the panama-pacific, that is! • part 2

All other Expositions have been almost colorless. This is the first to make use of the natural colors of sea and sky, of hill and tree, and to lay upon all its grounds and buildings tints that harmonize with these. Jules Guerin, the master colorist, was the artist who used the Exposition as a canvas on which to spread glorious hues. Guerin decided, first, that the basic material of the buildings should be an imitation of the travertine of ancient Roman palaces. On this delicate old ivory background he laid a simple series of warm, yet quiet, Oriental hues, which, in their adaptation to the material of construction and to the architecture, as well as in their exquisite harmony with the natural setting, breeds a vast respect for his art.

The color scheme covers everything, from the domes of the buildings down to the sand in the driveways and the uniforms of the Exposition guards. The walls, the flags and pennants that wave over the buildings, the shields and other emblems of heraldry that hide the sources of light, draw their hues from Guerin's plan.

The flowers of the garden conform to it, the statuary is tinted in accordance with it, and even the painters whose mural pictures adorn the courts and arches and the Fine Arts Rotunda were obliged to use his color series. The result gives such life and beauty and individuality to this Exposition as no other ever had. 1

It's a shame Mathews' superb talent should have been employed only in one panel. His "Victorious Spirit," a rich and noble composition, has certain enduring qualities which are not to be found in a single one of any of the others. Simply taken as a decoration, his picture is most effective by its richness of color,

It seems hardly possible to do adequate justice to the very unusual genius of Frank Brangwyn, who charms thousands of Exposition visitors with his eight panels, representing the Four Elements, in the Court of Abundance.

Nature is represented, in all the fecundity of the earth. Only in our wildest dreams, and only in the advertisements of California farm lands and orchards, do such grapes, pumpkins, pears, and apples exist.

The picture to the left shows the grape-treaders, in the old- fashioned and un- hygienic practice of crushing grapes by dancing on them in enormous vats. Others are seen gathering and delivering more grapes. As in the other picture, showing the harvest of fruit, more people are shown. Brangwyn never hesitates to use great numbers of people, which seem to give him no trouble whatever in their modeling and characterization.

Following on to the right, "Fire," represented as the primitive fire and as industrial fire, in two pictures, continues the scheme. That group of squatting woodmen carefully nursing a little fire is almost comical, with their extended cheeks, and one can almost feel the effort of their lungs in the strained anatomy of their backs. There does not seem to be anything too difficult for Brangwyn. "Industrial Fire" is interesting from the decorative note of many pieces of pottery in the foreground. They seem to have come from the kiln which muscular men are attending.

"Water" is unusually graceful and delicate in its vertical arrange- ment of trees and the curve of the fountain stream, coming from the side of a hill. Women, children, and men have congregated, taking their turn in filling all sorts of vessels, some carried on their heads, some in their arms. Brangwyn's clever treatment of zoölogical and botanical detail is well shown in flowers in the foreground, such as foxglove and freesia, and the graceful forms of a pair of pinkish flamingoes. In the other panel of the same subject, a group of men on the shore are hauling in their nets.

The last of the four, "Air," represents this element in two totally different ways; the one on the left gives the more tender, gentle movement of this element, in the suggestion of the scent of the bowmen screened by trees, moving toward their prospective prey, while the other very bold composition is of a windmill turned away from the destructive power of an impending windstorm. In the foreground people are rushed along by gusts of wind, while children, unaware of the impending storm, are flying kites. 2

(interesting, isn't it, to hear commentary from the moment, opinionated as it may be. the brangwyn murals still exist at san francisco's herbst theater. updates to follow. bibliography to follow.)

the panama-pacific, that is! • part 1

ever since i read these words, i really wanted to know who won what for what: "The Panama-Pacific International Exposition held in San Francisco in 1915 included more than two thousand prints representing the history of American print making. There was one gallery each for prints by James McNeill Whistler and his follower Joseph Pennell, and
four galleries for modern prints, one of which was devoted
to color prints.

A jury that included Frank Duveneck and Pennell, both of whom had contributed to the revival of etching in America, awarded ten medals, eight of them to wood-block artists. Gustave Baumann won the gold medal; Edna Boies Hopkins, Bertha Lum, and B. J. O. Nordfeldt each received a silver medal; Elizabeth Colwell, Dow, and Helen Hyde won bronze medals; and honorable mention went to Pedro Joseph de Lemos and Margaret Jordan Patterson." 1

these are all my favorites -- all in one place! so i decided maybe we should go to the fair and find out!

LET'S GO!

well, okay -- we didn't exactly see any of those artists there (you did click the link, didn't you?), though of course we did see bernard maybeck's palace of fine arts. okay, we will, we will. but how about we get a lay of the land first.

the fair was built on the marshes of the north- west edge of san fran- cisco, where only a few years earlier residents squatted in tents after many homes were destroyed in the 1906 quake.

here's practically the same view, after the fair was built.

and here it is now.

looking in the other direction, we see the fair....

and the same area now. remember, it used to be marshland.

next up, we'll see some astonishingly gorgeous statures and murals, and some prints and paintings soon after that (and a full references & credits list) -- stay tuned!

JAPONISME Turns Three!

1795

.遠かたや青田のうへの三の山
ochikata ya aoda no ue no mitsu no yama

far distance--
above green rice fields
three mountains

1804

.雨だれや三粒おちてもけさの秋
amadare ya san tsubu ochite mo kesa no aki

from the roof's overhang
three drops...
first autumn morning

1812

.露三粒上野の蝉の鳴出しぬ
tsuyu mi tsubu ueno no semi no nakidashinu

three dewdrops--
Ueno's cicadas
break out into song

1817

.雪どけや鷺が三疋立臼に
yuki-doke ya sagi ga sambiki tachi usu ni

snow melting--
three herons perch
on the rice cake tub

1820

.親と子の三人連や帰る雁
oya to ko no sannin-zure ya kaeru kari

parents and child
three in a row...
the geese depart 1

APRIL

Nympharum membra disjecta

Three spirits came to me
And drew me apart
To where the olive boughs
Lay stripped upon the ground:
Pale carnage beneath bright mist.

Ezra Pound

DRINKING ALONE IN THE MOONLIGHT

A pot of wine among flowers.
I alone, drinking,
without a companion.
I lift the cup and invite
the bright moon.
My shadow opposite certainly makes us three.
But the moon cannot drink,
And my shadow follows the motions of my body in vain.
For the briefest time are the moon and my shadow my companions.

Oh, be joyful! One must make
the most of Spring.
I sing—the moon walks forward rhythmically;
I dance, and my shadow shatters
and becomes confused.
In my waking moments,
we are happily blended.
When I am drunk, we are divided
from one another and scattered.

For a long time I shall be obliged to wander without intention;
But we will keep our appointment by the far-off Cloudy River.

Li-Po

years, that is

fishing the second wave

after the first world war, a whole new wave of japanese goods flooded the west, producing a whole new wave of japonisme, though this time it looked much more modern. this was art deco, the next step for the line. 1

but along with japanese goods came japanese people, craftspeople, and therein lies our story, though we'll start much earlier than that.

According to a legend about urushi in the "Iroha-jiruisho" (compiled between AD 1177 and 1181), Emperor Yamato Takeru no Mikoto, a fictional figure and at the same time a symbol of the god of war, one day touches the urushi liquid dripping from a tree. He finds the black blaze of it of such rare beauty that he demands to have it painted on an object. He even appointed a ministry of urushi within his government. While this is just a legend, weapons and armours were indeed made by not only materials such as iron, stone or wood but also with urushi, and it was used as a rust preventing agent on weapons as well, this until the end of the Second World War.

The word 'urushi' has three possible etymological origins: the verb uruosu meaning to moisten as in slaking the thirst; the adjective uruwashii meaning graceful; and the noun nuru-shiru which refers to the 'liquid for paint'. What YamatoTakeru no Miko discovers is this very paint, richly glistening and full of grace.

In the Muromachi period (1333-1568) Rokuonji, the so called 'golden temple' was built, of which the whole first and second floors were painted with urushi and gilded with gold leaves that are five times thicker than the average. Urushi liquid was produced at full capacity, and urushiware became more popular to the common people and urushiware shops appeared in the big cities. Urushi artists paid tax with their skills and had special passports which gave them free way to anywhere in the country at a time when travelling was still very limited and restrained by the law. 2

At the close of Japan’s early modern era, Shibata Zeshin brought the art of lacquering to unmatched levels of technical skill and creative invention. In the 1840s, Zeshin invented daring new lacquer textures and finishes that mimicked rusty iron, rough seas, enameled porcelain, patinated bronze, or the delicate grain of Chinese rosewood. 3

In 1895 Samuel Bing, a German art dealer opened a fine arts shop called 'L' Art Nouveau Bing' in Paris where he sold Asian crafts and new style fine arts. The name of this shop was the origin of the art nouveau style in France and Great-Britain. In Belgium it was called the 'style moderne', 'Jugendstil' in Germany and 'Sezession' in Austria and it distinguished itself by a new two-dimensioned point of view in combination with an extraordinary decorative impression. Bing maintained a close respectful friendship with Zeshin Shibata, a great master in urushi and nihon-ga of that time, and therefore a great part of his art nouveau was remarkably influenced by not merely ukiyoe but also by the distinctive design of Japanese urushi works. 2

while zeshin continued to expand both his craft and his influence, another artist was teaching innovative lacquerwork in japan: shiramaya shosai. though i've tried, i have not been able to establish any relationship between the two men, but there's a generational difference between them; i believe the second could not have helped but be influenced by the first.

as zeshin was involved with bing, two other of his countrymen moved to paris. shoka tujimura, a student of shosai who would go on to win medals at the panama-pacific exposition in san francisco in 1916, and seizo sugawara. described as everything from a penniless immigrant to a japanese lacquer master, it was this second man who would have a major impact on 20th century craft and design.

In 1898 Seizo Sugawara, a Japanese artisan, immigrated to Paris to help restore lacquer at the Japanese pavilion on the international exhibition of 1900 in Paris.

In 1907 he met Eileen Gray, an Irish architect who started learning urushi after being influenced by him. Following her in 1912, the Swiss designer Jean Dunand too started learning urushi by Gray’s introduction to Sugawara.

Thanks to the Viet- nam- ese urushi, which was abundantly available since the colonization by France together with the traditional urushiurushi technique these two European artists were able to produce numerous urushi arts ware. Sugawara did not return to Japan and died in 1940 in France. It can be said that Sugawara had an influence on the fundament for the European artists to create urushi work by means of the traditional technique, instead of japanning. 2

trippy

when i was a young hippy, underground comix were all the rage, but of course we would never say 'all the rage.' we would say, 'far out,' or 'blows my mind,' or 'toooo much,' or maybe even 'outta sight!' but for sure we would say.... 'triiiippy.....'

i am here to remind you that trippy did not begin in 1968 (or even '67).

of so many of the japanese prints we've seen we might ask, 'what were they smoking?!'

the answer could actually be, 'the same thing you were.' not only was weed legal and enjoyed by many, but it's not such a stretch to see its effects in the prints (of yoshitoshi and kunisada especially).

'a fuckin' hole in my reality,' indeed.

however, there was much more to learn about from the prints beyond just the unpredictability of demons. there were all the other things the westerners were learning from the japanese at that time.

the outline. the strong graphic elements. the flat areas of color. the new and unexpected (to western eyes) uses of and juxta- position of pattern, color, and design. that so many of the prints were surreal goes without saying.

now i am not saying that dave sheri- dan (dealer mcdope) had seen jap- anese prints and used them for inspiration -- he may have, or may have not.

but i can suggest that some of their prede- cessors very likely did. artists like winsor mccay and frank king were wor- king at just that same moment where we here at japonisme usually hang out.

they were exposed to lautrec's posters, and the nabis and the printmakers of their times. they may also have been exposed to manga.

a comic book is a comic book, a super-hero knows no country.

the prints' surrealism of melting bodies and emboldened design has become normal to our eyes.

but imagine being
the westerner
seeing them
for the very first time.