Langdon Warner
- Born: 1881
- Died: 1955
Langdon Warner was an American scholar of East Asian art history, famous for his supposed role in persuading the US military to not bomb Kyoto, Nara, and Kamakura during World War II, but also infamous for his supposed involvement in looting priceless wall paintings from the ancient Chinese Buddhist cave temples at Dunhuang.
The son-in-law of Theodore Roosevelt, Warner worked for a time at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as an assistant to Okakura Kakuzô. The museum then sent him to Japan in 1907, where he studied for a time at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, and began collecting Japanese art objects. Among his travels, he journeyed to Okinawa in November 1909, where he bought a number of Okinawan folk art objects, with the intention of selling them either to Harvard's Peabody Museum, or to Edward Sylvester Morse, who might in turn donate or sell them to the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. In the end, neither Harvard nor Morse were able (or willing) to purchase the 134 Okinawan objects Warner had collected, but they made their way to the Peabody-Essex anyway, after being bought by Charles Weld, who in turn donated them to the Salem museum. Warner gave his daughter ten works of Okinawan textiles which he did not sell to Weld; she later donated them to Harvard's Sackler Museum. During his time in Japan, he also met Yanagi Sôetsu, who he later invited to become an art instructor at Harvard.
In the 1920s, he is said to have carved twenty-six ancient murals from the walls of the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang, in China, and to have donated them to the Harvard Art Museums.[1]
Warner later wrote a number of pieces on Japanese art history and aesthetics, including at least one work on sculpture from the time of Empress Suiko (r. 593-628). The Shôwa Emperor awarded Warner the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Second Class for his work in spreading appreciation of Japanese art.
He is widely credited with convincing the US military of the cultural and historical value of Kyoto, Nara, and Kamakura, and thus rescuing those cities from the ravages of World War II. However, some sources indicate that he denied responsibility for saving those cities, and some scholars have suggested indeed that he was not the one responsible. Nevertheless, monuments to him have been erected at five sites in Japan, including on the grounds of Hôryû-ji, and just outside Kamakura station.
References
- Takayasu Fuji, "[amview.japan.usembassy.gov/wordpress/provenance-of-okinawan-artifacts-in-the-united-states/ Provenance of Okinawan Artifacts in the United States]," American View, 23 Jan 2008.
- Plaque at Momijiyama yagura in Kamakura.
- Plaque at Kamakura Station.
- ↑ Holland Cotter, "Buddha's Caves," New York Times, 6 July 2008.
