“You will be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth.”
— Acts 1:8
Title: Seiyō Kibun: The First Page
Year: 2026
Material: Brass
Technique: Hand-pushed relief
Source: Manuscript of Seiyō Kibun by Arai Hakuseki
Seiyō Kibun: The First Page is a brass relief based on the opening page of a manuscript of Arai Hakuseki’s Seiyō Kibun.
Compiled in the early eighteenth century, Seiyō Kibun records Hakuseki’s inquiries into the Western world following his encounters with the Italian missionary Giovanni Battista Sidoti. Drawing on Sidoti’s testimony as well as information obtained through Dutch interpreters and other sources, the work examines the geography, history, customs, learning, and Christianity of the West.
This work transfers Hakuseki’s handwriting from paper into brass. Each line is formed by hand-pushed Japanese chasing chisels (tagane), without the use of a hammer, translating the movement of the brush into physical relief.
A historical manuscript is thus given a new material existence: from manuscript to sculpture, from ink to metal, from historical record to embodied form.
Historical Source
Arai Hakuseki, Seiyō Kibun, Volume I, opening page
Manuscript, early eighteenth century
1865 English Translation
Samuel Robbins Brown, 1865
Sei Yo Ki-Bun, or Annals of the Western Ocean, Part I, pp. 53–54
In the fifth year of Hō-ei, twenty-fifth of the cycle, (A. D. 1708,) and on the sixth day of the twelfth moon, while at my western residence, I heard officially, that on the 8th moon of the previous year, a foreigner had landed and stopped on one of the islands belonging to Ōszmi (a part of Satszma’s territory, Tr.) I was informed by the Government, that beyond the words Yedo, Nippon, Nagasaki, etc. his language was unintelligible. The man himself drew several maps on paper, on which he wrote, Namban, Rok’son, Casteira, Kiristan, etc. which words he pronounced as he pointed to them. At the word Roma, he pointed to himself.
These facts were officially reported to Nagasaki, and the government there made inquiries of the Hollanders. They said that Roma was the name of the place in Italy where the head of the religion of the Lord of Heaven resided, but that they did not understand the meaning of Rok’son and Casteira…
日本語原典
西洋紀聞上卷
寶永五年戌子十二月六日、西邸にて承りしは、去八月、大隅國の海島に、番夷ありて一人來り止まる、日本江戶長崎などいふ事の外は、其言語きゝわきまふべからず、みづから紙上に數圏をしるして、ロウマ、ナンバン、ロクソン、カステイラ、キリシタンなどさしいひ、ロウマといひし時には其身をゆびざせり、此事長崎に注進す、阿蘭陀人にたづねとふに、ロウマといふは、西洋イタリヤの地名にて、天主敎化の主ある所也、ロクソン、カステイラ等のごときは、…
