the music of wallpaper

while actually reading the text in my copy of 'hidden impressions,' the catalogue for the exhibition of the same name at the MAK in vienna, of instances where the japanese influenced the austrian arts. we'll get back to that catalogue in a future post, but for now, let's follow this little adventure.

i was wildly taken with the two images of japanese endpapers, the cranes on the salmon background and the puppies. sure i had seen a western equivilent, i searched for days to no avail. all of the western endpapers, even those from childrens' books, were, to my eyes anyway, far more rigid by design.

refusing to give up, i started perusing some others of my books. i double-checked the catalogue and all of my other books about design in vienna at that time: nothing. why, i asked myself, and still do, have japanese endpapers in the catalogue with no japonisme version for comparison?

i started on my other books about paper, wallpaper, and had myself an aha moment. i recalled having noticed so many times how actually un-equivalent these matches-up usually are. rarely does a japanese design form get re-interpreted in some into something comparable back and forth. usually, it, like some inherited traits, skips a generation.

but once i found these, not only didn't they surprise me, but they gave me deeper understanding in both sides of the equation. first, we've discussed the lesson that the west learned that caused them to question the validity of any differences between art, decoration, and craft.

no one embraced this concept more strongly than the nabis, for whom there was no less a creative act in creating wallpaper than in painting a painting. much of what we know as paintings are actually bits of a wall-hanging or a screen (see here), but even when the item was a painting itself, it was covered with wallpaper, and, or, the sort of design that hangs in an invisible balance between subject and surround.

in fact, the more one looks at the work of the nabis (here represented by maurice denis, pierre bonnard, and vuillard), the more one sees rhythm, pulse. these pieces do not make a statement, they make a song.

and the songs have continued out in ever widening circles. whistler sued over it; the right to see a surface as something other than flat, the right to name a painting a symphony, a rhapsody, a song.

ワードが広がっている

if you google-image emile reiber, you will find only, or almost only, items of domestic use and decor, clocks, vases, and the like covered, each of them, with gorgeous, elaborate, asianesque embellishments. preceding these, however, was leiber's Premier Volume (of which, as far as i could see, there was no Deuxieme) of his albums.
following, you will find a lame, google assisted, translation of a bit of Le Japonisme, the catalogue for l'Orsay's landmark exhibition of the same name in 1989. i hope the translation makes some sense, and will gladly provide the french to anyone who asks.

In this time of new explorations, style-books for artists began to appear. These presented samples of Japanese ornament for craftsmen to study, or simply copy, thus adding to their repertoires examples of the Japonesque: The books featured replicated objects, as in Albums-Reiber, or, more often, the designs of objects or books found in valuable collections.

An attempt was made as well to feature each in its original context. The artists and designers who created the style-books had as a goal the reproduction of the arts of one spot of the world that they may travel off in any and all unexpected directions.

Japanese art, rapidly becoming more and more popular, began to become the subject of books.

In 1877, the first volume of Albums-Reiber appeared. Emile Reiber, a Japonisant from the start, choose almost half of his images from the items of daily life in the Japanese culture, like tea, combs, or items in bronze.

He also featured caricatures drawn from the Manga of Hokusai (see the little mice), which quickly found themselves being used to decorate plates in the factory Vieillard à Bordeaux. Wisely, Reiber gives these Hokusai manga the figurative title of Encyclopedia so as to ensure that they will be appreciated as valuable for as long as interest in Japonisme continued.

It was also regularly reprinted in Japan. After 1880 M. Blanc du Vernet published a series of pieces on Japanese art, and in 1876 the painter Gustave Moreau did the same.

There are also, in Reiber, entries about Japanese costume; a note on one reads "the head-covering of silken crepe in turquoise blue, recalls the fashionable women of Brittany," thus adding important context. That context can be seen easily in the work of the artists of Pont-Aven, Gauguin or Sérusier, when they paint the Breton in the manner of the Japanese.

In the 1880s, collections devoted solely to Japanese motifs multiplied; editions appeared from Thomas Cutler and George Audsley (A Grammar of Japanese Ornament), and Christopher Dresser (Japan, its Architecture, Arts and Art-Manufacture).

Among the other early books covering Japanese art history were Louis Gonse's L'Art Japonaise in France in 1883, and William Anderson's The Pictorial Arts of Japan in London in 1886. The apotheosis of this movement was the luxurious publication by S. Bing's "Artistic Japan," (1888-1891), a vast collection of images and short articles on Japan by the best specialists of the moment. The range of the nationalities of the contributors revealed the existence of a true international society of lovers Japanese art.

translated by me from the French essay by Genevieve Lacambre

to my eyes, generally depictions of anything japanese by one is not japanese is always marked by it's non-japaneseness. reiber's reenactments are so charming. the same, i should add could be said of any two artists of different cultures; you've seen the japanese portrayals of the westerners who barged in in the 1850s. i want to look at this more fully.

Where am I standing, if I'm to stand still now?

1795

.朧々ふめば水也まよひ道
oboro-oboro fumeba mizu nari mayoi michi

in hazy night
stepping into water...
losing my way

Issa
David G. Lanoue

The season word in this haiku, oboro, refers succinctly to a hazy night of spring. In this uncertain, dreamlike light, Issa steps off a path into water. Hiroshi Kobori notes that the poet's state of mind is like the misty night. He feels insecure and bewildered, aware of the uncertainty of his own future.

According to Lewis Mackenzie, this haiku alludes to the death of one of Issa's friends, a Buddhist priest. On a journey, Issa went to visit him only to find that he had been dead for several years. Mackenzie translates the last phrase, "Ways of delusion!" See The Autumn Wind: A Selection from the Poems of Issa (London: John Murray, 1957; rpt. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1984), 30.

In Saigoku kikô ("Western Provinces Travel Diary") there is an explanatory prescript of which Shinji Ogawa offers this paraphrase: After hearing of his priest friend Sarai's death, Issa begged his replacement for a night's stay at the temple but was refused. Counting on Sarai, he had come over 300 ri (732 miles), "without a soul to lean on, going over the fields and the yards..." See Issa zenshû (Nagano: Shinano Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1976-79) 5.36.

Makoto Ueda reports that Issa found a place to stay that night "just one hundred feet away"; Dew on the Grass: The Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004) 33.

Debi Bender likes the repetition and alliteration in the opening phrase (oboro-oboro). To preserve this subtle music, she suggests this translation:

misty, misty moon
stepping into water
losing my way

Issa, Debi Bender

THE BROKEN SANDAL

Dreamed the thong of my sandal broke.
Nothing to hold it to my foot.
How shall I walk?
Barefoot?
The sharp stones, the dirt. I would
hobble.
And–

Where was I going?
Where was I going I can't
go to now, unless hurting?
Where am I standing, if I'm
to stand still now?

Denise Levertov

revolution by simplicity

Many developments in 19th century art reflect the influence of Japan. Artists such as Manet experimented with flattened forms after seeing Japanese prints. Vincent van Gogh collected hundreds of Japanese prints, and they influenced his use of brilliant colors and heavy outlines. Larger artistic movements such as Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau have a great deal of Japonisme at their root. Though the primary Japonisme craze was in the 1880's and 90's, artists and designers continued to use elements of the style for some time, particularly when dealing with Japanese themes.

With respect to book-binding, cover designers employed a variety of techniques that reflected an interest in Japanese style. In the Victorian period, covers that didn't necessarily look Japanese showed the influence through the use of asymmetrical design, strong diagonals, oriental typefaces and motives, and a variety of fill patterns.

In the move away from more gaudy Victorian covers, many designers appreciated the simplicity of some of Japanese style. Some covers mimicked the binding style of Japanese books, or Japanese paper. Others used an oriental style typeface or actual Japanese characters. Asymmetrical design continued to be popular as well as imitations of the flat Japanese landscape style. Many of the covers of books by author Lafcadio Hearn are done in these styles, reflecting his subject matter and immigration to Japan.

Certain known cover designers showed influence by Japonisme. Some of Sarah Wyman Whitman's simple elegant designs have evidence of roots in Japonisme, while others use more explicit Japanese motifs, although she herself denounced the gaudy 1880s eclectic covers that "represented a combination of bad French art mixed with Japanese art; scrolls and arabesques, which had to do with some debased form of book cover mixed with a bit of Japanese fan." Several covers by Bertha Stuart, who designed primarily between 1903 and 1911 show a strong Japanese influence as well.

not, i will admit, wholly new, but i believe all of these extraordinary images are, new to this blog. much much more at the website where these words come from, HERE. these designers, they take my breath away. see more from this blog (including links) HERE.

no wedgies either

No ironic commentary on their clothing, their religion, their customs, shall be done, and no rude or insulting words shall be sent them.

We will not use the words keto (Chinese hairy) akahige (red beard), and ijin (barbaric).

One should not face them with impert- inence.

When we visit a strange house, one should be wearing clean shoes.

Foreign missionaries must be respected as equal to Japanese priests.

Avoid disturbing the games or rides strangers by throwing tiles, stones or sticks, or spitting, throwing fruit peels and scraps of cigars on trains or boats where you find them.

oddly, these words appear just under that lovely photo of the horikiri iris garden. if there is a larger context, neither my french skills nor my translating (google) patience give me any real context. it may surprise you (it surprised me) to learn that the photograph was taken in 1915, and hiroshi yoshida's print of the same place is from 1928. and the book is HERE.

firebird

FLAMINGO WATCHING

Wherever the flamingo goes,
she brings
a city’s worth
of furbelows.
She seems

unnatural by nature—
too vivid and peculiar
a structure to be pretty,

and flexible to the point
of oddity. Perched on

those legs,
anything she does
seems like an act. Descending
on her egg or
draping her head

along her back, she’s
too exact and sinuous

to convince an audience
she’s serious.
The natural elect,
they think,
would be less pink,

less able to relax
their necks,
less flamboyant
in general.
They privately expect
that it’s some

poorly jointed bland
grey animal
with mitts for hands
whom God protects.

Kay Ryan

Kay Ryan, “Flamingo Watching” from Flamingo Watching (Copper Beech Press, 1994). Copyright © 1994 by Kay Ryan.

(over to you, m. ghost)