après le deluge

takehisa yumeji was a restless, flamboyant, and hopelessly romantic artist and poet. married three times, twice to the same woman, his search for a romantic ideal took him around the world, studying, observing, and probably falling in love all over again.

what his wanderings led to was this: he essentially revolutionized japanese art, bringing it into the 20th century.

shin hanga already existed: a transitional era with one foot still in the style of printing that hiroshige, hokusai, and utamaro did, and one foot in styles of the west. takehisa yumeji is credited for having initiated sosaku hanga, which combines traditional japanese iconology with some first steps towards integrating the modern art movements happening in the rest of the world.

be sure to note the shadows below the umbrellas; i like the guy in the cap drinking from a bottle! i don't have a specific date on this but it is from the taisho era (1912-1926).

rea irvin created the cover for the new yorker. many of his designs feature asian elments. this one is from 1947.

in 1912 george lepape did the illustration for a periodical called 'gazette du bon temps.' it is only one of many of his wonderful illustrations. like yumeji, he frequently chose beautiful women for his subjects. yumeji was called the utamaro of the taisho era.



do i think these were mimics? probably not, at least not specifically. but as another blogger just wrote me and said, 'japan is just a state of mind.' at that moment in history, it was. and that was it's best, and its worst, quality.

from west to east, too

there were western influences on the japanese during this period as well. leaving aside for the moment all of these but those of some printmakers, i would like to point to two: hiroshi yoshida and yumeji takehisa .

hiroshi yoshida studied in the west, and in doing so was influenced in his use of color and perspective. & this is the grand canyon!

yumeji takehisa, i don't know as much about as yet, but though he has employed some trademark japanese print techniques, pattern, blocks of flat color, still this print appears to have more in common with the fashion illustrations in vogue than with ukiyo-e. (of course, this also illustrates how much the illustrators for vogue were influenced by the japanse!)