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Bridgewater Review

Volume 34 | Issue 1 Article 9

May-2015

Exporting Exoticism: Captain Brinkley's Japan


Described and Illustrated
Dan Johnson
Bridgewater State University

Recommended Citation
Johnson, Dan (2015). Exporting Exoticism: Captain Brinkley's Japan Described and Illustrated. Bridgewater Review, 34(1), 26-28.
Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol34/iss1/9

This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts.
Silk Embroidered Front Board Actors

Exporting Exoticism: and f lowers made their appearance at


parties and luncheons thrown by well-

Captain Brinkleys to-do Americans. Goldfish appeared


in bowls in American parlors and carp

Japan Described and Illustrated swam in Japanese-inf luenced ponds.


In American dcor, everything from
wallpaper to crockery to inkwells
Dan Johnson

B
and tea sets were embellished with
Japanese-derived designs. Gilbert and
y the end of the nineteenth century, Japan Sullivans comedy The Mikado; or The
was on the fast track to modernity. Since Town of Titpitu opened in Londons
1855, when U.S. Navy Commodore Savoy Theatre in March 1885, but it
took only until August of that year
Matthew Calbraith Perrys arrival effectively ended its before it opened in New Yorks Fifth
self-imposed isolation, Japan embraced the technology Avenue Theatre, where it ran for almost
300 performances. Likewise, Madame
of the age with fervor. Japan was quickly pulled into Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan opened as
a dizzying vortex of steel, steam, and beaver-skin a one-act play in New York in 1900.
hats. By 1868, the Meiji era had sprung into existence
and, increasingly, the old waysepitomized by the
now-outlawed samurai classwere tossed aside. Both
railroads and electricity were introduced in the 1870s
and with the defeat of Russias powerful navy in 1905,
Japan became a force to be reckoned with.
Curiously, even as the turn-of-the-cen- Americans Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904)
tury Japanese discarded the old for the and John La Farge (1835-1910) and
new, traditional hakama for stovepipe Briton Isabella Bird (1831-1904) were
trousers, Americans became infatu- eagerly snatched up and consumed; silk Captain Francis Brinkley (1841-1912)
ated with the ways of old Japan. The kimonos embroidered with dragons, from A History of the Japanese People (New
exotic travel accounts of writers such as cranes and other symbolic creatures
York: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1915).

26 Bridgewater Review
Tattooed Postman House Boat

Subsequent editions of Japan Described


Some of the limited editions were and Illustrated can be found with paper
covers featuring simple decorations or
so costly that only a few well- in massive, 16.5 x 13-inch folio form.
Some of the limited editions were so
heeled individuals and institutions costly that only a few well-heeled indi-
viduals and institutions such as librar-
such as libraries and collector ies and collector societies could afford
them. Japan Described and Illustrated was
societies could afford them. reprinted in several runs, the largest
being 1000 and the smallest 25. The
smaller the edition, the more extrava-
These superficially romantic portray- Navy. Brinkley married Yasuko gantly bedecked the volume. While
als of the Japanese people and culture Tanaka, the daughter of a samurai, it remains uncertain who authored
allowed Westerners to continue to spoke and wrote f luent Japanese, and all of the articles in the text, Japanese
view Japan as a primitive culture, like was author of a successful two-volume scholar Kakuzo Okakura (author of The
a f ly encased in amber, unmoving Japanese/English dictionary. He owned Awakening of Japan [1904]) was identi-
and unyielding. and edited the Japan Mail (which later fied as one of the writers.
became the Japan Times), the most However, few Americans would have
Americans consumed old Japan in other
inf luential English-language newspa- bought Japan Described and Illustrated for
ways, too, perhaps no more eloquently
per of the day. Brinkley had the ear of its prose. Instead, they were more likely
than through the recounted exploits
the Meiji government and promoted a to have bought it for its art, its sheer
of Francis Brinkley (1841-1912), an
Japanese agenda overseas. opulence, the visual and tactile experi-
Irish-born military officer who adopted
Japan as his home country, living there Beginning in 1897, Capt. F. Brinkley ence it provided. While the subjects
and supporting pro-Japanese causes for produced one of the most opulent of the books images were themselves
more than 45 years. Born in County books of the era, a 10-volume set titled exotic, the volumes also demonstrated
Meath and educated at Trinity College, Japan Described and Illustrated by the the state of the art of photography at
he served as a military attach to the Japanese Written By Eminent Authorities the turn of the twentieth century.
British Embassy. In 1867, he moved to and Scholars. First published by the The unnumbered, cheaper paperboard
Japan for good, becoming a military Boston-based J.B. Millet Company, the editions had two photographs and one
advisor to the Meiji government and book was reprinted several times, each collotype, an image produced when a
artillery instructor to the Imperial slightly different but always handsome. glass or metal plate was covered with

May 2015 27
Woman Writing Letters Women Enjoying a Garden with Electrically Powered Fountain

a gelatin and bichromate and exposed Japan, prior to the publication of Japan Illustrated are important and beauti-
to light. But the most extravagant Described and Illustrated in 1897. Also ful examples of American publishing
editions, issued in smaller and more included were three 8 x 11-inch hand- commercialism. But they also serve as
expensive runs, were packed with just colored photographs of Japanese people reminders of or page holders in the long
about everything Japanese Brinkley at their daily toils, recreations and rest, and complicated relationship that devel-
could manage to fit between two along with landscape scenes. Several oped between America and Japan in the
covers: brocaded silk boards, tasseled photographs depicted geishas in various past century and a half. Less than fifty
silk hand-tied and uncut pages bound stages of dishabille, which undoubtedly years after the Brinkley publications
in the Japanese manner (in each delighted Victorian voyeurs. were first sold, Japanese-American
volume came a warning not to cut the citizens were rounded up and placed in
Brinkley published several more edi-
pages apart), mica-f lecked endpapers, what were euphemistically described
tions of his book in a smaller format as
hand-painted end boards, ukiyo-e as relocation camps during World
well as a follow-up offering, a two-
prints, samples of lace and wallpaper War II. The face of the exotic had been
volume set titled The Art of Japan, which
patterns, and sundry other items. For transformed into the face of the enemy.
was published in 1901. It is probably
those who could afford the indulgence Fear of Japan replaced fascination with
the scarcest of the Brinkley publica-
(the 1000 Yedo [Tokyo] edition was it. After the war, Japanese goods were
tions. In the same year, Brinkley added
$40, or about $1,200 today, for a marked Made in Occupied Japan.
a treatment of China to Japan Described
10-volume folio set), Japan Described Americans had moved from peeping in
and Illustrated and the set was expanded
and Illustrated by the Japanese was an the windows to owning the house.
to 12 volumes. In 1910, the last printing
armchair travelers delight.
of this book came off the press. Today,
Beyond accoutrements, deluxe edi- after a long period of neglect, Captain
tions of the book featured collotypes Brinkleys Japan Described and Illustrated
of f lowers and hand-colored albumin is again stirring interest among schol-
photographs (made using egg whites ars and collectors of American fine art
and salt to bind various chemicals to printing. While some sets can be found
produce the paper print). Between silk- intact, others, sadly, have been broken
covered boards lay a frontis collotype up so that the collotypes and photo-
of a f lower made by Kazumasa Ogawa graphs can be sold individually.
(1860-1929). A pioneer in Japanese
From the open editions which were Dan Johnson is Adjunct Professor
photography and a printer, Ogawa
printed without limit to the limited in the Department of English.
had published folios of collotypes of
editions sold by subscription, the vol-
Geishas, f lowers and the customs of
umes of Brinkleys Japan Described and

28 Bridgewater Review

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