Abstract:
Widely celebrated in her time for her artistic talent, shin-hanga artist Elizabeth Keith (1887- 1956) was one of few Westerners to travel widely throughout the Japanese Empire and beyond during a period of colonial consolidation and social upheaval. Venturing to Japan, China, the Philippines, Hokkaido, and Korea, Keith’s images capture a diverse range of cultures and peoples. With an affinity for capturing the images of those socially marginalised, Keith’s hand also came to capture the faces of a vast range of Japan’s colonial subjects. However, much about Keith is still shrouded in mystery. This study will dispel this shroud, clarifying Keith’s development as an artist and bringing to light her incorporation of a variety of artistic techniques into her artistic repertoire. Furthermore, this study will also begin to reconstruct her early travel history in the Japanese colonial interior, focusing particularly upon her travels to Hokkaido and Korea. Additionally, in taking an interdisciplinary approach, this study will disrupt the convention of casting Keith as only applying a singular compassionate and empathetic lens towards her sitters. Through a critical analysis of her Ainu and Korean scenes, this study will propose that Keith’s artworks participated in Japanese colonial visual rhetoric. Moreover, rather than applying a singularly empathetic view towards her sitters, this study will argue that Keith constructed her images of these sitters through Social Darwinist and Orientalist lenses.
