Spectacular Accumulation Summary

Written by Morgan Pitelka, Spectacular Accumulation is a book that centers around material culture in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century Japan, covering the changes and continuities from medieval society to the early modern era through looking into famous objects that essentially shape the period. Illustrated with colorful pictures of objects, including potteries, swords and paintings, instead of utilizing only textual representation, Pitelka emphasizes on the importance of material culture as actors in the historical context, and its effects and implications in elite warrior societies through visualization. The book develops along Tokugawa Ieyasu’s career from when he was still a hostage to his retirement, reflecting his skills …show more content…
Historically, Pitelka argues that the acquisition, circulation and display of material culture, of valuable things, are the key dynamics and defining characteristics of the political and social changes in the sixteenth to seventeenth century, by investigating into different practices and rituals in different chapters. Secondly, from the historiographical point of view, Pitelka put forward an interesting and inspiring notion that material culture, and history itself, is essentially made and remade by the institutions controlling the objects which had strong political motives to alter them to suit the interests of historical subjects in the socioeconomic and cultural context. They were, ultimately, sanitized through filtering and rearranging according to needs. As an example raised by him, the representation of Ieyasu that has defined our understanding of his role in the founding of the early modern Japan was largely affected by the deification of Ieyasu, popularization of cult after his death, and the modern rehabilitation of the founder of the Tokugawa regime after the government was destroyed. Pitelka furthered his assertion to the politics of modern museums, arguing that Ieyasu’s visual and material culture exhibited, that has continuously transform public’s understanding of history, are “monolithic representations of Japanese culture and history, a related but distinctly modern form of spectacular …show more content…
“Art catalog”, a new genre of documentation emerged in Japan in the late sixteenth century that compiles list of famous objects, registers paintings and ceramics, and consists of writings on display procedures, are used to understand the exchange of material culture between warlords. Examples would be the “Catalog of Lordly Paintaings” (Gomotsu on’e mokuroku) recorded in the 1460s, and the “Manual of the Attendant of the Shogunal Collection” (Kundaikan sōchōki), an influential document recording the Muromachi Palace culture and the display of material culture. Tea diaries, such as “Gathering Records of Tennōjiya” (Tennōjiya kaiki), are useful primary sources utilized to explain the tea culture, practices, and the art spectacle prior to the foundation of Tokugawa Shogunate. Chronicles, letters, and diaries of warlords are also frequently referenced to provide related information. These arguments are crosschecked with archaeological excavations given the nature of material culture, further consolidating the authenticity of the writings. Nonetheless, limitations do exist due to a lack of records for particular types of material culture, such as swords and falconry, and therefore resulting in its inability to evaluate profoundly on their meanings in the historical and political