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.

in the beginning .1

as we've discussed, "The Japanese government let Perry come ashore to avoid a naval bombardment. Perry landed at Kurihama (in modern-day Yokosuka) on July 14, 1853 presented the letter to delegates present, and left for the Chinese coast, promising to return for a reply.

Perry returned in February 1854 with twice as many ships, finding that the delegates had prepared a treaty embodying virtually all the demands in Fill- more's letter. Perry signed the Convention of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854." 1

by at least 1861, the flood of western visitors seemed unavoidable (great website about all of this). japanese artists portrayed what they saw through the filters of their own culture and art.

a few of the western visitors, painters, were powerfully drawn to what they saw not only as beautiful but also as as a counteractive to the industrial revolution; they decided to stay. these western artists portrayed what they saw through the filters of their own culture and art.

these were the early 1860s, the years of the very beginning, in france, of impressionism (a part of japonisme). the impressionists had to show independently because the academy felt they did not quality to be shown as fine art. their work just wasn't as classic, even as photo- graphic, as it had been during the victorian age, even the pre-raphaelite period, and as they felt it must be to be "fine art."

so it was still this academic style that these painters were bringing with them when they landed in japan, and with which they continued to display their new loves: the land and the people of japan. had they stayed in the west, they might still have continued to paint this way as did whistler and tissot, and others, many of whom began featuring japanese items in their work.

the painters in japan included robert blum, frank dillon, armand lachaise, charles wirgman, and more. in the victorian academic style of painting their contemporaries who'd stayed in the west, painted the shops, and the people, and the daily lives in japan.

next: we'll begin to watch as the intermingling really began. we've already looked some at how the west began to incorporate much of the style of the japanese artwork up to this time. now we'll also look at what started happening with the japanese artists, and learn a little more about the westerners who stayed.

loud

not all japanese patterns were as bold as we've seen. many were smaller, repeated, pastels.... but still they had symbolic meanings--not only the patterns themselves, but also everything from sleeve lengths to amount and colors of layers, etc. once again the west was delighted to adopt colors that were new to the victorians, and once again they adopted them sans symbology, but that didn't diminish the love for them a bit.

Once upon a time, an old man was walking around the temple courtyard. He was stopped by something in the air; he looked up and realized a large cherry blossom tree. He looked closer, and discovered several areas on the leaves were eaten by insects. He was impressed by the random patterns nature made... The name of the temple was Shiroko Kannon-ji, located in Ise region (current Suzuka City area in Mie prefecture), and this small incident in the courtyard took place more than 1300 years ago. There are various theories to the origin of Japanese stenciling, and the exact details are unknown, yet I tend to like this story. Great discovery can occur from something as simple as taking a walk in the garden! Incidentally, about four stencil shops already existed in the Enreki time (782-806) according to the documents kept in the same temple. 1

Japa- nese Kimo- no pat- terns can sig- nify the kimono’s rank in formality by how wide spread or pervasive the pattern is as well as the kimono color. Three distinct categories of Japanese kimono which define degrees of formality are, Komon, Tsukesage, and Homongi. The Komon by virtue of the wide spread stenciled or painted repeat patterns which cover the entire kimono is at the lowest most informal level of formality. Komon dyeing, which has the meaning of "small-figured designs," has a tradition of about 400 years. It started as a method of transferring the family crest to the "Kamishimo," the ceremonial attire of the warrior class. During the Edo Period, Komon dyeing gradually spread among the people in general. This Komon dyeing is a traditional technique of high quality that makes use of stencils cut in intricate patterns.

The Tsu- kes- age is next in rank to the Hom- ongi kimo- no. The tsukesage kimono can be worn by both married and single women to both formal and informal gatherings. For formal occasions, a crest should be applied to the back seam at the top. Tsukesage kimono have designs dyed from the hemline in the front and back which travel to the top of the shoulders. Designs on the sleeves also travel upward. The Homongi pattern because of its asymmetrical patterning which continues without a break across the side seams to the back hem is the highest level of formality Homongi kimono are made from bolts of silk, which are sewn up into the finished length, then hand painted, taken apart, dyed, and then resewed. 2

just as shadows and reflec- tions hadn't occurred to japanese artists, colorful prints hadn't, apparently, occurred to western designers. each had a long history in their own cultures; even perspective went back to the renaissance. japanese prints were collected in books and offered for use as kimono fabric, and also colored paper (sometimes for origami), screens, and more. in each culture, what they hadn't done before was so embraced as to be ubiquitous, emphatic, and each gained meaning by what they came to signify in their new societies.