Clothing as Cartography of Culture: European Costume Books and Japanese Namban Screens

Japanese namban folding screens, produced during the so-called “Christian century” (1549-1650), are a rich source of information about early modern encounters between East and West. Often studied as a means of understanding the Japanese reception of European art, style, and ideologies, namban screens portray a myriad of scenes relating to life in Europe as well as day-to-day interactions between European merchants and missionaries and the Japanese public. These painted screens focused on life in Europe both as a didactic tool and for the pleasure of appreciating the foreign civilization. Not unlike namban screens, costume books were also intended to educate readers on the diverse habits and customs of faraway places. Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, costume books illustrated local fashions in Europe, with later editions including dress from around the world. In its ordered and orderly fashion, the costume book neatly presented the world to its readers as if they were flipping through the pages of an atlas. This paper will present namban screens not as the product of European “influence” on Japanese artists, but rather as global objects produced by Japanese artists, trained by Jesuit lay brothers, who synthesized aspects of both European and Japanese costume and culture to create an entirely new object, readable by all. Costume was a powerful visual language that Japanese and Europeans each used to situate themselves in their global moment, culminating in the production of new ways to visualize the people of the world.