On July 31, 1937, the Japanese national newspaper Asahi carried a photograph of a group of stylishly dressed women facing the camera, smiling, caught in movement. What appear to be patriotic slogans are pinned like sashes across their bodies; some of the women carry donation boxes (Fig. 1). The image is accompanied by a short news item about fashion models performing “patriotic service” ( hōshi). “Beguiling” in their elegant Western outfits or Japanese kimono, around forty of these “mannequin...

In January I was teaching speculative and science fiction from the modernist period to show my students how fascism emerges, and how to recognise the ways that literary strategies can instil alienation, fear of the Other, and anti-Semitism and racism. My students were German, and our seminars were held in the north-west German university town of Paderborn, a little east of the Ruhr, where a British Army base

“Well this exhibition feels a little too timely,” my colleague Clare Davies posted to Facebook during a November 21, 2016 visit to Art et liberté: Rupture, guerre et surréalisme en Egypte (1938-1948) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. The exhibit—a major contribution to contemporary

In 2011, the Japanese government designated Yasuda Yukihiko’s Camp at Kisegawa ( Kisegawa no jin, 1940-41) as an Important Cultural Property ( Jūyō bunkazai) (fig. 1). The left half of the painting, which portrays Minamoto Yoshitsune (1159-1189), a famous warrior from the Kamakura period (1185-1333), was initially produced and exhibited in 1940 as The Arrival of Yoshitsune (Yoshitsune sanchaku). The right half, which depicts Yoshitsune’s older brother Yoritomo (1147-1199), was added later, and the artist then titled the completed work Camp at Kisegawa (Kisegawa no jin). The finished painting, executed in ink on two paper folding screens, shows the much-desired reunion between the two men before their battle against the rival Heike clan. Given that the list of Important Cultural Properties includes Dogū clay sculptures from the Neolithic Jōmon period and the Niō sculptures at Hōryūji temple in Nara, the designation made Yasuda’s painting a canonical work of Japanese art. What this downplays, however, is the fact that the work was produced during the Second World War and served a political function. Since the Meiji period (1868-1912), which witnessed the intensive modernization and Westernization projects of Enlightenment and Civilization ( Bunmei kaika), there have been two broad categories of Japanese painting: Japanese-style paintings ( nihonga), executed in ink/color on paper/silk, and Western-style paintings ( yōga), created with oil on canvas. Japanese-style paintings have most often been considered as supportive of tradition, while the Western-style paintings have been linked to modernity. Nevertheless, during the Second World War, many Western-style painters were dispatched to the front to depict battles and political events, because of the medium’s supposed ability for realism. Western-style painter Miyamoto Saburō, for example, depicted an encounter between Japanese and British generals on the occasion of the Japanese occupation of Singapore in his The Meeting of General Yamashita and General Percival ( Yamashita pāshibaru ryōshireikan kaikenzu, 1942). The painting communicates Japan’s victory over Britain through the generals’ contrasting gestures: Japanese General Yamashita sits near the center of the painting in an imposing posture while three British officials in the foreground look at each other, unable to confront Yamashita. Since, on the other hand, it was generally agreed that Japanese-style painting was not conducive to realism, few Japanese-style painters depicted contemporary soldiers or battles; instead, during the war years, they continued to take as their subject matter traditional iconography, such as religious and historical figures, scenes of nature, and beautiful women.