Photographic Relationships in James Murdoch’s Ayame-san

Session VI : Public Image

James Murdoch (1856-1921) was an English teacher, a journalist and a novelist who wrote books about Japan. This work discusses the pictures in his novel Ayame-san: A Japanese Romance of the 23rd Year of Meiji (1890) (1892) by comparing them with those of his other works published in the same year. It considers the relationships between the pictures and the story, as well as reality and fiction, to reveal Murdoch’s challenges in depicting Japan. William K. Burton (1856-1899), who prepared the pictures, made the acknowledgement statement in the novel. He insisted, ‘So far as I am aware this is the first book that has been illustrated with true half-tone photomechanical reproductions printed with the letter-press’. Since the book contains traditional Japanese style photographs inside, created with the latest technology of the West, it has a strong impression. Unlike the drawings in Murdoch’s other novel From Australia and Japan (1892), the pictures in Ayame-san do not illustrate the story directly. For instance, although the story is a romance between two Western men and Ayame, a Japanese girl, there are only a few pictures that depict a foreigner, and none of them corresponds with the characters. In fact, another work by Murdoch, Sights and Scenes on the Tokaido (1892), includes exactly the same pictures in this work. However, by approaching the photos from a different angle, it is possible to consider that the scenery in the pictures can be seen from the eyes of the characters in the story. Readers enjoy the plot, and they also enjoy what the characters visualise in the Far East. Although the pictures do not embellish the story emotionally like paintings, they provide readers with information that is not written and give depth to their imagination about Japan