reading the past

we've looked at magazines here several times, but rarely looked into. often the people we've seen on the covers wear japanese clothes, or carry parasols, or lean against a painted screen. these all feature all japanese people. why are they on these particular covers? and what being talked about inside. i can answer a bit of that, here and there....

truth is, there's more i don't know, or even understand, than i do. i'll just set out some stuff i found. the magazine success (below) is summed up by the magazine reviewer in the craftsman. "Success contains many good things, chief of which is Hosmer Whitfield's 'Why Japan Must Win.' There is a graphic picture of the Mikado and his influence, showing him to be an enlightened and progressive monarch, in the very front rank of the world's rulers. 2

also in that issue one would find this quote from, in a piece about child labor. "Juliet Wilbor Tomkins writes, 'A great deal has been said about the immorality resulting from factory life. Perhaps there has been more or less exaggeration on this point, or, rather, a failure to make honest comparison with the morality of these same people when not employed in factories. Yet there is no denying that the indiscriminate herding of men and girls does not prompt modesty and virtue. I know a ramshackle old building in New York in which the top floor is used by a manufacturer of electrical shoes. On the floor beneath is a laundry, separated from the street by three long flights of stairs, which are utterly dark except for the gas jets insisted on by the authorities.

At half-past five, every afternoon, the shoe men come trooping down just as the laundry girls are let out. tired with the hardest kind of work, and flushed and warm with the long day in a steaming, enervating atmosphere. And night after night the gas jets are mysteriously put out, so that all flock down together in pitch blackness. When you are tempted to believe that the evils of child labor are exaggerated, think what they are to a girl when she is too young to protect or even to understand herself. Terrible things have been begun on those stairs, yes, and happened there: and they are not the only dark flights of stairs in the New York factories. No one knows who turns the lights out: it may be, — heaven help them! — the girls themselves.

The managers could easily find a way to prevent it, and they give glib promises; but they do not really care. It is the public at large that has to care, to demand better protection for its children. I have seen other conditions so wrong and so openly offensive to decency that they could scarcely be believed; and they persisted until an inspector, in righteous rage, stood on the spot while reform was inaugurated. Filth, with not even a pretense of privacy.— how long can immature modesty stand that unharmed?'" 3

wondering about the illustration on the cover: does that cover both subjects, or just the one on japan? is this a father teaching a child -- to work? to know? or is child labor slightly different when you're talking about asians? what about these other covers? why was an asian woman chosen for an easter issue? (eastern issue?) we see two covers with japanese women with children on their backs, at a time when i'm sure that was never even imagined here. we then have women working, and playing; at least readers were given images that passed docility.

a description of the issue of fortune reads: "July 1933 complete issue of Fortune magazine, profusely illustrated in color and black and white, 124 pages, 14 x 11 1/2 inches, color pictorial paper wrappers as issued. Light soiling to cover (including spot at lower left) otherwise very good condition. Interesting articles include: "The Reign of Meiji ...forty-five amazing years during which Japan jumped out of the feudal age into the industrial present"; article on silver with double page decorative color map by C. H. Appleton "Silver World Production and Consumption." The article on the Owens-Illinois company includes a black and white diagram by Richard Edes Harrison showing the bottle making process. The color cover illustration of a Japanese weaver is by Bertha Lum, whose Japanese woodblock prints are most sought after." 4

1 in his book on the actress margaret anglin, john levay writes (click to read):

i'm left with the predictable it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. like all times. seeing those things that haven't changed is balanced by learning of some things that have. and i'll repeat: i can understand the contents, meanings, contexts, and nuances, to the same degree as understanding literature in translation. not that that stops me from reading them.

many of these great scans can be found on a very cool new(ish) site: Galactic Central!

solitude II

This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself.

While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me. The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house today is not drear and melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me.

Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain-storms in the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting; when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves.

In one heavy thunder-shower the lightning struck a large pitch pine across the pond, making a very conspicuous and perfectly regular spiral groove from top to bottom, an inch or more deep, and four or five inches wide, as you would groove a walking-stick. I passed it again the other day, and was struck with awe on looking up and beholding that mark, now more distinct than ever, where a terrific and resistless bolt came down out of the harmless sky eight years ago.

Men frequently say to me, "I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and nights especially." I am tempted to reply to such — This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary?

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows.

The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can "see the folks," and recreate, and as he thinks remunerate himself for his day's solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and "the blues"; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it. 1

Henry David Thoreau

from Walden, Chapter 5

my favorites

such an interesting bunch of studies the last couple of days, all instigated by something neil asked in the comments section of 'women and nature.' he wanted to know about the connections that may have brought elizabeth keith to the attention of watanabe shozaburo.

as it turns out, nobody had to have much in the way of connections to meet watanabe -- he was on the prowl. he pursued artists, western and japanese, by attending exhibitions, and by making himself known.

i just updated the labels on my library thing today; sometimes it surprises me how long i have been at this, and to what degree i haven't even known what i was looking at. so let's look again at watanabe, though it's true, we have met him before (and here too). because what this is all about is 'shin hanga,' and what shin hanga was all about was watanabe.

but first let's remind ourselves of the state of printmaking in japan at that time: the 'invasion' was nearly 50 years earlier; ukiyo-e had fallen out of fashion as painters from japan travelled to paris to study with matisse and monet. those left in japan with their printmaking skills had taken to producing pull-out illustrations for paperback novels. ukiyo-e was edo, and edo was over.

"Out of this general decline, a new art movement was born -- the shin hanga ("new prints") movement .... The concept of shin hanga was traditional and Japanese. The dogma was to keep the old way of creating a woodblock print in a highly specialized team of artist, carver, printer and publisher. In this team the artist made the design and at best supervised the work of the carvers and printers. The publisher was responsible for sales and the commercial success.

"In such a team the publisher was usually the decision maker. He had to pay the artist, the carvers and printers, and thus was geared for commercial success. The carvers and printers were on the lower side of appreciation and received less money for their work than the artist. However, in our view they were the ones with the highest degree of artisan skill.

"These shin hanga teams added some modern Western features to traditional Japanese subjects. The essential feature was the use of light and shadow. The Japanese had learned this from the French impressionists. Another Western feature was perspective. The third and probably decisive factor for shin hanga was their sales concept. It was catered from the beginning for export of the prints to North America and Europe. In plain words, the prints were designed and created in a way that should please foreigners. Shin hanga images show beautiful landscapes with an intact nature, geishas in kimonos on their way home under a full moon, fishing boats sailing under a red sky, and above all that majestic Mount Fuji in the background. Critics of shin hanga come up with the reproach that the world shown on shin hanga images was one that had ceased to exist a long time ago.

"Shin hanga was not an art movement founded by a group of artists. When we speak of shin hanga we must mention one man -- Shozaburo Watanabe, 1885-1962. He was everything for shin hanga: the founder, the driving force and mentor of the movement. At a very young age Mr. Shozaburo Watanabe had established his own print shop. In the beginning his core business was the production of reproductions that he exported to the U.S.A and Europe.

"Mr. Shozaburo Watanabe had a keen and rigid business sense, and a feeling what could sell in Western markets. He began to give commissions to a group of artists for designs of modern woodblock prints. In the beginning he cooperated with Western artists living in Japan like the Austrian Fritz Capelari. He thought that only a Western artist was able to make a design attractive to foreigners. But soon Japanese artists became the supporting pillar for Mr. Watanabe's export business." 1

"In 1915, Watanabe was looking for new artists to revitalize the art of woodblock prints. No longer satisfied with his work with Takahashi Shotei [his first artist], he wanted to work with an artist who could paint Japanese scenes in a realistic Western style. That spring, he noticed Capelari's watercolors in a Japanese department store exhibition. Watanabe was impressed and contacted Capelari, hoping to arrange a collaboration." 2

he would follow through this process, visiting exhibitions, then soliciting the western artists to work with him, with numerous others. not all works published in this way was of scenes in japan; elizabeth keith and cyrus baldridge, for example, were more likely to paint scenes from china than of japan. in addition to capelari, there were also bertha lum and charles bartlett. additional japanese artists to work with watanabe were yoshida hiroshige, kawase hasui, ohara koson, goyo, and many others. the artists brought him paintings, and he made magic of them.

and folks for all my books, it's not until now did i realize how these artists, the ones who have been my favorites for decades, were designed to be just that: MY FAVORITES! me: a westerner. all of my favorite japanese artists were doing work designed to be western! (hiroshige left watanabe after only a few prints, and he continued to work to perfect what he saw as his fine art.)

do i care do i feel 'duped'? well, maybe for a second or two. then i life my eyes, to shotei, or kawase, or keith, and i am enwrapped in awe once again.

sunday night at the museum

Gallé and Japonisme

This exhibition presents works from the heyday of Japonisme. It focuses on works by Gallé showing distinct uses of motifs from Japanese ukiyo-e and crafts. It will also examine ways in which Japanese motifs were perceived and incorporated graphically into European crafts.

From the 1880s, Gallé's Japonisme began to shift away from external manifestations. While he continued to incorporate elements of Japanese art during this period, he attempted to fuse them with Western forms of expression. This segment presents Gallé's interest in the tactile sensibilities reflected in Japanese crafts, the Japanese eye for fleeting, precious living things, and the combination of painting and poetry elements he harmonized with modes of expression rooted in his own country.


Around 1900, Gallé's Japonisme deepened further, and had tremendous influence on establishing his original artistic approach. This exhibition looks at the ways in which the Japanese artistic concepts of deriving shapes from nature itself, exquisite composition, and mono no aware (sensitivity to things) were sublimated in Gallé. 1

Thursday 20 March to Sunday 11 May 2008
SUNTORY MUSEUM of ART
Tokyo

Treescape

The National Gallery of Australia opens the exhibit Treescape through August 30. Trees are a strong element of our visual and tangible environment, making the tree a natural subject for artists to explore.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Pictorialist photo- graphers such as John Kauffmann (1864–1942) were influenced by the soft blurring effect of etching, creating atmospheric images of trees.

For many cultures the tree has spiritual significance, forming a metaphorical connection between the prosaic and the ethereal, the secular world and the heavenly world. Southeast Asian textiles often present images of spiritual trees in stylised form and give the textile the power to protect the wearer or observer during ceremonial activities. By incorporating these symbolic works, children are introduced to another function for art, where the object’s spiritual and religious significance is as important as it’s aesthetic appearance. 2

12 April – 30 August 2008
NATIONAL GALLERY OF AUSTRALIA
Canberra

Japonisme in American Graphic Art, 1880–1920

Commodore Matthew Perry’s 1853–54 voyage to Japan not only reestablished diplomatic and mercantile relations between that country and the West for the first time since the seventeenth century, but also opened the floodgates for cultural exchanges that would profoundly affect Western art. In the ensuing decades, Japanese artifacts poured into Europe and America, appearing in exhibitions, import shops, and art collections, as well as in articles and books. Western artists began incorporating Japanese motifs, aesthetic principles, and techniques into their work—a phenomenon known by the French term “Japonisme.” This widespread fascination with Japanese objects dovetailed with late-nineteenth-century artistic developments, including the interest in foreign cultures as well as reformist impulses. Japanese art’s emphasis on beautiful design and hand-craftsmanship, for instance, resonated with the “art for art’s sake” philosophy advocated by the Aesthetic Movement as a remedy for the ills of modern industrial life. Progressive styles such as Impressionism also gained inspiration from Japanese prototypes in revitalizing Western pictorial traditions.

Japonisme in American explores the myriad manifestations of Japonisme in a selection of rarely seen American works on paper from the Brooklyn Museum’s permanent collection. Concurrent with the so-called “Japan craze” in America was a renewed interest in graphic arts: as watercolor, pastel, etching, and other graphic media came to be appreciated for their artistry and expressivity, they also reflected the impact of Japanese art. Color woodcuts by late-eighteenth- and nineteenth-century masters such Hiroshige, Hokusai, and Kuniyoshi were avidly collected in the West and served as particularly influential models of stylistic and technical innovation for American artists. (Examples of such prints are on view in the special exhibition Utagawa: Masters of the Japanese Print, 1770–1900, through June 15, 2008, and in the online exhibition Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.)

Inspired by their encounters with the arts of Japan, the artists featured adopted Japanese subjects and design elements, embraced Eastern aesthetic principles, and sometimes even traveled to Japan to study its cultural traditions firsthand. Their resulting works demonstrate the variety and breadth of Japanese influence on American graphic arts at the turn of the twentieth century. 3

April 16 through August 3, 2008
THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM
New York

(note: the images here are by the artists who will be featured in the exhibitions, but all individual items may not be included.)

Bertha Lum studied at the Art Institute of Chicago with Frank Holme who experimented with color woodblock techniques. She was exposed to the great collections of Morse, Buckingham and the Japanese influences of Frank Lloyd Wright. She married attorney, Burt F. Lum in Minneapolis in 1903, and they honeymooned in Japan. In 1907 she again traveled to Japan where she studied with master carver Iagmi Bonkotsu and printer Nishimura Kamakichi. She settled in Tokyo in 1911.

Lum preferred Japanese subjects, influenced by the prints of Hiroshige and the nostalgic and lyrical themes of Lafcadio Hearn. She remained in Japan until 1912, studying all aspects of woodblock printmaking. She returned to Minneapolis in 1912, where she continued to produce prints. In 1915 and 1919 she made extended trips to Japan, and in 1922 she made her first trip to Peking and, with the exception of the war years, spent most of her remaining years there. 1

a truly ambitious site on lum has been developed and it's now in four languages. the attempt is to catalogue and feature lum's complete works.

one of the most interesting things i learned today about lum is that it was her who did the little hiroshige-like spot drawings in bing's 'artistic japan,' as well as some illustrations for lafcadio hearn.

i have never loved lum's work. can i say why? i can make guesses but none are for sure. in general, as crazy as i am for the many western artist who incorporated japanese principles and techniques into their work, i am not fond of about half of those few who did so, and used japanese subjects as well.

still, her story is an inspirational, fascinating one, and i'm thrilled that more and more of her works are finally being made available.