Revisiting Ancient Monuments: Domon Ken’s Muroji Series in the Context of the Post-war Japanese Photography Development



Author Information

Ilya Leonov, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy

Abstract

The paper examines the Muroji photographic series executed by the Japanese photographer Domon Ken (1909–1990) and published in a photobook format in 1954. These images, depicting the eponymous Buddhist temple, occupied a significant place within the Japanese photography of the time. In particular, Muroji was one of the earliest post-war projects devoted to the national culture and its symbols, employing modernist aesthetics to re-actualise traditional works of art. Using methods of formal-stylistic and semantic analysis, the study identifies the distinctive features of Muroji and compares them with several later projects, thereby establishing its role in the development of post-war Japanese photography.


Paper Information

Conference: ECAH2025
Stream: Arts - Arts Theory and Criticism

This paper is part of the ECAH2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Leonov I. (2025) Revisiting Ancient Monuments: Domon Ken’s Muroji Series in the Context of the Post-war Japanese Photography Development ISSN: 2188-1111 – The European Conference on Arts & Humanities 2025: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 91-103) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2188-1111.2025.10
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2188-1111.2025.10


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