囚禁美学的性质（英文）
|
摘要
本文重新考量太平洋战争期间两代居美日裔之间的分歧,进而阐释他们各自对战时横遭监禁的感受。居美日侨第二代(Nisei)的活动分子为自己的囚禁申诉,力争平反补偿。他们既为居美第一代的父母(Issei)代言,又时常批评他们,揣测第一代甘于沉默和随之而来的一种政治寂静无为主义。日裔第二代作家,如山本久惠和约翰·冈田,在描写日裔囚禁经历的文学作品里针对第一代的威严塑造了种种令人不安的形象。然而,杰出的日裔艺术家小圃千浦在其战时创作的作品里展示出一种含意深邃的安慰,从环绕监禁营地四周的自然景观中汲取力量。本文通过重估小圃在这场政治危机期间的美学修炼和示范,来阐述滋生日裔第一代的韧性和第二代的沮丧、并使前者成了后者的政治负担的这段历史缘由。
This article reconsiders a generational division that has come to define Japanese American understandings of their wartime incarceration during the Pacific War. The Nisei, or second-generation, activists who testified against their incarceration and struggled for redress spoke for and sometimes against their first-generation Issei parents, instituting assumptions of Issei silence and an attendant political quietism. Literary renderings of Japanese internment by Nisei authors, Hisaye Yamamoto and John Okada, present disturbing portrayals of Issei authority, but the wartime art of Chiura Obata, a prominent Japanese American artist, demonstrates a profound consolation and draws strength from the natural landscape that surrounded the internment camp. Reconsidering Obata's aesthetic discipline and tutelage in this period of political crisis, this article elaborates on the legacy of Issei resilience and Nisei despondence, in which the former became a political liability for the latter.
This article reconsiders a generational division that has come to define Japanese American understandings of their wartime incarceration during the Pacific War. The Nisei, or second-generation, activists who testified against their incarceration and struggled for redress spoke for and sometimes against their first-generation Issei parents, instituting assumptions of Issei silence and an attendant political quietism. Literary renderings of Japanese internment by Nisei authors, Hisaye Yamamoto and John Okada, present disturbing portrayals of Issei authority, but the wartime art of Chiura Obata, a prominent Japanese American artist, demonstrates a profound consolation and draws strength from the natural landscape that surrounded the internment camp. Reconsidering Obata's aesthetic discipline and tutelage in this period of political crisis, this article elaborates on the legacy of Issei resilience and Nisei despondence, in which the former became a political liability for the latter.
引文
Abe, Masao. Zen and Western Thought. U of Hawaii P, 1985.
Azuma, Eiichiro. Between Two Empires:Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America. Oxford UP, 2005.
Chan, Jeffery Paul, et al., editors. The Big Aiiieeeee!:An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature. Penguin-Meridien, 1991.
Hershock, Peter D. Chan Buddhism. U of Hawaii P, 2005.
Hill, Kim Kodani, editor. Topaz Moon:Chiura Obata’s Art of the Internment. Heyday Books, 2000.
Kakuzo, Okakura. The Book of Tea. Tuttle, 1956.
Landauer, Susan.“Obata of the Thousand Bays.” Obata’s Yosemite, by Chiura Obata, Yosemite Association,1993, pp. 18-45.
Marra, Michele. The Aesthetics of Discontent:Politics and Reclusion in Medieval Japanese Literature. U of Hawaii P, 1991.
Murray, Alice Yang. Historical Memories of the Japanese American Internment and the Struggle for Redress.Stanford UP, 2008.
Obata, Chiura. Obata’s Yosemite. Yosemite Association, 1993.
Okada, John. No-No Boy. U of Washington P, 1976.
Okubo, Mine. Citizen 13660. U of Washington P, 2014.
Sasaki, Sasabune.“A Letter.” Ayumi:A Japanese American Anthology, edited by Janice Mirikitani, Japanese American Anthology Committee, 1980, pp. 75-79.
Suzuki, Daisetz T. Zen and Japanese Culture. Princeton UP, 2010.
Uchida, Yoshiko. Desert Exile:The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family. U of Washington P, 1982.
Wang, Shipu, editor. Chiura Obata:An American Modern. U of California P, 2018.
---.“Moonlight Over Topaz:Picturing Displacement in the Japanese American Internment.” Chiura Obata:An American Modern, edited by ShiPu Wang, U of California, 2018, pp. 32-42.
Williams, Duncan R.“Complex Loyalties:Issei Buddhist Ministers during the Wartime Incarceration.” Pacific World, vol. 3, no. 5, 2003, pp. 255-74.
Yamamoto, Hisaye. Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories. Women of Color Press, 1988.
(1)Alice Yang Murray’s major reassessment of“the interaction of official and vernacular memories of Japanese American internment over a sixty-year period”(12)notes its neglect of Issei perspectives:“I hope others will analyze representations of internment from the perspective of the Issei,the first generation”(13-14).
(2)Okubo’s 1983 foreword to the text details her testimony.
(3)Among a cadre of American elites who ventured to Japan in the Gilded Age,Fenollosa,as Susan Landauer explains,“forcefully argued against the uncritical embrace of Western art and advocated instead a modern nihonga(literally,‘Japanese painting’),a new approach that would incorporate aspects of Western expression,such as modeling and atmospheric perspective,while adhering to an essentially Japanese aesthetic”(20).The brilliant Okakura extended Fenollosa’s efforts,and together they instituted this nihonga approach.
(4)Modeled on the foundational partnership of his teachers,in California Obata established an East-West artist society patterned on their philosophies.
(5)Landauer notes Obata’s singularity:“most Japanese artist working in California had come to study Western art,and their painting generally reflected the Barbizon and tonalist styles popular in California well into the1910s.Obata was thus among the very few who worked in Japanese ink and watercolor rather than in oils on canvas”(22).
(6)Quoted from ShiPu Wang’s Chiura Obata:American Modern(125).In the text of this address,Obata defines“go with nature”-“I believe you have heard many times our words Ten-Chi-Jin.Ten means heaven,Chi means earth,Jin means human.These are one great unit in the universe.The idea Ten-Chi-Jin is nothing other than“Go with Nature.”It explains simply and strongly that we humans,without knowing the rhythmical activities of heaven and earth,cannot live our harmonious life”(125).
(7)Chiura Obata:American Modern reproduces“The Three Disciplines Essential to the Practice of Sumi-e,”in which Obata briefly elaborates on each of the three items(71).
(8)Landauer cites this verdict by William Keith and then continues:“In 1885 an art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle proclaimed that‘the day for painting Yosemite pictures is over’”(27).
(9)Masao Abe’s“Zen Is not a Philosophy,but...”collected in his Zen and Western Thought provides an especially clear elaboration of the Zen stages of understanding captured in“Mountains are mountains,waters are waters”(23-24).As he explicates these stages,he emphasizes that“A great leap is necessary to reach the higher stages”(15).
(10)From a 1965 interview with Obata,excerpted in Wang’s Chiura Obata:An American Modern(139).
(11)Quoted in Kim Kodani Hill’s Topaz Moon:Chiura Obata’s Art of the Internment(83-84).
(12)ShiPu Wang provides a thorough analysis of the composition of this piece in“Moonlight Over Topaz:Picturing Displacement in the Japanese American Internment”(Chiura Obata:An American Modern 32-42):“As a commissioned piece with a defined target audience,Obata was able to employ his signature style to convey the transcendental beauty of nature,while relying on the knowledge that his intended viewers would grasp his painting’s specificity:the unjust displacement and imprisonment of people like him.”Wang reads this key painting to“argue that art-making served as a form of active engagement with the perceived reality of the imprisoned,allowing the art-maker to take control,even fleetingly,of the inhospitable,restricted,and uncertain conditions”(33).
(13)The belated comprehension of Chinese Buddhism in the West,combined with Japan’s systematic modern conceptions of Zen,have obscured Chan Buddhism.Peter Hershock usefully presents Chan within the framework of a“countercultural ecology of awakening,”mapping the rise of Chan during moments of societal collapse in China(25-26).
(14)The book’s dedication reads,“In memory of my mother and father/and all the Issei/who were strong and of good courage.”The text of the memoir is interspersed with haiku by Yukari,the pen name of Uchida’s mother.Uchida translated them with her father’s help,and these poems provide compelling perspectives,as in this piece:“Banished to this/Desert land,/I cherish the/Blessing of the sky”(121).
(15)The Reverend Sasagawara’s appreciation was not unusual.Duncan R.Williams discusses a“consistent theme in many Issei Buddhist sermons”:an“optimistic approach to incarceration,as an ideal time to reflect on Buddhist teachings on the nature of life”(267).
Azuma, Eiichiro. Between Two Empires:Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America. Oxford UP, 2005.
Chan, Jeffery Paul, et al., editors. The Big Aiiieeeee!:An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature. Penguin-Meridien, 1991.
Hershock, Peter D. Chan Buddhism. U of Hawaii P, 2005.
Hill, Kim Kodani, editor. Topaz Moon:Chiura Obata’s Art of the Internment. Heyday Books, 2000.
Kakuzo, Okakura. The Book of Tea. Tuttle, 1956.
Landauer, Susan.“Obata of the Thousand Bays.” Obata’s Yosemite, by Chiura Obata, Yosemite Association,1993, pp. 18-45.
Marra, Michele. The Aesthetics of Discontent:Politics and Reclusion in Medieval Japanese Literature. U of Hawaii P, 1991.
Murray, Alice Yang. Historical Memories of the Japanese American Internment and the Struggle for Redress.Stanford UP, 2008.
Obata, Chiura. Obata’s Yosemite. Yosemite Association, 1993.
Okada, John. No-No Boy. U of Washington P, 1976.
Okubo, Mine. Citizen 13660. U of Washington P, 2014.
Sasaki, Sasabune.“A Letter.” Ayumi:A Japanese American Anthology, edited by Janice Mirikitani, Japanese American Anthology Committee, 1980, pp. 75-79.
Suzuki, Daisetz T. Zen and Japanese Culture. Princeton UP, 2010.
Uchida, Yoshiko. Desert Exile:The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family. U of Washington P, 1982.
Wang, Shipu, editor. Chiura Obata:An American Modern. U of California P, 2018.
---.“Moonlight Over Topaz:Picturing Displacement in the Japanese American Internment.” Chiura Obata:An American Modern, edited by ShiPu Wang, U of California, 2018, pp. 32-42.
Williams, Duncan R.“Complex Loyalties:Issei Buddhist Ministers during the Wartime Incarceration.” Pacific World, vol. 3, no. 5, 2003, pp. 255-74.
Yamamoto, Hisaye. Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories. Women of Color Press, 1988.
(1)Alice Yang Murray’s major reassessment of“the interaction of official and vernacular memories of Japanese American internment over a sixty-year period”(12)notes its neglect of Issei perspectives:“I hope others will analyze representations of internment from the perspective of the Issei,the first generation”(13-14).
(2)Okubo’s 1983 foreword to the text details her testimony.
(3)Among a cadre of American elites who ventured to Japan in the Gilded Age,Fenollosa,as Susan Landauer explains,“forcefully argued against the uncritical embrace of Western art and advocated instead a modern nihonga(literally,‘Japanese painting’),a new approach that would incorporate aspects of Western expression,such as modeling and atmospheric perspective,while adhering to an essentially Japanese aesthetic”(20).The brilliant Okakura extended Fenollosa’s efforts,and together they instituted this nihonga approach.
(4)Modeled on the foundational partnership of his teachers,in California Obata established an East-West artist society patterned on their philosophies.
(5)Landauer notes Obata’s singularity:“most Japanese artist working in California had come to study Western art,and their painting generally reflected the Barbizon and tonalist styles popular in California well into the1910s.Obata was thus among the very few who worked in Japanese ink and watercolor rather than in oils on canvas”(22).
(6)Quoted from ShiPu Wang’s Chiura Obata:American Modern(125).In the text of this address,Obata defines“go with nature”-“I believe you have heard many times our words Ten-Chi-Jin.Ten means heaven,Chi means earth,Jin means human.These are one great unit in the universe.The idea Ten-Chi-Jin is nothing other than“Go with Nature.”It explains simply and strongly that we humans,without knowing the rhythmical activities of heaven and earth,cannot live our harmonious life”(125).
(7)Chiura Obata:American Modern reproduces“The Three Disciplines Essential to the Practice of Sumi-e,”in which Obata briefly elaborates on each of the three items(71).
(8)Landauer cites this verdict by William Keith and then continues:“In 1885 an art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle proclaimed that‘the day for painting Yosemite pictures is over’”(27).
(9)Masao Abe’s“Zen Is not a Philosophy,but...”collected in his Zen and Western Thought provides an especially clear elaboration of the Zen stages of understanding captured in“Mountains are mountains,waters are waters”(23-24).As he explicates these stages,he emphasizes that“A great leap is necessary to reach the higher stages”(15).
(10)From a 1965 interview with Obata,excerpted in Wang’s Chiura Obata:An American Modern(139).
(11)Quoted in Kim Kodani Hill’s Topaz Moon:Chiura Obata’s Art of the Internment(83-84).
(12)ShiPu Wang provides a thorough analysis of the composition of this piece in“Moonlight Over Topaz:Picturing Displacement in the Japanese American Internment”(Chiura Obata:An American Modern 32-42):“As a commissioned piece with a defined target audience,Obata was able to employ his signature style to convey the transcendental beauty of nature,while relying on the knowledge that his intended viewers would grasp his painting’s specificity:the unjust displacement and imprisonment of people like him.”Wang reads this key painting to“argue that art-making served as a form of active engagement with the perceived reality of the imprisoned,allowing the art-maker to take control,even fleetingly,of the inhospitable,restricted,and uncertain conditions”(33).
(13)The belated comprehension of Chinese Buddhism in the West,combined with Japan’s systematic modern conceptions of Zen,have obscured Chan Buddhism.Peter Hershock usefully presents Chan within the framework of a“countercultural ecology of awakening,”mapping the rise of Chan during moments of societal collapse in China(25-26).
(14)The book’s dedication reads,“In memory of my mother and father/and all the Issei/who were strong and of good courage.”The text of the memoir is interspersed with haiku by Yukari,the pen name of Uchida’s mother.Uchida translated them with her father’s help,and these poems provide compelling perspectives,as in this piece:“Banished to this/Desert land,/I cherish the/Blessing of the sky”(121).
(15)The Reverend Sasagawara’s appreciation was not unusual.Duncan R.Williams discusses a“consistent theme in many Issei Buddhist sermons”:an“optimistic approach to incarceration,as an ideal time to reflect on Buddhist teachings on the nature of life”(267).