19世纪60年代，当日本向西方敞开国门时，日本最早也是最受欢迎的出口产品之一就是精美的手绘日本人民和风景照片。19世纪60年代，欧洲著名摄影师雷蒙德·冯·斯蒂尔弗里德（Raimund von Stillfried）和费丽斯·比托（Felice Beato）在日本建立了工作室；这项工作很快就被他们的日本门生和继任者内田久一、草坂金壁等接手。波士顿地区的旅行者收集了数百张这样的照片，最终被捐赠给哈佛大学皮博迪考古和民族学博物馆，在那里，这些照片被存档，用于人种学内容，并作为“异域”文化的科学证据。
在这本精美的书中，视觉人类学家大卫·奥多（David Odo）研究了皮博迪（Peabody）收藏的日本照片，以及这些物品在19世纪的生产、获取和传播方式。他的创新性研究揭示，这些图像的变化和偶然用途——从旅游纪念品到美术印刷品，再到人类学的“类型”记录——都是由制作者和消费者的欲望和文化先入之见造成的。这些版画被理解为既是图像又是对象，体现了历史、文化、表现和交流的复杂问题。
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The Journey of “A Good Type”: From Artistry to Ethnography in Early Japanese Photographs
When Japan opened its doors to the West in the 1860s, delicately hand-tinted photographic prints of Japanese people and landscapes were among its earliest and most popular exports. Renowned European photographers Raimund von Stillfried and Felice Beato established studios in Japan in the 1860s; the work was soon taken up by their Japanese protégés and successors Uchida Kuichi, Kusakabe Kimbei, and others. Hundreds of these photographs, collected by travelers from the Boston area, were eventually donated to Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, where they were archived for their ethnographic content and as scientific evidence of an “exotic” culture.
In this elegant volume, visual anthropologist David Odo examines the Peabody’s collection of Japanese photographs and the ways in which such objects were produced, acquired, and circulated in the nineteenth century. His innovative study reveals the images’ shifting and contingent uses―from tourist souvenir to fine art print to anthropological “type” record―were framed by the desires and cultural preconceptions of makers and consumers alike. Understood as both images and objects, the prints embody complex issues of history, culture, representation, and exchange.
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