on realities and illusions

let us be clear. this is what the real mikado looked like at the time of the mikado. emperor at 15, emperor meiji stressed the importance of wearing western clothing, as he is wearing here, in his 20s.

right around that same day, had you been seeing a new operetta back in new england, you might have gotten the idea that a mikado looked like this, where actually it is Frederick Federici.

through the following decades, you might have seen something near to this model; here ...

or here ...





or maybe here....









or maybe even here....

interesting, though, this was not a point of conflict.

perhaps moreso (though who cannot relate?) were his 'punishments to fit the crime":

All prosy dull society sinners,
Who chatter and bleat and bore,
Are sent to hear sermons
From mystical Germans
Who preach from ten till four.
The amateur tenor, whose vocal villainies
All desire to shirk,
Shall, during off-hours,
Exhibit his powers
To Madame Tussaud's waxwork.
The lady who dyes a chemical yellow
Or stains her grey hair puce,
Or pinches her figure,
Is painted with vigour
And permanent walnut juice.
The idiot who, in railway carriages,
Scribbles on window-panes,
We only suffer
To ride on a buffer
In Parliamentary trains. 1

what caused a major uproar among trad- itionalists were the wonderful, new, 1926 designs charles ricketts devised for the d'oyly carte production.

The admitted refurbishing consisted of new scenery, new dresses, and new properties designed by Mr. Charles Ricketts, which in the mass made a highly effective scheme of colour. The Mikado dressed like that may or may not be more Japanese than the old setting; it is certainly less English. Again, the faithful may complain that it is less "Gilbertian," that Yum-Yum and her companions should remain pretty girls according to thoroughly Western notions, whatever their dresses may be, and that the Japaneseness should not be allowed to go further than the bric-à-brac of the mid-Victorian drawing-room. 2

even punch lampooned the changes.

what more serious conflicts did occur, at the time, and over the years in response are covered very interestingly here.

the mikado

while the mikado, 1885, fanned the flames of japonisme, as much as it was itself a flame, it had not dimmed throughout the twentieth century.
the wonderful artist, designer, and maker of books, charles ricketts, designed a whole new costume scheme in the mid-twenties, right about the time when w. russell flint did the breathtaking illustrations.

this is interesting to me because we have entered a different realm here; not sure i know how to talk about it yet, but i'll try: these are not examples of artists being inspired, informed, by the newness of what they're seeing but rather maybe by the novelty. i'm not lumping this in with using women in kimono to sell corsets or whatever; here there are truly artistic results. but it is a place where "the japanese" is "the other" that we can use on "us."

nor am i selling this as politically incorrect. i for one have been grateful most of my life for what the japonisme creators brought into the world. but it is one thing to be moved by something implicit in a culture's culture, and to elaborate upon something external is something else.

it's been called the punch version of japonisme.