François Caron and his Vision of Japanese Art in the Early Seventeenth Century

Abstract

During the first decades of the seventeenth century, when relations between the Europe and Japan were in crisis, François Caron lived in the archipelago. This worker of the Dutch East India Company remained in the Land of the Rising Sun from 1619 to 1641, reaching the position of opperhoofd (chief manager) of the Dutch trading post at Hirado. During his stay in the islands, Caron had the opportunity to enter Japanese culture and learned the language. His knowledge of the country was such that his superiors of the Dutch company commissioned him a report answering various questions relating to the islands. This document was published for the first time in 1646 in Amsterdam under the title Beschrijvinghe van het machtigh coninckrijk Iapan, being republished and translated on numerous occasions in the following years. Caron's work had an enormous gives valuable information on Japanese society at the beginning of the Edo period, being one of the most important texts on Japan published in Europe during the Modern Age. In the following paper we will analyze the references about the Japanese artistic manifestations that Caron was able to do, studying the vision that the author reflected on them.