Enthralled with Japan: The Prints of Henri-Charles Guérard

Henri-Charles Guérard (1846-1897) was one the most skilled printmakers of the Nineteenth Century.  He trained under Nicolas Berthon at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and his earliest etchings appeared in Paris à l'eau-forte in 1872.

Portrait of Henri Guérard at the press (1888) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(drypoint)

 Henri Guérard at his press (1888) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(etching with aquatint and roulette)

With the death in 1880 of Jules Jacquemart, Guérard replaced him as the leading reproductive print artist of the time.  Guérard also printed the etchings of other artists, such as those by Félix Buhot and his close friend Édouard Manet (whose favorite pupil, Eva Gonzalès, became Guérard's first wife).

The Boy with Soap Bubbles (1868-69) by Édouard Manet

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(etching printed by Henri-Charles Guérard)

Title Page for the Japonisme portfolio (1885) by Félix Buhot

 Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(etching in sanguine printed by Henri-Charles Guérard)

But Guérard was more than just a professional printer; he was also an original and innovative etcher in his own right.  Guérard would experiment with different types of paper, inks, and printing effects to improve or vary his images.  In "La Rue Chevert," for example, Guérard removed small amounts of paper pulp to pockmark the sheet to transform a cityscape into a winter scene and mounted the resulting print on Japanese paper speckled with gold to enhance the effect of the snow.

  La Rue Chevert (pre-1888) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(etchings with aquatint)

Inspired by the efforts of August Lepère, Guérard also made tentative forays in to woodblock printing near the end of his life.  As in the contemporaneous woodblock prints of Arthur Wesley Dow, Guérard would print the same design in varying colors to reflect the time of the day or simply to project a different mood.  In "Soleil couchant, Honfleur," for example, he would add a moon printed in white ink whose light casts a reflection in the harbor water below, anticipating similar effects in the prints of Kawase Hasui and Hiroshi Yoshida over two decades later.  Guérard's prints, however, rely upon much larger areas of flat color (and overall were of much larger size) than in the prints of Dow.

Soleil couchant, Honfleur (c. 1895) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(left: woodcut printed in black; right: colored woodcut)

Soleil couchant, Honfleur (c. 1895) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(colored woodcut)

Of all the French etchers, none embraced the Japonisme movement more fervently than Guérard.   I'm not quite sure exactly when the Japanese bug bit him, but he certainly was firmly under its spell by 1883, the date that Louis Gonse published L'Art japonais.  Guérard contributed more than 200 designs of Japanese subjects to this seminal work.

Porte-bouquet et crabe (1882) by Henri-Charles Guérard

[also used in L'Art japonais (1883)]

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(color etching with roulette)

It is also known that Guérard was well-acquainted with Philippe Burty, the French art critic, Japanese art collector, frequent contributor to Paris à l'eau-forte, and coiner of the term "Japonisme."  Burty, an enthusiastic patron of Guérard's work, was a particular champion of Hokusai, and no doubt exposed Guérard early on to Hokusai's oeuvre. 

 Philippe Burty (c. late 1880s) by Henri-Charles Guérard
Posthumously printed from an unpublished plate by A. Porcabeuf
and published in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol. 37 (1907)
Courtesy of Idbury Prints
(etching)

In Hokusai, Guérard found both inspiration and a shared sense of humor that was reflected in many of his mature prints.  For example, the following print of Japanese men playing a board game was directly inspired by a drawing in one of the volumes of Hokusai's Manga.  The three central figures are reversed, a not-uncommon result if a design is copied directly onto the plate.  Guérard, however, adds two flanking figures of his own while otherwise simplifying the overall design.  Although Hokusai's players appear to be playing a game of shogi, Guerard's men are using something more akin to a chess board.

Five figures seated around a board game and a fan (1882) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(etching)
  

Close-up of a page from the Hokusai Manga, Vol. VIII (1819) by Katsushika Hokusai

Courtesy of the British Museum

(woodblock print)

Guérard's sense of Gallic whimsy is particularly evident in his famous "Assault of the Shoe" print.  Here, Guérard appropriates Hokusai's motif of blind men attempting to scale an elephant and turns it into a fantastical comic romp with not-so-veiled erotic overtones.  (A version in yellow also exists, but the pink is particularly suggestive.)

L'Assaut du soulier (1888) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(color etching with roulette)

 Blind Men with an Elephant (1819)
from Hokusai Manga, Vol. VIII by Katsushika Hokusai
Courtesy of the New York Public Library
(woodblock print)

A characteristic of the Manga was Hokusai's multiple depictions on a single page of subjects (be they figures, animals, plants, or objects) sketched at various angles or in various poses.  Guérard utilize this format for a number of prints, such as in these etchings of his dog Azor and a series of possibly Manet-inspired black cats.

Azor (Hokusai Manga style) (1888) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(color etching)

Sept chats noirs (1888) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(drypoint with aquatint)

Two pages from Hokusai Manga, Vol. IX (c. 1814) by Katsushika Hokusai

Courtesy of the British Museum

(woodblock prints)

Guérard also made a number of etchings focusing on a single carved Japanese mask, as opposed to depicting an arrays of such masks as featured in the Hokusai Manga.

Masque Grotesque (pre-1888) by Henri-Charles Guérard

 Courtesy of Armstrong Fine Art

(left: cut-out etching printed in green; right: negative proof etching)

Two pages from Hokusai Manga, Vol. II (c. 1814) by Katsushika Hokusai

Courtesy of Arts and Designs of Japan

(woodblock prints)

In other cases, Japanese imagery was appropriated by Guérard simply because it was exotic or fashionably chic, adorning calendars, menus, business cards, and the like for people who traveled in the same circles as Burty, Gonse, Edmond de Goncourt, and Siegfried Bing.

Calendar (1884) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Personal Collection

(etching with drypoint) (intermediate state without dates)

Calendar (1884) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(etching with drypoint) (final state)

Japonais sur un encrier (1881) by Henri-Charles Guérard

 Courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Art

(etching with drypoint)

Business cards - Japanese subjects (1885) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(etching counterproof)

Fifteen uncut blank cards (c. 1880s) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(etching with roulette)

After the "Assault on the Shoe," my favorite Guérard etching is probably "Le rat prédicateur."

Le rat prédicateur (c. 1880s) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the New York Public Library

(color etching with aquatint)

Before winding up this post, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Guérard, more than any other European artist of the period, was the greatest proponent of the use of  the Japanese fan shape in decorative art.  Some of his etchings were made in the fan shape, and Guérard also created a number of unique fan paintings.

Fan with mice (c. 1885) by Henri-Charles Guérard

 Courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Art

(etching with aquatint)

Shadow Theatre Fan (1885) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of the Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers Univerity

(brush and ink on printed textile)

Untitled [Magpie] (c. 1890) by Henri-Charles Guérard

Courtesy of John and Lucy Buchanan

(watercolor on silk)

My thanks to Madeleine Viljoen, whose recently-concluded exhibition "A Curious Hand: The Prints of Henri-Charles Guérard 1846-1897" at the New York Public Library inspired this post.

 Self-Portrait Preparing an Etching (c. 1890) by Henri-Charles Guérard

 Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

(line etching with roulette and mezzotint)

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The Charleston Renaissance Part 1: The Woodblock Prints of Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

The Charleston Renaissance, which roughly spanned the period between WWI and WWII, was a time of cultural and artistic rebirth for a city that suffered mightily during the Civil War,  was economically depressed throughout the Reconstruction Era, and was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in 1886.  Each in their own way, the town's artists, writers, and historical preservationists contributed to the local art scene by preserving Charleston's remaining historical buildings, promoting tourism, and documenting daily life in Charleston and South Carolina's Lowcountry.  One of the leading figures in the Charleston Renaissance was Alice Ravenel Huger Smith (1876-1958), painter (and writer) whose remarkable woodblock prints are rarely encountered in the marketplace but highly prized by discerning collectors.

Alice Ravenel Huger Smith (circa 1900?)

Courtesy of sticksandstones

(photograph)

Smith was born into a prominent, once-wealthy Charleston family left in genteel poverty in the wake of the Civil War.  Other than some basic art training in classes held by the Carolina Art Association, she was essentially self-taught.  The Tonalist painter Birge Harrison, who used space on the Smith family's property to paint, was an early influence on Smith even though he declined to provide her with any formal instruction.

Sunday Morning at the Great House (c. 1935) from the series 

A Carolina Rice Plantation of the Fifties by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art

(watercolor)

Although she rarely traveled and never ventured abroad, Smith's work owes a tremendous debt to Japanese art.  Her friend and distant cousin was Motte Alston Read, a Harvard professor who retired for health reasons and moved to Charleston.  Read had assembled a distinguished collection of Japanese woodblock prints ranging from the black and white prints of the Primitive School to color masterpieces by the likes of Sharaku, Utamaro, Hokusai, and Hiroshige.  Read also had an extensive reference library on Oriental art, leading Smith to read such works as Ernest Fenollosa's Epochs of Japanese and Chinese Art.  Smith made an intensive study of the prints in Read's collection and created a handwritten catalog listing for each one.  Read's collection also included actual ukiyo-e woodblocks, which allowed Smith through trial and error the opportunity to learn how to print colored woodblock prints.

Abe no Nakamaro (1833), from the series A True Mirror of Chinese and Japanese Poetry

(aka Imagery of the Poets) by Katsushika Hokusai

Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art (from the Collection of Motte Alston Read)

(colored woodblock print)

The academic exercise of reprinting Japanese prints whetted Smith's appetite to carve and print woodblock prints of her own design.  According to Helen Hyde, who spent the winter of 1916-17 in Charleston and became her mentor and friend, Smith's first print was made sometime prior to May 1917.  Along with Bertha Jaques, President of the Chicago Society of Etchers, Hyde would provide Smith with technical advice and help her procure blocks of cherry wood and special Japanese paper to be used in her printing and carving efforts.  Over the next couple of years, Smith would produce five remarkable woodblock prints depicting Carolina Lowcountry scenes that, for my money, are more Japanese in character than any color woodblock prints made by any foreign print artist prior to the advent of Paul Binnie.  Only the prints of B.J.O. Norfeldt come close in my opinion.  Indeed, Jaques would write to Smith: "We surrender - both Helen Hyde and myself!  You have beaten us at our own game."

Alice Ravenel Huger Smith (c. 1915?)

Courtesy of the Charleston Museum

(photograph)

One of Smith's earliest woodblock prints is "Celestial Figs."  Commentators have compared this design to Hiroshige's vertical bird-and-flower prints or one of the Kimpaen gafu ehon designs by Kawamura Bumpo.  To me, however, it immediately summons to mind Camille Martin's lithographic cover for L'Estampe Originale, which in turn appears to have been influenced by prints such as those found in Utamaro's Picture Book of Insects or Hokusai's Squirrel on Vine.

Celestial Figs (1917) by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art

(colored woodblock print)

Cover to Album V of L'Estampe Originale (1894) by Camille Martin

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

(lithograph)

Grasshopper and Cicada (1788) from the 

Picture Book of Insects (Ehon mushi erami) by Kitagawa Utamaro

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

(colored woodblock print)

Squirrel on Vine (1830s?) by Katsushika Hokusai

Courtesy of the Ronin Gallery

(colored woodblock print)

Another early Smith woodblock print is "Moon, Flower and Hawk Moth."  Commentators have noted the similarity between this print and Hokusai's "Bat and Moon" print since both designs feature a large moon, winged nocturnal creatures, and an exaggerated yet cropped foreground prospective.  Smith's flower reminds me of some of the leafy vegetation in Utamaro's Picture Book of Insects.

Moon, Flower and Hawk Moth (1917) by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art

(colored woodblock print)

Bats and Moon (c. 1830s) by Katsushika Hokusai

Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art (from the Collection of Motte Alston Read)

(colored woodblock print)

Horsefly and Green Caterpillar (1788) from the 

Picture Book of Insects (Ehon mushi erami) by Kitagawa Utamaro

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

(colored woodblock print)

Smith's "Mossy Tree" print features one of Smith's favorite subjects, cypress trees with Spanish moss.  This motif would reappear in many of her later watercolors and in at least two of her etchings. This print shows her mastery of the technique of bokashi (hand-application of a gradation of ink to achieve a variation in color from dark to light).  It also appears to be her first print bearing her chop - a red diamond bearing a stylized Chinese depiction of her initials.

Mossy Tree (1918) by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

Personal Collection

(colored woodblock print)

 Moss in the Wind (1925) by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art

(watercolor)

 
 The Mystic Cypress (c. 1930s?) by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

Courtesy of the Johnson Collection

(watercolor)

With "Mossy Tree," one sees Smith making the transition from nature prints to landscapes, a genre she would again explore in "Moonlight on Cooper River."  Realism gives way to Impressionism, light, tone, and mood become more important than mere photographic detail.  Smith's color palette is not unlike that found in shin hanga landscape prints by Fukyo and Kawase Hasui.

Moonlight on Cooper River (c. 1919) by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art

(colored woodblock print)

Evening By The Water’s Edge (c. 1921) by Yanagihara Fukyo

Courtesy of Hotei Japanese Prints

(colored woodblock print)

Moon at Magome (1930) by Kawase Hasui

Courtesy of Gallery Sobi

(colored woodblock print)

Dusk at Ushibori (1930) by Kawase Hasui

Courtesy of Castle Fine Arts

(colored woodblock print)

Smith's final print was "Cotton Picker at Twilight," arguably more a figurative portrait than a landscape.   Both the vertical shape of this print and its subject matter remind me of the peasant mitsugiri prints of Takahashi Hiroaki (Shotei).  If anything, this print is more Japanese in spirit than any tourist print that Hiroaki ever designed.

Cotton Picker at Twilight (c. 1919) by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art

(colored woodblock print)

Twilight (c. 1920s) by Takahasi Hiroaki (Shotei)

Left: Personal Collection (pigment on silk)
Right: Courtesy of Shotei.com (colored woodblock print)

Why Smith stopped making woodblock prints is not entirely clear.  It certainly wasn't because she had any reason to be disappointed in the results.   Four of her five* prints were exhibited at the Chicago Society of Etchers exhibition held at the Art Institute of Chicago in April 1919 and were very well-received.  They were particularly admired by Frederick Gookin, the Buckingham Curator of Japanese Prints at the Art Institute of Chicago.  She would later say that the death of Motte Alston Read in 1920 made it easier for her to give up the medium.  Like many Western printmakers both before and after her, Smith also probably found woodblock printmaking a laborious and time-consuming profession that was not particularly lucrative.  (Smith would also give Elizabeth O'Neill Verner training in woodblock carving and printing.  Verner, however, never achieved Smith's level of proficiency in that medium and concentrated instead on making etchings.)  But the predominant reason why Smith abandoned woodblock prints seems to be that she found her artistic bliss working in the medium of watercolor and was lucky enough to have her talent in that medium recognized and appreciated by the art-buying public during her own lifetime.

Lotus with Heron (1925) by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art

(first state etching)

Other than a short stint making etchings during the 1923-1925 time period, Smith would spend the rest of her life painting watercolors. Her Charleston and Lowcountry scenes may depict innately Southern subject matter, but a Japanese aesthetic would continue to be responsible for informing her use of color and tone in such scenes.  To my eyes, they seem more authentically Japanese than the soft, misty watercolors of contemporaneous Japanese watercolor artists like Ito Yuhan.  Still, a woodblock print collector such as myself can only regret that she abandoned woodblock prints so early on, leaving us with only a handful of rare designs.  As it is, for an artist with virtually no formal art training of any kind to master the woodblock print medium on her own and produce works of such high caliber is nothing short of astonishing.  Had she continued in the medium, she undoubtedly would have become one of the foremost woodblock printmakers outside of Japan during the first half of the 20th century.

The Reserve in Summer (c. 1935) from the series 

A Carolina Rice Plantation of the Fifties by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art

(colored woodblock print)

 Deep Water (c. 1930) by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art

(watercolor)

The Reserve in Winter (c. 1935) by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

from the series A Carolina Rice Plantation of the Fifties

Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art

(watercolor)

 

Moon in the Mist (c. 1930s?) by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith

Courtesy of the Johnson Collection

(watercolor)

*In Japonisme Comes To America, Julia Meech states that Smith made no more than eight prints by 1924.  This number appears to be due to the fact that Smith's woodblock prints are frequently assigned alternate titles and/or exist in variant color states.  The five basic designs discussed above, however, are the only ones I have encountered unless one counts her early work printing from ukiyo-e blocks.  Nonetheless, I welcome the chance to be proved wrong and encourage readers to let me know about any other woodblock prints made by this extraordinary artist.

 

Portrait of Alice Ravenel Huger Smith (c. 1930s?) by Alicia Rhett

Courtesy of Deesign

(painting)

For more information on Smith, I recommend "Alice Ravenel Huger Smith: An Artist, A Place and a Time" (Carolina Art Association 1993) by Martha R. Severens.

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