“What makes a work of art Rinpa?”
Throughout my first semester at KCJS, this has been a question I have worked hard to answer.
When I first applied to KCJS, I did so primarily because KCJS offered the CIP component. Currently I am an East Asian Studies Major at Bryn Mawr College with a concentration in Japanese Art History, and at the time I applied it was my hope that getting into KCJS would bring me one foot closer to getting an internship at a Japanese art museum. Luckily, through the help of my artisans class professor, Monica Bethe, who had a contact at the Kyoto National Museum (京都国立博物館 Kyoto Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan), I was able to land my dream internship and work together with a crew of people to help visitors understand what special characteristics Rinpa art contains.
Almost every Wednesday at 12:30PM, I’d finish my lunch and then ride the 100 raku bus to the museum, or Kyohaku (京博) as it is commonly referred to by staff and peers alike. Once there, I would check in with the guard at the Western Gate before preceding to meet my CIP contact, who would let me know what type of job I would be working for the day. Some days, I was assigned basic training, such as learning the layout of the museum or studying the Rinpa art movement in Japanese and English. Other days, I got to participate in more hands-on activities, such as attending a class on how to teach Rinpa to elementary school students, or helping visitors make a fan inspired by Rinpa Design. Rinpa (or the “Aesthetics of the Capital” as the exhibition states) is made up of four main principles: 1) 繰り返す (kurikaesu) – Repetition 2)はみ出す (hamidasu) – Running off the Page 3)余白をとる (yohaku o toru) – Leaving an empty space (usually in the middle of the artwork, though it is not always limited to this) and 4)ジグザグ (Ziguzagu) – Creating an uneven pattern (so when repeating an object, making sure the object is not always at the same height level). Together, these four principles create a sense of movement in each Rinpa piece, and it has been my job this semester to faithfully teach children and adults alike how to recognize and explain these principles.
Another component of my CIP has simply been getting to know my peers. With the exception of my fellow college student interns, whom I spend the majority of my time working with, I also work with several adult volunteers and staff members. Because everyone comes from a different background and social standing, learning when to use 敬語 (keigo – Japanese polite language) and です/ます (desu/masu style – still polite, but a much less formal style of Japanese) has been a challenge. I also was able to attend one weekly staff meeting, which ended with everyone discussing the day’s events: what happened, how many people came to the exhibit, what troublesome things occurred, what positive things occurred, what was bothering us, what we were thankful for, etc. One person also brought traditional 和菓子 (Wagashi – aJapanese-style sweet) with them to the meeting, and everyone sat down to eat the snack together. In this regard, I have picked up and learned more about the Japanese work force than I initially expected.
The semester has not been an easy one. As I am treated the same as any other college intern at my CIP worksite, my schedule relies more on when my CIP contacts need me rather than the other way around. Thus, in order to meet my requirements this semester, I have also taken on several smaller volunteer positions in order to have enough credit, such as helping middle school students learn English, working at a tourist office, joining the photography circle, making nabe, etc. Overall, each experience has been a rewarding one, but my favorite experience so far has definitely been the Kyohaku. In the future, my CIP contact Yamakawa-san has promised to let me join in on more hands-on excavation sites (such as one in Osaka where I will be able to handle the rare objects directly), and to let me sit in on more academic lectures and meetings. Although I am sad this semester is coming to an end, I cannot wait to continue building my different CIP relationships next semester in the Spring.
Wow, you said you had to teach kids and adults the principles of Rinpa — was this in English or Japanese? Regardless, how did you face the language barrier (if you had one)? Also, you say that learning when to use Keigo was a challenge .. were you actually able to test any of your Keigo knowledge with other students/peers/volunteers? If so, how have their responses been? For me personally, if Japanese people see me trying to use Keigo, they always laugh and tell me that Keigo is a difficult concept (difficult indeed…) Also, would you say that Keigo dominated most of the conversations between those involved in your CIP?
Actually I didn’t get to interact with kids (unfortunately). The class was a lecture designed for college students who would then go on to take what they learned and visit classrooms and share the information. But I did get to see a bunch of 20+ year old college students pretend to ask questions that little children would ask, and I learned so much onomatopoeia and interesting expressions. (Honestly it was just fascinating to see what Japanese adults think Japanese children act like.)
The language barrier wasn’t a huge problem, because my boss understood English (although she rarely spoke it). Also at every lecture or event I attended, there was a pamphlet in Japanese describing the event, and that made it easier to follow along when people were talking. (People also tended to be very expressive when talking, so even if I didn’t always understand the words they used I was able to understand what they meant by looking at their face alone.)
I didn’t use much keigo (and people had a similar reaction to me if I tried – no one ever shut me down, but people definitely didn’t expect me to use it, although I did try every now and then.) Actually while I didn’t notice much keigo being used between co-workers on the same level, our boss always used keigo to speak with us, and I could tell it was a really positive work environment because everyone was treated with so much respect. In turn, people used keigo when speaking to our boss too, which I tried although my boss often wanted to practice English with me. (When it came to writing emails though, keigo was all I used. And I received the same favor in return.)
That’s awesome that you got to intern at a museum like you wanted to. I’m curious how teaching patrons about the Rinpa style went– were there any cases where you felt like they just weren’t getting it? I can relate to your comment that learning when to use desu/masu or keigo was a struggle. Did you find any solution to that? Or did you just slowly pick up the customs over time? Also I’d love to know if there’s a strong senpai/kouhai system at the museum!
Honestly I think the patrons understood it better than I did. Everyone took the event so seriously – I was very surprised. When I made my own fan (the first time I came there, so I could learn the ropes) I kind of just applied whatever I thought looked cool and left it at that. But besides the little kids who would sometimes trickle through, the majority of people doing this took over twenty minutes to make one fan, constantly asking me and the other museum volunteers what we thought looked best, or if these colors matched or if this stamp in this place emphasized a ‘Rinpa aesthetic’. In my experience in America people either rarely come to these things or, when they do, don’t really follow the instructions, so I was pretty surprised by the overall turnout. (Over 500 people a day!)
As for keigo, I still feel like I have absolutely no idea what to use. Because people rarely used it with me, I feel like I just mirrored them, even though it might have been better to continue using keigo since they were technically above me in station….But at the time I was just focusing on memorizing as many layouts and technical terms as I could that I often retreated into desu/masu style without even noticing. The customary phrases to say to museum visitors and patrons, however, was a lot easier to pick up, so I was over time able to mirror my coworkers language in that regard.
There is definitely a senpai/kouhai system at the museum, but it’s a lot more subtle that I first picked up on, and it has a lot less to do with age and more to do with job rank (although if people were over 60+ it was a given that you would use desu/masu style with them no matter what). But I did see people with notable age differences interacting with each other in a very informal style, except when people would ask someone to do a job or a favor. Then everyone immediately switched into keigo or desu/masu style. It was very jarring for me, as people would be joking around and laughing like they’d known each other for years before switching to a very serious personality as soon as customers came into sight. (I still haven’t quite perfected that…hopefully next semester I’ll get a chance to practice more.)
Hi Sarah!
This sounded really interesting! Had you learned about rinpa before coming to Japan? I had never heard of it but I don’t know a whole lot about art, be it Western or Eastern. Did your background knowledge have an influence on your understanding or the tasks you were assigned to do?
I actually knew almost nothing about Rinpa before I came to Japan, other than the fact that it was a movement and it utilized gold leaf. I was very familiar, however, with the movement that came right before and continued along the same time as the Rinpa school (which you *might* know since it came to the Philadelphia Museum for a while and was pretty widely advertised in America) called the Kano school. (Another group that utilized gold, although in very different ways. Rinpa has a much more yamato-e, or “Japanese” style to it than the Kano School does, which was very highly influenced by the kara-e, or “Chinese” style.)
My art history background definitely came into play in helping me translate all the pamphlets and books I was given to loosely read over, but I think the biggest influence for me was actually just the fact that I have visited museums so many times. Of course Japanese museums and American museums are not the same, but way things are stored, laid out, and organized is very similar, and so I was able to pick up a lot on how things worked simply because I am a frequent visitor of museums. (Yeah college school ids!) There’s still a lot more about Rinpa I understand in English than in Japanese (since I wrote an art history paper on the subject for my other class), but I think my favorite part of my job was just how much studying I was allowed to do. My CIP definitely felt more like a fourth class rather than an internship.