The Making of Japanese
Art History in the
20th Century

More than 140 years have passed since European scholars, collectors, and institutions first articulated systematic frameworks for the study of Japanese art. Since then, "Japanese art history" has been produced across multiple sites — universities, museums, exhibitions, and publications — both within Japan and beyond.

After the institutional turn (seidoron), the question is: how has "Japanese art history," as both a subject and a discourse, been shaped, negotiated, and transcended in the twentieth century? This symposium provides a venue to reflect on how the discipline's epistemic frameworks, exclusions, and transnational entanglements were shaped — often outside, alongside, or prior to formal institutional consolidation.