriguing points of intersection between Coomaraswamy and Yanagi.
From his experience of seeing the riots in Korea protesting Japanese rule, Yanagi stressed the necessity for an intimate grasp of religion and arts to “most deeply understand other peoples.” He also found beauty in everyday crafts. Coomaraswamy, on the other hand, promoted research on the history of Indian crafts while India was under British control. Inaga said he found no clear trace of contact between the men, but through perusal of various documents, he showed the process of how Yanagi and Coomaraswamy, both influenced by William Morris’s arts and crafts movement, honed their aesthetic sensibilities and deepened their thinking in their respective cultural spheres. At the end of his report, Inaga convincingly stated that Indian potter Gurcharan Singh (1896–1995), a friend of Yanagi’s, incorporated patterns from Korean ceramics into his work, thus playing a role in linking the two colonized Asian countries as “one.”
Every seat was fully occupied in the seminar room, some researchers having come all the way from the Kanto area. The presentation was followed by lively inquires on the topics of thought and arts and crafts.
(Reported by Shiraishi Eri, assistant professor, Office of Digital Resources, Publications, and Public Information)
