Discussion
On September 9, 2025, the 296th Japan Specialist Seminar was held in the GL Room of the Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University, with 24 participants in attendance. Minjung Shin, Specially Appointed Professor at the Division of Integrated Japanese Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, delivered a talk titled “Cultural Diplomacy of Japanese Art in 1930s France: France-Japon, Exhibitions, and Translations.”
Founded in 1934 by the Franco-Japanese Friendship Society but in fact published from the Paris office of the South Manchuria Railway Company, France-Japon outwardly promoted cultural exchange while serving as a tool to manage Japan’s image amid its declining international position after the Manchurian Incident. Examining the journal’s art pages alongside Paris exhibitions, criticism, and translations, the lecture showed how Japanese cultural diplomacy drew on Japonisme’s exotic imagery, asserted Japan’s modern nationhood, and justified imperial ambitions through portrayals of Manchuria and the colonies. These strategies revealed the image politics of empire packaged in claims of peace, morality, and artistic purity. The case of Léonard Tsugouharu Foujita(藤田嗣治) further illustrated how artists were situated at the intersection of cultural “exchange” and propaganda.
The Q&A discussed the relationship between Japanese diplomacy and contemporary Surrealist or Avant-Garde movements, comparisons with cultural diplomacy in other parts of Europe, the blurred line between state-backed and “private” initiatives, French receptions of Japanese art, and Foujita’s career as a modernist, including debates over his wartime paintings.
