the grace of questionable art

in addition to importing japanese paraphernalia into the newly emerging western art and design, aesthetical ethics were being affected as well.

when you think of toulouse lautrec, do you think 'commercial artist' or 'fine artist'? what about mucha? can he be called a 'real artist' if he primarily did 'posters'?




while i'm not really knowledgable about the present-day art scene, it seems to me that the worlds of 'commercial art' and 'fine art' are held at a conscious distance. but what of the past; has it always been true?







what about western painters who careers depended on patronage from the king? what was never painted, because it might upset the patron? in japan as well, what of these printmakers whose livelihood ended as the shogunate, source of many patrons, was dismantled?

we've discussed, here, earlier, the idea that that japanese infuse all they touch with the consciousness of art, so does this mean they made no such distinctions? and is this something that flowered in this era in the west as well?

(i have no artist names for these posters, but found them all, via bibliodyssey, here. just answer me one question, though: what does the congo have to do with the woman in the japanese costume, or the chinese hunters?)