Revisiting the Astonishment

The first Japanese photograph and the myth of origin

Abstract

As we focus on the decisive inscriptions that builds the history of Japan, from the 19th to 20thcentury, we quickly notice the way in which the opening to the West — or, otherwise, thesurrendering to the dictates of a radical modernity — is, to a large extent, the product of anambiguous, paradoxical relationship, riddled with a tearing and creative dialectical disposition,with an overly present, intrusive, dangerous, fascinating, astonishing alterity. We would certainlyhave to reverse the mirror of disturbed imaginations and celebrations of otherness anddifference in order to access the way Japan responded to the inescapable confrontation withthe West. My horizon of visibility is, at this point, hampered by a lack of access to sources thatclarify this aspect, but we can, eventually, resort to the work of a few researchers whodedicated themselves to the history of modern Japan in order to understand what is at stake.