Twelve Hours of the Green Houses (1794–1795)
(Photo credit: Wikipaintings)
Love to every one ♥
These are Utamaro’s depiction of each of the twelve hours of the traditional Japanese clock. The Hours constitute a series of ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world”) prints. Utamaro is the first of the three Japanese artists I have featured. His bijinga, or bi-jinga (“beautiful person picture”) earned him fame.
Animals
Each hour is named after an animal. Japan has its bestiary, except that the symbolism attached to Oriental animals often differs from the symbolism attached to animals inhabiting the Western bestiary. The significance of each animal has little to do with the “real” or mythical animal. These animals are anthropomorphic, i.e. humans in disguise.
Human beings have chronicled time, beginning with hours. However, months are also chronicled as are seasons: soltices and equinoxes. Meisho (“famous places”) prints show not only famous places, but people going about their everyday activities or domestic duties and some are divided according to seasons. Utagawa Hiroshige‘s series, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo is divided into seasons.
Japonismeis a French term. It was first used by Jules Claretie(3 December 1840 – 23December 1913) in L’Art français en 1872(French Art in 1872) 1913) in L’Art français en 1872 (French Art in 1872). I chose it to describe, in part, the Golden Age of illustration in Britain. The art work that was flooding Europe after Japan’s Sakoku (locked country) period were mere wood-block prints, or ukiyo-e, but no one questioned their beauty. They were in fact not only genuine art, but in many cases, masterpieces.
the Writer and the Illustrator
In Britain, Japonisme ushered in the Golden Age of illustrations. Both word and art could be reproduced very quickly. An author retained the services of an artist, John Tenniel, who, for his part, retained the services of an engraver or engravers. The engravers of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871) are the Brothers Daziel.
Although some artists could illustrate their text, which was the case with Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866 – 22 December 1943), the author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, in most cases, illustrating a book successfully required the collaboration and compatibility of a writer and an artist. The illustrations were then engraved, unless the illustrator was also an engraver.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Therefore, when JohnTenniel accepted to illustrate Lewis Carroll‘s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1871), he and Lewis Carroll had long discussions. John Tenniel was accepting his first commission as the illustrator of children’s literature. Until he agreed to illustrate Lewis Carroll’s Alice, John Tenniel had been working as a political cartoonist for Punchmagazine. He could draw, but the subject matter was brand new. Consequently, if successful, illustrating Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass could make history. Besides given that Lewis Carroll was a pioneer in the area of official literary nonsense, his task was all the more challenging. What was John Tenniel to do each time the text grew “curiouser and couriouser”?
Literary nonsense
Edward Lear (12 or 13 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) had published his Book of Nonsense, in 1846, a few decades before the Golden Age of Illustration. In particular, he had popularized limericks, a literary genre, poetry to be precise. Witty literature was not new. It found a rich expression in the Salons of the first half of the 17th century in France and it was, to a certain extent, related to the conceit(la pointe), the witty and ingenious metaphors of the metaphysical poets of 17th-century England. Literary nonsense would become a feature of children’s literature.
The flowers are beginning their masquerade as people. Sir Jonquil begins the fun by Walter Crane, 1899 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass were very successful and all the more so because children had gained importance. Although the mortality rate among children had not abated drastically, advances in medicine allowed parents to expect their children to survive childhood. Queen Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a Prince consort, and gave birth to nine healthy children who married royals.
Gutenberg continued: the Instantaneous, yet…
Moreover the success of LewisCarroll‘s and Tenniel’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, word and art, did make history. Johannes Gutenberg‘s invention of the printing-press in the middle of the 15th century had been major revolution, one of the most significant in European history. Well, a book had been produced that included fine reproductions of beautiful images. Printed books containing printed illustrations had been produced between 1500 and 1865 but Japonisme had eased the task.
The Calligrapher & the Artist
Compared to the labour of monks who copied books one at a time, Gutenberg’s invention made printing a text seem instantaneous, hence the revolutionary character of the invention of the printing-press. Let us also consider that the printing-press led to the growth of literacy which, in 19th-century Britain, was being extended to children as children’s literature was popular. However, if an illustrated book were to be a commercial success, producing the book demanded that word and art match in an almost inextricable manner.
What comes to mind is the collaboration between the calligrapher and the artist who illuminated such books as Books of Hours, laicity’s Liber Usualis. The printing-press had been invented but, as noted above, a good relationship between the author and the illustrator was crucial:
“There was a physical relation of the illustrations to the text, intended to subtly mesh illustrations with certain points of the text.” (See John Tenniel, Wikipedia.)
Japonisme
Printing illustrations, however, constituted a more challenging task than printing a text, a challenge that was eased by Japonisme.First, Japonisme allowed the rapid printing of illustrations. Second, it validated the work of illustrators. But third, it also simplified the duplication of illustrations.
Typically, the art of Japan featured:
a diagonal line crossing a vertical or horizontal line;
flat or lightly shaded colours;
a stark outline;
&c
Composition did not ease a printer’s labour, but flat colours and a stark outline, i.e. the linearity of Japanese wood-block prints, did help the illustrator and the printer. So did the use of flat colours.
Rackham’s work is often described as a fusion of a northern European ‘Nordic’ style strongly influenced by the Japanese woodblock tradition of the early 19th century. (See Arthur Rackham, Wikipedia.)
Rackham’s “Mad Tea-Party”, featured above, exhibits a diagonal line and it is a linear work of art. The colours are poured inside lines, which reminds me of colouring books for children. But note that there are few shadows. The cups and saucer do not cast a shadow, nor does the teapot. As for dimensionality, it is expressed through the use of lines rather than a juxtaposition of shades of the same colour or the juxtaposition of different colours. Wood-block printing allowed for a measure of dimensionality through the use of lighter or darker tones of a colour or colours. However, by and large, Japanese wood-block prints do not show the shadow of the objects they depict.
With respect to linearity, one need only compare Katsushika Hokusai‘s (c. 31 October 1760 – 10 May 1849) “Self-Portrait” and Rackham’s illustration of the “Town mouse and Country mouse”, shown in a previous post. Moreover, draping or dimensionality is achieved by using less lines (pale: close) or more lines (dark: distant).
Self-Portrait by Hokusai (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Town Mouse and Country Mouse by Arthur Rackham (Photo credit: Wikimedia.org)
Conclusion
Arthur Rackham’s illustrations are close to ukiyo-e(“pictures of the floatingworld”).Walter Crane, however, is the most prolific among Japoniste illustrators of children’s books. He illustrated a very large number of literary works. We are acquainted with his Baby’s Own Æsop (Gutenberg [EBook #25433]), but he also illustrated The Baby’s Own Opera (Gutenberg [EBook #25418]), songs for children. Folklorists, however, had collected and classified a very large number of folk tales.
Illustrators had countless tales to illustrate: those produced by the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Perrault, Madame d’Aulnoy. Anyone can rewrite the “Little Red Riding Hood” and illustrate it. Carl Larsson illustrated the “Little Red Riding Hood” in 1881. The Arts and Crafts movement was international. (to be cont’d)
I apologize for the delay. My computer is nearly dead and life has a way of making demands.
With my kindest regards. ♥
The Little Red Riding Hood by Carl Larsson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Twelve Hours of the Green Houses (1794–1795)
(Photo credit: Wikipaintings)
These are Utamaro’s depiction of each of the twelve hours of the traditional Japanese clock. The Hours constitute a series of ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world”) prints. Utamaro is the first of the three Japanese artists I have featured. His bijinga (“beautiful person picture”) earned him fame.
Animals
Each hour is named after an animal. Japan has its bestiary, except that the symbolism attached to Oriental animals often differs from the symbolism attached to animals inhabiting the Western bestiary. The significance of each animal has little to do with the “real” or mythical animal. These animals are anthropomorphic, i.e. humans in disguise.
Human beings have chronicled time, beginning with hours. However, months are also chronicled as are seasons: soltices and equinoxes. Meisho (“famous places”) prints show not only famous places, but people going about their everyday activities or domestic duties and some are divided according to seasons. Utagawa Hiroshige‘s series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo is divided into seasons.
Utawaga Hiroshige (1797 – 12 October 1858), also called Andō Hiroshige and Ichiyūsai Hiroshige, his art-name, is the are of three Japanese ukiyo-eartists who had a major impact on European art in general and the Impressionists in particular. Japanese art was sent to Europe after a period of seclusion called sakoku. We have now reached the third and last ukiyo-e artist I will feature. Other ukiyo-e artists, printmakers, sent their artwork to Europe. Ukiyo-e prints were extremely popular and inexpensive. The three artists I am featuring are considered the most accomplished.
Childhood and Training
Hiroshige’s father, Andō Gen’emon, was one of thirty samurai who were fire warden protecting the Edo Castle. Hiroshige therefore lived in the Yayosu barracks, in the Yaesu area of Edo (today’s Tokyo). It appears Hiroshige’s first teacher was another fireman who taught him in the Chinese-influenced Kanō style of painting. However, it could be said that Hiroshige was mostly self-taught. For instance, he taught himself the impressionistic Shijō style. In fact, Hiroshige had difficulty finding a teacher, but nevertheless apprenticed under ukiyo-e master Utagawa Toyohiro. He would however inherit his father’s position as fire warden.
(Please click on the images to enlarge them.)
Yui-huku (16th station)Kameyama-Juku in the 1830s (46th station)
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)(Please click on the images to enlarge them.)
Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (c. 1832-34)
In 1832, when his son was old enough to replace him as fire warden, Hiroshige was invited to join an embassy of Shogunal officials to the Imperial court and accepted the invitation. The road linked the shōgun‘s capital, Edo (Tokyo) to the imperial capital, Kyōto. Hiroshige stayed at fifty-three overnight stations along the road and made several sketches at each station.
According to Wikipedia, Hiroshige “carefully observed the Tōkaidō Road (or ‘Eastern Sea Route’), which wended its way along the shoreline, through a snowy mountain range, past Lake Biwa, and finally to Kyōto.” His series of prints, The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō, were extremely successful, and Hiroshige’s reputation was assured.” (See Hiroshige, Wikipedia.)
Famous Places in Kyōto (1834), Eight Views of Lake Biwa (1835),
Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaidō (c. 1837).
The success of his Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō allowed Hiroshige to devote his time to his art and to teaching. In all, he made about 5,000 prints. His last series, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, commissioned by a wealthy — if that is possible— Buddhist monk who paid “up-front,” which helped Hiroshige whose financial circumstances were relatively humble.
Hiroshige never lived to see the success of his One Hundred Famous Views of Edo(1856-1858).He became a Buddhist monk and started painting his Hundred Famous Views of Edo. He died, aged 62, during the great Edo cholera epidemic of 1858, but may not have been a victim of cholera. The Hundred Views were therefore completed by Chinpei Suzuki, a former apprentice who was married to Hiroshige’s daughter Otatsu and whose art-name became Hiroshige II. The couple separated and Otatsu married another student of her deceased father: Hiroshige III.
left: Hiroshige, “The Plum Garden in Kameido”
right: Van Gogh, “Flowering Plum Tree”
left: Hiroshige, “Great Bridge, Sudden Shower at Atake”
right: Van Gogh, “The Bridge in the Rain”
Conclusion: a “Human Touch”
“Hiroshige captured the very essence of what he saw and turned it into a highly effective composition. There was in his work a human touch that no artist of the school had heretofore achieved; his pictures revealed a beauty that seemed somehow tangible and intimate. Snow, rain, mist, and moonlight scenes compose some of his most poetic masterpieces.”[i]
In this quotation from the Encyclopædia Britannica, the keywords are “the very essence of what he saw” and “a beauty that seemed somehow tangible and intimate.”
These words describe Hiroshige’s art, but they can also be used to describe Impressionism, the words “essence” and “intimate” in particular. To a large extent, Impressionism is characterized by what seems a brief glance at the subject, capturing the “essence,” which still makes art longer than life,[ii] and the personal manner in which the artist sees a “reality.”
Beauty is not an absolute. It is, very much, “in the eye of the beholder.” As for reality, it is as manifold as the ways it can be viewed.
Hiroshige also influenced Mir iskusstva, a twentieth-century Russian art movement in which Ivan Bilibin was a defining figure.
______________________________[i] Richard Lane, ed. “Hiroshige.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 03 Jul. 2013. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266818/Hiroshige>.
[ii] As in:Ars longa, vita brevis.Resources:Andō Hiroshige (the most complete)Van Gogh dans la lumière japonaise d’HiroshigeTwo Women (Photo credit: probably, The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Hirochige
Muzyka czarodzieja Hiroshige. W tle chiński flet bambusowy yogi. Idealna muzyka do medytacji! (ideal for meditation)
Bamboo flute
Amour déclaré (Love Revealed) (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)
Amour profondément caché (Love Profoundly Concealed) (Photo credit: Wikimedia)
Trois beautés de notre temps (Three Beauties) (Photo credit: Utamaro [FR], Utamaro [EN], Wikipedia)
Woman Wiping Sweat from her Brow, 1798 (Photo credit: Utamaro, Wikipedia)
(Please click on the images to enlarge them)
* * *
In the middle of the nineteenth century, as of Édouard Manet, Japanese art was very influential in the west, particularly in France. The term Anglo-Japanese style was used beginning in 1851. As for the term Japonisme, it was coined in 1872, almost after the fact. By 1872, Japonisme had already had a significant impact on French art.
Many Japanese artists created prints. However, the better known are
We will discuss Kitagawa Utamaro, who lived during the Edo, or Tokugawa, period (1603 and 1868) in the history of Japan. He arrived in Edo, the current-day Tokyo, with his mother under the name of Toyoaki[iii]. Utamaro was a pupil of Toriyama Sekien at the “aristocratic” KanōSchool and may have been his son. He lived in Sekien’s house while he was growing up. (See Utamaro, Wikipedia.)
Utamaro created several series of woodblock prints. Woodblock printing is the traditional form of Japanese printing and it has genres. Utamaro preferred using the popular ukiyo-eprinting. It allowed mass-production of prints. According to the EncyclopædiaBritannica, Utamaro is the greatest artists of theukiyo-e(“pictures of the floating world”) movement.[iv]
Beginning in 1782, in the earlier part of his life, Utamaro lived with Tsutaya Jūzaburō, a publisher who always remained a friend. During the years he spent with Jūzaburō, it is believed Utamaro worked as an illustrator of Kyōka Suigetsu (Mirror Flower, Water, Moon), sometimes called crazy poetry. At that point in his career, he also painted dancers and actors, kabuki.Examples are available at Google Images.
Nature revealed
However, between 1788 and 1791, Utamaro produced books depicting nature (insects, birds, shell). (See Utamaro, Wikipedia.)
(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)
(Photo credit: Google Images)
Flowers of Edo: Young Woman’s Narrative Chanting to the Samisen,c. 1800 (Photo credit: Utamaro, Wikipedia)
However, as of 1791, Utamaro focussed on creating several series of studies portraying women, usually wearing a kimono. Such artwork, to which Utamaro owes the celebrity he enjoyed during his lifetime, is called bijinga (bijin-ga [FR]). Utamaro’s studies of women are considered among the finest bijingaukiyo-e prints. Some of his bijinga prints depict a woman and a child at various stages of childhood. It has therefore been suggested that Utamaro married and had a child, which is mostly speculative but poetical.
Utamaro enjoyed erotica. He painted the courtesans, or prostitutes, of Edo’s Yoshiwara‘s “pleasure” district. It is rumoured that he lived near the Yoshiwara district and that he may have been born in that district. Utamaro published thirty shunga (erotica) books, many of which are listed in Wikipedia. For examples of bijinga and shunga, click on Utamaro.
Wikipedia (see Utamaro) provides a list of Utamaro’s collections of bijinga(bijin-ga [FR]) and shungaestampes (prints). Moreover, according to Wikipedia, Utamaro is best known for his:
Ten Studies in Female Physiognomy; A Collection of Reigning Beauties; Great Love Themes of Classical Poetry (sometimes called Women in Love containing individual prints such as Revealed Love and Pensive Love); and Twelve Hours in the Pleasure Quarters.”
A Terrible Pity
In 1804, he was sentenced to be handcuffed for fifty days for publishing prints depicting the concubines of military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi (2 February 1536 or 26 March 1537 – 18 September 1598). This sentence, horrible torture,[iii] crushed a proud Utamaro emotionally and ended his career. He died two years later, in 1806, at the age of 53.
Utamaro had produced some 2,000 prints and a number of paintings called surinomo, also prints, but produced in smaller quantities and for a more refined audience.
Utamaro, an immensely gifted artist, was discovered in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, prints made by Utamaro, Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige brought to the West the Anglo-Japanese style and Japonisme, or Japanism.
Japanese prints “had a major impact on Impressionistpainting.” Impressionists were influenced by “[t]he clarity of line, spaciousness of composition, and boldness and flatness of colour and light in Japanese prints had a direct impact on their work and on that of their followers.”[v]
According to Wikipedia, “artists were especially affected by the lack of perspective and shadow, the compositional freedom gained by placing the subject off-centre mostly with a low diagonal axis to the background.” (See Japonism, Wikipedia.)
Orientalism had precedents in Europe. Byzantine art and, especially, the art of the Ottoman Empire left an imprint. Among other historical circumstances, the Crusades and the travels of Marco Polo[vi] (c.1254 – 8–9 January 1324) contributed to a knowledge of the Orient in Europe. Trade routes were established.
However, when works were brought from Japan to Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century, after a period of seclusion, named sakoku, Japonisme became a pervasive influence. It started to permeate European art, overriding movements and extending into the decorative arts and design. It may have dealt a blow to academic art, sometimes called “art pompier [pompous].”
9. 10. 11. 12.
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