| | | | Japanese Ambrotypes
These rare Ambrotypes rank as unique photographic treasures on a number of counts. It is important to note that the images you see before you were not intended for a Western audience. Rather, they are unique, one-of-a-kind images created by Japanese photographers exclusively for Japanese clients. Only in the last few years have they come to attention in the West.
Until now, the best-known images from Japan’s Meiji Period (1868-1912) were taken by Western photographers - Beato, Stillfried, Farsari, et al. They are paper prints (not unique glass, albumen works, as we see here), made by appreciative Western photographers for export to a Western public craving Japan’s exotic, cultural charm. Often the Japanese posed in them as paid sitters, garbed in outmoded forms of dress (a coat of multi-layered, medieval Samurai armor, for instance) or arranged in improbably artistic setups (a bare-chested lady at her toilette). They are exotic specimens of a time that had, or was soon to pass.
Once Westerners taught the Japanese the art of photography, the next wave of images that followed - by the Japanese - were also intended for Western eyes. Not so, here, however. Culled from villages and remote family collections, these photographs (small-scale images, encased in wood) were very private, personal, intended to be passed down as precious heirlooms. The "reformed Samurai" warrior, for instance, pictured here, may have sat for such a photo in order to give his family a record of his life, lest he die in battle. The woman whose traditional whiteface makeup is framed so perfectly by her black (Western) umbrella, would have seemed smartly Westernized to her contemporaries - despite her traditional "geta" wooden platform shoes. Such visual and cultural incongruities of East and West (now marvelous to our eyes) abounded for the Japanese as they found themselves, in the late 1800s, on the brink of huge political and cultural upheaval.
Note a few other formal points of interest: the way the Japanese photographers tend to craft their portraits in full-length pose - from head to feet; the slightly lowered, more respectful position of the camera angle (vs. to the more confrontational approach to portraiture of the West). Then, there is the Ambrotype medium itself, which creates one-of-a-kind images on glass, without a negative. Though the West had already begun to favor the Albumen paper-print process, Japanese photographers set about perfecting the soon-to-be retrograde Ambrotype process, teasing from it a greater tonal range. And finally, note the kiri-wood presentation cases, in which these photographs are housed: they are feather-light, perfectly hand-crafted to fit, just so, in your palm. Thanks to the wood’s natural drying properties, these ambrotypes have withstood the test of time (and humidity, quite prevalent in Japan) and have been preserved in amazing condition. The original owners of the photos have handled these cases, turned them over and over again - proof of their durability. On occasion, they personalized them with inscriptions. They are fascinating objects, in and of themselves.
Charles Schwartz
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