an old woman

how luminous the young girls are.

TO A POOR
OLD WOMAN

munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand










They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her













You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand





Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her

William Carlos Williams

From Collected Poems: 1939-1962, Volume II by William Carlos Williams, published by New Directions Publishing Corp. © 1962 by William Carlos Williams.

how few of us there are in song and story.

the dragon painter

from Mary McNeil Fenollosa in 1905. among the first americans in japan, fenollosa documented the closing of one age and the opening of the next. we have heard of her husband here, and now we hear her voice itself.

from THE DRA- GON PAIN- TER

On such a midsummer dawn, not many years ago, old Kano Indara, sleeping in his darkened chamber, felt the summons of an approaching joy. Beauty tugged at his dreams. Smiling, as a child that is led by love, he rose, drew aside softly the shoji, then the amado of his room, and then, with face uplifted, stepped down into his garden. The beauty of the ebbing night caught at his sleeve, but the dawn held him back.

It was the moment just before the great Sun took place upon his throne. Kano still felt himself lord of the green space round about him. On their pretty bamboo trellises the potted morning-glory vines held out flowers as yet unopened. They were fragile, as if of tissue, and were beaded at the crinkled tips with dew.

Kano's eyelids, too, had dew of tears upon them. He crouched close to the flowers. Something in him, too, some new ecstacy was to unfurl. His lean body began to tremble. He seated himself at the edge of the narrow, railless veranda along which the growing plants were ranged. One trembling bud reached out as if it wished to touch him.

The old man shook with the beating of his own heart. He was an artist. Could he endure another revelation of joy? Yes, his soul, renewed ever as the gods themselves renew their youth, was to be given the inner vision. Now, to him, this was the first morning. Creation bore down upon him.

The flower, too, had begun to tremble. Kano turned directly to it. The filmy, azure angles at the tip were straining to part, held together by just one drop of light. Even as Kano stared the drop fell heavily, plashing on his hand. The flower, with a little sob, opened to him, and questioned him of life, of art, of immortality. The old man covered his face, weeping.

The last of his race was Kano Indara; the last of a mighty line of artists. Even in this material age his fame spread as the mists of his own land, and his name was known in barbarian countries far across the sea.

Tokyo might fall under the blight of progress, but Kano would hold to the traditions of his race. To live as a true artist, — to die as one, — this was his care. He might have claimed high position in the great Art Museum recently inaugurated by the new government, and housed in an abomination of pink stucco with Moorish towers at the four corners. He might even have been elected president of the new Academy, and have presided over the Italian sculptors and degenerate French painters imported to instruct and "civilize" modern Japan.

Stiff graphite pencils, making lines as hard and sharp as those in the faces of foreigners themselves, were to take the place of the soft charcoal flake whose stroke was of satin and young leaves.

Horrible brushes, fashioned of the hair of swine, pinched in by metal bands, and wielded with a hard tapering stick of varnished wood, were to be thrust into the hands of artists, — yes, — artists — men who, from childhood, had known the soft pliant Japanese brush almost as a spirit hand; — had felt the joy of the long stroke down fibrous paper where the very thickening and thinning of the line, the turn of the brush here, the easing of it there, made visual music, — men who had realized the brush as part not only of the body but of the soul, — such men, indeed, — such artists, were to be offered a bunch of hog bristles, set in foreign tin.

Why, even in the annals of Kano's own family more than one faithful brush had acquired a soul of its own, and after the master's death had gone on lamenting in his written name. But the foreigners' brushes, and their little tubes of ill-smelling gum colored with dead hues! Kano shuddered anew at the thought. 1

G O L D

Pale gold of the walls, gold

of the centers of daisies, yellow roses

pressing from a clear bowl. All day

we lay on the bed, my hand

stroking the deep

gold of your thighs and your back.

We slept and woke

entering the golden room together,

lay down in it breathing

quickly, then

slowly again,

caressing and dozing, your hand sleepily

touching my hair now.




We made in those days

tiny identical rooms inside our bodies

which the men who uncover our graves


will find in a thousand years,

shining and whole.

Donald Hall

From Old and New Poems by Donald Hall, published by Ticknor & Fields. Copyright © 1990 by Donald Hall.

(if you see an AW on the picture, i first discovered it here, and an rfl is from here. both are terrific blogs worth checking out.)

what do these 5 paintings have in common?

besides being all by whistler?...


the top print on the floor (above) is hiroshige's 'Cherry Island in Osumi Province,' from his 'Famous Views of the 60-odd Provinces' series,
done in the first half of the nineteenth century.
i didn't look for any of the other images,
but my guess is that they're probably from the same series.

the same black kimono!
in the last one, it's hanging on the wall!
i count three kimono (and yeah, that's the plural!):
black, peach, and white, and one red, one black, obi.

lady in black, with fan...

it became de rigeur for the uppercrust woman to have her portrait painted in, or with kimono, japanese screen,


fan, japanese ceramics, or any combination thereof. this is only the beginning. much more to come.

David R. Brigham1, in American Impres- sionism: Paintings of Promise, says, "A number of .... Impres- sionists, .... painted female figures in interiors adorned with Japanese





effects. Kimonos, screens, fans, and porcelain added richness of texture and meaning to their subjects."





so is this still all interesting to some readers? yesterday was de-lurking day! so please de-lurk. i would love to hear your thoughts! thanks.

(starting at upper right: manet 1873;
chadwick 1891;
sir john lavery;
whistler;
julius le blanc stewart 1908)

ruskin the wounded walrus

perhaps because his father wanted him to be a poet and his mother wanted him to be a bishop in the evangelical church, john ruskin compromised and became a fire and brimstone art critic, a combination of john leonard, pauline kael and michiko kakutani in influence and breadth of reign. his word could make or break an artist, and ruskin was never one to hold his tongue.

where others critiqued turner's 'snowstorm' as a mess of 'soap suds and whitewash,' ruskin declared it one of the best depictions of the sea ever painted. when ruskin declared that after raphael, painting in england had gone off-track, an entire movement, the pre-raphaelites, was born.

though ruskin was perhaps closest to millais, reviewing his work most favorably, all of the pre-raphaelites became ruskin's family symbolically. literally, euphemia chalmers gray became his wife. this peaceful moment, however, was not to last.

whistler had begun to become close with the artists in the pre-raphaelite group himself, though whistler held no particular sway to ruskin. he, but not only he, began to introduce the japanese senses of art and design to rossetti and the crew, and it had begun to have an influence. it was early, so the profound influences upon western art were still to come, but see in this 1865 painting, 'the blue bower,' by dante gabriel rossetti, both the japanese ume in the tiles in the back, but also the japanese musical instrument. (it has further been suggested that the langourous poses and flowing gowns of the women in the paintings might have their genesis in the japanese art as well.)

though he had reputedly written of his appreciation for japanese art, when it began to 'invade his territory' ruskin began to decry it. the bitter depressions and madness that were to fully take over his later life began.

after six years of marriage, his wife divorced him due to his incurable impotence. they had never consummated the marriage. and then she married millais! ruskin began to savage millais' work in reviews (though, as he's thought to be the most popular of the pre-raphaelites, this apparently didn't have the effect ruskin might have hoped). (photo of millais and family by lewis carroll)

one wonders what it was that whistler did to him personally, though perhaps his slow yet persistent influence over artists that ruskin felt he used to 'rule' (particularly millais, whose 'eve of st agnes,' above, was said to be influenced by whistler's 'white girl') was enough. perhaps he simply did not pay 'the great man' the homage he felt he deserved.

in any case, and in spite of having declared turner a genius for many of the same characteristics, ruskin wrote in his review about whistler's 'nocturne in black and gold: the fire rocket' this:

[the "eccentricities" of such art] "are almost always in some degree forced; and their imperfections gratuitously, if not impertinently, indulged. For Mr. Whistler's own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of willful imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face"1

whistler sued, and won in court (ruskin was too ill to attend), but he won but a farthing, leaving him bankrupt. both he and ruskin were exhausted and destroyed by the battle, ruskin abandoned to a life of manic-depression, hallucinations, and heartbreak (having fallen in love with a 10-year-old girl), whistler needing to begin his life anew, with nothing.

starting with the fireworks

it's by whistler, of course; 'nocturne in black and gold: the falling rocket'. 1875

there will be much more about this, but that comes later. i'll take this story one man at a time.

whistler the painter became enamored with the art and craft of japan to such an extent that he became one of the influencing factors in the lives of many european painters and collectors.




in his own work, in addition to the standard featuring of women in kimono, before screens, holding fans, he embraced





what he saw as the essence of the japanese ideal: a rootedness in nature, and 'art for art's sake.' a battle had raged in europe over whether or not art must be moralistic. whistler said no.











the very naming of his paintings for forms of music, symphony, nocturne, reveals this in that he hears the lights and darks, the forms and the flow of line and pigment, and this is what's important (in this i assume that whistler, like nabokov, was a synaesthesic).











this second one (left, above) is called 'nocturne in blue and gold: old battersea bridge' and it was painted in 1873. but, in honor of this blog's topic, let's look at some other images, and their dates.

now the interesting thing is that the photo is the battersea bridge. and just below it is the kyo bridge, in a print made by hiroshige in ca. 1857! it is also suggested that this hiroshige print, 'fireworks at ryogoku' inspired whistler in these images as it would nordfeldt in 1906.

the whistler painting itself was inspiration for the next generation of japanese printmakers.

'misty bridge at night' was done by an anonymous printmaker in the 1930s, the same decade that yoshimune arai produced his 'fishing boat,' (right) .

but in a way, it with was the painting with which we began that was whistler's finest achievement, and it was also his downfall. (more in part ii)

aesthetically speaking

what is called 'the aesthetic movement' intrigues me. it's primarily an 'anglo' phenomenon, ie great britian and the united states. and in part, it flourished in the us because of a brit (who was wilde).

it does get complicated when one begins to discuss personalities, with wilde, ruskin, whistler, and more, and i do want to get into that--it's fascinating. but for the moment let's look at these artifacts.


what we see is, as the chicago museum of art says, 'the floral designs emulate Japanese paintings and lacquer, but

the overall
form is West- ern.'

both countries did go into art nouveau, but in both it was embraced a little later; here we


have, essentially, victorian design with japanese symbols (fans, cranes, the japanese symbol for the chrysanthemum's) on it. none of the fluidity of line and form that would enrich the world of arts in the next few years is yet seen, and yet... it's really interesting.

(whistler 'symphony in white #2'; herter brothers chair; royal crown derby; 'aladdin' by walter crane)

a tale of peacocks-part 2

ascinating, sarcastic, brilliant, argumentative, genius, james mcneill whistler brought to the art world new perspectives, new inspiration, and new headaches.

i get sad reading the reviews he got, excerpts of which are included in his collected papers, the gentle art of making enemies. "another crop of mr. whistler's little jokes." "so far removed from any accepted canons of art as to be beyond the understanding of an ordinary mortal." and on and on and on......

but the arrogant if insecure artist wrote letters to the editor combating these reviews just as endlessly.
he didn't limit his fights to those with critics. he was a man who knew what was right, and anyone else be damned. when hired to do a simple assist at room decoration he instead repainted the entire room, including over leather walls, making of it exactly what it should be. unfortunately, the owner of the house disagreed, and refused to pay whistler the total agreed amount. petulantly, and yet with glory, this grand peacock mural, inspired by utamaro's print, was created for the room, parodying he and the owner: the proud and the pauper. (more on this to come)

and in doing so created one of art nouveau's most prevalent symbols.