Introduction of the European Peep-box and Development of Visual Culture in the 18^th Century Japan

During the Edo-period [江戶時代 1603-1867], Japan accepted the modern western science and culture while trading with Holland since 1609, and also through the influx of optical instruments in the $18^{th}$ century the culture of viewing pictures began to be developed. Especially, the peep-boxes and their pictures had been imported from China and Holland since the mid 1750s when they were flourished. The peep-box was rapidly and widely spread. Soon after, the peep-boxes and pictures had begun to be produced in Japan (megane [眼鏡] and megane-e [眼鏡繪]) since 1770s when the early visual culture settled down in Kyoto and Tokyo etc. The visual culture developed with the peep-box contains two remarkable factors in the cultural history of the $18^{th}$ century Japan. First, the peep-boxes became the popular device of visual entertainment, and opened the first phase of the modern visual culture before the advent of photography and cinema in the mid and end of the $19^{th}$ century. Secondly, the peep-box played a role of an educative media as a 'window to the unknown world' in the $18^{th}$ century Japan, by showing various pictures of many European cities. Through the peep-box pictures the 'western images' were spread and knowledges of Japanese about the west increased, although they were recognized just as 'Holland's images' without differentiation in each country.