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.

mackintosh & vienna

i began to notice the similarities between the scottish designs, metalwork, glass, and of course embroidery, and that of the wiener werkstatte. this is not coincidental, as it turns out.

In 1900 Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his group "The Glasgow Four" were invited to show their work at the VIIIth exhibition of the Viennese Secession. Their designs, especially those of Charles Rennie Macintosh, exerted a profound influence on German and Austrian exponents of Jugendstil. Contact with Charles Rennie Mackintosh was crucial for Josef Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann, and Koloman Moser in particular. 1

mackintosh's design, with its nature-based simplicity and breakdown of the separation between art and craft (both things clearly influenced by the influx of japanese arts and crafts), was more appealing to the viennese than was the art nouveau they saw in france and belgium, which they saw as excessive. they, unlike mackintosh's fellow glaswegians, saw him as a genius.

Influenced and encouraged by ... Mackintosh, Hoffmann and Moser realized their dream of founding a workshop for the applied arts to promote the best in design matched by the finest in craftsmanship. In June 1903 the Wiener Werkstätte was established; it "represented a not-previously achieved international high point in the applied arts, and, with its unmatched fine workmanship and exquisite taste, became the educator of the whole civilized world." 2

The Wiener Werkstätte believed that artistic endeavour should permeate all aspects of everyday life; no object was so menial that it could not be enhanced by beauty of form and execution ... [When] Mackintosh and [his wife] Margaret Macdonald had exhibited their work to the Viennese public, Hoffmann and Moser were intrigued with the elegance and sensibility of their creations, which is evident in the puristic simplicity and geometric austerity of their early objects.

The Japanese-inspired components of the workshops’ products were also important. The Secession had dedicated their sixth exhibition (1900) to Japanese art, and in Vienna in 1901 the Österreichisches Museum für Kunst und Industrie (now Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst) exhibited the woodcuts of Katsushika Hokusai. The textile patterns and inlay designs of Hoffmann and Moser share strong similarities with Japanese stencils and prints.

The distinctive trademark of the Wiener Werkstätte included the initials of both the designer and the executing craftsworker. The fine arts and the applied arts were awarded the same level of importance. The primary concern of the group was to respect the inherent decorative and functional qualities of the material used and to work within its natural properties. © Oxford University Press 2007

The story began with a competition launched in December 1900 by Zeitschrift FürInnen- dekoration, an innovative design magazine published in the German city of Darmstadt. European architects were invited to design an Art Lover's House. Mackintosh sent in his entry in March 1901, his one chance to design a house unfettered by financial constraints or a conservative client. But he was disqualified for failing to include the required number of drawings of the interior. He hastily completed the portfolio, which he then resubmitted. Delighted with the designs, the judges awarded Mackintosh a special prize (there was no outright winner).

Publication of these drawings did much to establish Mackintosh's reputation abroad as an original and distinctive architect, particularly in Austria and Germany. The Art Lover's House is an important twentieth-century building because it anticipates the abstract forms of Modernism. At first glance it could be an illustration from the thirties. Artists of the avant-garde Vienna Secession described Mackintosh as “our leader who showed us the way” – an acclaim that he was never able to gain at home. Rich Glasgow businessmen never quite took him seriously. 3

in france, poiret (dufy) and lalique were later to feel the influence of this style, but were, of course, french.

while fred- erick cayley robinson's allegiance to the pre- raphaelite movement is obvious, and explicit, to my eye, given the outlining of forms, the asymmetrical balance on his canvases, and, to some extent, his subject matter, he was influenced by the japanese as well.

it's not surprising; he studied in paris at the very moment when japonisme was in bloom, the prints being shown and collected,





the work inspiring illustrator and painter (and jeweller, etc.) throughout the town. japonisme once removed?



obvious also is the charles rennie mackintosh influence. cayley robinson held a professorship at the glasgow school of art,



in mackintosh's wonderful building. the elongated simplification of form can be seen in the work of many artists from 'the glasgow school.'

mirroring the living

For Anne Gregory

'Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'


'But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.'

'I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'

- WB Yeats

... or red, or black.... or white. i guess today's question, if there is one, might be are these stereotypes as well? was this one moment in art the last gasp towards a particularly defined femininity in the face of women's increasing self-determination? or do these images, like yesterday's, portray something cherished about "the other"?

(l: gekko ogata, guy rose, david gauld.
r: george henry, yoshitoshi taiso, chikanobu toyohara.)

talwin morris's glasgow japonisme

how delicious it has been, lingering among the beauty of the book covers of talwin morris, scottish practitioner of japonisme.

he instructs us on the importance of design, insisting upon the sensuous beauty implied within the studies of home, and horse, wordlessly, but with just one look.

carpenters are revealed as the noble artists that they truly are by symbol alone.

and morris, sometimes, simply creates an added beauty to the already beautiful.



With [the Japanese style's] absence of central perspective, along with the expressive linear lines or organic form, the style itself is ideal to apply to a flat surface of book design. Within the composition there can also be cutting of details within the composition and instead of the perspective moving into the the picture space there was a tendency to move up the picture space. These stylistic characteristics can create a flat decorative effect.

Along with these stylistic characteristics, there was another Japanese influence. In Western Society, the Hierarchy of Genres shows that History painting is the highest of all art forms. This however was different in Japan which placed significant importance upon items such as laquerware and porcelain. These objects would have been of lower importance to the West before this time. These objects then became very important and can be seen in the way in which Blackie and Sons [a publisher with whom morris worked] placed artistic emphasis upon the book cover, which had previously been of little importance.1

links:

morris collection

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talwin morris

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talwin morris book design

scotland and japan

i have come across a number of painters of this era who are western, and who paint in a decidedly western style, but favor japanese subjects. one of these is the scottish painter edward atkinson hornel.

while some of his paintings and drawings take on the asymmetry of the japanese prints, in general his main influence was the beauty of what he saw in japan.




hornel was sent to japan with his friend george henry, by his glasgow art dealer, alexander reid, who was responsible for interesting the two painters in the new wave of japonisme, and the old one of japanese prints.1






henry as well loved painting the visions he saw in japan, but only his watercolors survived the trip home; the oils were not sufficiently dry.2









an early subscriber to the infusion of japonisme, japan anyway, into literature was the man who called himself pierre loti. his 'madame chrysanthemum'3 is considered the first japonisme novel, a precursor to 'madame butterfly.' hornel created illustrations for it.

the book is here.

(top two images are hornel; the right-hand image below them is henry; the illustration is again by hornel; the last is of hornel by bessie macnichol.)