A Flow of Christian Images from the Shanghai Jesuits to the Paris Foreign Missions in Japan: Imitation, Alteration, and Returning to the Roots

Abstract

The Jesuit Adolphe Vasseur created more than 160 woodblock prints at the orphanage of T’ou-se-we in Shanghai, China, combining Western images of biblical stories with traditional Chinese styles and symbols, aiming to help familiarize the Chinese people with Christian concepts. Vasseur’s images were adopted and transformed through lithographic publications and woodblock prints by the Paris Foreign Missions (mep) in Japan from the 1860s to the 1870s under Fr. Marc Marie de Rotz (1840–1914). Focusing on ten woodblock prints, often referred to as the “De Rotz Prints,” which were made based on Vasseur’s images and altered by adding Japanese symbols, this paper will show how Vasseur’s images were modified from a Chinese to Japanese context, primarily by adapting to the situation of Japanese Christians, who were emerging from more than two centuries of persecution and underground worship. This article is part of the special issue of the Journal of Jesuit Studies, “Jesuits in Modern Far East,” guest edited by Steven Pieragastini.