New Journal of Japonisme

The Dutch publisher Brill recently launched a new publication called the Journal of Japonisme.  Its managing editor is Gabriel P. Weisberg, the author of a number of books on the subject, including (with Julia Meech-Pekarik) the seminal work Japonisme Comes to America: The Japanese Impact on the Graphic Arts 1876-1925 (Harry N Abrams 1990).

My copy of the first issue hasn't arrived yet, so I can't substantively comment on its contents, but I can report that it welcomes manuscripts from a wide range of disciplines of the humanities: history, visual culture including the history of art and design, the decorative arts, painting and the graphic arts, architecture, fashion, film, literature, aesthetics, art criticism, and music, provided that they show how Japanese art and culture influenced and permeated Western society and culture since the opening of Japan to the West in the 1850s.  In addition, the journal will also consider articles addressing Japanese art and artistic cross-cultural relations within the Asian region, as well as on institutional or individual collectors of Japanese art in the West.  The journal is published in English and all articles are subject to peer review before publication.

In addition to three book reviews, the first issue contains the following articles:

Reflecting on Japonisme: The State of the Discipline in the Visual Arts by Gabriel P. Weisberg

The Bracquemond-Rousseau Table Service of 1866: Japoniste Ceramics and the Realignment of Medium Hierarchies in Nineteenth-Century French Art by Sonia Coman

Eastern Wind, Northern Sky: Japanese Art and Culture in A Danish Optic in the Latter Half of the 19th and the Early 20th Centuries by Malene Wagner

Japonisme and the Birth of Cinema: A Transmedial and Transnational Analysis of the Lumière Brothers' Films by Daisuke Miyao

Water Lilies Among the Wheat Fields: John Scott Bradstreet's Japanese Gardening in Minneapolis by Sarah Sik

The journal is available in both paper and electronic formats.  Those wishing to subscribe can do so here.  The second issue will feature an article about S. Bing's famed 1890 ukiyo-e exhibition, Exposition de la gravure japonaise à l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts à Paris.

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Demimonde: The Floating World and Toulouse-Lautrec

Those living in or near New York City or otherwise passing through New York City this spring may be interested in a exhibition at the Ronin Gallery called "Demimonde: The Floating World of Toulouse-Lautrec.  The exhibition displays 24 lithographs and etchings by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and pairs them with more than two dozen ukiyo-e prints and paintings by the likes of Utamaro, Harunobu, Sharaku, Hokusai, and Shunko.  Some of the connections made relate to Lautrec's appropriation of certain Japanese art conventions.  In other cases, thematic or stylistic parallels are drawn as Lautrec's denizens from fin-de-siècle Parisian nightlife are juxtaposed against figures from the Floating World.

May Belfort (1895) by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec  Courtesy of Ronin Gallery  (lithograph)

Tamaya at Kameido (c. 1826) by Utagawa Kunisada Courtesy of Ronin Gallery (woodblock print)

For example, as Ronin's catalog relates, "[i]n the tour poster for the Irish-born singer May Milton, Lautrec echoes the curving lines and integrated text of Kunisada's Tamaya at Kameido.  Each artist delineates his standing beauty through the flat color planes of her clothing, vibrant and graphic against the natural tone of the paper.  Lautrec echoes the small pink lips of Kunisada's courtesan in Belfort's rounded pout.  Belfort was well known for her signature black cat and oversized baby's bonnet, which Lautrec portrays with a geometric quality reminiscent of a courtesan's coiffure."

May Milton (1895) by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec  Courtesy of Ronin Gallery  (lithograph)

Courtesan Segawa from the House of Matsubaya (c. 1802) by Kitagawa Utamaro Courtesy of Ronin Gallery (woodblock print)

At first blush, one could say that such parallels were entirely coincidental, especially since one would expect Belfort to be depicted in her signature bonnet.  But when one examines Lautrec's companion poster for May Milton (Belfort's lover), it becomes clear that the placement of the "lt" letters of Milton's name relative to her head was anything but coincidental.  Just as Utamaro has his geisha gazing left with the layers of her kimono fanning out, so too Lautrec's dancer similarly gazes left while her voluminous skirt swirls around her.  Even Milton's foot appears slightly raised off the ground, mimicking Utamaro's attendant with her lifted geta sandal.  The overall effect is to evoke Utamaro's balance of static and action.

Boats Alongside Billingsgate, London (1859) by James Whistler  Courtesy of Ronin Gallery  (etching)

Full Moon over Takanawa (c. 1845) by Ando Hiroshige Courtesy of Ronin Gallery (woodblock print)

In addition to the pieces by Lautrec, Ronin's exhibition also features a number of additional Japonisme prints by Mary Cassat, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Édouard Vuillad, Pierre Bonnard,  James Tissot, and James Whistler.  Whistler's debt to Hiroshige in his Boats Alongside Billingsgate, London etching is palpable.

While there is no substitute for viewing the prints full-size and in person, Ronin's entire exhibition is on-line and can be viewed (for the time being, at least), here.  Viewers can click on a bar under each print pairing to reveal a discussion of how each print is related to the other.  The exhibition itself continues at Ronin's gallery through April 30, 2016.

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