i assume people have always communicated through their clothing. today, whether it's ex- plicit (a slogan t-shirt), a 'uni- form' (waitress, gang member, frat boy, dyke), or only just subtle enough for the elite to understand (signs of status).

but i haven't been able to come up with another example of a culture who did so as widely and specifically as have the japanese. (can you?)

The use of family crests for identifica- tion and decoration became popular during the Kamakura period (1185–1333). Many of these miniature masterpieces were based on plants and animals and are still in use and understood today. Originally their apparent simplicity was a ‘visual’ shorthand for a complex sequence of ideas known to a select few. This shared secrecy and playfulness (often based on puns) greatly enhanced their appeal. Depiction by suggestion is a recurring theme in Japanese art. 1

i can see that hav- ing a pict- orial lang- uage as well as a tradition, for example, of having crests for families as well as flora, fauna, and more, may have predicated japan's highly symbolic textiles, but i can't see why the west had so little. at least, once we saw these patterns, we embraced them--though devoid, of course, of 'secrecy,' 'playfulness,' and meaning. but not without delight.

let there be song

this entire series, which i like better and better the longer i look at it, is by r. (rich- ard) halls, as is the 'salut au monde' poster in the next post. it was origin- ally pub- lished in the 'west end revue.'

what do you hear?

from Salut au Monde

What do you hear,
Walt Whitman?

I hear the workman singing, and the farmer’s wife singing;
I hear in the distance the sounds of children, and of animals
early in the day;
I hear quick rifle-cracks from the riflemen of East Tennessee and Kentucky,
hunting on hills; 25
I hear emulous shouts of Australians, pursuing
the wild horse;
I hear the Spanish dance, with castanets,
in the chestnut shade, to the rebeck and guitar;
I hear continual echoes from the Thames;
I hear fierce French liberty songs;
I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old poems; 30
I hear the Virginia plantation-chorus of negroes,
of a harvest night, in the glare of pine-knots;
I hear the strong baritone of the ’long-shore-men of Mannahatta;
I hear the stevedores unlading the cargoes, and singing;
I hear the screams of the water-fowl of solitary north-west lakes;
I hear the rustling pattering of locusts, as they strike the grain and grass with the showers of their terrible clouds; 35
I hear the Coptic refrain, toward sundown, pensively falling on the breast of the black venerable vast mother, the Nile;
I hear the bugles of raft-tenders on the streams of Kanada;
I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the mule;
I hear the Arab muezzin, calling from the top of the mosque;
I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches—
I hear the responsive bass and soprano; 40
I hear the wail of utter despair of the white-hair’d Irish grandparents, when they learn the death of their grandson;
I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor’s voice,
putting to sea at Okotsk;
I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle, as the slaves march on—
as the husky gangs pass on by twos and threes,
fasten’d together with wrist-chains and ankle-chains;
I hear the entreaties of women tied up for punishment—
I hear the sibilant whisk of thongs through the air;
I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms; 45
I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks,
and the strong legends of the Romans;
I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death
of the beautiful God—the Christ;
I hear the Hindoo teaching his favorite pupil the loves, wars,
adages, transmitted safely to this day,
from poets who wrote three thousand years ago.

(from 'leaves of grass,' published 1900.)

augustus

a little late for your august calendar. i would apologise but the dates aren't the same anyway, and besides, if you are reading this, you are probably using calendars such as this as decoration rather than information. which is fine by me.

and a hearty thank you! to jgodsey for a gift of stamps. i will think of a way to display them; they're too lovely to keep in an envelope.

i wonder if the one on the right is sada yakko. i love the one with the yellow background and the combing hair one... and all the rest.

i'll post again properly.

learning to print

tadamasa hayashi came to paris to assist and translate in the setting up of the paris universal exhibition of 1878.




at the time that he came, wood- block prints were quite devalued in japan, so he quickly realized that he could fill his cases with them, and sell them as art,
at art prices, in france.

thus were many people in paris introduced to japanese prints, and began collecting them.




one of these was henri riviere.







he not only bought from hayashi, but they became close friends, and hayashi became a patron for riviere.





the friendship included instruction of a sort as to printmaking methods, but it also included the recognition that riviere had,

without knowing it, revived ancient japanese printmaking methods for his own work.







when, after a close friendship of fifteen years, hayashi returned to japan, and died soon thereafter, riviere gave up printmaking.





yes, many others, as we've discussed, embraced what japan had to teach.












but to my eyes, henri riviere was japonisme's mikado.





(don't miss the wonderful photogravure site; the hiroshige site that has a permanant place in the sidebar; and the comprehensive henri riviere site.)

dream birds

BIRDS APPEARING IN A DREAM

One had feathers like a blood-streaked koi,

another a tail of color-coded wires.

One was a blackbird stretching orchid wings,

another a flicker with a wounded head.


All flew like leaves fluttering to escape,

bright, circulating in burning air,

and all returned when the air cleared.

One was a kingfisher trapped in its bower,


deep in the ground, miles from water.

Everything is real and everything isn’t.

Some had names and some didn’t.

Named and nameless shapes of birds,


at night my hand can touch your feathers

and then I wipe the vernix from your wings,

you who have made bright things from shadows,

you who have crossed the distances to roost in me.


Michael Collier

"Birds Appearing in a Dream", from Dark Wild Realm: Poems by Michael Collier. Copyright © 2006 by Michael Collier. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 1

(this image on the right is from this blog, which frequently displays wonderful portuguese and/or spanish japonisme images from magazines and books. additionally, he has documented with word and image the "portuguese lafcadio hearn.")

RATTY & HIS FRIENDS

'Ratty,' said the Mole suddenly, one bright summer morning, 'if you
please, I want to ask you a favour.'

The Rat was sitting on the river bank, singing a little song. He had just composed it himself, so he was very taken up with it, and would not pay proper attention to Mole or anything else.

Since early morning he had been swimming in the river, in company with his friends the ducks. And when the ducks stood on their heads suddenly, as ducks will, he would dive down and tickle their necks, just under where their chins would be if ducks had chins, till they were forced to come to the surface again in a hurry, spluttering and angry and shaking their feathers at him, for it is impossible to say quite ALL you feel when your head is under water. At last they implored him to go away and attend to his own affairs and leave them to mind theirs. So the Rat went away, and sat on the river bank in the sun, and made up a song about them, which he called

'DUCKS' DITTY.'

All along the backwater,
Through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all!

Ducks' tails, drakes' tails,
Yellow feet a-quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight
Busy in the river!

Slushy green undergrowth
Where the roach swim--
Here we keep our larder,
Cool and full and dim.

Everyone for what he likes!
WE like to be
Heads down, tails up,
Dabbling free!

High in the blue above
Swifts whirl and call--
WE are down a-dabbling
Up tails all!


'I don't know that I think so VERY much of that little song, Rat,' observed the Mole cautiously. He was no poet himself and didn't care who knew it; and he had a candid nature.

'Nor don't the ducks neither,' replied the Rat cheerfully. 'They say, "WHY can't fellows be allowed to do what they like WHEN they like and AS they like, instead of other fellows sitting on banks and watching them all the time and making remarks and poetry and things about them? What NONSENSE it all is!" That's what the ducks say.'

'So it is, so it is,' said the Mole, with great heartiness.


from wind in the willows, written in 1908 by kenneth grahame. i got the text here but the whole book with some illustrations is here.