the strange mr. strange

edward fairbrother strange made his living writing articles and books about design: lettering, bookbinding, lace, etc. his tone was often one of arch dissatisfaction and resentment that no longer were the excellent standards of the past being upheld.

we've met him already, listening to him rail against the degenerate work of seitei watanabe, and i promised you you'd hear more. after railing generally against american book design, he says:

to turn to the consideration of some particular cases, one is compelled to reiterate a somewhat well-worn story, that of the wide-spread and curious influence of aubrey beardsley. the cover designs by bertram g goodhue are often full of it--beardsley's earlier manner of the morte d'arthur;

but of all beardsley's disciples the one who has more closely approached to him in method is will h bradley. the binding of the romance of zion castle is a typical example of this somewhat common tendency. here we have another version of the 'avenue poster' type of decoration;

with, however, not a tithe of the marvellous success of the latter in indication form and drapery by judiciously balance flat masses. in mr bradley's design the gold is over-done, and the hard boundary lines to which it gives rise spoil the effect of the decidedly clever distribution of the upper part of the cover.

the same artist's lyrics of earth wants balance; the serpentine line is rather too heavy, and not very gracefully distributed, although the tree is well rendered and just in its proper place.

a very pleasant treatment of a conventional landscape is that adopted by mr louis rhead, in meadow grass. the use of a picture pure and simple for a cover, instead of some arrangement of ornament, is a new and dangerous device; and it requires powers of no uncommon order to secure for it the success obtained by mr rhead in this instance.

a book-cover has been made by margaret armstrong for love-letters of a musician. it is good in color, the rare subordination of the two lines of floral diaper giving a pleasing effect, but the head of st cecelia, done on an inlay of vellum in slight relief, and the border gold which surrounds it, seem rather forced and over-wrought.

the same artist has produced an effective composition of poppies and pipe-stems, in crimson, light green and gold, on coarse white canvas, for washington irving's rip van winkle.

this is, one would imagine, a good 'saleable' cover, though, from the critical point of view it must not be too closely considered, and the lettering cries aloud for condemnation.

(mr strange was by no means alone in his pouts; snipping, snapping and sniping were the trade of the day in the large and gor- geously produced periodicals covering the art world. so what else is new?)

three man's opinion

Colour-printing in Japan has lost its individuality. It is no longer the peculiar art of the lower orders, and tends more and more to sink to the level of a mere process of reproduction.

To this use it has been put in some notable modern instances the painter, Watanabe Seitei, for example, has had a number of sketches beautifully reproduced by its means but they have nothing in common with the old nishikiye [woodblock prints] and might as well have been drawn for chromo-lithography, or the three-colour process.

Perhaps this is the most fitting place for the author to venture on a brief appeal to Japanese artists to avoid imitations of European work. Of late years some among them have seen fit, naturally enough, perhaps, to try their hands at the Western methods of painting; and Japanese Impressionists, Japanese of the Barbizon school, Japanese of the Art Nouveau, and of the wilder sects of Southern Germany, have come again to their own land with pride and misunderstanding, bearing with them sheaves of pictures curiously wrought in the fashions of the masters of their choice.

Others have tried to blend the Eastern and Western arts, so radically and immovably opposite. Always the result is failure. It could not be otherwise. Their art has a noble history and a place supreme in the love and literature of their country. In the name of all that is beautiful let them keep it there, and not adulterate and defile it with the scraps and off-scourings of the alien.
Edward F. Strange 1906

We see in Watanabe Seitei that art has been vulgarised. The coloured print has become chiefly a child's toy. Artists can no longer afford to superintend the technical processes of its production, and cheap flaring, violent pigments imported from abroad have taken the place of the delicate, rich, and costly colours of old Japan.

Frank Brinkley 1902

The modern Japan found a satisfactory expression of art in Seitei Watanabe. The imagi- nation of Japan has been growing wider and wider under the influence of Western art. You will find here and there in Watanabe the sure trace of a certain classic school; a graceful solitariness, like that of Tosa; a far away imaginativeness, like that of Kano; the memory, as it were, of an old lover, which will not be put aside.

Again, in Wata- nabe, the old conven- tion- alism turns delight- fully into a hint of dignity, and unin- telli- gible symbolism into deep poetry. This artist would keep the essence of each school for his own use. Basho Matsuo, the great Japanese poet, once compared the poets and artists to a beggar's bag, because they gather whatever beauty and truth they may, from anything. Seitei Watanabe used to laugh at the artists of particular schools. He declared that he did not belong to any one.

Yone Noguchi 1903