Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T14:16:59.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Mirror of Memory: Constructions of Hell in the Marukis' Nuclear Murals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Charlotte Eubanks
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

How does art cultivate moral reflexivity? Maruki Iri and Maruki Toshi, eyewitnesses to the atomic aftermath at Hiroshima, were the first artists to publicly display works showing the effects of nuclear irradiation on the human body. While their work has long been considered antiwar, few attempts have been made to theorize how their compositions structure an ethical response to aggression. Three interconnected zones of representation are explored: the artists' murals, Toshi's testimonials regarding the creation of the murals, and the museum in which the murals are displayed. Bringing Japanese Buddhist traditions for the depiction of suffering (etoki ‘picture explanation,‘ hell screen art) into conversation with contemporary theories of performance (Turner's concept of the “subjunctive mood,” Taylor's notion of “the repertoire”), memory (Kansteiner's “collected memory,” Auron's “pain of knowledge”), and museum studies (Crane's “distortion”), I articulate a contemporary Japanese model of nuclear criticism.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 124 , Issue 5: Special Topic War , October 2009 , pp. 1614 - 1631
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Tetsurō., Akai Etoki no keifu. Tokyo: Kyōikusha, 1989. Print.Google Scholar
Tetsurō., Akai “Jigokue no byōbu.” Nihon Bijutsu Kōgei Apr. 1985: 22–29. Print.Google Scholar
Esben, Andreasen. Popular Buddhism in Japan: Shin Buddhist Religion and Culture. Honolulu: U of Hawai'i P, 1998. Print.Google Scholar
Yair, Auron. The Pain of Knowledge: Holocaust and Genocide Issues in Education. Trans. Ruzga, Ruth. New Brunswick: Transaction, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Carbonell, Bettina Messias, ed. Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Crane, Susan A. “Memory, Distortion, and History in the Museum.” Carbonell 318–34.Google Scholar
John, Dower. “Art, Children, and the Bomb.” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 16.2 (1984): 33–39. Print.Google Scholar
John, Dower. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. New York: Norton, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
John, Dower. “War, Peace, and Beauty: The Art of Iri Maruki and Toshi Maruki.” Junkerman 9–26.Google Scholar
Duffy, Terence M. “Museums of ‘Human Suffering’ and the Struggle for Human Rights.” Carbonell 117–22.Google Scholar
Ichirō., Hariu “Iza tabi tatō ‘Genbaku no Zu’ ika no kyōdō seisaku e.” Bijutsukan Nyūsu. Aya Internet Service, 8 Jan. 2001. Web. 22 Apr. 2009. <>..>Google Scholar
Ienaga, Saburō, ed. Nihon Emakimono Zenshū: Japanese Narrative Scrolls. Vol. 6. Tokyo: Kadokawa, 1960. Print.Google Scholar
John, Junkerman, ed. The Hiroshima Murals: The Art of Iri Maruki and Toshi Maruki. Tokyo: Kondasha, 1985. Print.Google Scholar
Satoshi, Kamata. “Jigokue no hyōgensha ni natta fūfu.” Aera 11 Aug. 1997: 52–56. Print.Google Scholar
Ikumi, Kaminishi. Explaining Pictures: Buddhist Propaganda and Etoki Storytelling in Japan. Honolulu: U of Hawai'i P, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Wulf, Kansteiner. “Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies.” History and Theory 41.2 (2002): 179–97. Print.Google Scholar
Setsuko, Kozawa. Genbaku no zu: Egakareta “kioku,” katarareta “kaiga.” Tokyo: Iwanami, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Linenthal, Edward T. Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America's Holocaust Museum. New York: Columbia UP, 1995. Print.Google Scholar
Maruki Gallery for the Hiroshima Panels Foundation, ed. Genbaku no Zu: Kyōdō seisaku Maruki Iri Maruki Toshi. Higashimatsuyama: Genbaku no Zu Maruki Bijutsukan, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Toshi, Maruki. “Hiroshima, Okinawa, Nankin o egaite.” Gekkan Shakaitō Dec. 1985: 63–66. Print.Google Scholar
Toshi, Maruki. Onna ekaki no tanjō. Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Sentā, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
Ryōji, Matsutani. “Nihon ni okeru jūōzu no seiritsu to tenkai.” Bukkyō Geijutsu 97 (1974): 84–95. Print.Google Scholar
Richard, Minear. “Review: The Atomic-Bomb Paintings.” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 19.4 (1987): 58–63. Print.Google Scholar
Hiroyoshi, Nagaoka. “‘Genbaku no Zu’ wo kakitsuzukeru: Jūsanbu no kansei ni yosete Maruki fūfu ni kiku.” Shimin 4 (1971): 108–14. Print.Google Scholar
Hōjirō., Ono “Maruki Bijutsukan wo mijika ni.” Shin Nihon Bungaku 52.6 (1997): 108–12. Print.Google Scholar
Barbara, Ruch. “Medieval Jongleurs and the Making of a National Literature.” Japan in the Muromachi Age. Ed. Hall, John W. and Takeshi, Toyoda. Berkeley: U of California P, 1977. 279–309. Print.Google Scholar
Barbara, Ruch. “Woman to Woman: Kumano Bikuni Proselytizers in Medieval and Early Modern Japan.” Engendering Faith: Women and Buddhism in Premodern Japan. Ed. Ruch, . Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, 2002. 537–80. Print.Google Scholar
Hisae, Sawachi. “Jiji baba no hitokoto: kataritsugubeki koto.” Sekai Nov. 1987: 242–63. Print.Google Scholar
Noriyoshi, Shimada. Jigoku gokuraku ezu. Kanazawa: Shōenji Jōdo Shinshū Honganji-ha, n. d. N. pag. Print.Google Scholar
Shin Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei. Ed. Hiroshi, Koizumi, Shōzen, Yamada, Takayuki, Kojima, and Motoichi, Kinoshita. Vol. 40. Tokyo: Iwanami, 2001. Print.Google Scholar
Diana, Taylor. The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham: Duke UP, 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Louis, Templado. “The Maruki Legacy.” Japan Quarterly 42.3 (1995): 281–89. Print.Google Scholar
Victor, Turner. The Anthropology of Peformance. New York: PAJ, 1988. Print.Google Scholar
Saichirō., Uesugi “Sensō to heiwa wo egaku.” Buraku Kaihō Sept. 1987: 69–82. Print.Google Scholar
Sōgo, Watanabe. “Jūrokunichi Shōgatsu to jigokue no shōdō.” Geinō 29.1 (1987): 8–19. Print.Google Scholar
Alan, Wolfe. “Toward a Japanese-American Nuclear Criticism: The Art of Iri and Toshi Maruki in Text and Film.” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 19.4 (1987): 55–57. Print.Google Scholar
Hakubutsukan, Yokkaichishi Shiritsu. Myōkai no sabaki: Emmasama to jigoku no sekai—tōkai ni nokoru rokudō shinkō no zōkei. Yokkaichi: Yokkaichishi Shiritsu Hakubutsukan, 2001. Print.Google Scholar