Shopping for Art: The New Middle Class' Art Consumption in Modern Japanese Department Stores

摘要

Japanese department stores became major art entrepreneurs in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Since the Mitsukoshi department store launched its art section in 1907 to display and sell the art of prominent contemporary artists, other Japanese department stores followed suit. The primary customer of the department store art sections was the rising urban middle class, who needed works of art with which to decorate tokonoma (decorative alcoves) of their new houses. By occupying a house with tokonoma, which had previously been built only in elite domestic architecture, and participating in the cultural practices associated with that space, the new middle class attempted to legitimize their cultural taste, which acted not only as a conspicuous marker of social status but also as an active determinant of it in the fluid conditions of modern Japan. This article explores how department stores allowed the new middle-class customers, who lacked both the proper financial means and the cultural competence to indulge their craving for 'high culture', to become members of the cultural elite in exchange for shopping at their art sections.