Evolving visions of Japan: Tracing the transmission of knowledge and material culture between the national and the provincial in Britain (1860-1920)

Scholars have produced careful research around the V&A's Japanese collection (Earle, 1986; Irvine 2009, 2015), the material agency of objects and cultures of collecting that shaped late nineteenth century East-West relations (Guth 2004, Cheang, 2008), the V&A's Circulation Department post war (Weddell, 2016) and the significant presence of Japan in the industrial North-East (Conte-Helm, 1989). However, to date the material agency of Japanese artefacts outside the capital and the V&A's role in mediating this has been largely overlooked.
Following self-imposed isolation, Japanese policies limiting export led to collections and knowledge based on relatively modern objects. This defined British displays of Japan during the 1860s as visual, rather than historicist, thus embodying the founding aim of the South Kensington Museum through 'the practical application of the principles of design in the graceful arrangement of forms and the harmonious arrangement of colours'. This study will consider the changing nature of public and privately arranged displays of Japanese material in light of new attention to "The value of a specimen as an instructive or educational implement...depend[ing] very much on the perfection of its display." (Ruschenberger, 1876). Drawing on ideas of transculturation, it will analyse Japanese material as a new, abstract aesthetic alongside interpretation contemporary to the time, in order to chart the changing nature of its agency through creative deployment in a Western Museum context, 1860-1920.
This study will consider the institutionalising of practices and strategies in place at South Kensington, many of which are summarised in the Circulating Collections, as innovations of the Museum. Through a comparative analysis of two key collections it will chart the trajectory and transfer of Japanese material, from 1860 at the V&A to the point at which private-public and inter-institutional exchange coincide at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, during the first two decades of the twentieth century.
Newcastle was among the cities first receiving the South Kensington Museum's Circulating Collections, in 1856 and 1857 respectively. In this context, the founding aim of the Museum - for the 'benefit of manufacturers, artisans and the public in general' - took the form of classified displays of industrial art, of which, Japan featured in four: porcelain, japanned or lacquered work, basket work and miscellanea. Based on industrial expertise, cities like Newcastle formed direct relationships with Japan at a national level, generating an exchange of product and personnel and creating a local fascination for Japan.
Disseminating the aims of the V&A through the physical object, the second objective of the Circulating initiative was to encourage the formation of art museums. The condition of supplementing displays with private local loans was particularly apposite at the Laing, which opened in 1904 without a founding collection. The V&A lent items of industrial design to the Laing's inaugural exhibition, after which time the Laing became Newcastle's tour venue for the V&A's circulation, with material almost always on loan from this scheme and to Laing-curated exhibitions. As such, loans and gifts of Japanese material were a significant feature of discussions and displays from the Laing's inception.
Research will be based primarily on, but not limited to, the Japanese collections at the V&A, and the unstudied Japanese collection at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle. The project will draw on the V&A's collection (Asia Department), Archive (Circulation, loan and acquisition records), National Art Library (exhibition and auction catalogues), the Laing's, and other collections and archives.