Early Western-Style Paintings in Japan

Abstract

Impact, influence, and cultural contribution are terms notoriously difficult to assess, as regards both quantity and quality, when studying transcultural relations between two civilisations. To make one’s point, there is always a tendency to exaggerate the effect that a culture has had upon another society, to see ideal results that perhaps were not nearly so significant as might be fondly supposed. Such a danger is certainly present in the study of nanbanjin, or the Southern Barbarians, as the Japanese unflatteringly dubbed the early Spaniards and Portuguese who came to their country.