ALLEN MEMORIAL ART MUSEUM 5 Note on Chinese and Japanese romanization: Chinese names and terms have been romanized using the pinyin system with tone diacritics. However, the more familiar dynasty, city, and province names do not include the tone markers (Song Dynasty, Beijing, Hunan, etc.). Similarly, for Japanese names and terms macrons are provided, apart fromplace names better known in English without them (Tokyo, Kyoto, etc.). INTRODUCTION This catalogue brings together two complementary subjects that demonstrate how the environmental humanities can illuminate the deep connections between cultural expression in East Asian art and environmental literacy. Based on two exhibitions at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, this catalog uses the lens of eco-criticism to reveal how Japanese and Chinese artists have long understood art not merely as aesthetic practice, but as a means of documenting, celebrating, and advocating for sustainable relationships with the natural world. The woodblock prints featured in the first part, Green Japan: Images of Sustainable Living in Ukiyo-e Prints, function as visual archives of Edo-period Japan’s remarkably sophisticated environmental practices—from community-based rice cultivation and waste-free urban systems to renewable resource management and carbon-neutral transportation. Recent scholarship in environmental history has overturned the romanticizedmyth that pre-industrial societies achieved harmony with nature effortlessly. Japan of the Edo period stands as a remarkable example—a densely populated pre-industrial society that achieved sustainability through innovative resource management and coordinated social institutions. Although initially enforced from the top down in the rigidly stratified feudal society of Edo-period Japan, these practices evolved to become cultural values rooted in conservation. The Eight Views tradition examined in the second part, Eight Views: Place, Picture, and Poem in East Asia, further expands this environmental humanities framework by tracing how landscape representation traveled across cultures and centuries, evolving from Song dynasty China’s politically charged exile poetry to Japan’s celebration of local ecological knowledge. These artistic traditions embody what we now call “environmental literacy”—a deep understanding of the interdependence of human and natural systems and strong emotional connections with nature that, in turn, contribute to environmental stewardship. By applying eco-critical methodologies to these historical artworks, we can read them as more than scenic documentation; they become testimonies to alternative ways of organizing society that prioritized long-term sustainability over short-term exploitation. As contemporary global society grapples with the climate crisis, these exhibitions suggest that the environmental humanities offer crucial insights by recovering and analyzing cultural practices that once sustained human civilization within planetary boundaries. Hasui Kawase (Kawase Hasui 川瀬巴水) (Japanese, 1883–1957), Honmonji Temple, 1931. Color woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper. Gift of Sarah G. Epstein (OC 1948), 1997.41.20.
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