“delivery of the president's letter” “perry taking a bow”...encourage cleanliness,”...

By far the greatest single source of American illustrations of the Perry expedition is to befound in volume one of the three-volume official Narrative published between 1856 and1858. The most numerous and accomplished of these illustrations were done by WilliamHeine, a German-born artistwho was only 25 years oldwhen he first accompaniedPerry to Japan.

Heine, who worked primarilywith sketchpad and watercol-ors, brought a gentle,panoramic, romantic realism toboth the selection and execu-tion of his subjects. His land-scapes were invariably scenic.Where people were concerned,he preferred them in substan-tial numbers. He rarely lin-gered on the “exotic,” did not dwell much (as happened later) on various social “types,” didnot seek out the sensational. So enraptured was Heine by the opportunity to immerse him-self in new landscapes and cultures that, now and then, he even painted himself paintingthe scene being depicted.

“Delivery of the President's Letter”

Detail, from the official Narrative

“Perry Taking a Bow”

Ryosenji Treasure Museum

“Black Ships & Samurai” by John W. Dower — Chapter Four, “Encounters: Facing ‘East’”

Massachusetts Institute of Technology © 2008 Visualizing Cultures

http://visualizingcultures.mit.edu

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Heine sketching in the Ryukyu Islands,1853, from the official Narrative

“Temples” attracted Heine (he, or who-ever captioned the reproductions of hisartwork, made no distinction betweenBuddhist temples and Shinto shrines),but he depicted them with the sameappreciative regard that he brought totrees, mountains, skies, crowds, individ-uals, and other natural and human phe-nomena. He turned his brush (and alsohis drawing pencil) to a few religiousstatues and monuments, but again withrestraint and respect—a striking contrastto the more garish renderings of imag-ined heathen deities that had appearedin Western publications prior to Perry’sarrival.

Since the Perry expedition never visitedEdo or any other huge urban center, theillustrations in the official report con-veyed the impression of a placid, rusticland of quiet villages and modest towns.

Heine and his colleagues gave only pass-ing attention to commercial activities,and only rarely entered behind closed




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Shui Castle, Ryukyu Islands, with two artists sketching the

scene, from the official Narrative(detail below)

Entrance to Shinto shrine in Shimoda,from the official Narrative (detail below)

doors. With but one exception, they chose notto illustrate subjects that provoked moralindignation among some members of the mis-sion (and delighted more than a few crew-men), such as prostitution, pornography, andpublic baths.

The only illustration in the Narrative that sub-sequently provoked shock and condemnationamong Americans depicted a public bathhousein Shimoda. Men, women, and children bathedtogether in these establishments, and goodChristians found them appalling. Dr. JamesMorrow, the mission’s botanist, denounced thebath in Shimoda as one more example “of thelicentiousness and degradation of these culti-vated heathen,” for example, while a ship’sclerk sourly observed that “their religion mightencourage cleanliness,” but it did so in a“repulsive and indecent manner.” The officialreport itself recorded that “a scene at the pub-lic baths, where the sexes mingle indiscrimi-nately, unconscious of their nudity, was notcalculated to impress the Americans with avery favorable opinion of the morals of theinhabitants.”




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Entrance to Shinto shrine in Shimoda,from the official Narrative (detail below)

Heine’s controversial rendering of a public bath in Shimoda

Heine’s illustration of the bathhouse in Shimoda was removed from later editions of theNarrative. Where intercultural relations are concerned, morality obviously was a two-waymirror in this case. For the manner in which the Americans pointed to mixed bathing asevidence of Japanese lewdness and wantonness was strikingly similar to John Manjiro’sresponse, only a few years earlier, to the shocking spectacle of American men and womenkissing in public.

The original artwork by Heine and his colleagues was seen by very few individuals. Rather,it reached the public in several different forms. Some 34,000 copies of the official three-volume Narrative were published (at the substantial cost of $400,000), of which over halfwere given to high government officials, members of Congress, and the Navy Department.

The first and most pertinent volume of the setincluded some 165 handsome woodcuts andtipped-in lithographs depicting not only Japanbut other stops on the two voyages—includingChina, the Bonin islands, and, of greatestinterest, Okinawa in the Ryukyu (“Lew Chew”)islands.

In addition, this first volume also featuredmany small reproductions of pencil drawings byHeine, particularly at the beginnings and endsof chapters. Mid-century Western voyagers,artists, and scientists were intent on “mapping”literally all aspects of the little-known world,and in volume two several-score brilliantly col-ored plates were devoted to natural life, partic-ularly fishes and birds. (Additional plates

depicting the plants of Japan failed to be published due to vanity and obstreperousness onthe part of Dr. Morrow, who collected and drew illustrations of hundreds of specimens, butheld these back in the hopes of seeing a separate publication devoted solely to his ownfindings. This failed to materialize, and his work has been lost.) The third volume of theNarrative, of little interest today, reproduced charts of the stars recorded over the courseof the two long voyages.

The official publication was expensive, however, and the general public only encounteredthis handsome visual record indirectly. An affordable trade edition of volume one was pub-lished in 1856, with fewer lithographs and color throughout reduced to black and white. Atthe same time, a small number of illustrations (including some that did not appear in theofficial or commercial publications) were reproduced as large brightly colored “elephant”lithographs. One could thus encounter "Perry’s Japan" in various tones and formats.




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Chapter heading drawingfrom the official Narrative

It also happened that, inmoving from one form ofprinting to another, thedetails of the original ren-dering were slightlyaltered—as seen, forexample, in the famousdepiction of Perry’s land-ing in Yokohama thatappears in the official andtrade editions.




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Illustration from the 1856commercial edition

Tinted lithograph from the official printing of 1856

Independent large-format lithograph, ca. 1855–56

Two versions of CommodorePerry meeting officials at

Yokohama

The trade edition of theNarrative (detail, above left)

The official government edition(detail, left)

The artwork in the Narrative (and independent lithographs) begins with impressions ofports of call en route to Japan (including scenes from Ceylon, Singapore, Canton, andHong Kong), and then presents a record of major interactions between Perry and officialsin “Lew Chew” and Japan.

On the first visit toOkinawa, we move fromthe “exploring party” min-gling with native peoplesin bucolic settings to thecastle in Naha, wherePerry and his entouragepaused by the imposing“Gate of Courtesy” andthen attended a crowdedformal reception.

Moving on to Edo Bay, the artists recorded a tense moment when the Americans began tosurvey the harbor and were briefly challenged by Japanese in small boats—a dramatic con-frontation, referred to as “Passing the Rubicon,” that was inexplicably only made availableas an independent print.




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From the 1853 Expedition

Gate of Courtesy at the castle in Okinawa

(above, left)

Reception at Shui Castle,Okinawa (left)

Thereafter, all becomes decorous again. From the brief 1853 mission come iconic paintingsof Perry coming ashore in Japan for the first time (on July 14, at Kurihama) and deliveringPresident Fillmore’s letter requesting the end of the policy of seclusion.




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The landing at Kurihama (detail)

The White House Collection

The Americans sounding and surveying Edo Bay (detail, top, from the official Narrative)

“Passing the Rubicon”: Japanese officials confront the surveying party (detail, bottom)

The commodore’s return visit in 1854, which lasted for several months and saw the open-ing of Shimoda and Hakodate to foreign vessels, provided the occasion for more extendedartwork. Perry’s landing in Yokohama on March 8 inspired a crowded scene of troops onparade before a horizon prickled with the masts of the black ships, as well as a solemnrendering of the commodore greeting the Japanese commissioners.




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Delivery of PresidentFillmore’s letter

From the 1854 Expedition

The landing at Yokohama (detail)

Yokohama Archives of History

In another illustration,armed samurai weredepicted clusteredtogether, some mountedand some on foot (arare close-up of thethousands of warriorsmobilized for defense).

Formal occasions—thepresentation ofAmerican gifts, a ban-quet on Perry’s flag-ship, a performance ofsumo wrestling—wereduly recorded.




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“Imperial barge” at Yokohama Japanese officials greet Perry at Yokohama

Samurai defenseforces (detail)

Delivery of theAmerican presents

at Yokohama

Yokohama, and subsequently the newly designated “treaty ports” of Shimoda andHakodate, provided the Americans with more intimate access to the countryside and theordinary people who lived there.

The rugged vistas in these areas inspired Heine to new heights of scenic romanticism, andhe and his fellow artists also took advantage of their excursions onshore to depict the localpeople and their places of worship and daily activities (including the scandalous public bathin Shimoda). Although these detailed scenes are usually crowded with people, often withforeigners and natives intermingling, there is little sense of tension or strangeness. Theatmosphere is serene. Everyone, native and foreigner alike, is comely. In the Americanrecord, these first encounters come across as almost dream-like.




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Banquet on board the Powhatan

Sumo wrestlerat Yokohama




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Shimoda “from the AmericanGrave Yard”

Perry’s troops in for-mation at RyosenjiTemple, Shimoda

US Naval AcademyMuseum

Moonlit graveyard atRyosenji Temple, Shimoda

Harvard University Library

A Gallery of Images from the Expedition




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Hachiman shrine, Shimoda Mariner’s temple, Shimoda (detail)

Devotions in a Buddhist temple,

Shimoda

Perry conferringwith local officials

in Hakodate




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Hakodate“from Telegraph Hill”

Street by a temple inHakodate

“Imperial barge” at Yokohama Japanese officials greet Perry at Yokohama




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Japanese kago (palanquin) Spinning and weaving

Commodore Perry bids farewell to officials in Shimoda

“delivery of the president's letter” “perry taking a bow”...encourage cleanliness,”...

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