museum tuesday

After the tsars

A number of objects found their way to the Hermitage after the revolution. These had originally been the property of individuals or private collectors and had been confiscated by the Soviet regime. In this fashion, a cupboard by the French trading company Escalier de Crystal arrived from the palace of Grand Duke Vladimir. This cupboard was a fine example of proto-Art Nouveau and illustrated the importance of Japanese art to the development of Art Nouveau during the last twenty five years of the nineteenth century.

The Hermitage Amsterdam will be dedicating its eighth exhibition to the beauties of Art Nouveau. The objects produced within this movement are the highlights of the Western decorative arts collection in the Hermitage in St Petersburg. This collection of Art Nouveau has not previously been on show in the Netherlands. Amongst the major works are the gifts to the last tsars made by the

glassmakers Émile Gallé and the Daum brothers; works by René Lalique and Carl Fabergé will also be included.

an exhibition at the hermitage amsterdam

•

Japonisme: Selections from the Elisabeth Dean Collection of French Prints

The Elisabeth Dean Collection of French Prints includes an extraordinary selection of lithographs and wood block prints indicative of the profound influence of Japanese art on many of the French Post-Impressionistic artists.

By 1862 the study and inspiration of Japanese art began in earnest and was marked by a keenly receptive cultural interest by Europeans in the Japanese aesthetic.

The nineteenth-century brought about a radical transformation of the role of the European artist. Instead of working on commission for aristocratic patrons, artists

in all media were more and more left to their own devices, creating works of art alone in their studios and then sending them into the market place hoping to attract a buyer and secure a sale. Innovative forms, new subjects and styles emerged from the changing economic structure brought about by the dawning of the industrial age and the importance of urban cities. The new clientele the artist sought to attract was increasingly comprised of the nouveau riche and the urban bourgeoisie and by the mid-nineteenth century the involvement of an anonymous public in artistic matters was an irrevocable fact that had been secured by mass production. New processes in lithographic printing and of the photographic print made art available to the general populace – the democratization of art coincided with the diversity of the japonisme movement of nineteenth-century France.

Fresno Museum of Art until Sunday, March 2, 2008

•

Félix Buhot, French, 1847-1893: Japonisme, ten etchings on yellow Chinese paper, 1885

the spencer museum of art at the university of kansas in lawrence apparently has quite a commitment to the art of printmaking, and have a very interesting collection.

in addition to someone who we've mentioned here before, gustave baumann, the museum has a collection from felix buhot, one of the earliest and thus influential french practitioners of japonisme.

grun: the first and last of cool

When the Bal Tabarin opened, it was a collaborative effort between two seasoned show-business entrepreneurs: Lajunie, the owner of the Treteau de Tabarin and Auguste Bosc, the conductor of the Moulin de la Galette orchestra. Located in Montmartre, which was already a thriving village on the outskirts of Paris, they hired Grun to design the poster. The result is one of Grun's last classic images, that is populated with many of the artist's favorite subjects: a sexy young woman in Grun's near-fetish, red dress, an older, "fun-loving" bourgeois and in the background a black dandy wearing a bowler. This is the original version of the poster. A later version exists where the black character has been replaced by a white man with a too-slick moustache.

Much of Montmartre's excitement at this time came from such activities as satires and performances that tested the limits of the cabarets and café-concerts, and bawdy displays in the dance-halls.

On the right the Catholic Church resisted repub- lican attempts to wrest educa- tion from its traditional grasp, both sides realizing that their future influence, even survival, depended on their ability to inculcate their own values, whether religious and hierarchical or scientific and egalitarian, in the next generation.

The liberalizing of censorship in 1881 was a republican reform that released the shackles of satire, sparking the cabarets, illustrated magazines, and climate of irreverence.

The critique of decadence -- drawing attention to society's class divisions, moral corruption, and sexual exploitation -- came from various quarters. Conservative forces might use it to condemn modernity in relation to the superior values of the past, while the left used it to promote its own radical agenda. The republic reacted defensively, with moralizing propriety allied to a degree of censorship... Songs performed in the cafés were controlled, Yvette Guilbert being obliged to drop a verse about lesbians from Maurice Donnay's song "Eros vanné."

Maurice Talmeyr accused contemporary posters of being a corrupting influence, typically modern and decadent in their feverish commercialism and lack of respect for women, religion, and authority, calling for them to promote more elevated values... it was argued that the recent proliferation of the multicolored poster was a lively counter to the regime's stuffiness.

The decadent critique was central to the "Montmartre" culture of cabarets, illustrated periodicals, and popular song... The easing of the censorship laws in 1881 gave scope for the younger generation's perception of the bourgeois republic as corrupt and venal, stuffy and hypocritical. During the early 1880s Montmartre rapidly developed into the locale where such anti-establishment attitudes were stridently voiced.

The momentum of this surge of pleasure seekers is downward -- it is, literally, decadent... The smart bonnets and top hats [in the artwork] reveal [the audience] as bourgeois; their fictive presence in a dance hall watching a working-class woman dancing provocatively suggests the decadence that the Montmartre entertainment industry so assiduously marketed. The decadent critique, taken from wider social debate and geared into commercial entertainment became what unified Montmartre in the eyes of Parisians, French, and foreigners.

By the later 1880s the dance halls of Montmartre were attracting more and more audiences from outside the quartier, and in 1889 Oller and Zidler launched the Moulin Rouge to capitalize on this by presenting a wide range of attractions. Growing activity and increasing investment led to greater media coverage and to still greater momentum within what could now be defined as the Montmartre's entertainment industry. That momentum is evinced by the rapidity with which the promotional machinery seized on a new "star" and propelled him or her into instant celebrity. Take the case of Yvette Guilbert, a nobody performing in the provincial cafés-concerts of Lyon in the summer of 1889. Yet by December 1890 she was being lauded by the influential journalist Jean Lorrain as a deluxe product: "the article de Paris most in fashion."

Success led to over-exploitation: a constant appetite for novel and not necessarily better acts... But by the mid-1890s momentum and originality were waning. The Moulin Rouge was increasingly a tourist trap; the Chat Noir closed its doors in 1897. The lively posters made at the turn of the century by artists such as Jules-Alexandre Grün were advertising a faded "Montmartre," in Grün's case explicitly, for the foreigner.

The quartier's subculture, based as it had been on a critique of contemporary society's decadence, had itself become shallow, exploitative, and decadent.

(mostly excerpted from coverage of the national gallery of art's exhibition entitled toulouse-lautrec and montmartre.)

clay

sometimes i'm just overwhelmed by the beauty of this stuff. does it appear that way to you too?

after a day of research, i'd say the most i've learned is that the clay in your location is very very important, and that many nooks, crannies & villages have distinctive styles of the porcelain/pottery that come from their town.


but i am so grateful that more every day is available online, that others seem to find this important as well, and that one can come across articles like this one. it's not precisely on topic with these particular illustrations, but it's not exactly not, either. it reveals more of the complexity of the incoming japonisme, and some of the importance of ceramics as cultural artifact.

and besides, it's by gabriel weisberg.

JAPANESE ART ON A PLATE

At the Paris World’s Fair of 1867 there was immense interest in a ceramic service decorated by Félix Bracquemond for Eugène Rousseau. It was considered to be revolutionary in the evolution of dinner-service decoration, as it was not only the first in France in which Japanese motifs were used, it was also the first to break from traditional schemes of plate decoration.

It at once became the touchstone by which other decorators using Japanese motifs were judged, and remained successful for decades. Other versions were produced after Rousseau (1827-1891), its primary promoter, sold his business in 1885 to Ernest Leveillé. He in turn sold it to Harant et Guignard, known as ‘Maison Toy’, in 1902. Louis Harant of Maison Toy continued to edit the service until 1938.

The Bracquemond- Rousseau service demonstrates that there was a commercial market for ceramic decoration in this style. However, while it may have been the first of its kind, and eminently successful, it was not the only early table service influenced by Japanese art.

In 1873-74 another service was shown at the exhibition of the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

Commis- sioned by the jeweller Frédéric Boucheron, designed and painted by Henri Lambert, and produced for Eugène Rousseau at Creil- Montereau, it is possibly as large as the Bracquemond-Rousseau service. Although comparable in quality to the earlier service, it appears to exist only as one set in a private collection in Paris, together with a few pieces in the Musée National Adrien Dubouché, Limoges, and there is no evidence that it was commercially manufactured.

As a result, it has remained almost entirely unknown, and is published here for the first time. Its story makes clear how ceramic decoration became the way in which Japonisme was introduced to a public that had the financial means to purchase such table services for their homes. (read the rest of the article here)

museum tuesday

from yarnstorm i learn today about the scottish colourists, whose wonderful works may be found at the kelvingrove art gallery and museum in glasgow, and elsewhere.

The Age of Enchantment

Beardsley, Dulac and their Contemporaries 1890-1930
The exhibition of British fantasy illustration will be the first such exhibition in Britain and the first worldwide for over 20 years. All works come largely from British museums and private collections, many of these will never have been seen publicly before. Borrowing from the past, illustrators such as Aubrey Beardsley, Edmund Dulac and Kay Nielson had lavish colour plates published in children's books such as The Arabian Nights, which became the coffee table books for a new age.

28th November 2007 - 17th February 2008 • Dulwich Picture Gallery • Gallery Road, Dulwich • London • 020 8693 5254

(featuring online lectures, videos, and comments on the times and the artists.)

GUSTAV KLIMT: THE RONALD S. LAUDER AND SERGE SABARSKY COLLECTIONS
October 18, 2007 - June 30, 2008

Spring 2008 WIENER WERKSTÄTTE JEWELRY
March 27-June 30, 2008

Summer 2008 NEW WORLDS: GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN ART, 1890-1940
July 10-September 22, 2008

Spring 2009 THE BIRTH OF EXPRESSIONISM: BRÜCKE IN DRESDEN AND BERLIN, 1905-1913
February 26-June 29, 2009

the neue gallery
1048 Fifth Avenue, at 86th Street
new york new york

regarding the neue gallery, christopher benfey (who wrote the great wave about the historical process of japonisme), in slate magazine says, "The stratospheric price that cosmetics maven Ronald S. Lauder shelled out for Gustav Klimt's 1907 society portrait Adele Bloch-Bauer I—reportedly $135 million, [is] the most ever paid for a work of art....

"No American has done more than Lauder, a former ambassador to Austria, to raise the visibility (and enhance the value) of often neglected German and Austrian art in the United States.

The Bloch-Bauers were Jewish and the Nazis liked Klimts. Adele died in 1925 of meningitis. After Germany annexed Austria in 1938, her husband fled to Switzerland, where he died in 1945, having left his art collection behind. The Nazis put three of the paintings in the Austrian Gallery and sold the rest. A complicated restitution case played out over many years, eventually going to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that Mrs. Altmann, who lives in Los Angeles, could sue the Austrian government in American courts for her family's lost property. In January, she was awarded the portrait of her aunt along with four other Klimt paintings, including a later portrait of Adele and three extraordinary landscapes (a genre in which Klimt excelled). During the legal maneuvering, Ronald Lauder remained a staunch supporter of Mrs. Altmann, and his loyalty was richly rewarded in the privately arranged sale."

all we are saying

Ev'rybody's talking about
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism
Isn't it the most
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Ev'rybody's talking about
Ministers, Sinisters, Banisters and canisters,
Bishops and Fishops and Rabbis and Pop eyes,
And bye bye, bye byes.
All we are saying
is give peace a chance
All we are saying
is give peace a chance




Let me tell you now
Ev'ry- body's talk- ing about
Revolution, Evolution, Masturbation, Flagellation, Regulations.
Integrations, Meditations, United Nations, Congratulations
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Oh Let's stick to it
Ev'rybody's talking about
John and Yoko,
Timmy Leary, Rosemary,
Tommy Smothers, Bob Dylan,
Tommy Cooper, Derek Tayor, Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg, Hare Krishna,
Hare Krishna
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

sinbad the buddha

i am not a hokusai expert, so i am still vulnerable to the wonder encountering a new area of his talents fosters. so when moon river mentioned a site with books illustrated by him, i went to check it out.

my first reaction was that these were different from any hokusai i remembered seeing; they were more narrative, with more depth to the characters. two books are offered. one is a collection of limerick-type poems (humorous, perhaps a bit ribald), none of which could i find a translation for. though the women featured look neither ribald not humorous, they do look more like real women than one usually finds in ukiyo-e.

my second impression, though, was that the illustrations in the other book(s), the life story of the buddha, reminded me of the illustrations from the era called the golden age of illustration.

when i first saw this one i immediately thought of s. clay wilson's 'the checkered demon.' but as i paged through the illustrations from edmond (or edmund--he changed it) dulac, i began to feel that the similarities were even more striking.

hmmmm, i thought... could dulac have seen them? "Dulac was born in Toulouse, France, 22 October 1882, the son of a commercial traveller. He began drawing and painting at a very early age, and his holidays were spent copying Japanese prints." 1

discussing another artist, bpib says, "Goble [was] well-versed in watercolor techniques and very influenced by the same Japanese techniques that fascinated Dulac." (though they don't mention this in dulac's bio).

according to wikipedia, "The Jātaka Tales [the books hokusai was illustrating] refer to a voluminous [547] body of folklore-like literature concerning the previous births (jāti) of the Buddha."

hmmmm, i wondered... could there be any actual relationship between these stories and the sinbad ones? or was the similarity of the illustrations merely coincidence, or perhaps inspiration?





"I have now followed the Western history of the Buddhist Book of Birth Stories along two channels only. Space would fail me, and the reader's patience perhaps too, if I attempted to do more. But I may mention that the inquiry is not by any means exhausted. A learned Italian has proved that a good many of the stories of the hero known throughout Europe as Sinbad the Sailor are derived from the same inexhaustible treasury of stories witty and wise." wrote thomas william rhys davids in 1880. 2

"These 'Jakata stories' about the Buddha were translated into Persian, Greek, Latin and Hebrew and formed the basis of some of the most famous story sequences of the Common Era - Sinbad, the Arabian Nights and Aesop's Fables - the latter being compiled by a monk in 14th century Byzantium."3

as has been mentioned here before, dulac was certainly not the only illustrator of his time to be influenced by the japanese prints. to mention only two others here by no means excludes anyone. in fact one would be hard pressed to find one who wasn't.

as dulac, along with arthur rackham and harry clarke and countless others demonstrate with their numbers, the phenomenon of japonisme was deeper and more labyrinthine than we have even begun to discuss.