Scarlett Yin: Map of Edo
This map is a Koka Era (1844-1848) woodcut map of Edo. It reveals land tenures of various Japanese landlords, important temples and shrines, and other public sites, all centering at the Tokugawa Castle. There is no clear written evidence of who the author and who the audience were, yet due to the salient sense of authority it asserts, and the fact that it is carved into woodblock, a publication tool, we may take an educated guess and infer that the map was commissioned by the government to be a publicly circulating map among average citizens.
The map demonstrates hierarchy and power centralization of Bakufu Japan in a straightforward tone. At the very center of the map lies the Tokugawa Castle, marked by Tokugawa family’s huge, carefully painted clan symbol. Below this blank (invoking sense of mystery?) residence is the now demolished part of the Castle that was historically inhabited by Tokugawa heirs, family members and ministry officials. This arrangement reinforces the idea that the Tokugawa is the center of the political universe for common Japanese people living under this reign.
Extending beyond, we find an outer layer of residencies for the Close Vassal Daimyos. These mansions are blocked and denoted by clan symbols of various sizes and levels of detail – some symbols are distinctly depicted despite their complexity, while others are not even noted but are simply painted red. With clan symbols, Daimyos’ spatial and power relationships within the Edo capital are sorted out clearly and reaffirmed, suggesting that the Tokugawa shogunate might have been concerned about knowing and controlling these relations and thus mapped the Daimyos out on the graph.
Finally, all districts are constructed to be facing the Castle and all texts denoting those districts are written in an outward manner centering at the Castle, forming a convergence to the central government. From all these salient messages of authority annoucement, it is not hard to grasp that this map is a graphical manifestation of the grand political scheme of Tokugawa power and the city of Edo, a reminder or even warning to the normal Japanese people of the long-standing Tokugawa regime, and, taking the historical context of the awakening of western powers into account, a response to the tension between tradition and westernization.
Yet ironically, though this map maintains elements of traditional Japanese cartography such as the use of woodblock printing and exquisite hand color, the style and technique of this map are “invaded” by Rangaku (Dutch Studies) that was prevailing among all genres of Japanese arts and sciences back then. In terms of style, three-dimensional decorations are embraced in the map, such as seen in the temples, shrines, boats and waves. The boat, in particular, is of great detail and disproportional size to the land that reminds us of the grande ships depicted around the canvas in maps from The Age of Discovery. In terms of technique, the directional orientation, projection systems, and structural norms are also incorporations from the West. Therefore, even the map might have been commissioned to convey particular ideological message on behalf of the Tokugawa house, its physical detail inevitably weakens such voice. Yet, this mixture of traditional feudal concept and avant-garde western flavor is a competent representation of the jumbing socio-political environment at the time.