Issues in the History of Modern Japanese Art

A Series of Lectures and Seminars, December 7 to 11, 2009

Toshio Watanabe (London)

Issues in the History of Modern Japanese Art

• Buddhism and the Formation of Japanese Art History

  Lecture on Monday, December 7, 6 pm, Institute of East Asian Art History, Seminar Room 311
  Seminar on Tuesday, December 8, 4-6 pm, Institute of East Asian Art History, Seminar Room 311

• Nude Painting and Censorship in Meiji Japan

  Lecture on Wednesday, December 9, 6 pm, Institute of East Asian Art History, Seminar Room 311
  Seminar on Friday, December 11, 2 pm, Institute of East Asian Art History, Seminar Room 311

• When did Japanese Art become ′Art′ in the West?

  Lecture on Thursday, December 10, 4-6 pm, Karl Jaspers Centre, Voßstraße 2, Room 212
  (jour fixe of research area B)
  Seminar on Friday, December 11, 4 pm, Institute of East Asian Art History, Seminar Room 311

Toshio Watanabe

studied at the Sophia University (Tokyo), at the Tokyo University and at the Courtauld Institute of Art (London). He received his PhD from the University of Basel.

Since 1986 he is affiliated to the Chelsea College of Art and Design (London), where he was recently appointed Director of the Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN).

The main focus of his research is the phenomenon of transnational interactions of art with an emphasis on the issue of modernity and identity. Besides numerous articles he authored the monographs High Victorian Japonisme (1991); Japan and Britain: An Aesthetic Dialogue 1850-1930 (1991), and Ruskin in Japan 1890-1940: Nature for art, art for life (1997).

This series of lectures and seminars is funded by the Cluster of Excellence „Asia and Europe in a Global Context: Shifting Asymmetries in Cultural Flows“ at Heidelberg University.