Illustrating Sōseki: Bild-Text-Verhältnisse, Motive und Netzwerke in Bewegung: transregionale Momente in der japanischen Kunst und Literatur des Fin de Siècle

More than any other Japanese author, Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916) is associated with the social and cultural transformations at the turn of the twentieth century and the ambivalences of Japanese modernity that accompanied them. The first editions of his works were inherently shaped by image–text correlations through their illustrations, which are absent from later textual editions and therefore often overlooked. However, the richly illustrated early editions of Sōseki’s works demonstrate that the text constitutes only one part of a holistically designed object—the book. Book design, illustrations, and decorative elements form a system of visual coding that creates pictorial connections to the text in the artistic process of “illustrating Sōseki.”

Kevin Schumacher-Shoji examines image–text correlations in Sōseki’s oeuvre—hitherto largely neglected in scholarship—using the anthology Yōkyoshū 漾虚集 (“Anthology: Drifting in Emptiness,” 1906) as a case study. His analysis focuses in particular on transregional and global exchanges between art and literature, as well as the circulation of motifs during the Fin de Siècle. These dynamics are explored through Sōseki’s networks and collaborations with Japanese artists such as Hashiguchi Goyō (1881–1921) and Nakamura Fusetsu (1866–1943). Through this work, Schumacher-Shoji calls for a reexamination of modern Japanese literature from the perspective of visual history.

Kevin Schumacher-Shoji, born in 1990, studied Japanese Studies and Art History at LMU Munich, where he also completed his doctoral dissertation. His academic training included research stays at universities in Fukuoka and Seoul, after which he was awarded a doctoral fellowship by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and a research fellowship at the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tōkyō. In 2025, he co-curated the annual exhibition Farben Japans (“Colors of Japan”), focusing on Japanese woodblock prints, at the Bavarian State Library, where he currently serves as a library trainee.