at long last armstrong

so much is evoked by the book designs of margaret armstrong that it is inconceivable that there would ever be any style of design that would be unnatural to her hands.

here in this small selection, the pure, simple japonisme is obvious, including the imagery of poppies, dragonflies, and lotus.

but also obvious are the design forays into arts & crafts, an off-shoot of japonisme with its own particular character. the van dyke books take on this flavor.

in any case, the exuberance, the thrill with 'the line' and with ornament, the pleasure with the natural world, all make this woman--this designer's offerings still a gift today.

resources
binding collection
american book designer
publishers' bindings online
unseen hands
flower bindings
beauty for commerce
handsome books (plus do a search for her name)

from whence commeth....

skipping over margaret armstrong and her bindings for the moment, i wish to take a moment to thank pk for his pointer, and put the question to y'all: goes around comes around? sun/nothing new? inspiration? theft? or merely coincidental???

as i am trying to do always now, i have put the artist's name in the image name. (but you can still guess.)





have these contem- porary artists been enam- oured with those french artists who adored their grandparents' work, or are my eyes playing tricks?

and of course, now we know where the french got it. except in this last case of course where the french is also the japanese!

MA later....

Sarah Wyman Whitman

Sarah Wyman Whitman was a true pioneer of American book design. Not because of her gender (though she certainly was a path-breaker for working woman artists) but for her seminal graphic sensibility, which transcended the commonplaces of Victorian-era book design. Whitman was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1842. She might have settled into bourgeois life after marrying the prosperous wool merchant Henry Whitman in 1866, but instead, she embarked on a serious artistic career. She studied painting and drawing in France, but she was most profoundly influenced by the burgeoning Arts and Crafts movement in England, championed by William Morris and others. (more)

more about whitman, and more of her book designs here.

and, again, here.

It has been said that she began “the golden age of American artist-designed bindings” of the 1880s, and that her particular style of lettering and stylized decorative vignettes anticipated what developed into the Art Nouveau style of the next decade. (more)

and here --

and yet more here

this all because of harlequinpan who identified this artist for this book. and i have to admit. it's my favorite.

and i must also admit i have more book designers coming along soon....






oh, did i mention whitman was also a painter? in the mfa collection, of course.

bertha stuart

there is little i could find on the book designer bertha stuart herself, though there seems to be an ongoing, even increasing interest in book design--and special focus on women in the field, and on japonisme.

one source of great knowledge on many of these beautifully designed books can be found here. each of his offerings, and we will visit him again, is carefully described, inside and out, and put into context.

additional selections maybe found here, and again... we'll be back.

and, wonderfully, here, where can be found this: New Century: the 1900s “Poster–style” designs flourish, with simple but eye-catching designs with a two–dimensional feel, and with the cloth color an important space–filling component of the whole; designers aren’t shy about using in–your–face typefaces in large sizes. Cloth grained to resemble natural fabrics is popular. Black–and–white and color relief halftone onlays appear on front covers, often using designs or images similar to those on the books’ dust-jackets. Imaginative designs appear throughout the market, from top–of–the–line luxury productions to cheap series bindings; the overall quality of American cloth bookbinding designs reaches its acme.

[i think someone needs to read this blog.]

lastly, on the wonderful japanese page i introduced yesterday, i found this amazing bertha stuart example. perhaps the best of all.

serendipity

while researching something else, i came across this amazing blog. i was really sorry i didn't know japanese, and that the online translators are not yet out of beta.

this one reminded me of steinlen's 'la rue.'

since all of the images i've selected come close to the end of the meiji period, the same timespan of many of the mfa postcards we've seen, i guess it's almost like them imitating us imitating them. doesn't this cranes one look like the woman reflected in water one?

i love all the textures here.

this one could almost have been david goines in a past life.

i am very sorry that most of the book covers, which i found most interesting of all, particularly when compared to what was going on here at the same time, i just didn't feel would reproduce all that well. all the more reason for you to check it out!

but the magazines....

more japonisme in book design

what, one might think, does this child fash- ioning a game out of book furniture have to do with japon- isme, and then one realizes the artists, jessie wilcox smith and elizabeth shippen green, have given themselves away by making the only easily identifiable cover be one of the bound collection of issues of s. bing's 'artistic japan.' (from here)

i like this simple offering by peeter kippik for the drawing, yes, but also for the very calligraphic lettering. (from here)












as i typed in the search terms 'crows in japanese art,' i laughed at myself. one of the strongest and clearest memories i have from japan are the crows. they were a common element of japanese art, painting and printmaking, throughout at least the edo period (of 250 years); i'll guess it was a mix of presence, personality, and brushstroke simplicity, that kept them there.





and then there is this, an illustration to a grimm fairy tale, 'the seven crows,' probably, by gustaf tenggren (from here who got it from here.)












clara chipman newton, a designer of rookwood pottery, also illustrated some books.







ohara koson was a printer and painter specializing in kacho-e, images of birds, flowers, fruits.






and i wish, oh i wish someone could tell me who designed these?

Yoshitoshi's Strange Tales: Woodblock Prints from Edo to Meiji

asian art museum, on larkin in san francisco
May 26– September 2, 2007

Hambrecht Gallery Features a hundred prints by Taiso Yoshitoshi (1839–1892) dating from the turbulent last decades of Edo Japan to the westernizing Meiji era. The exhibition is built around two series that deal with the supernatural, one from the beginning of Yoshitoshi’s career, the other from the end—stylistically so different that they could be by different artists. Sometimes considered ancestors of modern manga (Japanese comics), woodblock prints were known as ukiyo-e, pictures of the “floating world” of entertainment, especially of actors and courtesans. Yoshitoshi preferred other subjects, including events from folklore and history, often bloody. Colors are intense, gestures histrionic. In his later designs Yoshitoshi moved beyond the swirl of momentous events to portray human emotions with great psychological subtlety, which is his most important contribution to ukiyo-e. Through his work, a picture emerges of traditional Japanese society moving at a breakneck speed into the modern world.1

In celebration of "National Museum Month," Bank of America today launched the tenth season of Museums on Us(TM) by introducing the program in California. This expansion - the largest in the program's decade-long history - enables anyone with a Bank of America credit or check card or MBNA credit card plus one guest the opportunity to visit 86 of the nation's finest cultural institutions on both coasts for free during the month of May.2

for more info

happy trails, sir

"Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God"

--Kurt Vonnegut

what about mary cassatt?

well, having just posted that lovely photo of sargent in his studio with his japanese dolls, i thought it would be interesting to see if i couldn't find examples of other artists with japanese prints, or ceramics, or kimono, or dolls, or whatever, from their collections.

so far not so successful, but i intend to keep looking and if you know of any, please let me know! thanks!

Interest in Japanese art and culture was ... propagated by French writers including the Goncourt brothers and Emile Zola. By the end of the nineteenth century, "Japonisme" had developed into one of the most important artistic movements of the time.1

zola (painted by manet) had a collection of spring painting on the walls of his staircase leading up to his bedroom, and collected asian objects which were showcased around his house.

[we know] monet collected Japanese prints because there were 140 found at Giverny after his death. Some had been care- fully framed and hung on the walls, while others were faded and torn with various layers of wallpaper stuck to their backs, suggesting that Monet simply cut them off the walls when he moved from one house to another. That he kept them for nearly fifty years is proof enough of their inspiration for him.2

[Frank Lloyd] Wright began purchasing Japanese prints around 1900 while living in Chicago, but expanded his collection greatly during his many trips to Japan between 1905 and 1922. He continued to buy and sell prints until his death in 1959. The Norton Simon Museum’s permanent collection contains more than 350 prints from Wright’s collection, which he amassed over a period of 50 years.3

and we have seen this portrait of tissot by degas, before, along with some of his examples of french young women discovering japanese artifacts. but it bears repeating.
and van gogh painted himself not once but at least twice with a japanese print.

that's it for now, but i really do hope to find more.

Studio: Boulevard Berthier, Paris

"This is Sargent's studio at 41 Boulevard Berthier, Paris. He moved here in June of 1883. On the 23rd of that month Vernon Lee visited and then wrote to her mother regarding the place. The studio did have some history to it as it had previously been occupied by Alfred Stevens (Belgian painter in Paris, 1823–1906).

The photo was probably taken right before the Salon of 1884 (though I'm guessing). His painting of Madame X is to his left and appears ready for show. On the easel which he faces, is the painting of his sister he did in January called The Breakfast Table. Behind Madame X, and hanging on the wall, is Dwarf with a Mastiff, which was a copy after Velázquez's painting which he made at the Prado in Madrid. The porcelain dolls sitting on the mantel over the doorway and the tapestries are reflective of Sargent's taste in the modern movement and attitudes prevalent in Paris at the time for all things Japanese -- especially prints. This profoundly influenced the Impressionists (the influence was called Japonisme)." 1

john singer sargent has been mentioned here before. (interestingly, it's one of the most often searched-for pages.) but today i revel in the discover of the john singer sargent heartland.

run by "natasha the ex-seamstress," clearly a woman with a deep connection to the mikado, the site is an astonishing, comprehensive, and wonderful encyclopedia on sargent, which will take me quite a long time to learn everything there is to learn from it.



so far, among other things, i've found another hammock, this time by giovanni boldini.