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Special Installation: Pictorial Vision:
American and European Photography •
April 26, 2008 - August 17, 2008

Like Breath on Glass:
Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly •
June 22, 2008 - October 19, 2008

Library Installation:
summer kimono, the color of blue sky... morning pilgrimage
(Kobayashi Issa, 1822) •
June 22, 2008 - September 8, 2008

Homer and Sargent from the Clark •
June 22, 2008 - October 19, 2008

Clark Art Institute
225 South Street, Williamstown, MA 01267

what does lola want?

why, i began to wonder, were depictions of sexuality so different, japan, france, new york, et al. so as usual i went to look it up, and there was an interesting variety of answers, some of which i was reminded that i already knew, and some were entirely new to me, and some disagreed with each other, and so what else is new.

we've talked about the censorship that happened and some effects on the ukiyo-e artists, but i hadn't realized the methods used to go behind the backs of the censors. when forbidden to portray kabuki actors they labeled actors' portraits as portraits of "loyal heros," or the "immortal poets"; they even put their faces on turtles, cats, and fish.

courtesans might be portrayed as wait- resses, but were still recognizable to all. instead of explicitly portraying seductive or overtly sexual images, the populace knew exactly what was being said when a maiden became completely wet while holding an umbrella. whereas if she's offering a cup, of tea maybe, or a clam- shell, to a gentleman, one would also know just what was being offered in fact.

but there's another whole perspective as well. "In Japan, a high degree of nudity was common in the daily life of most ordinary people (during the warm months, of course). Skin was no big deal, but splendid silk clothing was rare and expensive. In Tokugawa Japan, prostitutes, especially the elite courtesans, advertised their sexuality not by displaying skin but by parading through the streets in multiple layers of elegant clothing.

To touch and feel such exquisite cloth was something only the rich could do on a regular basis. For most Japanese, the fondling of such cloth might take place only in their fantasies. Thus, elegant, finely-woven, brightly colored cloth, not skin, became sexually charged in Tokugawa-era erotic art."

furthermore, "Because Tokugawa-period Japanese tended to regard the overall body shapes of men and women as nearly the same, the only significant physical marker of difference were the sex organs themselves.

In Europe at this time, by contrast, the bodily shapes resulting from secondary sexual characteristics were thought to be so distinctive in marking gender that no man could pass as a woman or vice versa, and attempts to to so usually took place only within the context of comedy or farce. Indeed, depictions of men, and, especially, women often exaggerated these secondary characteristics unreal- istically. Probably the most common example was exaggerating the width of the pelvic bone and hips."

i think i am beginning to understand my original question. "The main point of con- trast here is that in the Western world, at least by the nineteenth century, gender differences were regarded as hard-wired products of biology first and foremost, and social markers of gender were typically regarded as following "naturally" from these biological differences. In Tokugawa Japan, it was the social markers of gender that were most prominent in people's imaginations." 1

"Prints were a form of commun- ication about current political or social situations, especially in Edo (present-day Tokyo). Although the shogunate would not permit any military incident, military or governmental figure, or current event to be shown in a print, artists circumvented these limits by hiding taboo subject matter under layers of parody. Print designers were constantly subject to government restrictions, the policies of which tried to impede townspeople from spending their time and money on frivolous or salacious entertainments.

Because prints often promoted these types of enter- tainment and because all prints designs had to be approved by government censors prior to manufacture, prints became a focus for these government constraints. Publishers were limited in the quality of paper, the number of color blocks used on a single print, and the types of pigments. At times, they were even forbidden to portray actors or courtesans. As a result, print artists were constantly inventing creative solutions to maintain their customer base." 2

we've already looked at what happened to utamaro (his version is from 1804); is kunisada's 1865 version a tribute, or merely a celebration that the restrictions had by then begin to be released. (oh and you know, i had to put in lola! she walks like an egyptian!)

walk like an egyptian

All the old paintings on the tombs
They do the sand dance don't you know
If they move too quick (oh whey oh)
They're falling down like a domino

All the bazaar men by the Nile
They got the money on a bet
Gold crocodiles (oh whey oh)
They snap their teeth on your cigarette

Foreign types with
the hookah pipes say
Ay oh whey oh, ay oh whey oh
Walk like an Egyptian

[The] Blonde waitresses take their trays
They spin around
and they cross the floor
They've got the moves
(oh whey oh)
You drop your drink then they bring you more

All the school kids so sick of books
They like the punk and the metal band
When the buzzer rings (oh whey oh)
They're walking like an Egyptian

All the kids in the marketplace say
Ay oh whey oh, ay oh whey oh
Walk like an Egyptian

Slide your feet up the street
bend your back
Shift your arm then you pull it back
Life['s] hard you know (oh whey oh)
So strike a pose on a Cadillac

If you want to find all the cops
They're hanging out in
the donut shop
They sing and dance (oh whey oh)
[They] Spin the clubs cruise down the block

All the Jap- anese with their yen
The party boys call the Kremlin
And the Chinese know
(oh whey oh)
They walk the line like Egyptian

All the cops in the donut shop say
Ay oh whey oh, ay oh whey oh
Walk like an Egyptian
Walk like an Egyptian

The Bangles

gooseberries

(a writer on his 69th birthday,
listens to a tape-recording he had made on his 39th birthday)

-- upper lake, with the punt, bathed off the bank, then pushed out into the stream and drifted. She lay streched out on the floorboards with her hands under her head and her eyes closed. Sun blazing down, bit of a breeze, water nice and lively. I noticed a scratch on her thigh and asked her how she came by it. Picking goose- berries, she said. I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on, and she agreed, without opening her eyes.

(Pause.)

I asked her to look at me and after a few moments -- (pause) -- after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare. I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. (Pause. Low.) Let me in. (Pause.) We drifted in among the flags and stuck. The way they went down, sighing, before the stem! (Pause.) I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side.

Pause.

Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth.......

from Krapp's Last Tape © 1958 Samuel Beckett 1

The late Takahashi Yasunari, who initiated Beckett studies in Japan, described affinities between Beckett’s drama and classical Noh theatre. Noh crosses borders between reality and dream, between life and death. Beckett’s art too undermines dualistic thinking and transgresses various borders. 2

Noh is closely connected with the ancient Japanese belief in the unpacified spirit of the dead. The unquenched passion of love, grief, or hatred endows the dead with a sort of immortality, and the ghost is compelled from time to time to emerge out of the Buddhist purgatory in a corporeal form that was his or hers in life and visit the world of the living in order to gain a partial relief from present torments by telling someone the story of his or her agony. 3

clearly, though, this is not singularly japanese. in hamlet too, for example, the living are asked to complete tasks for the dead.

in addition to the pivotal addition of ghosts (the personages of the past), the accoutrements of japanese theater had an influence on beckett as well.

"Beckett keeps approaching with ever increasing seriousness an austere theater, both in its skeletal bareness of structure and in its thematic obsession with past and memory ... It is a triumph of Beckett's art that he has successfully incorporated the very structure of the split soul of the modern man ... And Krapp is of course utterly incapable of exorcising or pacifying his former self.

Beckett started writing plays at the point in the history of the Western theater where all the realistic conventions of drama, including the assumption that the theater has nothing to do with the sacred, broke down, and it seems to be that, in his ruthless effort to strip the theater of everything that is not absolutely necessary, he has arrived somewhere close to where [the Japanese] started six hundred years ago.

Yeats had a significant influence on the history of world theatre in the 20th century, principally because he incorporated into his later plays, theatre techniques from the Japanese Noh to create a minimalist "theatre of the mind." Many theatre artists, including Samuel Beckett, are in his debt. 4

Noh is Japan’s “most classical” form of drama akin to Greek tragedy. Its roots lie in religious ritual, where the miraculous appearance of old gods, releases the players from the rigours of earthly life into the purity and clarity of the spirit world. The purpose of Noh is neither narrative nor moral, but is simply an attempt to express beauty -- the essence of Noh is that true art is felt, not understood.

This may seem a little removed from Beckett’s tramps, dustbins and reel-to-real replays. However the spaces, the purity and clarity are there. In Noh the drama strives to reveal its own essence. In Beckett, all we (we all) face is situation, just situation. The essence never arrives, except that the non-arrival itself, may be the essence. Just as Noh flows between reality and dream, life and afterlife; Beckett challenges dualistic thinking and crosses borders of language, genre, culture, bringing the ultimate questions into the commonplace -- and then asking if the questions matter. 5

whynotamous?

If I could talk to the animals,
just imagine
Chattin' to a chimp in chimpanzee,
Imagine talking to a tiger,
chatting to a cheetah,
What a neat achievement
that would be!

If we could talk to the animals,
learn their languages,
Maybe take an animal degree,
I'd study elephant and eagle,
buffalo and beagle,
Alligator, guinea pig, and flea!

I would converse in polar bear and python,
And I would curse in fluent kangaroo,
If people ask me "can you speak rhinoceros?"
I'd say "of courserous! Can't you?"

If I conferred with our furry friends,
man to animal,
Think of the amazing repartee
If I could walk with the animals,
talk with the animals,
Grunt and squeak and
squawk with the animals,
And they could talk to me!

If I consulted with quadrupeds
Think what fun we’d have asking over crocodiles for tea!
Or maybe lunch with
two or three lions,
walruses and sea lions
What a lovely place
the world would be!

If I spoke slang to orangutans
The advantages why any fool on earth could plainly see!
Discussing Eastern art and dramas
With intellectual llamas
That’s a big step forward
you’ll agree!

I’d learn to speak in antelope and turtle
And my Pekinese
would be extremely good
If I were asked to sing
in hippopotamus
I’d say “whynotamous?” and would!

If I could parlay with pachyderms
It’s a fairy tale worthy of Hans Anderson and Grimm
A man who walks with the animals
and talks with the animals
Grunts and squeaks and squawks with the animals and they could talk to him!

It's incredible, it's impossible,
but it's true!
A man can talk to the animals
It's a miracle!
In a year from now I guarantee
I'll be the powerful of the mammal
Play chess with camels
No more just a boring old M.D.

I’ll study every
living creature’s language
So I can speak to all of them
on sight
If friends say
“can he talk in crab or pelican?”
You’d say “like hell he can”
and you’d be right!

And if you just stop to think of it
There's no doubt of it
I shall win a place in history
But I can walk with the animals
Talk with the animals
Grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals
And they can squeak and squawk and speak and talk to me!

© 1967, from Dr. Doolittle
lyrics by Leslie Bricusse