Abstract:

This reading of Nojima Yasuzō's nudes explores the relationship between aesthetic form and cultural context in works of pictorialist photography that have attained exalted status in Japan. It argues that Nojima's unconventionally `straight' and unidealized images of women of more `ordinary' appearance exoticize the supposed rawness and vitality of the lower class Japanese woman in a manner consistent with broader primitivist fantasies in circulation in Taishō and early Shōwa society. The article shows that Nojima's formal and intellectual influences included modernist yōga , French Impressionist and Postimpressionist art, and mingei , but argues that these only served as starting points in the invention of a subject and visual style that are unique in pre-1945 art photography. Nojima's unusual—and somewhat ambiguous—emphasis upon the subjectivity of the `nude' sitter is given particular attention in the analysis. It concludes by comparing this approach to that of contemporary Japanese photographer Araki Nobuyoshi.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1080/10371390600636208

Affiliations: 1: University of Regina