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The first retrospective from the graphic art collection, presented at the Guimet museum of Asian arts, from 21st May to 4th August 2008. This exhibition forms part of the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and Japan.
Exhibition organised with the exclusive support of Crédit Agricole.
Media partners are Arte, Evène.fr, France musique, Le Monde 2, Métro and. Métrobus.
In partnership with Thalys
« Since the age of 6 years old, I have had a passion for drawing the shapes of objects. By about 50, I had published innumerable drawings, but I am dissatisfied with everythingI produced before the age of 70. It’s now, at 73 years, that I have just about understood the form and true nature of birds, fish, plants, etc. So, by the time I am 80, I will have made much progress, I will reach the bottom of things; and by 100, I will decidedly have attained a higher state, indefinable, and by the age of 110 everything – whether it be a line, or a dot – will be living. I ask those who will be alive with me then to see if I keep my word. Written at the age of 75, by me, formerly Hokusai, now Gakyo Rojin, the old man crazy about drawing.» Katsuhika Hokusai, Postscript to One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji.
Biographical aspects
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), was indisputably the most famous and talented Japanese painter and draughtsman of his generation, and the first to find recognition and renown abroad. He was accomplished in many genres, being a specialist in Ukiyo-e, and also a master of calligraphy. Hokusai has long been popular in Europe. His life seems like a touching quest for perfection, composed of six major periods, a journey which is retraced in the course of the exhibition. An artist of the people, he died almost ignored, if not despised, by the aristocratic class. The huge popularity of his talent amongst the lower classes barely extended to the middle-class literati and artistic dabblers. His huge following of fans mainly consisted of traders, craftsmen, courtesans and those who frequented the Edo (Tokyo) tea-houses. While his influence on the classical art schools of Kyoto and on the nobility and courtly society may have remained almost non-existent, it nonetheless played a decisive part on the evolution on Ukiyo-e and the fate of the decorative arts - for example, through colour imagery and the adornment of everyday objects. Japan remains the heir to this influence today. Hokusai represents the final stage of landscape prints in Nipponese national art before the invasion of European approaches and ideas.
Ukiyo-e, images from the « Floating World »
The Japanese woodcut print is a team effort: The draughtsman (eshi) provides his model to the engraver (horishi), who transfers the work onto wood and gives it to the printer (surishi). The quality of the final work, made to be sold to as large a public as possible, will depend on the technical ability of these three intermediaries. The art of Ukiyo-e, images of the floating world, was born in Edo (1603 – 1867, present-day Tokyo). It reflects the passion of the theatre, the restaurants, the geishas and the shunga (erotic images), but also the importance of nature and tradition. The themes are often linked to the representation of kabuki actors, but also to love, erotica, and the feminine ideal of delicate forms. The Bijin, images of beautiful women, evoke a world both voluptuous and ephemeral. Whether they are courtesans, prostitutes or simply ordinary women, their posture, their clothes and the way they are made-up, form a language which must be decoded to understand Japanese art in the Edo period.
Lastly, it is the landscape that triumphs in the 19th Century. Hokusai knew about Western painting and linear perspective; conversely, this master seduced the French Symbolist painters, such as Bonnard, and the Post-Impressionists, such as Van Gogh. The Japanese prints were already circulating in France by the 1860’s. Introduced by artists and specialist dealers, they arrived in great numbers (after 1868) when Japan opened up her borders to the world.
The Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and the Great Wave
The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji is a series of 46 prints produced by Hokusai (1760 – 1849) thought to be published between 1831-1833 and 1840. It depicts Mount Fuji seen from different locations, and in different seasons. This series is very famous today as a milestone marking the adoption of Western modes of representation, in particular the perspectives used in painting, into traditional Japanese themes. (The oldest of several artistic depictions of Mount Fuji seems to date from the 9th Century). Around 1830, Hokusai probably contacted the publisher Nishimuraya Yohchi to submit his project of engraving a series of large landscape prints on this specific theme. Ten prints were issued initially, including, the Great Wave off Kanagawa, Fuji in Clear Weather, and the Storm beneath the Summit. These enjoyed immediate success, and are often considered the three most famous Japanese prints. The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji is one of the first series entirely devoted to landscape and produced in large (oban) format, and in doing this Hokusai revolutionised painting during that period. However, while Mount Fuji is the unifying aspect of the series, its depiction is not the main objective, but rather the illustration of the relationship between humankind and nature: « The theme of the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji is the relationship between humankind and nature, and the greatest invitation to deepen this relationship lies precisely where man is not depicted (which does not prevent him from being present – in the eye of the beholder). » (Kenneth White)
Prussian Blue (the blue revolution) of the 1830’s
The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji have enjoyed great success, thanks to the plastic quality of the prints, and their originality. In particular, two aspects of this series have contributed to its renown: the use of Prussian blue and the influence of Western modes of representation. Prussian blue, also known as Berlin blue, was a pigment imported from Holland only since 1820, and it is found in the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, especially in the Great Wave, Shichirigahama Beach in Sagami Province, and even in Suwa Lake in Shinano Province. It transformed the appearance of the prints; it was used by the painter for the first time in 1929 and was instantly successful. Artists favoured the use of this synthetic colour which would not lose its intensity over time. Forced by censorship to use only a limited number of colours, they used it all the more, realising the unlimited possibilities offered by this single blue. Prussian blue became so popular that Hokusai’s publisher brought out an edition, in aizuri-e (blue prints), of some of the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji before publishing the series with the other colours included. Not all the prints in the series are based on this pigment, all the same the whole ensemble resonates with a certain blue tone, « it is the blue, perhaps, of space and eternity (with the material advantage that this Prussian blue retains its vibrancy for a long time, while other blues quickly fade). » (Kenneth White)
The influence of Western modes of representation
The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series is famous not so much for the wide diversity of themes it depicts, but because some of the prints express a vision of landscape that is purely Japanese, while others, in a natural and balanced fashion, employ the principles of Western perspective. Thus in her work, The Japanese Print, Nelly Delay highlights this aspects found in the prints: « These prints are so natural and spontaneous that it is hard to imagine that they could have been the culmination of a determined project. However, as soon as this idea strikes you, the skilful interplay of lines is obvious. The strength of a focal point, which causes the eye to fan out in different directions, and the strength of the diagonals, which divide the composition into sections, prove that these prints, beyond their poetic atmosphere, appeal to our aesthetic sensitivity, as well as to our spirit. To travel inside the landscapes from then on carries added interest. »
Form and composition were always very important for Hokusai. In the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, geometric forms such as the square and the rectangle, the circle and the triangle, play a vital role in the design of the depicted scenes. For example, in the image of the fisherman of Kajikazawa, Hokusai uses a triangular design: the triangle of Mount Fuji is echoed in the triangle formed by the rock, the fisherman and his lines. When he represents the Honjo saw-mill, he constructs his print with simple geometric shapes such as squares and straight lines. Hokusai incorporates his simple geometric shapes in a poetic climate. The influence of the western style of representation can be seen particularly in the Seruga street in Edo, in which Hokusai adopts an almost entirely Western perspective by placing Mount Fuji’s summit between the two buildings of the Mitsui shop where workers are covering the roof.
The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji has revolutionised Japanese painting –notably by elevating landscape to the status of being the main subject - but this series has also been a source of very important inspiration for the western Japanist painters of the 19th Century. One can see this in the work of several painters, who in some cases were also collectors: Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Pisssaro, Klimt, Giuseppe de Nittis or Mary Cassatt. Monet’s Bridge over a Pool of Water Lilies (oil on canvas, 1899) seems to be inspired by the architecture of bridges such as those found in several of prints in Hokusai’s prints. The Great Wave off Kanagawa, when it was discovered in Europe in the second half of the 19th century, influenced many painters and also some poets: for Debussy, this print was the greatest source of inspiration in composing The Sea.
The Private Collections in Pride of Place
Japanism and collectors
The particular interest in Japan of the Second Empire, whether in the political, economic or cultural fields, began in France. It started with the collectors of Japanese art, who exhibited the works that they possessed. The very first prints in Europe were shown in Paris. A small group of Japanese art enthusiasts joined together in Paris, including the Goncourt brothers (Edmond de Goncourt is the author of the first monograph devoted to Hokusai), Baudelaire, Frederic Villot, the industrialist Falize, Cernuschi....
In 1856, Braquemond became the first European artist to copy Japanese works. He chose a work by Hokusai. Japanism thus salvaged works which would otherwise have disappeared, and created a new perspective on Japanese art. Soon after, Japanese art began to be appreciated on a much wider scale. Collectors and art critics travelled to Japan in the 1870’s and 1880’s and contributed to the spread of Japanese works across Europe, and most especially in France. In 1871 Henri Cernuschi and Theodore Duret went to Japan where they gathered the first items of their future collections.
While the American intellectuals refuted the view of French art criticism, which saw the print as a supreme form of Japenese art, ukiyo-e became a new source of inspiration for the European impressionist painters. In a series of articles published in 1872 for the Renaissance litteraire et artistique review, collector Philippe Burty gave a name to the revolution: Japanism. Artists barely known in Japan, producing an art considered as slight and popular by the Japanese elites of the time, went on to inspire the European artists adept in this art. In 1876, Émile Guimet and Félix Régamey also travelled to Japan and brought back important collections – essentially of Buddhist art – which would form the basis of a future museum in Lyon, and then in Paris.
Pierre Loti’s novel, Madame Butterfly, published in 1887, furthered the popularity of this trend. The World Fairs in Paris in 1889 and 1900 – when even the Emperor Meiji offered some pieces from his personal collection – put Japan in the spotlight and presented many works from Bing’s and Tadamasa’s collections (both antique dealers specialising in Japanese curios), as well as from those of Cernuschi, Burty and Guimet. Japan was particularly well represented in the fields of architecture, woodprints and pottery. From 1892, Japanese works were added to the Louvre’s collections.
The Goncourt brothers
Japanese collectors in Edmond de Goncourt’s time formed a veritable circle: they all knew each other and met together at Japanist dinners, at Véfour or at café Riche. Amongst them, Henri Vever, who had set up business as a jeweller in 1881 with his brother Paul in Paris, offered some Japanese prints to the Louvre in 1893, which were the first to enter the gallery (they are now kept in the Guimet museum). The charm and interest of the Goncourt collection is not limited to geishas, but also lies in the painted notebooks where « there is a succession of men, women, animals, birds, fish, [...] right down to a flower petal, a pebble, a blade of grass » The Goncourt brothers were determined that their collections would not disappear into various museums’ reserve stocks. Other collectors preferred to give them to the large national museums and galleries. Lastly, some others (like Émile Guimet, Henri Cernuschi, or d’Ennery) successfully established their own museums based on their collections. The true historic value of these collections would not be recognised until the end of the twentieth century. The recent re-evaluation of Emile Guimet’s Buddhist pantheon, bringing together unique works, shows with how much skill and delicacy the 19th century collectors built up their collections.
The Berès collection
Renewing a tradition that stretched back to the Goncourt brothers, Huguette Berès led generations of Westerners to rediscover and appreciate the art of the Japanese print, and to become faithful enthusiasts of Japanese art, by organising several very successful exhibitions in France and further afield. After her death on 2nd November 1999, two posthumous sales in 2002 and 2003 allowed the French government to acquire major works which have substantially enriched the Guimet Museum’s Japanese collection, i.e., the acquisition of a revealing collection of preparatory drawings, and a very rare print of Mount Fuji in Blue, both from a fabulous collection of Japanese prints arising from her passion, especially for Hokusai.
The Norbert Lagane donation
Forming part of these changes, and very soon fascinated by Japan, Norbert Lagane (1921-2004) began frequenting the Parisian art markets, then trained his eye by visiting the European and American galleries and museums. His friendship with Aoyama Saburo, a Japanese antique-dealer who set up business on the Quai Saint Michel, lies behind the enrichment of one part of his collection, and of his encyclopaedic knowledge. Wanting to share his love of Japanese art, this generous donor made his donation in 2001, from an outstanding collection made up of 180 major works, to the Guimet Museum. Ten paintings – among which Hokusai’s now famous « Dragon in the Clouds », which forms a diptych with the « Tiger in the Rain » , housed in the Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Tokyo – and more than a hundred prints, many of exceptional quality, have so been added to the Guimet Museum’s Japanese art collection.
Conclusion
With the Japanist movement at its height in France, the collectors knew how to select works of very high technical and aesthetic quality. Many are signed by Hokusai, the modernist who revived the art of the Japanese print, famous for his series of landscapes, or nocturnal views of snowy mountains from Edo, and, in particular, his images of Mount Fuji. Never satisfied with his work, and always with a keen curiosity, Hikusai was interested in all the pictorial schools without ever aligning himself with any of them. He turned his hand to all aspects of the draughtsman’s art, while also painting impressive kakemonos, which are sought after today as priceless objects. He also worked especially on book illustrations, on using colours in engravings, on teaching models which are fought over by expert collectors.
His opus is immense; a small glimpse is given by this first retrospective of the Guimet Museum’s Hokusai collection, built up over the years, and offering a new interpretation of his work. It is an exciting homage to the artist, who speaks to us softly in this exhibition, collectors having humbly enabled us to appreciate all the beauty and originality of images which, in both form and content, have revitalised the possibilities of expression developed by European painting. His work shines like a mirror in which Japanese customs, life and nature are reflected with striking intensity. « Encyclopaedia of a whole country, the human comedy of a whole people » configuring a world of infinite perspectives, the art of Hokusai has not yet yielded all it secrets, as the dazzled gaze does not yet know how to gauge its full extent...
Thanks to Crédit Agricole :
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