Futurism as Archaism: Kinoshita Shuichirō (1896-1991) Glorifies a Dancing Girl

In the late 19th and early 20th century, the “archaic” art forms such as the woodblock print genre of bijin-ga (literally, ‘images of beautiful people’) reminded the Japanese artistic milieu of the fact that the West viewed Japanese art through the lens of primitivism. The subject of maiko, a young dance and music apprentice, became a new theme for both the Western and Japanese styles of painting, known as yōga and nihonga respectively, that mirrored the transformative process of modern art in Japan. In his statement-manifesto “Awaken! Friends!” (1923), Japanese futurist Kinoshita Shuichirō (1896-1991) introduced maiko as an embodiment of beauty and rhythm in Japanese Futurism. While the notion of dynamism was a trademark of Italian Futurism, the concept of beauty associated with a female body was not. In this paper, I argue that Kinoshita channeled the archaic theme in a futurist mode what created the paradox of ‘Futurism as archaism’ and coincided with a turn towards a national subject in “folk” art in the early 1920s in Japan. In my analysis of Kinoshita’s statement and paintings, I explore how the artist realized his theories, experimented with techniques, and engaged national tradition, thus, expanding the perception of new art in Japan.