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Article
Is Seeing Believing? A Critical Analysis of Japanese Colonial Photographs of Korea
Author(s)
Sunglim Kim
Full-Text PDF
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2017.06.010
Affiliation(s)
Dartmouth College, Hanover, United States
ABSTRACT
In order to assess Roland Barthes’ argument that interpretation of photography depends on cultural codes embedded therein, a collection of photos from the Japanese Government-General of Chōsen (GGC), which controlled Korea 1910-1945, were examined. These colonial images and associated text, commonly in English, were aimed primarily at the West, with which the Japanese sought alignment. Of the three common categories of GGC photos, “scientific” or “anthropological” images corresponded with portrayals by Western colonial powers of the supposed inferior nature of subjugated peoples and cultures. Individuals in such pictures tend to lose their identities and are reduced to a stereotype, less human than the observer. “Before and after” photos depicted alleged GGC progress in such areas as education and infrastructure. Pictures of “happy colonial subjects” conveyed an impression of Koreans enjoying the benevolence of the new administration. While this photojournalism favorably impressed some Westerners, others employed images of the 1919 Korean uprising, and its suppression, to discredit the Japanese. The overall assessment demonstrates the polemical manipulation of photography.
KEYWORDS
Anthropology, Coding, Colonialism, Japan, Korea, Photography, Photojournalism, Polemics
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References
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Albers, P. C., & James, W. R. (1990). Private and public images: A study of photographic contrasts in postcard pictures of Great Basin Indians, 1898-1919. Visual Anthropology 3.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. (1914, January). The results of three year’s administration of Chōsen since annexation.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. (1921). Chōsen in pictures.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. (1921, July). The New Administration of Chōsen,.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. (1923). Revised education regulations. Seoul, Korea.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. (1929). Chōsen To-day.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. (1935). The thriving Chōsen. Seoul, Korea.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. 1907-1937.
Bank of Chōsen. (1919). Pictorial Chōsen and Manchuria. Seoul, Korea.
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Brundnoy, D. (1970). Japan’s experiment in Korea. Monumenta Nipponica, 25(1/2), 155-195.
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Dudden, A. (2005). Japan’s colonization of Korea: Discourse and power. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press.
Edward, E. (1990). Photographic types: The pursuit of method. Visual Anthropology, 3, 235-258.
Edward, E. (1992). Anthropology and photography 1860-1920. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.
Edward, E. (1995). Picturing paradise: Colonial photographs of Samoa (1875-1925, 66-99). Daytona Beach, Florida: Daytona Beach Community College.
Faith, N. (1990). The World the railways made. London, England: Bodley Head.
Fox, P. (1989). The imperial schema: Ethnography, photography, and collecting. Photofile, 7(4), 10-16.
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Geary, C. M. (1991, October). Missionary photography: Private and public readings. African Arts, 24(4), 48-100. Special Issue: Historical Photographs of Africa.
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Harootunian, H. D. (1987). Things seen and unseen. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
Harvey, D. (1990). The condition of postmodernity. Cambridge, England: Blackwell, 1990.
Hishida, Seiji. (1905). The International position of Japan as a great power. New York, New York: Columbia University Press.
Hobsdawm, E., & Ranger, T. (Eds.) (1983). The invention of tradition. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Holls, F. W. (1900). The peace conference at the Hague. New York, New York: MacMillan.
Houchins, Chang-su. (1995). Artifacts of diplomacy: Smithsonian collections from Commodore Matthew Perry’s Japan expedition (1853-1854). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Hulbert, H. (1905). History of Korea. Seoul, Korea: Methodist Publishing House.
Hulbert, H. (1906). The passing of Korea. New York, New York: Doubleday, Page, and Co.
Hwang, K. M. (2010) A history of Korea: An episodic narrative. Palgrave MacMillan.
Im Thurn, E. F. (1893). Anthropological uses of the camera. Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 22(1) , 184-203.
Jameson, F., Eagleton T., & Said E. (Eds.). (1990). Modernism and imperialism. Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature, 43-66 [Was this a chapter with an author?] Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Jeong, H.-B. (1997, May) “Gudu mitchange Samil undong sajingwa pillum sumgyeo Imjeonge Jeondal. (Delivering Photographs and Films on the March First Movement to the Provisionary Government by hiding them in the outsole of a shoe.)” Wolgan Joseon.
Kame’eleihiwa, L. (1992). Native land and foreign desires. Honolulu, Hawaii: Bishop Museum Press.
Kang, E. H.-J. (1997). Diplomacy and ideology in Japanese-Korean relations. New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Kang, H. (2001). Under the black umbrella: Voices from colonial Korea, 1910-1945. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
Kaplen, E. A. (1997). Looking for the other: Feminism, film, and the imperial gaze. London, England: Routledge.
Kendall, C. W. (1919). The truth about Korea. San Francisco, California: The Korean National Association.
Kennan, G. (1905). Korea: A degenerate state. The Outlook.
Kennan, G. (1905). What Japan has done in Korea? The Outlook.
Kim, C. (2009). Politics and pageantry in protectorate Korea (1905-1910): The imperial progresses of Sunjong. The Journal of Asian Studies, 68(3), 835-859.
Kimura, M. (1993, September). Standards of living in colonial Korea: Did the masses become worse off or better off under Japanese rule? The Journal of Economic History, 53(3), 629-652.
Ladd, G. T. (1908). In Korea with Marquis Ito: A narrative of personal experiences and a critical historical inquiry. New York: Charles Scribner and Sons.
Ladd, G. T. (1911-1912). The annexation of Korea: An essay in benevolent assimilation. Yale Review, 1, 639-656.
Landau, P., & Susan G. (2002). Images and empires: Visuality in colonial and postcolonial Africa. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
Lee, C.-S. (1963). The politics of Korean nationalism. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
Lee, P. (Ed.) (1996). Sourcebook of Korean civilization. Volume II: From the seventeenth century to the modern period. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lee, T.-J. (Ed.) (1995). Japanese occupation of the Dan-Han Empire. Seoul, Korea: Kkachi Press.
Liu, L. (1995). Trans-lingual practice: Literature, national culture, and translated modernity: China, 1900-1937. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Mackenzie, J. M. (1985). Propaganda and empire: The manipulation of British public opinion 1880-1960. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press.
Maxey, E. (1910, December). The reconstruction of Korea. Political Science Quarterly, 25(4), 673-687.
Maxwell, A. (1999). Colonial photography & exhibitions: Representations of the “Native” people and the making of European identities. London, England and New York: Leicester University Press.
McKenzie, F. A. (1907). The unveiled east. New York: E.P. Dutton.
McKenzie, F. A. (1908). The tragedy of Korea. London, England: Hodder and Stoughton.
Mutsu, M. K. (1982). A diplomatic record of the Sino-Japanese War, 1894-1895. (G. M. Berger, Ed.). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Pai, H. I. (2010). Travel guides to the Empire: The production of tourist images in colonial Korea. Conference. In L. Kendall (Ed.), Consuming Korean Tradition in Early and Late Modernity, Chapter 3. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawai’i Press.
Pai, H. I. (2013). Heritage management in Korea and Japan: The politics of antiquity and identity. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press.
Pai, H. I. (2013). Staging “Koreana” for the tourist gaze: Imperialist nostalgia and the circulation of picture postcards. History of Photography, 37(3), 301-311.
Pai, H. I. (2014). Monumentalizing the ruins of Korean antiquity: Early travel photography and itinerary of Seoul’s heritage destinations. International Journal of Cultural Property, 21, 331-347.
Pratt, M. L. (1992). Imperial eyes: Writing and transculturation. New York, New York: Routledge.
Ryan, J. R. (1997). Picturing empire: Photography and the visualization of the British empire. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
Schmid, A. (2002). Korea between empires, 1895-1919. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sekino, T. (2003). Chōsen Bijutsushi (Korea Art History), (W.-S. Sim, Trans.) Seoul, Korea: Tongmunseon.
Spurr, D. (1993). The rhetoric of empire: Colonial discourse in journalism, travel writing, and imperial administration. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.
The Commission on Relations with the Orient of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. (1919) The Korean situation: Authentic accounts of recent events by Eye Witnesses. New York, pp. 112-113.
The Government-General of Chōsen. Seoul, Korea.
Thomson, J. (1873-1874). Illustrations of China and its people: A series of two hundred photographs with letterpress description of the places and people represented. Volumes I-IV. London, England: Sampson, Low Marston.
Albers, P. C., & James, W. R. (1990). Private and public images: A study of photographic contrasts in postcard pictures of Great Basin Indians, 1898-1919. Visual Anthropology 3.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. (1914, January). The results of three year’s administration of Chōsen since annexation.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. (1921). Chōsen in pictures.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. (1921, July). The New Administration of Chōsen,.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. (1923). Revised education regulations. Seoul, Korea.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. (1929). Chōsen To-day.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. (1935). The thriving Chōsen. Seoul, Korea.
Annual Reports on Administration of Chōsen. 1907-1937.
Bank of Chōsen. (1919). Pictorial Chōsen and Manchuria. Seoul, Korea.
Barthes, R. (1977). Image–Musi –Text. (Selected and translated by S. Heath). New York, New York: Hill and Wang.
Barthes, R. (1982). Camera lucida: Reflections on photography. (R. Howard, Trans). New York, New York: Hill and Wang.
Beato, F. (1986). Once upon a time: Visions of old Japan. (Introduction by C. Edel; L. Coverdale, Trans). New York, New York: Friendly Press.
Bennett, T. (1993). The exhibitionary complex. In N. B. Dirks, G. Eley, and S. B. Ortner (Eds.). Culture, power, history: A reader in contemporary social theory. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Bennett, T. (1996). Early Japanese images. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle.
Bishop, I. L. (1898). Korea and her neighbors. London, England: J. Murray.
Bland, J. O. P. (1921). China, Japan, and Korea. London, England: Heinemann.
Brown, A. J. (1919). The mastery of the Far East. New York, New York: C. Scribner’s Sons.
Brundnoy, D. (1970). Japan’s experiment in Korea. Monumenta Nipponica, 25(1/2), 155-195.
Burton, B. (1991). International exhibitions and national identity. Anthropology Today, 7(3), 5-9.
Carpenter, F. G. (1921). Japan and Korea. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page and Company.
Carter E. (2000). Korea’s transition to modernity: A will to greatness. In M. Goldman & A. Gordon (Ed.) Historical Perspectives on Contemporary East Asia. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Chang, Y. (1971). The Korean case. Modern Asian Studies, 5(2), 161-186.
Choi, In-jin. (1999) Han’guk Sajinsa 1631-1945 (A history of Korean photography, 1631-1945). Seoul, Korea: Nunbit Publishing.
Chung, H. (1919). Korean Treaties. New York, New York: H.S. Nichols Inc.
Chung, H. (1921). The case of Korea. New York, New York: F.H. Revell Co.
Clifford, J. (1988). The predicament of culture: Twentieth century ethnography, literature and art. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Coombes, A. E. (1994). Reinventing Africa: Museums, material culture, and popular imagination. New Haven, Connecticut and London, England: Yale University Press.
Crary, J. (1994). Techniques of the observer: On vision and modernity in the nineteenth century. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Cumings, B. (2005). Korea’s place in the sun. New York, New York and London, England: W.W. Norton & Company.
Drake, H. B. (1930). Korea of the Japanese. London, England: John Lane Press.
Dudden, A. (2005). Japan’s colonization of Korea: Discourse and power. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press.
Edward, E. (1990). Photographic types: The pursuit of method. Visual Anthropology, 3, 235-258.
Edward, E. (1992). Anthropology and photography 1860-1920. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.
Edward, E. (1995). Picturing paradise: Colonial photographs of Samoa (1875-1925, 66-99). Daytona Beach, Florida: Daytona Beach Community College.
Faith, N. (1990). The World the railways made. London, England: Bodley Head.
Fox, P. (1989). The imperial schema: Ethnography, photography, and collecting. Photofile, 7(4), 10-16.
Gallaher, C., Dahlman, C. T., Gilmartin, M., Mountz, A., & Shirlow, P. (2009). Key concepts in political geography. London and Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Geary, C. M. (1991, October). Missionary photography: Private and public readings. African Arts, 24(4), 48-100. Special Issue: Historical Photographs of Africa.
Grajdanzev, A. J. (1944) Modern Korea, New York: The John Day Company.
Graves, J. W. (1920). Renaissance of Korea. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: P. J. Jaison and Co.
Greenhalgh, P. (1988). Ephemeral vistas: The expositions universelles. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. In A. Maxwell (Trans.) (1999). Colonial photography & exhibitions: Representations of the “Native” people and the making of European identities. London, England and New York, NY: Leicester University Press.
Harootunian, H. D. (1987). Things seen and unseen. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
Harvey, D. (1990). The condition of postmodernity. Cambridge, England: Blackwell, 1990.
Hishida, Seiji. (1905). The International position of Japan as a great power. New York, New York: Columbia University Press.
Hobsdawm, E., & Ranger, T. (Eds.) (1983). The invention of tradition. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Holls, F. W. (1900). The peace conference at the Hague. New York, New York: MacMillan.
Houchins, Chang-su. (1995). Artifacts of diplomacy: Smithsonian collections from Commodore Matthew Perry’s Japan expedition (1853-1854). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Hulbert, H. (1905). History of Korea. Seoul, Korea: Methodist Publishing House.
Hulbert, H. (1906). The passing of Korea. New York, New York: Doubleday, Page, and Co.
Hwang, K. M. (2010) A history of Korea: An episodic narrative. Palgrave MacMillan.
Im Thurn, E. F. (1893). Anthropological uses of the camera. Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 22(1) , 184-203.
Jameson, F., Eagleton T., & Said E. (Eds.). (1990). Modernism and imperialism. Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature, 43-66 [Was this a chapter with an author?] Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Jeong, H.-B. (1997, May) “Gudu mitchange Samil undong sajingwa pillum sumgyeo Imjeonge Jeondal. (Delivering Photographs and Films on the March First Movement to the Provisionary Government by hiding them in the outsole of a shoe.)” Wolgan Joseon.
Kame’eleihiwa, L. (1992). Native land and foreign desires. Honolulu, Hawaii: Bishop Museum Press.
Kang, E. H.-J. (1997). Diplomacy and ideology in Japanese-Korean relations. New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Kang, H. (2001). Under the black umbrella: Voices from colonial Korea, 1910-1945. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
Kaplen, E. A. (1997). Looking for the other: Feminism, film, and the imperial gaze. London, England: Routledge.
Kendall, C. W. (1919). The truth about Korea. San Francisco, California: The Korean National Association.
Kennan, G. (1905). Korea: A degenerate state. The Outlook.
Kennan, G. (1905). What Japan has done in Korea? The Outlook.
Kim, C. (2009). Politics and pageantry in protectorate Korea (1905-1910): The imperial progresses of Sunjong. The Journal of Asian Studies, 68(3), 835-859.
Kimura, M. (1993, September). Standards of living in colonial Korea: Did the masses become worse off or better off under Japanese rule? The Journal of Economic History, 53(3), 629-652.
Ladd, G. T. (1908). In Korea with Marquis Ito: A narrative of personal experiences and a critical historical inquiry. New York: Charles Scribner and Sons.
Ladd, G. T. (1911-1912). The annexation of Korea: An essay in benevolent assimilation. Yale Review, 1, 639-656.
Landau, P., & Susan G. (2002). Images and empires: Visuality in colonial and postcolonial Africa. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
Lee, C.-S. (1963). The politics of Korean nationalism. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
Lee, P. (Ed.) (1996). Sourcebook of Korean civilization. Volume II: From the seventeenth century to the modern period. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lee, T.-J. (Ed.) (1995). Japanese occupation of the Dan-Han Empire. Seoul, Korea: Kkachi Press.
Liu, L. (1995). Trans-lingual practice: Literature, national culture, and translated modernity: China, 1900-1937. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Mackenzie, J. M. (1985). Propaganda and empire: The manipulation of British public opinion 1880-1960. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press.
Maxey, E. (1910, December). The reconstruction of Korea. Political Science Quarterly, 25(4), 673-687.
Maxwell, A. (1999). Colonial photography & exhibitions: Representations of the “Native” people and the making of European identities. London, England and New York: Leicester University Press.
McKenzie, F. A. (1907). The unveiled east. New York: E.P. Dutton.
McKenzie, F. A. (1908). The tragedy of Korea. London, England: Hodder and Stoughton.
Mutsu, M. K. (1982). A diplomatic record of the Sino-Japanese War, 1894-1895. (G. M. Berger, Ed.). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Pai, H. I. (2010). Travel guides to the Empire: The production of tourist images in colonial Korea. Conference. In L. Kendall (Ed.), Consuming Korean Tradition in Early and Late Modernity, Chapter 3. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawai’i Press.
Pai, H. I. (2013). Heritage management in Korea and Japan: The politics of antiquity and identity. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press.
Pai, H. I. (2013). Staging “Koreana” for the tourist gaze: Imperialist nostalgia and the circulation of picture postcards. History of Photography, 37(3), 301-311.
Pai, H. I. (2014). Monumentalizing the ruins of Korean antiquity: Early travel photography and itinerary of Seoul’s heritage destinations. International Journal of Cultural Property, 21, 331-347.
Pratt, M. L. (1992). Imperial eyes: Writing and transculturation. New York, New York: Routledge.
Ryan, J. R. (1997). Picturing empire: Photography and the visualization of the British empire. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
Schmid, A. (2002). Korea between empires, 1895-1919. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sekino, T. (2003). Chōsen Bijutsushi (Korea Art History), (W.-S. Sim, Trans.) Seoul, Korea: Tongmunseon.
Spurr, D. (1993). The rhetoric of empire: Colonial discourse in journalism, travel writing, and imperial administration. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.
The Commission on Relations with the Orient of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. (1919) The Korean situation: Authentic accounts of recent events by Eye Witnesses. New York, pp. 112-113.
The Government-General of Chōsen. Seoul, Korea.
Thomson, J. (1873-1874). Illustrations of China and its people: A series of two hundred photographs with letterpress description of the places and people represented. Volumes I-IV. London, England: Sampson, Low Marston.