Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 593, The Artist of the Open Road, Part 3.

The art historian Mathie Forer, one of the main English language specialists on Hiroshima's work,

has noted that in Japanese text about Hiroshima, Japanese art historians tend to treat the great

artist's work as so typically,

fundamentally Japanese in its character, that foreigners cannot truly appreciate him.

Unlike the maverick Hokkae, whose dramatic stylings appeal to Western individualistic taste,

Hirohuge was much more restrained, classical in his composition,

and just generally typified the kind of restrained approach that classical Japanese aesthetics

embodies.

To be frank, I think that's a pile of nonsense.

In general, as longtime listeners of the podcast know, I'm a bit suspicious of any sort of claim

about a Japanese versus Western mindset, because I think it's either, A, a lazy way to think

about people in society, B, a self-fulfilling prophecy where you're starting with an assumption

that you then look for reasons to believe, and or C, politically motivated either by weirdly racist assumptions

or by Japanese nationalist politics.

That's a whole other tangent, I guess, but just broadly, I tend to roll my eyes pretty hard

at any mention of a monolithic Japanese mindset or Japanese taste or anything like that.

Japan is a place full of individuals just like everywhere else,

and while individual tastes might be shaped by collective history,

they're still fundamentally individual.

And moreover, I'd suggest the things that do make Hiroshiige unique

are not when you drill down to it uniquely Japanese.

...