falling into spring

since i started paying attention, i've realized that museums and galleries repeat shows, and this fall at least two museums will do just that -- to the world's benefit.

in japan, at the new otani art museum, the show inspired by hokusai and hiroshige's '36 views' series, henri riviere's '36 views of the eiffel tower.'

i know this was seen in japan in 1996, but surely before that too, and in 2006 too.

dis- played with the riviere works, are other artists of the time, including works by georges auriol.

i found these images so evocative of so many other artists: zecchin, gauld, rhead, mathews....

that the shows should be coming now, as we in the northern hemisphere stride rapidly toward autumn, must be for the benefit of the southern hemisphere, where spring now looms. sadly, the 'california muse' exhibition of the work of arthur and lucia mathews closed at its last venue last week. now it goes back to the oakland museum where it will be packed away for the cold, damp winter.

david gauld and the other 'glasgow boys' are displayed at the kelvingrove gallery & museum. under the theme of 'impressionism & scotland,' the restored space will continue to promote the brilliant scottish artists.

and the other re- peating exhibition, last held in 1999, is at the hirschl & adler gallery in new york.

louis rhead and other american illustrators, contemporaries of his, travelled similar grounds; 'our women are all so lovely and cultured, and they like long flowered dresses.' or, to be said in another way, they all, costume-wise, anyway, were inspired by their newly discovered kimono.

and to bring this full circle, again,
henri riviere.

the japonisme timeline

AN EVOLVING, SUBJECTIVE TIMELINE of JAPONISME

1788
utamaro produces his series on insects in the garden;

1803
issa writes haiku about plovers

1831

hokusai paints 'the great wave' as part of '36 views of mt fuji';

1853
U.S. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry sails into Tokyo Bay, opening Japan to the West.;

1855
walt whitman's 'leaves of grass' is published;

1856
felix bracquemond discovers hokusai's manga at his printer's shop.;

1857
hiroshige produces plum tree print.;

1859
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, published.;

1863
whistler discovers japanese prints in london and becomes an emissary for japonisme in europe;

1864
whistler paints a friend in a kimono looking at japanese prints

1867
paris universal exposition introduces japanese art more widely to the west

1868
manet paints zola with japanese prints on his wall

1870
monet discovers japanese prints in holland;

1874
first impressionist exhibition in paris

1875
Morris & Co. established, promoting arts and crafts movement.

1876 monet paints his wife in a red kimono

1877 morse goes to japan and discovers japanese pottery

1878 whistler sues ruskin

1879 Thomas Edison demonstrates the electric light.;

1883monet moves to giverny and begins to create the japanese garden he will paint for the rest of his life.

1885
gilbert and sullivan produce the mikado;
yoshitoshi begins moon series;

1886 sargent paints 'carnation, lily, lily, rose';
john la farge visits japan;
van gogh first sees japanese prints.

1887 van gogh paints hiroshige's plum tree print;
pierre loti writes 'madame chrysantheme'

1888 s. bing starts magazine 'artistic japan' to foster interest in japanese arts and crafts.;Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society founded in London.
1890 van gogh dies;
lafcadio hearn moves to japan.

1891arthur wesley dow establishes his art school; first lautrec music-hall posters;
mary cassatt completes her mother & child prints, inspired by those of utamaro;

1892 Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company established.;

1893 munch paints 'the scream';
Aubrey Beardsley design published in the first issue of the magazine The Studio.;

1894
mucha's first art nouveau poster, gismonda with sarah bernhardt;

1895
S. Bing opens his gallery/shop L'Art Nouveau.

1898 john luther long writes short story 'madam butterfly' based on loti's 1887 novel;

mackintosh begins his school in glasgow;

1899 René Lalique designs Dragonfly woman corsage ornament;

1900 Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, published.;

1901 lautrec dies; gauguin dies;
Queen Victoria dies;
stickley starts the craftsman magazine.
1902riviere produces set of prints '36 views of the eiffel tower' based on hokusai's '36 views' series; note that the tower is almost always shown with no top, so it resembles fuji.
1903 whistler dies;
the wiener werkstatte is founded.

(i'll continue to work on this, only re-publishing after significant changes. it seems, i'm noticing how the year 1900 really did seem an important marking point. i'm going to start part II of this timeline when i feel satisfied enough -- for the moment -- with part I. I'll reproduce the items from 1900 on in that topic.

thirty six and four

THE MOUNTAIN

Six and thirty times and hundred times
the painter tried to capture the mountain,
tore it up,

then pushed on again
(six and thirty times and hundred times)

to the incom- prehen- sible volca- noes,
blissful, full of temptation, without counsel,—
while the outlines of his glory
went on without coming to an end:

Fading a thousand times out of all the days,
nights without comparison from which
dropped, as if they were all too small;
each image at the moment it was needed,
increasing from figure to figure,
not partaking and far and without viewpoint—,
then suddenly knowing, as in a vision,
lifting itself up behind every crevice.

from: New Poems, the other part
translated from rilke: 'der berg,' which was inspired by hokusai's 'thirty-six views of mt fuji' of which 'the great wave' was one. also see an earlier version in the hokusai manga spread.

there is of course tintin, and the other is a 'colorized' very poor scan of a grey-scale illustration of 'the fisherman and his wife' in a german book 'japonismus und art nouveau,' of which i'd love to find a copy! i think i might need a new scanner....

The Quiet Landscapes of William B. Post

William B. Post (1857-1921) of Fryeburg, Maine, was an influential member of the Photo- Secession, the group that first championed art photography in the United States at the turn of the 20th century. A colleague of Alfred Stieglitz, Post was active from the mid-1880s through the 1910s, producing platinum prints.

Post frequently captured the seasonal changes to the Maine landscape in his sensitively printed photographs such as Intervale, Winter of 1899. The most widely exhibited photograph during his lifetime, this image also appeared as a photogravure in Stieglitz's famous magazine Camera Work. The high horizon line, the expanse of snow in the foreground, and the limited tonal ranges of the trees suggest his creative ability to invent new compositions and poetic harmonies influenced by Japanese art. His use of a narrow, vertical format and choice of floral subjects in other pictures also relates to Asian scroll paintings.

Like many painters, photographers, and designers of his day, Post absorbed the craze for Japonisme after a trip to Japan in 1891. He began showing his photographic work in New York the following year, and in 1893 he showed the young Stieglitz how to use a hand-held camera.

[yes, this article, reviewing a show that has been making the rounds for a year or so, is about post, but, as clearly seen in the last paragraph, it could be about ivan bilibin, in his little vertical print. it could be about coburn or white, whose photographic histories resemble that of post in many ways. and of course riviere's 36 views of the eiffel tower fits right in.]

thirty-six views of notre dame?

we have talked about the japanese custom of producing prints in series; both hokusai and hiroshige produced, among others, 'thirty-six views of mt. fuji.'

henri riviere went on to follow that mode with his own 'thirty-six views' -- this time of the eiffel tower.

today i happened across what i think is another set: 'thirty-six views of notre dame,' though i can find no reference to it as such.

nevertheless, the series follows all of the conventions of the japanese prints, the diagonal lines, the large foreground framing objects, the outlines, and, most important of all, the appearance of the supposed 'view' almost disappearing in some of them.

the printmaker this time is czech artist tavik františek šimon, a painter who moved to paris, travelled the world, and signed his name in the japanese style as did his comtemporaries.

a wonderful, quite thorough, website about him has been created; in it all of his work beyond prints -- he was a painter, primarily (but i love his prints!) -- , his contemporaries so one can see context, articles and reviews of his work, his family, and more.

i've only found twenty-six 'views of notre dame' on the graphics pages of this site, and some of my identi- fications may be flawed, but i can't believe that this is a coincidence, and that these happen to have been created simply by random chance, when they so easily fit the form.

(more)

in chronological order (sort of)

japan: hokusai '36 views of mt fuji' ca. 1829

britian: analysis of waves from an 1880 book on japanese ornament and design

japan: seitei wata- nabe ca. 1900
japan: ohara koson ca. 1915

russia: ivan bilibin ca 1905

japan: isono 1905