Shimomura Crossing the Delaware - Essay Example

Shimomura Crossing the Delaware Among the 20th century’s artists of non-American descent Roger Shimomura holds a remarkable place with his peculiar style and emphasized general ironical tone of his works. Having been born in America in 1939 and being the third-generation American citizen, Roger Shimomura, experienced to the full extent all the problems and peculiarities of being Asian American. Racial stereotypes – including the notorious “yellow peril” stereotype - have been the key matter of concern for the artist, and the strategy he adheres to is emphasizing them in ironic or parodical form in order to eliminate and diffuse them. Thus, this idea functions as a core motif in Shimomura’s work. What is also remarkable and attractive about these works is the style involving a balanced combination of Japanese woodblock printing traditions based on the features of ukiyo-e genre and bold American pop art style which became extremely popular in the 1960’s. The paintings are colorful and remind strongly of comic books with their bold limes, saturated colors and the way of depiction, however, this is mixed with the conventional visual elements of ukiyo-e. One of the painter’s most remarkable works – a spicy “mockery” for ethnicity stereotypes – is a painting created in 2010, “Shimomura Crossing the Delaware”. Description and strategy In fact, the painting is a daring parody for the classical picture of Emanuel Leutze celebrating the historically significant event of the American Revolution. The original painting depicts crossing the Delaware on the Christmas night of 1776 led by George Washington. Conducting a little research on the background of the current painting, one is able to single out the key strategy deployed in it. The principal strategy the author uses is appropriation. Appropriation is understood as taking (involving) an already preexisting symbol, object or an artwork into the new one applying no or little transformation1.Appropriation uses the images that already exist and recontextualizes them in order to create a new concept behind them. “Shimomura Crossing the Delaware” complies with this definition as it is an ironical reconsideration of the already existing object (the work of art). The picture created by Shimomura preserves the idea and composition, yet is a parody bearing a peculiar style of the painter. There is a boat with several oars, a flag-bearer and a leader – who was originally Washington – on the foreground; background contains a silhouette of a similar boat, the sea framed with the clouds and a shoreline on the horizon. The size of the triptych is 6 x 12 inches, materials used are acrylic paint and canvas. The concept of the painting is altered by the author in order to create the strong allusion to racial and ethnic issues in a form of a parody or joke. The principal difference lies in the fact that Shimomura made Asians – namely, samurai - the main characters of the painting. In other words, this is an American historical painting vested in Japanese guise. This solution was dictated be the idea of illustrating the race issue and the problem of Japanese Americans’ place in American society. Style and visual conventions The first thing catching the eye is the way Shimomura blends American and Japanese cultural elements in the picture mixing conventional elements of styles. American pop art implies that the idea behind the work is more important than the work itself, the quality and the skills2. Paintings created in this style seem to be rather simple and cartoon-like. On the other hand, Japanese traditional wood-printing genre ukiyo-e presupposes the use of story-telling or historical motifs, fine and sharp ink lines and distinctive contours. Our painting bears a “historical” character, virtually showing the alternative way of events’ development. Thus, ukiyo-e and American pop art elements are combined in the painting. Sharp contours of objects, traditional images of samurai, depiction of the sea taking after the famous woodprint work “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” create the allusion to Japanese ukiyo-e standards. At the same time, saturated and contrasting colors with no smooth gradients and color transitions along with rather sketchy depiction of the skyline and clouds tell us of pop art conventions used by the painter. The balanced mixture of these elements might allude to the way Japanese Americans bear two different cultures in themselves Self-Portrayal Next – and probably the most significant – is the idea of presenting the historical event through the prism of Asian races’ standpoint: the picture is a self-portrait of the painter who has chosen a significant position for himself – Shimomura depicts himself in the guise of George Washington. According to him, this method raises such daring questions as what if Asian (Japanese)-Americans were in the position influential enough in the country and what if George Washington was Japanese-American3. Thus, such replacement of American with Japanese in the picture gives rise to race-related considerations: unequal positions in the United States and unfavorable position of non-American ethnicities as well as races other than “white” in American society. Putting together a face of the Japanese painter and the symbolic American image of George Washington as a juxtaposition strengthens effect produced on the spectator both with its absurdity and with the relevance of the racial issue. Narrative “Shimomura Crossing the Delaware” seems to incorporate both historical and autobiographical elements at the same time. As it was mentioned above, the painting offers an ironic depiction of the historical event remarkable for the American history. Yet, it is depicted with an ironic undertone as Japanese people are inserted in authentic American “settings”. At the same time, the painting bears autobiographical context, mirroring the author’s experience in a certain way. Being a part of a series inspired by Shimomura’s childhood, the picture expresses his sour experience of living behind the barbed wire in a concentration camp in Idaho during the World War II4. At that time Japanese immigrants were considered to pose a threat to America and its nation – the notorious racist “yellow peril” image – and thus were secluded from the white population. Shimomura himself states that this experience is rather insulting for an Japanese-American as well as the fact that Americans of Japanese descent are thought of as foreigners despite they were born and raised in the U.S. and even served in the U.S. military. Temporality The aspect of time arises from the previous one showing how racial issues are reflected in the time references of the painting. First, it was already mentioned that the picture evokes the event of American history dating back to the 18th century, thus, the work refers to the past. However, it isn’t a simple historical painting but a modern parody, hence it turns out that there are only “settings” left from the original idea of Leutze’s painting. At the same time, Shimomura’s picture contains Japanese historical allusions depicting oars wearing the traditional Japanese garment that were evidently typical for Edo period of the 17th to the 19th century (this is the historical framework of wood-printing and ukiyo-e). The most interesting is the fact that – though referring to the past with its settings and form, the work alludes to rather up-to-date issues with its concept and contents. The detail hinting to the more modern period of American history is the flag held by a samurai which differs from that presented on Leutze’s painting: whereas Leutze painted the Betsy Ross flag where 13 stars are arranged in a circle to signify the 13 colonies, Shimomura chose a modern version of the flag pointing to the modern times. Furthermore, the idea behind the picture makes it relevant nowadays. Thinking about the racial issue from Shimomura’s standpoint, we can see that putting the Japanese and – what’s more – himself as one of them into traditional American historical context shows: Americans of Asian (and Japanese in particular) descent must have equal rights and opportunities for self-actualization in American society. To my thinking, it is the issue of race rather than ethnicity that is the most itching in this respect as white people of non-American descent are treated more evenly, while those who have skin of different colors tend to have overcome many sociopolitical obstacles in their lives. Keeping this in mind, one might draw a conclusion that one more strategy deployed in this picture to express the idea is subversion: the hierarchy and values typical for America where white Americans hold the more privileged place is overthrown with the Japanese – and the author in particular – assume more significant positions – especially taking into account that Shimomura depicted himself as the first president of the American nation. Robert Shimomura, “Shimomura Crossing the Delaware” References: Encyclopedia of Art History, “Pop-Art Movement”. Accessed October 2, 2014. http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/pop-art.htm#aims Voice of America, “Asian-American Artists Explore Their Identity”. Last modified September 22, 2011. Accessed October 2, 2014. http://www.voanews.com/content/asian-american-artists-explore-their-identity--130422658/145645.html Wilson, Simon and Jessica Lack, The Tate Guide to Modern Art Terms. London: Tate Publishing Ltd, 2008.  Read More