Japanese Bronze Bells in Switzerland

Global Travel and Local Interpretations

Authors

  • Hans Bjarne Thomsen
https://doi.org/10.24437/globaleurope.i120.454

Keywords:

Global Transfer, Intercultural Art, Materiality of Art, Museum Surveys, Temple Bells

Abstract

Western museums hold numerous Japanese objects, typically gathered by collectors during travels in Japan and then donated to local institutions. This simple scenario is by no means always the case, as can be seen with the numerous Japanese bronze bells in Swiss museum collections. The story of how the bells changed from holding significant functions within Japanese monastic and secular communities to being sold for their materiality and sheer weight as they travel across the globe tells a complex story of how objects change in meaning as they travel. As the bells were eventually relegated to museum archives, their stories help to shed light on global transfers, interculturality, and cultural misunderstandings, as they narrowly escape destruction. Their stories show the futility of claiming global understanding of art when, despite globalization, we are in the end products of our own localized traditions and understandings.

Author Biography

Hans Bjarne Thomsen

Hans Bjarne Thomsen holds the chair of the Section for East Asian Art at the Institute of Art History, University of Zurich. He received his PhD in Japanese art history and archaeology from Princeton University on a dissertation on the intercultural art of the Japanese artist Itō Jakuchū (1716—1800). After teaching at the University of Chicago and other universities in the USA, he received the present position in 2007. Since then he has engaged in a series of museum surveys throughout Switzerland and southern Germany, culminating in numerous publications and exhibitions. For his services in spreading awareness of Japanese culture, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese Emperor in 2017.

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Published

2021-08-03