Apples as Art: DAAP Photographer Chronicles a Tradition at the Core of Japanese Culture

Professor of Fine Arts Jane Alden Stevens has chronicled the history and culture of Europe. Now, she has turned her lens to Japan, specifically the precise art of apple growing as it is practiced in that nation.

In Japan, an apple is an artwork to be admired.

In the past 130 years, farmers there have perfected the rare art of producing pristine, gourmet apples. These are apples, several hundred per tree, that are coddled till they are fat and rosy far beyond American apples that, in comparison, look scruffy and small. That's according to photographer Jane Alden Stevens, professor of fine arts in the University of Cincinnati's internationally ranked College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP).
Apple growing in Japan
Bagging apples as they hang upon the trees in late June.

Stevens has now traveled to Japan three times to chronicle the careful tradition of apple raising, a tradition that is in danger of becoming lost.

The art work of the apples begins each spring when the trees blossom. Said Stevens, "While an average tree would have about 4,000 blossoms, that number is culled down to 200 to 400 per tree."

Then, the farmer prunes these remaining blossoms. Each blossom typically consists of five florets. The four ring florets are removed, leaving only the large central floret. This will make for fruit that will, in the end, grow 30 percent larger than the typical American apple.

Discarded apples
When the bags are removed, any apples discovered to have flaws are removed from the tree.
Later, imperfect apples are discarded early in the growing season. Apples with potential are dressed in special opaque paper bags and also a special wax paper. This means that the apples will continue to grow as albinos, without the typical red coloring. Instead, creamy, white apples are produced.


In the fall, according to Stevens, the opaque bags are removed, leaving only the special wax paper on the apples. This wax paper ranges from red to green to light and dark blues, and this color range will ultimately influence the final hue of each apple.

At this point, the farmers do everything they can to increase the sun exposure of each apple. They strip branches and leaves from the trees in order to prevent shadows from falling upon the fruit. They also lay silver or white mats on the ground to reflect light to the bottoms of the apples. Finally, they continually hand turn the apples for uniform sun exposure.

Apple stencil
Stencils, which act like a photographic negative, are put on some apples after the bags are removed. The stencils are left on for the buyer to remove after harvest.
And for the best apples, there is an additional step added early on to the process: A stencil is applied to the fruit so that a white alphabetic symbol or even picture shows as a vibrant white in contrast to the rich red of the skin.


Stevens first learned about this detailed craft more than ten years ago when reading a small human-interest piece about the process in The New York Times.

"It riveted me. I couldn't imagine hundreds of acres of apple trees with colored bags on them. And, I'm always interested in exploring history and tradition. I'm interested in exploring if a tradition is changing. Or, is it going to change? Or why a people or culture follow a tradition? It's all about keeping the past present and exploring how the past relates to the present," she stated.

Finally, last year, she had the opportunity to begin her photographic investigation of this exotic craft thanks to a University Research Council grant. And Stevens feels that the opportunity came just in time since she fears that this specialized cultural craft may become a forgotten one all too soon.

Apples in bags
Apples begin to fill out the bags as they ripen.
"This type of apple cultivation has developed and survived for over a century. Less than two decades ago, 70 percent of Japanese apples were cultivated in this manner. Now, it's about 30 percent. Basically, it's difficult for the Japanese farmers to keep their children down on the farm. It's very labor intensive work," she added.


And yet, while photographing in Japan's Aomori prefecture, Stevens discovered that she is the first photographer to capture the sequential process of this specialized apple-growing process.

She said, "I haven't yet found any painter, sculptor or photographer who has ever represented the process. Even the translators with whom I worked had never been aware of the entire process before."

It seems that this careful cultivation method goes essentially unrecognized within its own culture. "The Japanese don't perceive this process as art. It's not perceived as a unique manifestation of their aesthetic values. It's viewed there as simply business, meeting a market demand," she stated.

Thus it was that, in this instance, Stevens' unfamiliarity with the country and culture became an advantage. She was able to view and explore the farming process in a way that those who lived with it every day could not because they did not see the process as of any particular note.

Not that is not to say that the farmers did not appreciate Stevens' tireless efforts during her three trips to Japan. She recalled, "It's remarkable how open the farmers there were to my presence. I would spend hours on any one farm and then, often, that farmer would take me to a friend's farm where I could shoot more material."

In fact, she received the most thoughtful of thanks from one of those farmers. "I was spending time at a farm where they also bottled apple juice. The farmer was following me around for a while with his point-and-shoot camera. Then, he left. At the time, I thought he'd left to resume his routine of chores," she recollected.

Jane Alden Stevens
Jane Alden Stevens with one of her bottles of apple juice, given to her as a unique gift while in Japan. The bottle contains a label with her image, showing her at work photographing Japan's traditional apple-growing methods.
Not quite. Before Stevens left, the farmer reappeared with a parting gift. He presented her with two bottles of the farm's apple juice - bottles that had unique labels.


Said Stevens, "He'd taken the digital images he'd shot of me doing my work, and he'd reproduced them as labels for two bottles of apple juice. I was so touched. I took great care to wrap them carefully for the return trip home."

She hopes her own efforts also have the power to touch and transform when she eventually exhibits her images in Hirosaki, Japan. Stevens has been invited to exhibit her work there next year. It's an exhibit that she hopes will plant a seed: "I'm hoping that that exhibit will carry the meaning I found in chronicling this art-filled process, the beauty of a history that has lasted for over a century."