著者

岡本 佳子

出版者

Institute for Cultural Interaction Studies, Kansai University

雑誌

近代世界の「言説」と「意象」 : 越境的文化交渉学の視点から

巻号頁・発行日

pp.181-211, 2012-01-31

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Okakura Kakuzō (1863-1913) is a Japanese art critic famous for his phrase "Asia is One." This paper argues that Okakura "discovered Asia" when he visited India for the first time in 1901-02. At the turn of the twentieth century, non-Western intellectuals began to cross borders in order to pursue national goals, including anti-colonial struggles and cultural "revival" movements. The benefits of a Western education allowed some to engage in writing and speaking activities in Western languages, mostly English. Following the lead of Indian scholars, Okakura and other Japanese thinkers entered the international intellectual arena. He and others like him sought to portray the "East" as a civilization with universal values, placing it on equal terms with the West. In India, Okakura associated with Bengali elites such as Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) and members of the Tagore family. Vivekananda was a man of strong national consciousness and universal views who asserted that being "Hindu" or being "Indian" also meant being "universal." The confidence and national consciousness of the Bengali elite had a strong influence on Okakura's creation of the idea of "Asia." During his stay in India, Okakura completed his first book in English, The Ideals of the East with Special Reference to the Art of Japan (1903) which began with the symbolic manifesto "Asia is one." In this book, he presented his idea of "Asia" not as a mere geographical concept but as a civilization with China and India as the two major sources of culture and with vast areas nonetheless united in "the Ultimate" of beauty and religion. One motivation to reveal the heights of "Asian" civilization was Okakura's belief that non-Western peoples needed a reliable standard for self-recognition independent from the Western standard. He wrote this book not only for a Western audience, but for Indians who were conversant with English. Okakura felt political sympathy for colonial India under the historical situation of Bengal where the mental and social preparation for the Swadeshi Movement from 1905 was gradually beginning. However, Okakura could not help realizing that he and Bengalis could communicate with each other only in English, the suzerain language. And he became sensitive to how the Western point of view influenced non-Western people and their interactions with each other. In this historical context, Okakura's idea of "Asia" was meant to be effective as a suggestion of reforming the cultural identity of non-West. But The Ideals of the East had another purpose with regard to Okakura's special field of Japanese art. He put Japan in the position of "a museum of Asiatic civilisation" which preserved the essence of the artistic legacies of "Asia." And thus Japanese art acquired an aesthetic value that matched its Western counterpart. On the contrary, Okakura had to prove that Japanese art was not a mere epigone of China and India but had its own unique significance and originality. This book shows while Okakura located Japanese art within the stream of beauty of "Asia," his nationalism made him seek for a Japanese "spirit" that had continued throughout history from ancient times to modify "continental" styles and produce a "national" element in art. In Bengal, Okakura set himself this complicated task to create a monolithic cultural identity known as "Asia" and to universalize Japanese art while, at the same time, he sought to particularize it as a unique national culture.