Ragusa Tama (1861-1935)
May. 10th, 2024 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnozomi posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
senzenwomenRagusa Tama was born in 1861 in Edo-soon-to-be-Tokyo, as Kiyohara Tama, the daughter of a temple land agent. In 1872, when the new Education Order was enforced, she began to attend the local elementary school, and at the same time convinced her father to let her attend drawing classes.
In 1876, the Italian sculptor Vincenzo Ragusa came to Japan as an instructor at the Technical Fine Arts School. Born in Sicily in 1841, he was the first person to introduce Japan to Western sculpture. According to Tama’s autobiography, he appeared in 1877 to view the gardens where Tama’s father ran a teahouse, and they admired the sunset together. “His hair and beard were both jet black. His eyes weren’t blue either, and his skin was not horribly pale.”
Admiring the way he could improve her sketching with a few well-judged lines, Tama brought her work to him for advice, and also served as his model and secretary—a job involving sketching the Japanese antiques he collected and also learning French and Italian—from 1878 or so, while he taught her painting (“neither scolding nor proclaiming, but full of warmth”). It was at this point that her work shifted from Japanese Nihonga painting to the Western yōga style (Ragusa taught her that while Japanese painting was superb, it stifled light lines and three dimensions). In 1882, when the Fine Arts School closed and Ragusa prepared to return to Italy, Tama convinced her parents to let her go to Italy as well in order to study art further. The conditions her father set were that she and Ragusa were not to marry and that her sister and brother-in-law would accompany them (Kiyohara Einosuke and Chiyo were experts in lacquer and embroidery respectively).
They settled in Palermo, where Ragusa opened an art school (now the Istituto di Istruzione Superiore Vincenzo Ragusa e Otama Kiyohara) where Tama was likewise to teach later; initially she studied art, including life classes, at the University of Palermo. Describing herself as “a cosmopolitan type who can get along anywhere,” she may have been the first Japanese woman to enroll at a European university. Tama and Ragusa observed the conditions laid down for them until 1889, when her sister’s family returned to Japan and the two of them married in the Palermo cathedral. She took the name Eleonora Ragusa.
Their married life was apparently very happy; Tama described Ragusa as attentive, painstaking, and caring. Professionally, she went on to take first prize in art exhibitions in Southern Italy as well as New York; she was also selected to paint the ceiling murals in a church, and won awards for embroidery as well.
Ragusa died in 1927, before he could take Tama back to Japan; she was still signing her paintings “Kiyohara Tama” (sometimes pleasingly italianized as Tama Chiovara). After her husband’s death, she visited the Japanese Embassy in Rome for help with inheritance paperwork, only to be told “You married an Italian, that means you’re not Japanese any more. We have no time here for Japanese women who marry these men.” Thereafter, she began to use “Eleonora Ragusa” as her signature.
A serial novel based on her life appeared in Japanese newspapers in 1931, raising her stock in her home country. In the company of her sister Chiyo’s granddaughter, she eventually made her way back to Japan in 1933, at the age of 72, bearing with her various works of her own and her husband’s for donation. She had almost forgotten her Japanese, and had to learn new words such as “automobile,” “airplane,” and “electricity,” which had been coined after she left Japan.
In Japan she was warmly welcomed, among others by the writer and feminist Hasegawa Shigure. Tama continued to paint; her remaining time was largely occupied with writing her autobiography. She died in 1939 at the age of 78.
Sources
Nakae
Mori 2014
https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/eleonora-ragusa-or-otama-kiyohara-japanese-painter-in-sicily/ (English) Article on Tama as an artist, with several examples of her work
https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/pdf/gallery_9303.pdf (English) Article on Tama and Ragusa
In 1876, the Italian sculptor Vincenzo Ragusa came to Japan as an instructor at the Technical Fine Arts School. Born in Sicily in 1841, he was the first person to introduce Japan to Western sculpture. According to Tama’s autobiography, he appeared in 1877 to view the gardens where Tama’s father ran a teahouse, and they admired the sunset together. “His hair and beard were both jet black. His eyes weren’t blue either, and his skin was not horribly pale.”
Admiring the way he could improve her sketching with a few well-judged lines, Tama brought her work to him for advice, and also served as his model and secretary—a job involving sketching the Japanese antiques he collected and also learning French and Italian—from 1878 or so, while he taught her painting (“neither scolding nor proclaiming, but full of warmth”). It was at this point that her work shifted from Japanese Nihonga painting to the Western yōga style (Ragusa taught her that while Japanese painting was superb, it stifled light lines and three dimensions). In 1882, when the Fine Arts School closed and Ragusa prepared to return to Italy, Tama convinced her parents to let her go to Italy as well in order to study art further. The conditions her father set were that she and Ragusa were not to marry and that her sister and brother-in-law would accompany them (Kiyohara Einosuke and Chiyo were experts in lacquer and embroidery respectively).
They settled in Palermo, where Ragusa opened an art school (now the Istituto di Istruzione Superiore Vincenzo Ragusa e Otama Kiyohara) where Tama was likewise to teach later; initially she studied art, including life classes, at the University of Palermo. Describing herself as “a cosmopolitan type who can get along anywhere,” she may have been the first Japanese woman to enroll at a European university. Tama and Ragusa observed the conditions laid down for them until 1889, when her sister’s family returned to Japan and the two of them married in the Palermo cathedral. She took the name Eleonora Ragusa.
Their married life was apparently very happy; Tama described Ragusa as attentive, painstaking, and caring. Professionally, she went on to take first prize in art exhibitions in Southern Italy as well as New York; she was also selected to paint the ceiling murals in a church, and won awards for embroidery as well.
Ragusa died in 1927, before he could take Tama back to Japan; she was still signing her paintings “Kiyohara Tama” (sometimes pleasingly italianized as Tama Chiovara). After her husband’s death, she visited the Japanese Embassy in Rome for help with inheritance paperwork, only to be told “You married an Italian, that means you’re not Japanese any more. We have no time here for Japanese women who marry these men.” Thereafter, she began to use “Eleonora Ragusa” as her signature.
A serial novel based on her life appeared in Japanese newspapers in 1931, raising her stock in her home country. In the company of her sister Chiyo’s granddaughter, she eventually made her way back to Japan in 1933, at the age of 72, bearing with her various works of her own and her husband’s for donation. She had almost forgotten her Japanese, and had to learn new words such as “automobile,” “airplane,” and “electricity,” which had been coined after she left Japan.
In Japan she was warmly welcomed, among others by the writer and feminist Hasegawa Shigure. Tama continued to paint; her remaining time was largely occupied with writing her autobiography. She died in 1939 at the age of 78.
Sources
Nakae
Mori 2014
https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/eleonora-ragusa-or-otama-kiyohara-japanese-painter-in-sicily/ (English) Article on Tama as an artist, with several examples of her work
https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/pdf/gallery_9303.pdf (English) Article on Tama and Ragusa
no subject
Date: 2024-05-10 05:51 pm (UTC)Thank you as always for sharing <333 I learn a lot!
no subject
Date: 2024-05-11 10:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-11 02:26 am (UTC)Will we get to learn about her sister Chiyo as well?
no subject
Date: 2024-05-11 10:36 am (UTC)Will we get to learn about her sister Chiyo as well?
I looked her up and did not find a whole lot; she was expert in embroidery, invented "oil painting embroidery" (about which I could not find a thing, sadly) and founded some schools for women with her husband the lacquer artist after they returned to Japan. Very little information available ;(
no subject
Date: 2024-05-11 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-18 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-11 06:58 am (UTC)What is a temple land agent? Did the temples act as brokers? Or rent out their own land?
no subject
Date: 2024-05-11 10:40 am (UTC)I had trouble with the word translated as "land agent," which I've never seen before. From context, my impression is that the temple hired Tama's father to manage the land they owned, including running businesses such as restaurants and gardens on it. It sounds like they were quite well off, so it must have been a profitable business.