Life Through the Lens: Ozaki Kōyō and the Birth of the Photographic Imagination in Japanese Literature.

Ozaki Kōyō (1867-1903) has historically been treated as a classically oriented writer who rejected modern trends in literature. Recently, however, scholars have begun to reevaluate Kōyō's work by exploring connections between his literature and visual media, especially painting and photography. I show that Kōyō's relationship to photography went deeper than has previously been suggested, as the author contributed personally to the beginnings of art photography (geijutsu shashin) in Japan. As a writer, Kōyō built on his experience with a camera to explore intersections between photography and literature in terms of subject, style, framing, and the representational capacities of art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]