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| Frog in the Well: Portraits of Japan by Watanabe Kazan, 1793-1841
ISBN: 9780231511032
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Columbia University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Watanabe Kazan 1793-1841; Painters -- Japan -- Biography; Japan -- Intellectual life -- 1600-1868;
Frog in the Well is a vivid and revealing account of Watanabe Kazan, one of the most important intellectuals of the late Tokugawa period. From his impoverished upbringing to his tragic suicide in exile, Kazan's life and work reflected a turbulent period in Japan's history. He was a famous artist, a Confucian scholar, a student of Western culture, a samurai, and a critic of the shogunate who, nevertheless, felt compelled to kill himself for fear that he had caused his lord anxiety.
During this period, a typical Japanese scholar or artist refused to acknowledge the outside world, much like a "frog in the well that knows nothing of the ocean," but Kazan actively sought out Western learning. He appreciated European civilization and bought every scrap of European art that was available in Japan. He became a painter to help his family out of poverty and, by employing the artistic techniques of the West, achieved great success with his realistic and stylistically advanced portraits.
Although he remained a nationalist committed to the old ways, Kazan called on the shogunate to learn from the West or risk disaster. He strove to improve the agricultural and economic conditions of his province and reinforce its defenses, but his criticisms and warnings about possible coastal invasions ultimately led to his arrest and exile.
Frog in the Well is the first full-length biography of Kazan in English, and, in telling his life's story, renowned scholar Donald Keene paints a fascinating portrait of the social and intellectual milieus of the late Tokugawa period. Richly illustrated with Kazan's paintings, Frog in the Well illuminates a life that is emblematic of the cultural crises affecting Japan in the years before revolution.
Donald Keene was born in Brooklyn, New York on June 18, 1922. He was a child prodigy and entered Columbia University on scholarship in 1938 at the age of 16. He received a bachelor's degree in 1942, a master's degree in 1947, and a doctoral degree in 1951 from Columbia. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Navy and volunteered to study Japanese. His first experience as a translator came in Hawaii, where he worked on routine military reports captured from Japanese units in the Pacific theater. He then became a wartime interrogator after the battle in Okinawa on April 1, 1945. After he was discharged, he taught at Columbia University for 56 years. Over his career, he translated many of the most important works of Japanese literature into English. He also wrote numerous books in both English and Japanese including Dawn to the West and Travelers of the Ages. In 1985, he became the first non-Japanese to receive the Yomiuri Prize for Literature for literary criticism. He became a Japanese citizen in 2012. He died on February 24, 2019 at the age of 96. (Bowker Author Biography) |
