a solitude of space

There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea










A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be








Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy






A soul admitted to itself—
Finite infinity.

Emily Dickinson

THE SHORTEST DAY

PREMONITION AT TWILIGHT







The magpie in the Joshua tree
Has come to rest. Darkness collects,







And what I cannot hear or see,
Broken limbs, the curious bird,







Become in darkness darkness too.
I had been going when I heard







The sound of something called the night;
I had been going but I stopped










To see the bird restrain his flight.
The bird in place, the shadows dropped






As if they waited in the light
Before I came for centuries



For something I could never see;






And what it was became itself,
And then the bird, and then the tree;
And then the force behind the breeze
Became at last the whole of me.


Philip Levine

from On The Edge © 1963

beauty is not pretty

Gei literally trans- lates as "art," and although these women were once expected to have sex with loyal patrons, they were predomin- antly known for their skills at storytelling, dancing, painting and musicianship, as well as their exotic looks.

Their bodies were and are their art, but screenwriter [of 'memoirs of a geisha'] Robin Swicord says there is an innate pain to their beauty. "All of it is a kind of interesting torture that results in this image of perfection," Swicord says. "Perfect dancing, perfect music, perfect face, perfect figure, perfect walk."

The ribcage is cinched tight with a sash, called an obi, to achieve a rail-thin look in the kimono. "It's like a bondage situation, in which your midriff is wrapped very tightly with these cords that cut into you," Swicord says. "Then the obi is very heavy and you can only sit in a certain way." But it can also help the women maintain good posture. Dalby says geisha eventually find it comfortable, "because they wear it every day. If it is loose and slips at all, it will give her a backache." (the rest is fascinating.)

[T]o achieve the hour glass figure Edward VII favoured [women] dis- torted their figures into the exagger- ated S-bend shape associated with the fashions of the era.

The hostess achieved this stately movement as much by the restrictive nature of her clothes as by years of deportment and dancing lessons. Skirts were confining, being tight waisted and 'bell' shaped, with every aspect of the skirt presenting a concave curve. They followed the same sinuous lines of art nouveau.

The grace-fullness of the elliptical curve which passed from hips to hem depended on the skirt length and the height of the wearer. This fashion favoured the taller woman. It also favoured the wealthier woman. Many skirts had trains which swept the ground, indicating that their owners belonged to the carriage class and could afford to employ servants to valet them.

Many an Edwardian society hostess in middle age was in urgent need of the help of cosmetics and by 1900 face enamelling was once again beginning to be accepted among society ladies. (again, the rest is fascinating.)

(what the heck is face enamelling???)

learning to print

tadamasa hayashi came to paris to assist and translate in the setting up of the paris universal exhibition of 1878.




at the time that he came, wood- block prints were quite devalued in japan, so he quickly realized that he could fill his cases with them, and sell them as art,
at art prices, in france.

thus were many people in paris introduced to japanese prints, and began collecting them.




one of these was henri riviere.







he not only bought from hayashi, but they became close friends, and hayashi became a patron for riviere.





the friendship included instruction of a sort as to printmaking methods, but it also included the recognition that riviere had,

without knowing it, revived ancient japanese printmaking methods for his own work.







when, after a close friendship of fifteen years, hayashi returned to japan, and died soon thereafter, riviere gave up printmaking.





yes, many others, as we've discussed, embraced what japan had to teach.












but to my eyes, henri riviere was japonisme's mikado.





(don't miss the wonderful photogravure site; the hiroshige site that has a permanant place in the sidebar; and the comprehensive henri riviere site.)

hungary for more?

Painter, graphic artist and industrial designer, Géza Faragó's richness of ideas, and posters full of original humor in Art Nouveau, had a great influence on the development of Hungarian posters.

One rather interesting episode in the history of Hungarian industrial culture is the fortuitous meeting between the United Lamp and Electric Co (trade name: Tungsram) founded in 1872, and Faragó was one of the most popular Hungarian poster artists at the turn of the century. It was a success story that established a lasting reputation for the factory and artist alike.

An invention by Ferenc Hanaman, engineer, and his associate, Sándor Juszt, the tungsten lamp emitted 3.5 times the amount of light, with the same consumption of power, than its predecessor the carbon filament lamp.The poster designer compares the brilliance of the light bulb to the brilliance of sunshine: the graceful female figure looking into the sunlight shades her eyes with delicate hands. 1

Faragó's early career as a textile designer is evident in this decor- atively-patterned poster promoting men's and women's fashions at Budapest's then-elegant Golya department store (golya is the Hungarian word for stork).

Géza Faragó was a pupil of Mucha and Colarossi in Paris in 1898. On his return to Hungary, his works were exhibited in 1900. After another stay of some years in Paris, he became a pupil of Adolf Fényes in Szolnok, and Béla Iványi Grünwald in Kecskemét, then settled down in Budapest around 1905.

He designed stage sceneries and cartoons. His posters were exhibited in Berlin in 1914. From 1910 to 1915 he was a stage designer at Király Theatre, at the Operetta Theatre, Budapest, and later at UFA Studio. "Hungarian Wedding", a ballet, was on in London for a year. His most famous posters include "Gottschlig Reem", "Törley Champagne" (1909), "Kerpel Hand Moisterer" (1910). His works were exhibited in 1910, 1923 and 1928. "Evening by the Danube", "Early Moonshine", "Morning" and "Peasant Girl in Seelfeld" are in the collection of the Hungarian National Gallery.He specialized in costume design, working at theaters in Budapest and Vienna, and many of his paintings hang in the Hungarian National Gallery.

the randomness of beauty

i've been down- loading items for years, and they have now found a use. and i've been down- loading more. i have to keep them organized, and i have one folder for the images of women i've collected for this blog.

now photoshop has a feature that it didn't used to have and that it took me way too long to discover, but once you find it, you can't imagine how you ever did without. file browsing.

and file browsing allows you to sort in many different ways. well tonight i sorted by 'color profile' and ended up with many really intriguing combinations, but these four fell exactly in order, all in a line, and.... it was like a ouiji board.... someone is channeling their own agenda. and i'm very appreciative.

(though they can't fit that way in this format, these were all in a straight line, skin, black, skin, black. the first skin is by theodore roussel. black gown is by john sloan. the 'fragrance of the hot springs' is by torii kotondo, and the last one is by ito shinsui. in this layout, however, i think it's really easy to see the difference in styles. added later: aha! i thought of a way to do it. click it to see it big.)

the influence of sight

(carl moser
1902;
emil orlik
ca. 1900;
utamaro
ca. 1787;
ito shinsui
20th cent.;
hiroshi
watanabe
21st cent.)