swimming in the shadows

i have read similar things about the dutch art nouveau porcelain in numerous places:

The Art Nouveau movement developed as a reaction against historicism. The interpre- tation of the wealth of forms to be found in the worlds of plant and animal life, follow- ing the example of Japanese art, was one of the innovative aspects of this movement.

It was also a reaction against the frequently low quality of industrial design. In the Netherlands as elsewhere there was a desire to reinstate honest craftmanship, which led to reforms of technical training and to exhibitions of good examples of design. Art Nouveau in the Netherlands, unlike that of other countries, generally takes the form of symmetrical compositions in which asymmetrical details are incorporated. Decorations are also often confined to the flat surface.

Dutch ceramics of this period are characterized by the large quantities that were produced and by the high degree of mutual influence present. Floral, linear and geometrical designs were adapted. A fairly small group of designers is respon- sible for most of the original models; the others often go back to classical Chinese porcelain and traditional Delft ware.

Inspiration for the decorations was drawn from the pattern- books of, for instance M. Verneuil and E. Grassèt, and the domestic and foreign magazines that circulated. 1

it's that part, as another book puts it, "The artists took as models illustrations from the French book on ornamental plants La Plante et ses Applications ornementales, published in Paris in 1896. This is an instance of how knowledgeable the artists were about the very latest developments in ornamenta- tion... the leading fashions were closely followed by the factories," 2 that confuses me.

it's clear that the influx of japanese arts and crafts had as much of an impact in the netherlands as they did elsewhere throughout the west. though as in every country the dutch put their own spin on it, the influence is unmistakable.

in fact, though japan's influence is mentioned in these books and sites, they seemed to pay more credence to the 'design books' of the times. but i have been through dozens of images of (mostly rozen- burg) porcelain, and the same amount of the many verneuil/ grasset/ mucha style books, and i have actually found very few that have seemed related except for on the most superficial levels. the japanese influence is throughout.

and yet, just as modernisme (art nouveau) in spain is influenced by moorish design and architecture, holland's nieuwe kunst is influenced by both the japanese (which we've discussed to great length), and the indonesian styles, as the dutch east india company set up trade in both places centuries before the rest of the west were allowed to.

note this particular rozenburg vase, one which makes quite obvious the reason their porcelains were called 'eggshell.' both indonesian and japanese influences are readily apparent. flowers with art nouveau grace, stems with the angularity of a shadow puppet.

my continuing ignorance can be immediately revealed when i tell you that it simply had never occurred to me that the afore-mentioned design books were used in such a way! i don't know what i thought they were used for, but never that!

and while i quite knew, as we have discussed before, that japanese design books were made for just exactly that reason, it didn't occur to me that the french ones were too!

so how did that work? were the designs under some sort of copyright, and a fee had to be paid to the designer (or, more likely, the publisher) to use them? what about the silver studio designs? surely they were not available without some kind of licencing.

the answers to these intriguing questions will have to wait. maybe someone read- ing this knows! if so, please add your knowledge. see another part of the same loop in the paintings of jan toorop -- clearly the same set of inspirational inputs. look too at all of the dutch calendar makers we've been chronicling: they also designed the pottery, painted the paintings; it was not a large crowd, but it was, as we've seen, a tight one.

bamboozled?

as a quiet, ubiquitous symbol, the bamboo has featured in japonisme wherever it occurred. whether it's pictured, or used, or imitated (silver bamboo handles, for example), it has become an instant communication of the east.

it's interesting, however, to look into its usage in japan itself. where it's found, or wherever i was able to find it anyway, wasn't necessarily where i had expected.

yes, it can be found on kimono textiles, and on crafts, like the inro.

in the west there were few instances of crafts where it wasn't used. it's irresistible because it's so graceful, so simple, so emblematic of all that we had accepted the east to be.

in japanese prints, however, there seem to be unexplained limits to it's usage: we will see it, again, as a pattern on kimono.

and, as we've seen before, one might find bamboo in a book of style suggestions.

we will also see it as part of a kabuki backdrop, and it's always used to geographically
place tigers.

but, it seems, and as far as i could find, picturing bamboo groves or forests almost never existed until late in the 19th century. this one hokusai image is the only one i could find. compare their frequency to that of pines.

the yoshida's, father and son, loved them, as did many other artists on into the twentieth century. i can not only find no reason for this, but not even any mention of it.

now this is not to suggest that the bamboo is not beloved in japan. in fact, The sound of the wind in this bamboo forest has been voted as one of 'one hundred must-be-preserved sounds of Japan' by the Japanese government. 1

but although hiroshige did use bamboo's wonderful verticality to accompany the flight of a bird (a sparrow), as did others, the forests and groves were rarely seen.

as 'meaningless,' and quite lovely decoration, though, it could be found in droves throughout europe and the americas.

may we be reassured that these appearances reflected our passion for the illusions we'd formed of japan?

and if so, were these illusions perpetrated by the japanese themselves, or by us?

and, at last, does it matter at all? fashion is as fluid as the wind; listen, you can hear it now. it's a sound which must be protected.

instead, gratitude is a fine option. thank you to tiffany. thank you to rookwood. gratitude to habert-dys. thank you to heintz.

translation is an odd art. what appears to be literal can really only be approx- imate, romanticized, inspirational.

which is quite acceptable.

no fish swims a straight line

so i am sitting minding my own business reading my email, and suddenly an announcement brings this: a rug. i study the website where it's featured. i know this print. it's by candace wheeler. candace wheeler is, however, mentioned nowhere.

so my first thought is of jr burrows & company, where i have seen the gorgeous lace curtain of this design for many years. i was fortunate enough to find mr burrows himself, a most fascinating fellow. with his help i was able to pinpoint his source: a portier (curtain hung over a doorway) designed by wheeler, and currently in the collection of the incredible mark twain house.

he further pointed me to a photo of the textile itself, reverse-printed on denim (a very common practice) and embroidered with silk, in a book i already had (the art that is life). as you can see, it's quite amazing. though it's not known the original place- ment of the piece, we do know that candace whee- ler, as part of the assoc- iated artists, an interior decorating firm assembled by louis comfort tiffany, is credited with its design.

to my eyes, however, it looks enough japanese to have been at the very least inspired but more likely directly copied from a japanese design.

i asked mr burrows if he had any idea of the source and he didn't. i then called the rug company; they had the attribution of the associated artists but not wheeler, and they had no idea of any japanese source.

so i started hunting. i thought first katagami -- it easily looks like something that began as a stencil, and in fact it did start as a stencil in candace wheeler's hands. i also thought maybe lacquer, with its intricate inlays. but i came up zero on all accounts.

i could find nothing that was exact, though many many samples of things that were obviously from the same culture.

maybe candace wheeler was just that astonishing.

p.s. mr burrows told me some things that just blew my ears out of the water (or something). in wholly unexpected ways (to me) he has added a surprising new development to the fenollosa/dow story. stay tuned.

the principles of design

what you probably don't know is that a great many houses in my neighborhood, built as a working-class neighborhood in the early 20s, have a 'batchelder fireplace.' as i said, these were not built for rich folk, and they don't look like they were, but the variety and beauty of the decorative tiles on mantles around here make as least the hearths priceless.

this was all i knew or ever even thought of batchelder, ernest batchelder. until yesterday. i was browsing around as i am wont to do and i came across a design instruction book he wrote, where i found this page.

since he had been kind enough to give us a hint, i was quickly able to find the image to which he referred .

it didn't look anything like the style in his tiles, but it certainly did look like the nicholson (look in the background).

a little more poking around under the name of batchelder, coming across additional samples of his tiles, when i made a connection that made my jaw drop and a giggle come up my throat. as i further perused his book i came across this illustration which, since i had just been dealing with this stuff a couple of days earlier, looked very familiar.

i was amazed at the coin- cidence. at the same time, there was one other of the shunboku images that looked familiar.

i went poking through my back files and found the dow image i was looking for.

(i turned the japanese image sideways and flopped to make it even more obvious, but in any case i think it's clear.)

it turns out, i learn, that batchelder went to study art in boston when he was a young man. there he studied with denman waldo ross, who was a trustee at the MFA in boston dealing with the new and rapidly growing japanese art collection. at his side, though rather his competitor, but also a 'keeper of the japanese art' there at that time was arthur wesley dow. and there in their hands was the treasure from the 1730s: shunboku's book.

there are many sites which feature original or reproduction batchelder tiles; most of them can be found through the links page at the batchelder site. what began as a sort of 'sears catalogue' of fireplace tiles has, as interest in the design from this era grows, become a treasured commodity.

the travels of inspiration

one of the things morse brought back with him when he returned from japan was a notebook of kimono pattern designs from 1734.

it had been created by Ôoka Shunboku, who "was one of the first artists to expand painting techniques to a broader audience through publishing monochromatic block-printed books, painting manuals, and other handbooks." 1

the designs in this collection were ostensibly created for wood-carving, but they were charming enough that they were chosen for fabric design, metalwork, room-divider screens, and much else.

interestingly, it would appear that this volume's reach, both geographically and chronologically, was certainly broader than he'd likely ever imagined. enter arthur silver and the silver studio.

from photographs we have of his home, we see that
silver collected and displayed treasures from japan.
his company, the silver studio, produced thousands
of designs for everything from textiles
and wallpaper to silver and jewelry.

the silver studio was on retainer to arthur lazenby liberty's department store, liberty. they provided many of the items they produced to liberty's solely. both men were instrumental in introducing japanese goods, and styles, to the growing middle class. liberty was to england as bing was to france.

we know this book was brought to the west early in the days of japan's trade with the west. is it such a reach that a collector such as silver might have gotten his hands on a copy?

of course, since it was one of the first multi-copy publications coming out of japan, it's also possible that that many others saw it as well. seemingly inspired textile designs came out of northern england, france, and the wiener werkstatte as well.




fortunately, you don't have to take my word for it:

Japan and British Art Nouveau, 1880-1900
July 2009 - Feb 2010, Middlesex

An exhibition exploring the influence of Japanese motifs and techniques on British Art Nouveau, with particular reference to the design output of the Silver Studio. The West London-based Silver Studio was founded by Arthur Silver, who during the 1880s and 90s was heavily interested in and influenced by the art of Japan. The exhibition will feature many Japanese and Japanese-inspired objects from the Silver Studios collection, and explore ideas around cross-fertilisation and the way in which design influences were shared between two very different cultures. 2