Buddhist statue

Tamamura Kōzaburō’s Kamakura Daibutsu Photograph For Brinkley’s Japan

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An astounding 400,000 hand-colored photographic prints were used for all editions of Francis Brinkley’s Japan: Described and Illustrated by the Japanese. Produced in Boston between 1897 and 1898, this work was the pinnacle of photographic book publishing at the turn of the century.

The photographs were imported from Japan from the Yokohama studio of Tamamura Kōzaburō, one of the most prolific Japanese photographers of his generation. He reportedly employed 350 artists for several months to complete the job, yet Tamamura’s name is omitted from the final publication.

Unlike most books of the era which used photomechanical prints, Brinkley’s Japan used mounted photographs. The Great Buddha of Kamakura was the second full page photograph, following Mt. Fuji, in the first volume, suggesting its perceived value in the American visual language of Japan.

Tamamura’s output was so extensive in preparation for Brinkley’s book, there was a fivefold increase in Japan’s photography exports between 1895 and 1896. This volume of work was achieved at expense of quality, as many of the color washes are pale and poorly executed.

While the number of one million photos for Brinkley’s Japan was likely exaggerated by Tamamura for publicity, this was truly an enormous undertaking. To view the first volume of Brinkley’s Japan held by the Getty Museum, see here: https://tinyurl.com/bddt5z32.

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Henri Laas’ “Dieu des Amours” Advertising Card

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Advances in chromolithography in the 1870s and 80s helped flood America and Europe with inexpensive, colorful imagery. This had the greatest impact in advertising with the introduction of trade cards, often bearing humorous or provocative images to elicit consumer interest.

To meet demand, printers like Henri Laas in Paris, created series of stock illustrated cards which could be imprinted with a store’s name and address. The store Moreau-Gouffier, seen here, had a “specialty in shoes” and sold “articles for soldiers,” probably during the 1890s.

Stock imagery was often unrelated to the store, but instead drew upon popular visual motifs. Coinciding with the growth of trade cards, France experienced another wave of chinoiserie following the looting of the Beijing Summer Palace and creation of Empress Eugénie’s Chinese Museum in the 1860s.

Moreover, French colonial expansion into East Asia increased the circulation of imagery of the region and its people through the French illustrated press. Trade cards drew upon popular ethnic stereotypes, such as we see with the caricatures of Chinese clothing, hairstyle, and skin complexion.

This card is part of a set that tells a story, with each scene set around a particular Chinese artifact; here we see a highly-stylized statue of a buddha. In the story, two secret lovers approach the statue, presented as a “god of love,” to seek his help.

The statue mimics a buddhist icon, but is also racially stylized with mustache and queue. To read more about the Buddhist artifacts and the looting of the Summer Palace, see Louise Tythacott’s The Lives of Chinese Objects: Buddhism, Imperialism and Display (2011).

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Keystone’s Kotte Temple Stereoview

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The Kotte Rajamaha Vihara was founded in the 15th century under royal patronage to house a sacred tooth relic of the Buddha. At the time, some considered this the holiest site in Sri Lanka, greater than Aśoka’s Bodhi tree in Anuradhapura and the Buddha’s footprint on Adam’s Peak.

The Cūḷavaṃsa, a Buddhist historical record, describes King Parākramabāhu’s construction of a golden reliquary for the tooth and annual festivals held in celebration. Unfortunately, Kotte temple was destroyed during the Dutch occupation of Sri Lanka, but was rebuilt in the early 19th century.

Marketed as education material, the information on the back of this stereoview offers a few generic facts about Buddhism. The unknown author also offers pointed criticism, calling the statues on the front “rigid” and chastising Buddhists for being “practically idolatrous.”

This stereophotograph was taken in 1900/01 and was incorporated into a 30-view set devoted to Ceylon. While the copyright is granted to B.L. Singley, the president of Keystone, this photo was taken by one of several unknown staff photographers scattered over the world.

According to lore, the tooth relic was removed from Kotte about a century after its enshrinement to save it from Portuguese looters. For further history on the tooth relic, see John Strong’s The Buddha’s Tooth: Western Tales of a Sri Lankan Relic (2021).

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Chinese Buddhist Shrine in The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929)

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This photo casts a rather uncanny site with unnaturally bright side lighting, awkwardly wooden human figures, and a very odd Buddhist icon. This is not a real Chinese Buddhist temple, but a movie set designed for a famous 1929 Paramount film.

The photo is from a series of stills taken to preserve the set design and layout for The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu, starring Warner Oland in the titular role. This scene portrays the moment before that death of the doctor’s wife and son by errant British cannon fire during the Boxer rebellion.

It’s worth marveling at this franken-buddha. While silent films of the 1910s and 20s sometimes used genuine Buddhist statuary, larger props were made of plaster. The craftsmen cobbled together the face of a buddha, the body of a jeweled bodhisattva, and adopted a two-fisted meditation mudra.

The prostrating mannequins represent the doctor’s family praying at the family shrine moments before the altar is destroyed by a shell, crashing rubble on top of them. Fu Manchu swears vengeance in front of his dead family and demolished Buddhist icon.

Buddhist statues appear elsewhere in the film, but mostly as room décor signaling a curio Buddhist statues appear elsewhere in the film, but as one reviewer in 1929 describes, they are among “the appurtenances of Oriental diablerie.” The “all talking” version of Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu survives today and is viewable here: tinyurl.com/r5d9h7e5.

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Felice Beato’s Kichizo Jizō Photograph

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This Jizō statue stood on the banks of Lake Ashi in Hakone for 150 years when Felice Beato took this photo in the 1860s. Within a decade, the lakeside statue would be vandalized, sold, and removed in the aftermath of the Buddhist persecution during the early Meiji era.

Beato was a Yokohama-based photographer who found success selling photographic prints to early, thrill-seeking globetrotters. Here we see a hand-colored albumen print of the statue known as Kichizo Jizō, originally found on the grounds of Kongō-ō Temple off the Tōkaidō route.

Another photo showing scenic Lake Ashi is attached to the reverse, but this image is often attributed to Baron von Stillfried. Beato sold most of his stock to Stillfried in 1877, suggesting this page was removed from a tourist album sold by Stillfried in the late 1870s.

The bronze Kichizo Jizo statue was commissioned in 1713 and was placed with a cluster of smaller Jizō statues that sat along the shoreline (another Jizō is partly visible on the far right edge). Looking closely at Beato’s photo, we also see two Japanese men praying to the bodhisattva.

During Japan’s Buddhist persecution, the large Kongōō Temple lost its holdings and much of its statuary was eventually sold off. While smaller statues were lost in the chaos, the Kichizo Jizo was sold to a Tokyo dealer who transported it down the Odawara coast to be shipped off.

According to lore, the icon became immovable at port and was subsequently purchased by Tokujo Temple, where it remains enshrined today. To view an intact 1868 Beato souvenir album containing this photo, see the Hood Museum at Dartmouth: https://tinyurl.com/mpzhrb5d.

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Nipponophone’s Moving Buddha Advertising Postcard

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Nipponophone was an early Japanese record company, releasing the first domestically-produced phonograph in 1910 to commercial success. The company’s president, American Frederick Horn, adopted a large sitting Buddha for advertising, but with a subtle homage to another US brand.

Modern consumerism was just entering its stride and brand identity was emerging as central to advertising. In America, the most well-known music trademark at the time was Victor Records’ Nipper the dog who was depicted tilting his head to listen to his owner’s voice played on a record.

In contrast, designer Sassa Kōka used the otherwise stoically seated Buddha to illustrate the sonic appeal of the new phonograph. Such an image would undoubtedly strike Japanese audiences as unorthodox, but playful imagery was well-known in Japanese art through the Edo period (1600–1868).

During the height of the Japanese picture postcard boom (ehagaki būmu) it was not uncommon to see cards used as advertising. The placement of the address dividing line helps us date it to between 1910, when Nipponophone was founded, and 1918.

The moving Buddha image was used by Nipponophone in other business related ephemera. For example, it can be seen printed on the company’s paper record sleeves; one viewable here through the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia: https://tinyurl.com/4vk8f9sa

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Arnoldus Montanus’ Icon with Thirty Arms Engraving

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Following a pair of successful illustrated works on China, publisher Jacob van Meurs secured the rights to issue an illustrated book on Japan in 1669. The engravings, such as we see with the curious Buddhist icon here, were criticized for departing “a long way from the truth.”

Compiled by Arnoldus Montanus, a Protestant Minister who never left Holland, the engravings in Atlas Japannensis draw from both textual descriptions and an older European visual language of Asian idolatry. The work includes 23 large plates and 71 smaller vignettes set within the text.

As for the icon here, the English translation of 1670 reads, “This Image hath thirty Arms, and as many Hands, in each two Arrows, a Face representing a handsome Youth, on his Breast seven humane Faces, with a Crown of Gold, richly inchas’d with Peals, Diamonds, and all sorts of Precious Gems.”

While multi-armed and multi-headed figures are not uncommon in Buddhism, the particular configuration here appears rather fanciful. Nevertheless, we are informed the illustration here represents the Bodhisattva Kannon, further curiously identified in the text as the son of Amida Buddha.

The markings on the pedestal are meant to signify non-alphabetic East Asian writing, but none can be resolved into legible characters.

Kannon’s temple is said to be located on a Buddhist mountain just east of Kyoto, most likely pointing to Mt. Hiei. The fires indicate part of Mt. Hiei’s history, as described by Montanus, when Oda Nobunaga razed Buddhist temples in the region in 1571.

Several of Montanus’ engravings were copied into later works on Japan, helping shape a visual lexicon for Buddhism into the 19th cent. The 1669 Dutch edition of Atlas Japannensis has been digitized by the National Library of the Netherlands, viewable here: tinyurl.com/5n6kstfy.

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Fresno’s “Joss House” Press Photograph

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Often overshadowed by San Francisco, by 1890 Fresno’s Chinatown was one of the largest in California and the center of much religious activity. Notably, among the few surviving 19th century Chinese American religious icons, we can include those from Fresno’s Temple of Many Saints.

The Chinese diaspora community opened many religious centers across the Pacific under the name Temple of Many Saints (liesheng gong 列聖宮) for use among local Chinese immigrants. Fresno’s temple opened in the 1880s and was located on G Street.

This Fresno Bee archival photograph shows three of the five icons displayed on the main altar. Closed to the public in 1936, the temple was demolished in 1965 shortly after this photograph; the temple artifacts were donated to the Fresno Historical Society and were in storage until last year.

The five icons included the Northern Emperor, Guandi, Tianhou, Huatuo, and Caishen, also known as the “God of Wealth” (seen here). At times, the Buddhist figure Guanyin replaced one of these icons in the Temple of Many Saints found across North America, but that was not the case in Fresno.

Guandi (seen here) was a deified historical general and cultural hero who was a symbol of integrity and loyalty. Widely celebrated by many Chinese district associations and fraternal societies, Guandi was arguably the most popular early Chinese American deity.

The Northern Emperor was a celestial deity famed among many immigrants from southern China. Last year, the Chinese American Museum Project and the Fresno Historical Society arranged a “From China to Fresno: A 150-year Cultural Journey” exhibit, see here: tinyurl.com/4jeea4cu.

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Wilhelm Burger’s Kamakura Daibutsu Photograph

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Tales of Tourist Photos, Pt. 2*: Old “wet-plate” photography required glass negatives to be coated, sensitized, exposed, and developed in less than fifteen minutes. Using the dry-plate method, negatives could be prepared beforehand; Wilhelm Burger was among the first to use this in Japan.
*[Part 1]

Burger was photographer for the 1869 Imperial Austrian Expedition to East Asia, but illness allowed him to remain in Japan for the winter after the legation left. Tasked in part to photograph art objects, Burger visited the Kamakura Daibutsu with large glass negatives he prepared in Europe.

The handwritten inscription on the back of this photographic print reads, “This Image is all Bronze, name Diaboots.” “Diaboots,” or Daiboots, was the Yokohama treaty port vernacular for the Kamakura Daibutsu through the 1860s.

While Burger created a sizable portfolio of arts and crafts during the embassy, his photographs at Kōtoku-in in Kamakura appear more tourist-like than documentary. Here, several people pose for the camera, including what may appear to be Buddhist priests and three men in European attire.

To my knowledge, the people remain unidentified; Burger’s apprentice, Michael Moser, stayed in Japan after the embassy returned (and remained after Burger left). Moreover, Italian-born Felice Beato operated a successful Yokohama-based photography studio at the time – could either be seen here?

On his return to Vienna in 1870, Burger exhibited his Japanese portfolio to broad public acclaim. For more on Burger’s photographic process, see Tani Akiyoshi & Peter Pantzer’s “Wilhelm Burger’s Photographs of Japan,” PhotoResearcher 15 (2011): 40–50.

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Eastman Kodak European Tour Group Real Photo Postcard

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Tales of Tourist Photos, Pt. 1*: If photography changed the way people viewed the world, the Eastman Kodak camera transformed the late Victorian practice of tourism. The handheld Kodak made photography available to casual amateurs, creating the vernacular form of snapshot photography.
*[Part 2]

In contrast to a generation earlier, precise technical expertise was not necessary and photography became increasingly linked to personal experience. Foreign travel, such as visiting the Kamakura Daibutsu, increasingly “required” a photograph to validate the exotic experience.

By 1903, the Kodak 3A was released and fitted with rolled film creating negatives measuring 3¼ in. x 5½ in. – the exact size of a standard postcard. Eastman marketed a broad range of supplies for the amateur, including Velox paper for those developing and printing their own postcards.

This real photo postcard was shot and printed circa 1910–1915 and captures two dozen tourists arranged along the lap and stone pedestal of the Great Buddha of Kamakura.

Some of the earliest photographs of the Kamakura Daibutsu depict people climbing upon its lap and a ladder can be seen for helping a visitor’s ascent in photographs dating to the 1870s. By around 1915 climbing on the statue was prohibited.

For further discussion on the birth of the snapshot and its cultural impact, see Mia Fineman’s “Kodak and the Rise of Amateur Photography,” viewable here: https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/kodak-and-the-rise-of-amateur-photography.

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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