Photography in Japan 1853-1912 is a fascinating visual record of Japanese culture during its metamorphosis from a feudal society to a modern, industrial nation at a time when the art of photography was still in its infancy. The 350 rare and antique photos in this book, most of them published here for the first time, chronicle the introduction of photography in Japan and early Japanese photography. The images are more than just a history of photography in Japan; they are vital in helping to understand the dramatic changes that occurred in Japan during the mid-nineteenth century. These rare Japanese photographs--whether sensational or everyday, intimate or panoramic--document a nation about to abandon its traditional ways and enter the modern era. Taken between 1853 and 1912 by the most important Japanese and foreign photographers working in Japan, this is the first book to document the history of early photography in Japan a comprehensive and systematic way.

In the 1930s the history of Japanese photography evolved in two very different directions: one toward documentary photography, the other favoring an experimental, or avant-garde, approach strongly influenced by Western Surrealism. This book explores these two strains of modern Japanese photography through the work of two remarkable figures: Hiroshi Hamaya and Kansuke Yamamoto. Hiroshi Hamaya (1915-1999) was born and raised in Tokyo and, after an initial period of creative experimentation, turned his attention to recording traditional life and culture on the coast of the Sea of Japan. In 1940 he began photographing the New Year's rituals in a remote village, which was published as Yukiguni (Snow country). He went on to record cultural changes in China, political protests in Japan, and landscapes around the world. Kansuke Yamamoto (1914-1987) became fascinated by the innovative approaches in art and literature exemplified by such Western artists as Man Ray, Ren Magritte, and Yves Tanguy. He promoted Surrealist and avant-garde ideas in Japan through his poetry, paintings, sculptures, and photographs. Along with essays by the book's coeditors, Judith Keller and Amanda Maddox, are essays by Kotaro Iizawa, Ryuichi Kaneko, and Jonathan M. Reynolds, life chronologies, and a selection of poems by Yamamoto translated by John Solt. This book, which features more than one hundred images, accompanies an exhibition of the same name on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from March 26 to August 25, 2013.

The Premise of Fidelity puts forward a new history of Japanese visuality through an examination of the discourses and practices surrounding the nineteenth century transposition of "the real" in the decades before photography was introduced. This intellectual history is informed by a careful examination of a network of local scholars—from physicians to farmers to bureaucrats—known as Shōhyaku-sha. In their archival materials, these scholars used the term shashin (which would, years later, come to signify "photography" in Japanese) in a wide variety of medical, botanical, and pictorial practices. These scholars pursued questions of the relationship between what they observed and what they believed they knew, in the process investigating scientific ideas and practices by obsessively naming and classifying, and then rendering through highly accurate illustration, the objects of their study. This book is an exploration of the process by which the Shōhyaku-sha shaped the concept of shashin. As such, it disrupts the dominant narratives of photography, art, and science in Japan, providing a prehistory of Japanese photography that requires the accepted history of the discipline to be rewritten.

This publication shows how scholarly investigation of Japanese photography in recent years has entered an important transitional stage -- moving beyond its focus on new discoveries and descriptions of collections, to a more sophisticated investigation of photography in its historical and cultural contexts. At one time marginalized as either a practical technique or amateur art form, Japanese photography has now earned full recognition as a legitimate subject of scholarly inquiry. It is now being examined in terms of its aesthetics, technological development, and its role in the development of a national identity in Japanese art during the country's transition to modernity as well as in contemporary society.Contributors include:Himeno Junichi (on the early development of photography in Japan),Sebastian Dobson (focussing on the colourful figure of Felice Beato),Luke Gartlan (on Baron Raimond von Stillfried-Ratenicz),Allen Hockley (on photographic albums produced by commercial studios in the 1880s and 1890s),Kinoshita Naoyuki (exploring the tradition of war portraiture in Japan)Mikiko Hirayama (describing the transition from the pioneering stages of photography in Japan to the modern era).

"Expanding the canon of photographic history, Capturing Japan in Nineteenth Century New England Photography Collections focuses on six New Englanders, whose travel and photograph collecting influenced the flowering of Japonism in late nineteenth-century Boston. The book also explores the history of Japanese photography and its main themes. The first history of its kind, this study illuminates the ways photographs, seeming conveyors of fact, imprint mental images and suppositions on their viewers"--

Japanese Geisha and courtesans intrigue and fascinate Westerners. During the mid-19th century, Japan opened its doors to the world and became an essential destination for travellers. Geisha: A Photographic History 1872-1912 documents the intimate life and culture of this 19th century icon. It portrays the artists of these images in a cultural reality created by staged studio photography, private scenes and rare outdoor images. Essential viewing.