Arrival of the "Southern Barbarians"

Around 1600, a Japanese artist depicted European traders arriving across a pair of six-panel screens. “Southern barbarians” preserves a contemporary Japanese designation for foreigners whose ships approached from the south. The museum identifies them as probably Portuguese because Catholic priests accompany them. Europeans themselves become an unusual spectacle examined closely by another culture.

On the lower screen, small boats surround an enormous ship. Masts and rigging rise above its high dark deck. White wave lines curve around the hull and fill the spaces between vessels. The painter emphasizes the scale of a ship capable of carrying people and goods across great distances. Maritime technology becomes the foreigners’ first visible sign.

On the landing stage, people carry bundles and boxes, converse and move between boats. Arrival becomes an extended undertaking involving many participants. Goods pass from the ship into a Japanese setting through their hands. Behind the encounter’s ceremony appears trade’s practical side: unloading, carrying and coordination.

On the upper screen, broad trousers, tall headgear and unfamiliar cloaks distinguish the arrivals. Their silhouettes differ noticeably from Japanese dress. Costume details turn foreigners into recognizable types. Clothing becomes the principal means of distinction, making an individual readily stand for an entire group.

Figures in long dark clothing stand beside the building at the right. Catholic priests travelled through the same maritime networks as merchants. For Japanese authorities, trade and the spread of a new religion gradually became distinct political problems. The priests’ presence places within this lively encounter the beginnings of relationships that would later generate serious conflict.

Gold bands conceal sections of streets and buildings. They divide events into manageable groups despite the immense crowd. Gold also reflected light within the room containing the screens. A representation of distant maritime connections simultaneously created a luxurious domestic setting. Trade’s geography entered its owner’s space as spectacle and decoration.

The Portuguese were expelled from Japan in 1639; European trade later continued through a restricted Dutch presence. The painting thus preserves a world of contact soon to change substantially. It also reverses familiar European accounts of “discovering” other countries. Here local people observe newcomers, classify them and determine their place within an existing world.