Verborgene Impressionen : Hidden Impressions

these images and the comments below are from the exhibition and catalogue of the same name as this post, held in vienna in the spring of 1990. again, we can see how the perspective and the artwork itself changes from country to country.

[commercial trade between austria and japan did not begin until 1869, as no treaties had yet been signed. at last the ships from austria were in japanese waters, and mercantile interests were being pursued.]

Art was included in their planning only to a minor extent -- at first. Export, import, commercial profits in the account-books, that was the motto. However, through its industrial products and handicrafts, Japan, only just linked to world trade connections, provided this very thing -- art, and did so in a fascinating way. In massive numbers and for prices that were as unprecedented as they were horrendous, china, lacquered works, bronzes, silk, all sorts of dyed textiles and other handicrafts were leaving the country en masse.

In a remarkably short time discriminating connoisseurs and artists in the west discovered in an art which up until now had been practically inaccessible, an expression of bourgeois culture that was comparable to theirs, highly cultivated, and refined, one that would maintain the search for new means of artistic expression, and, even more important, enrich it. "In every field", summarised the preface to the catalogue of the great Japanese exhibition in the Vienna Secession in the year 1900 "new experiments were taking place, a searching and feeling for new means of expression, which nature was not going to render simply by a naive enjoyment of the world of appearances.

The intention to simplify, to find the quintessence of things became the criterion. The pioneers of art were searching for models they could build on, that they could develop within themselves. They found what they were looking for in the age-old culture of the East, in the art of the Japanese." "Japonisme", as it was called, meaning the sum total of all the very varied influences of Japanese style, moved in to conquer western creativity and sensibility.

First of all it overtook western Europe and then, after a certain lapse of time, moved from there to central and eastern Europe as well. In its more narrow sense Japonisme is a phenomenon that can be explained according to its own aesthetic principles; indeed, taking an example from the graphic arts or painting, this can be seen most clearly wherever the accustomed, almost mathematical exactness of perspective is sacrificed in favour of an emphasis on decorative surface. As well as this, the fact that the ornamentation can be repeated arbitrarily may well diminish individuality but the elements of timelessness and universality this adds are equally valid.

Europe discovered these principles most of all in the woodcuts and engravings, which were cheap and easy to get hold of. In spite of strict decorative composition and an equal emphasis on line, form and colour in these works the whole area of the page, whether painted on or left free was endowed with the utmost vitality. Exterior characteristics, such as the choice of extremely wide or high formats or fan-forms, which would have been incomprehensible without the Japanese were eagerly exploited by our artists as well.

This art, which had spread all over Europe, which had been welcomed mostly with exultation but also with occasional biting criticism, had become a special stylistic medium enabling it to satisfy not only the expressive needs of many artists, but also to correspond to a certain "Zeitgeist" in public taste. For Japonisme was more than just the transference of aesthetic feeling into works of art; above all it was a phenomenon in the history of intellectual development and taste.

In its broadest sense Japonisme was encountered in almost every livingroom, an exotic spice which had become an integral part of almost every area of domestic and social life, whether in the sugar and tea tins decorated with Geishas, or mocca-cups from Karlsbad and Schlak-kenwerth, who set themselves up in competition with Imari and Satsuma; from ball-dresses a la kimono to postcards with blond "musumes"; from travelogues and novels, written by more authors than one Loti, to the first collections of Japanese art in our museums; from Viennese and Budapest educated classes, the Bildungsbiirger, citizens hungry for culture, who became Japan-connoisseurs and fanatics; from artists between Bleiberg and Prague, who wanted to see Nikko and Kyoto with their own eyes, to the dozens of manufacturers who produced Nippon knick-knacks for mantlepieces and glass-cabinets.

"Japonisme" was a motley if pretty miscellany, where understanding and imagination, art and kitsch, the genuine and the pretended were often uneasy bedfellows; out of this emerged, in its own radical and independent potency, the art of the Viennese Secession, or of a Gustav Klimt, and went on to attain an overriding significance; all this came from the same soil and humus, the intensive cultivation of the fashion for things Japanese.

Peter Pantzer, Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst - 1990

the california japonist

pomegranate is doing something very important. quite simply, they are illuminating, with appropriately jewel-like books, the era of printmaking, in this country and in japan, of the last century.

we have al- ready looked at pomegranate's new books of shin hanga; this time we look at their new, beautiful, book about william seltzer rice.

rice was the quintessential california printmaker; every one of his prints rings true in the hearts of we californians who live and breathe life here -- rice lives in that place of the heart.

while he would go on to publish books about block-printing himself, in the beginning the teachings and books of arthur wesley dow had a major influence on him.

his own initial contact with japanese prints came at the panama-pacific international exposition in san francisco in 1915. after having spent so much time as a painter, he saw and admired, in the prints, the simplicity, the vivid colors, and the clarity of form through outlines.

he had seen these prints in books, but seeing them in person was transformative.

though he worked with lino-cutting rather than the full, complex, japanese methods of making the prints, it's clear that the lessons were well learned.

the new book, william s rice: california block prints, includes a helpful essay, giving glimpses of artist as man rather than simply technician.

while william rice was friends and colleagues with many of the other american printmakers of his time, his vision was his own. translating his obvious love of nature into color and line gives us a legacy of a california past that we will preserve as long as we can.

and this series of pomegranate books will help that along.

utamaro and the love suicides

A vogue arose in Edo Japan -- the love suicide. Of this, the playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) is both chronicler and -- such was the power of his drama -- instigator. His puppet plays, like Saikaku's stories, were based on actual incidents. The one that inspired his "Love Suicides at Sonezaki" had occurred only a month before the play was first staged in 1703.

The Osaka soy-sauce merchant Tokubei and the courtesan Ohatsu are deeply in love, but it is hopeless; she is under contract to her bordello, and Tokubei lacks the money to ransom her. There is only one solution: death. "Did our promises of love," sobs Ohatsu, "hold only for this world?"

The pair flee in the dead of night to the Sonezaki Forest outside Osaka: "Farewell to this world, and to the night farewell."

"They embrace, flesh to flesh," chants the narrator, "then fall to the ground and weep -- how pitiful they are! Their strings of tears unite like entwining branches . . . a symbol of eternal love. Here the dew of their unhappy lives will at last settle."

Tokubei cuts first Ohatsu's throat, then his own. 1

as fascinated as the kabuki-going public was with the telling of these tragedies, none moreso than utamaro kitagawa, artist, printmaker, and storyteller by woodblock.

for the first time, these stories have been told, along with many more; one reading and these are not images on a page but are reflections of lives lived, and of lives ended.

utamaro revealed, by gina collia-suzuki, explores all of the artist's themes, subjects, and motifs, and does so in such a way as to genuinely, as the title says, reveal.

her voice is clear and certain, and her re-telling of the artist's inspirations are wonderfully interesting and easy to read. we are reading, in this book, her lifetime work, along with that of jack hillier and others; it is carefully researched, and collia-suzuki brings us full translations of titles, poems, and contents. we also learn where in the yoshiwara (the pleasure district) each woman lived.

above and beyond the topic of suicide are many other bits of information about the lives of these people we see in the prints that we might not want to read. illumination by its nature destroys illusion, and much of what utamaro's prints did was create illusion.

collia-suzuki responds: I confronted the reality and harshness of Utamaro's time a long time ago, when I was just a teenager. I had an interest in history in general, and the entire globe seemed to be equally harsh to me. Prostitutes may not have been under contract for ten years in Western brothels, but for the most part they were no more free to choose a different life, if they wanted to survive, than the women who were enslaved within the Yoshiwara. There was a time, early on, when I questioned the artists' desire to portray these women as princesses in all their finery, considering the reality of the situation, but the artists who depicted them were governed by laws which made it impossible to portray the realities of everyday life -- the authorities didn't approve of social comment... they didn't approve of a lot of things, as is evidenced by Utamaro being censored at the end of his life. I do think it's important for us to present an accurate image of life at the time now though, although I realise that when we do that we risk alienating the audience. I think that if we try to gloss over the hardship, we do a disservice to the women in the prints.

gina on work: when I was researching the Chinese legends behind Utamaro's prints, I was reading up on Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Liu Bei and the oath taken in the peach orchard. I started reading the relevant section from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but then couldn't stop because it was so inter- esting... and we're talking about a book with 120 chapters. I could just keep going off at a tangent and I'd get nothing done if I didn't force myself to get back to whatever I was doing originally.

when I first started researching the pairs of lovers, [learning] that the people actually existed and often met such tragic ends [was surprising]. In particular, it would have to be finding out about Bunshichi... a man who was responsible for some very violent assaults and was executed for them in 1702. It was surprising to discover that, far from being the chivalrous hero he was portrayed to be, he was a very nasty piece of work. Discovering the true stories behind the theatrical adaptations of them really makes you view the prints differently... in some cases more sympathetically, in others quite the opposite.

gifts of the season • 季節の贈り物

many years ago a woman i only slightly knew emailed me. "you're really into japanese prints, aren't you? there's a used book up at pegasus you might like." i don't even know how she knew. i just know she was right.

the collection of hiroshi yoshida's complete works has remained one of my treasures all these years since. now you can experience something like that as well.

pomegranate has released a series of books absolutely essential to any student of this blog's subject, and the first, shin hanga, has some of the best and most stunningly reproduced selections of his works i've seen since.

the shin hanga book is enhanced with beautifully reproduced works by toshi yoshida and ohara koson as well, and numerous other eastern and western printmakers we've covered here (and some we haven't!). the accompanying essay placing that moment into world and cultural history is written by barry till, curator of the asian prints department of the art gallery of greater victoria in british columbia.

accompanying this are three additional books including one of gustave baumann's prints of the southwest which is, again, a treasure of images that are rarely bound and reprinted so beautifully into a book. joseph traugott, curator at the new mexico museum of art, also includes related baumann's contemporaries with some rarely-viewed images, and baumann's own hard-to-find pre-print watercolors.

find the other two books here and here.

influence

there is only one problem with hannah sigur's beautiful new book the influence of japanese art on design.

it's not the choices of images; they are throughout wonderful selections, often selections rarely seen in books on this subject.

and it's certainly not the content. ms sigur manages enormous amounts of historical detail with dexterity and grace. she's clearly fascinated, and it's contageous. in fact, the depth of these discussions are as poetic as they are comprehensive.

no, the problem is something you may have already noticed: the images here are only minimally smaller than the ones in the actual book. these gorgeous illustrations are all but lost to my old eyes, as is the type.

visual clarity has been sacrificed to lean and stunning design: wide empty margins beg the question: couldn't you have had smaller margins and bigger pictures, larger type?

still, i must admit, there are enough treasures in this volume to gratify any enthusiast, and the softly glowing metallic cover makes it an appealing gift indeed. from gibbs-smith.

...speaking of moose....

we have seen here before the wonders wrought by the conjunction of railroads, a middle class, and entrepreneurs, and the beautiful pacific northwest of the united states joined the phenomenon as well.

in their comprehensive new book, the arts and crafts movement in the pacific northwest, lawrence kreisman and glenn mason trace for us every bough and twig of this branch of the international movement.

as we have seen before, the line, as it transversed the world, looked different wherever it happened to manifest. modernisme in spain looked different from art nouveau in france; stile florale in italy and jugendstil in germany were quite different.

similarly, "the line" transmogrified itself in the different regions of the US as well. yes, it all falls easily under the umbrage 'arts & crafts.' but each also belongs to its own region as well (and each with it's own book. look for books with individual titles for, in addition to the pacific northwest: california, new york, minnesota, and, i'm sure, now, many more.

the thing is... every region deserves its own focus, as this book amply illustrates. each form resembles the rest, but holds some of its own personal secrets. in the arts of the era, mountains surrounded by pines are only appropriate in some areas -- and clearly not in others!

and moose.

and while the seascape will differ, we see imagist photos; could this have been taken by gertrude kasebar just as easily?

and even as we see the mountains of washington, of oregon, we can sense the heritage they bring from fuji, and regions east.

and as i suggested at the beginning, the railways and steamships could just as easily bring the seattle residents to new york and then to paris, as it brought the latest style inspirations to them. we see subject matter and style that tied this corner of the us to the rest of the world.

thus was pollination crossed.

feel for your- self some of the unique flavor of that corner of the states in 'historical seattle' at the 2008 bungalow fair.

or better yet, check out this book, and name these subtle differences for yourself. (timber press)

japanese botanicals in the american midwest

holding this book in my hands, on an almost spring afternoon out in my yard, i was moved to the edge of breathlessness. not only is there a complete catalogue of edna boies hopkins' wondrous prints, beautifully reproduced, but in addition a truly relevent and meaningful narraitive. too often, as you've heard me complain, the japanese roots of the work we see is ignored. here it is covered comprehensively, and carefully.

chronicled are boies's studies with arthur wesley dow, and dow's involvement with japanese prints is discussed intelligently.

in 1908, 'mrs. hopkins' (she was now married) was discussed in depth in the bibliophile, a magazine and review for the collector, student, and general reader. while it neglects dow, it offers much. (the prints mentioned are in the new book.)


VERY numerous and various have been the vicissitudes of the wood-cut. Now in the enjoyment of a wide and flagrant popularity, now in the brief shadow of a passing disfavour to-day, its facile possibilities are more than ever appreciated.

The colour- prints of Mrs. Edna Boies Hopkins, described in this article — as will be seen from the examples given — are of an exceedingly interesting nature. Some few years ago when teaching at the Veltin School, New York, and under the stimulus of the talented principal, Mrs. Sprague-Smith, Mrs. Hopkins discovered the need of flower studies which should have something of the simple charm and direct appeal of the flowers themselves.

Such studies apparently were not to be found — they were therefore to be attempted. It seemed to Mrs. Hopkins, who had been for some years a student of Japanese art, that the methods of the wood-engravers of Japan was the one most suitable ; and a visit to Japan and practical experience of those methods confirmed this opinion. Setting aside the considerable mass of experimental work — in* itself no slight achievement—the series of ten flower studies, of which the four reproductions here given are typical, was Mrs. Hopkins' first work in this manner.

It will be noted that the motif is generally quite simple — a spray of leaf and blossom — but so disposed as to suggest at first sight the whole character and habit of the plant. To give this realism, so utterly given in the delightful flower studies of Keibun, Yasukuni and Utamaro, Mrs. Hopkins has followed largely the technique and manner of the great Japanese artists. The tools used are the half-dozen dainty little knife-chisels used by the Japanese engravers, the wood is cherry cut grain lengthwise, the brushes also are Japanese except one strange tool which is used for broad surfaces and bears an uncanny resemblance to a tooth-brush.

The prints themselves which are on fairly stout Japanese paper are taken off the blocks by rubbing with the sensitive bamboo-covered tampon — a separate block being used for each colour in addition in some rare cases to an outline key block. The register is the simple but effective Japanese method. No two prints are alike, the slightest variation in the printing giving an individuality to each impression. Indeed, one of the great charms of the process is the element of surprise in each print as it is taken off. That Mrs. Hopkins has seized the individuality of her subjects is apparent at a glance, but the manner of treatment has contributed much to the success gained.

For instance, in the large green leaves of the convolvulus (or to give it its charming trivial name in America — Morning Glory), the long vertical grain of the wood gives a most happy effect. This plate is printed without back-ground and is an excellent example of simple and frank treatment.

Perhaps the most successful print — it is indeed quite a master-piece in its own manner — is the rendering of the Phlox, in which a wonderfully complete effect is gained by reserved and subtle artistry. The great value of repression could hardly be better proven than in this extremely sensitive print, the white mass of the flowers standing out most convincingly against the dull silken sheen of the back-ground.

The prints of the bramble and the fuchsia are, each in its own way, natural and entirely decorative ; and are less interesting than the others in subject rather than in treatment. The "Petunia" print which Mrs. Hopkins has designed expressly for "The Bibliophile," though necessarily of a much smaller and simpler type than the other examples illustrated, has, nevertheless, in the decorative massing of the leafage and the clever suggestion of the flower's flaccid limpness some of the distinguishing qualities of the larger studies.

Of each of the larger flower studies so far dealt with there have been printed fifty examples, and no more will be done. Mrs. Hopkins in designing the subjects, cutting the blocks, and pulling the proofs, is entirely responsible for the prints. A second series of ten flowers has now been made, and it is the intention of Mrs. Hopkins to next produce a complete series of studies of the various fruit-tree blossoms, such as the plum, cherry and apple.

How useful such a series would be to the student goes without saying, and it is perhaps to be regretted that the prints noted in this article have not been available for art school purposes, but while the collector is abroad in the land the needs of others must bide. 1

after this piece was written, hopkins' work evolved, of course. the trumpet flower image here is an example of her more art deco style. sadly, many repositories of her work online come up with 'not yet digitalized.' much hope hangs on that 'yet.' happily though there is now a beautifully published record of her work. you have a few weeks left to see the show (see sidebar); and you have a little time too to hold it in your hands.