bamboozled?

as a quiet, ubiquitous symbol, the bamboo has featured in japonisme wherever it occurred. whether it's pictured, or used, or imitated (silver bamboo handles, for example), it has become an instant communication of the east.

it's interesting, however, to look into its usage in japan itself. where it's found, or wherever i was able to find it anyway, wasn't necessarily where i had expected.

yes, it can be found on kimono textiles, and on crafts, like the inro.

in the west there were few instances of crafts where it wasn't used. it's irresistible because it's so graceful, so simple, so emblematic of all that we had accepted the east to be.

in japanese prints, however, there seem to be unexplained limits to it's usage: we will see it, again, as a pattern on kimono.

and, as we've seen before, one might find bamboo in a book of style suggestions.

we will also see it as part of a kabuki backdrop, and it's always used to geographically
place tigers.

but, it seems, and as far as i could find, picturing bamboo groves or forests almost never existed until late in the 19th century. this one hokusai image is the only one i could find. compare their frequency to that of pines.

the yoshida's, father and son, loved them, as did many other artists on into the twentieth century. i can not only find no reason for this, but not even any mention of it.

now this is not to suggest that the bamboo is not beloved in japan. in fact, The sound of the wind in this bamboo forest has been voted as one of 'one hundred must-be-preserved sounds of Japan' by the Japanese government. 1

but although hiroshige did use bamboo's wonderful verticality to accompany the flight of a bird (a sparrow), as did others, the forests and groves were rarely seen.

as 'meaningless,' and quite lovely decoration, though, it could be found in droves throughout europe and the americas.

may we be reassured that these appearances reflected our passion for the illusions we'd formed of japan?

and if so, were these illusions perpetrated by the japanese themselves, or by us?

and, at last, does it matter at all? fashion is as fluid as the wind; listen, you can hear it now. it's a sound which must be protected.

instead, gratitude is a fine option. thank you to tiffany. thank you to rookwood. gratitude to habert-dys. thank you to heintz.

translation is an odd art. what appears to be literal can really only be approx- imate, romanticized, inspirational.

which is quite acceptable.

I, who fly with the swallows

DE AEGYPTO

I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

I have beheld the Lady of Life,
I, even I, who fly with the swallows.

Green and gray is her rainment,
Trailing along the wind.

I, even I, aim he who knowth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

Manus animam pinxit,
My pen is in my hand

To write the acceptable word...
My mouth to chant the pure singing!

Who hath the mouth to receive it,
The song of the Lotus of Kumi?

I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

I am flame that riseth in the sun,
I, even I, who fly with the swallows.

The moon is upon my forehead,
The winds are under my lips.

The moon is a great pearl in the waters of sapphire,
Cool to my fingers the flowing waters.

I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

Ezra Pound

blanche can wait

it all began because i found a poster by blanche mcmanus in one of my books, and so i had to explore. there will be way more another day (maybe tomorrow), but in the meantime, perhaps you can see why this poster of hers provoked today's post. (i already had the ohara koson, which is also inspiring.)

katsu- shika hoku- sai did his manga in 1821, and jules- auguste habert-dys gave us this gorgeous illustration, inspired by the japanese work, some 80 years later.

hiroshige's birds flew cross the moon some time around 1800, and h. charles tomlinson's birds had to wait 100 years before they could gather up this girl's palm of crumbs.



and the same time frame occurred before the book's flock was set free (unknown designer); they waited 100 years after hiroshige's work.

nakamura hochu worked even earlier, circa 1700, but hoytema, dutch, was painting birds 150 years before he was born.

(for more birds, check out some of our earlier posts here, and here, and here. and be sure not to miss the charming post here.)

one more reminder of what went not so long before

going against the flow

(hokusai; unknown japanese ceremonial fabric cover, 19th century; habert-dys, french ca. 1900)

I have just gotten a book from the library, "japan in the victorian mind: a study of stereotyped images of a nation 1850-1880" by toshio yokoyama, a professor of the history of modern japanese culture from kyoto university.

a counterpoint to my, our, the culture's enthrallment with what we take as japan- ese, i take this perspective as very important. so many things were happening in that brief period of time: over time i hope to detangle them.
for the moment i will just quote one chapter heading:
"in quest of the inner life of the japanese."

jules auguste habert-dys

jules auguste habert-dys's japonisme, for reasons i don't understand, appeals to me in some deeply personal way. it feels quintessential, a superb distilling of french and japanese. i can find very little about him other than that he was just one of many artists who came out with a collection of designs at the turn of the last century, and that he studied with felix bracquemond, and illustrated for one of the many "art and decor" magazines popular at the time.

perhaps it's because his favorite subjects seem to be birds, cats, and fish. i don't know the reason. still, when i look at his work i feel i should cry.

(the two images are 'vol d'oiseaux' by habert-dys on the left, and 'swallows' by ohara kosan on the right)