Images of Western and Japanese art: embodiment of imagination and pseudo-reality in Nanban art

Abstract

This chapter shows that Japanese artists perceived the Westerners arriving in Japan during the 16th century in distinctive and idiosyncratic ways, and that these perceptions were well documented by the Nanban art of that time. To the curious Japanese, the Portuguese introduced a new type of machine — a weapon which fired lead bullets with astonishing power and accuracy. As were often mentioned by the Jesuits in Japan, the unfamiliar sounds of foreign musical instruments had captured the imagination of the Japanese; thus, the sensory aspect is an integral part of the imagery in genre screen paintings. Despite the fact that the eventual Tokugawa ban on Christianity, beginning in 1612, made the Christians go underground to worship icons in the guise of pseudo-Buddhist images, the Japanese acceptance of Christian iconography seemed to be, predicated on a fresh interpretation of established Japanese religious principles and iconographic identities.

Matched Nanban terms

• anchor nanban

Provenance

• core (10.4324/9780429444340-2)
  2026-04-30T19:59:07.612558+00:00
• openalex (W2917138868)
  2026-04-30T19:55:09.145942+00:00

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