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"In fact, the whole of Japan is a pure invention.
There is no such country, there are no such people. … The Japanese people
are … simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art." |
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Daibutsu of Kamakura, 1877. |
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Oscar Wilde, 1891. |
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| Japan is more than just fancy but Wilde's sentiments capture the mystique
that surrounds the subject. When Americans first learned about Japan in the
mid-19th century, it must have seemed a very peculiar place indeed. Nearly
everything about the Japanese culture and lifestyle was a novelty and a complete
enigma. Travelers to Japan, both then and now, attempted to discover the things
which made Japan tick. Edward Said wrote in his book Orientalism that westerners
have perceived the Orient through generations of enduring stereotype and even
today there is an abundant literature by supposed experts on how to understand
Japan and its people. |
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| In the late-19th century, photography made distant places accessible to
normal Americans. Through the photograph, people imagined life in
worlds that were as remote to them as the moon. I admit that I am
fascinated by photographs of the Japanese past too. These pages are devoted to some
images of Japan. Near the turn-of-the-century the stereoview was perhaps the
most common format for pictures of foreign lands. The leading companies of the
day had series devoted to world travel and Japan, in part because of its
oriental exoticism, was a popular subject. |
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