Portret van Terashima Munenori, Japanse minister van buitenlandse zaken 1884

This photographic print, portraying Terashima Munenori and other figures, was made in Japan around 1881 by an anonymous photographer. Photography, emerging in the 19th century, offered a new means of capturing and disseminating images, distinct from traditional art forms. Here, the sepia tones and the stiffness of the poses speak to the technical constraints and aesthetic conventions of early photography. The process, involving a complex interplay of chemistry and optics, demanded considerable skill. It also democratized representation, making portraiture accessible to a broader segment of society beyond the elite. In this work, we can also consider photography's relationship to colonialism. The photograph’s indexical nature suggests the European desire to document and classify the population of Japan during a period of intense Western engagement with Japanese culture and politics. Photography, a product of both artistic vision and industrial processes, blurred the lines between art, craft, and technology, reflecting the changing dynamics of labor, class, and cultural exchange in the modern era.