europe 1870 1900 & japanese art
TRANSCRIPT
Art in Japan – 15th – 19th cent.
Where you would ordinarily expect a line or a mass or a balancing element, you miss it, and yet this very thing awakens in you an unexpected feeling of pleasure. In spite of shortcomings or deficiencies that no doubt are apparent, you do not feel them so; indeed, this imperfection itself becomes a form of perfection. Evidently, beauty does not necessarily spell perfection of form. This has been one of the favorite tricks of Japanese artists – to embody beauty in a form of imperfection or even of ugliness.
-D.T. Suzuki, from Remarks on Japanese Art Culture
(detail from Takashi Murakami’s Army of Mushrooms)
Modern Japan – Architecture
Tadao Ando, Ando Gallery at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1992
• Mid 14th-century – late 16th century (corresponds to early to late Renaissance in Western world)
• Rise of Zen Buddhism emphasis on discipline, self-control calm, lack of fear and personal responsibility (zen = meditation)
• Imported from China
• Popular with Samurai (elite warrior class) and aristocracy
• Growth of visual art and architecture (temples) inspired by Zen Buddhist teachings
• Kano school (moment of enlightenment)
Japan – Muromachi
Kano MotonobuZen Patriarch Xiangyen Zhixian
Sweeping with a Broom, ca. 1513hanging scroll, ink and color on paper
Japan – Muromachi•Sesshu a Zen priest
• Admired Chinese Ming painting (traveled there)
• Haboku technique adapted from Chinese painting
• Broad, rapid strokes, includes drips
• Landscape bordering on abstraction
• Suggests form with few strokes (two figures on boat on right)
• Tension between spontaneity and control (Zen Buddhism)
Sesshu Toyo, splashed-ink (haboku) landscape detail of lower
part of hanging scroll 1495, ink on paper
Zen & American Abstract Painting
Pollock, Autumn Rhythm (No. 30), 1950, oil and enamel
Kogan, tea ceremony water jarMomoyama period, late 16th centuryShino ware with underglaze, 7”
Japan - Momoyama• Late 16th century – early 17th century
• Construction of castles and palatial residences
• Lavish decoration for castle interiors
• Including paintings, sliding doors, folding screens in gold leaf
• Tea ceremony important - mark of refinement
• Wabi (refined rusticity) & sabi (value in old & weathered)
Japan - Momoyama• Tea ceremony important ritual• Political and ideological uses• Meticulous selection of utensils and decoration• Prescribed ritual (entrance here involved crawling on hands and knees as sign of humility)• Oldest tea house in existence• Established standard (straw mats (tatami) set in alcove (tokonoma), decorated with scrolls• Dark walls, very small size (6 sq. ft)• Emphasis on intimacy
Sen No Rikyu, Taian teahouseMyokian Temple, Kyoto
ca. 1582
Japan - EdoDates and Places: • Edo Period (1615-1868) and
beyond • Capital from Kyoto to EdoPeople:• From openness to isolation• Militaristic (shogun & daimyo) • Rigid social order• Zen Buddhism supplanted by
Neo-Confucianism (loyalty to state)
• Growing merchant class, literacy rate, artistic patronage
• 250 yrs peace and prosperity
Map of Japan, fig.18-1
Japan - EdoThemes:• Secular themes• Landscape • Everyday life (entertainers)
Forms:• Abstracted, decorative form• Patterning & design• Flattened space• Fine counter line, flat color• Conceptual approach• Disregard for Western
perspectival methods Ando Hiroshige, Plum Estate, KameidoFrom One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
1857, woodblock print
SUZUKI HARUNOBU, Evening Bell at the Clock,
Edo period, ca. 1765. Fig. 18-16.
Japan - Edo
Ukiyo-e - “Pictures ofthe Floating World”
Japan – Edo • Colored woodcut print• Multiple blocks for colors and
lines• Prints cheap & readily
available • Ukiyo-e (pictures of the
floating world)• Transience and ephemeral
life• Genre themes (actors,
beautiful women)• Flat color, patterning &
decoration, strong contour lines, asymmetry
SUZUKI HARUNOBU, Evening Bell at the Clock, Edo period, ca. 1765.
Fig. 18-16.
Japanese Woodblock Printmaking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF3kbHJMVZg&feature=fvw
Photo credit Thomas A. Crossland
Japan - Edo
KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Edo period, ca. 1826–1833. Fig. 18-17.
HokusaiSelf Portrait as an Old Man
Japan - Edo
• One of the great ukiyo-e
printmakers• From the series Thirty-Six
Views of Mount Fuji• Colored woodcut print• Experimented with western
perspective, western materials
• Here incorporates Western
hue, Prussian blue• Graphic form
KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Edo period, ca.
1826–1833. Fig. 18-17.
East Meets West
Hokusai’s Manga
Japonisme
Ando Hiroshige, Sudden Shower on the Ohashi Bridge & Vincent van Gogh, Bridge in the Rain (after Hiroshige)
Watch Clip from “Crows,” from Dreams (Yume), 1990, Akira Kurosawa
Europe and America, 1870-1900
PAUL GAUGUIN, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? 1897
Impressionism – Finding Perfection in Imperfection
Dates and Places: • 1870 to 1890 • France, England, US
People:• Industrialization, urbanization • Leisure• Self-conscious modernity and
modernism• “The Painter of Modern Life”
(Baudelaire)JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL
WHISTLER, Nocturne in Black and Gold (The Falling Rocket), ca.
1875. Fig. 13-1.
ImpressionismThemes:
• Landscape, cityscape
• Urban life
• Leisure activities
Forms:
• Fleeting effects of light
• Unblended brushstrokes
• Plein air (outdoor) painting
• Influence of Japanese prints
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR, Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876.
Fig. 13-4.
The Lumiere Brothers’First Films, 1895
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nj0vEO4Q6s
Impressionism
CLAUDE MONET, Impression: Sunrise, 1872. Fig. 13-2.
• Name derived from painting title
• Formed society & exhibited own works, from 1874 - 1886
• Coined as derisive term by critic who thought paintings looked unfinished, haphazard
• Honesty of materials• Capture sensations of moment• Painted outdoors (en plein air)• Success of movement credited
to expanded art market and
aggressive art dealers
CLAUDE MONET, Impression: Sunrise, 1872. Fig. 13-2.
Impressionism
Impressionism
EDGAR DEGAS, Ballet Rehearsal, 1874. Fig. 13-5.
• Leisure activities of city dwellers
• Influence of imported Japanese prints
• Japanese composition, viewpoint
• Photography for preliminary studies
EDGAR DEGAS, Ballet Rehearsal, 1874. Fig. 13-5.
Impressionism
Impressionism
MARY CASSATT, The Bath, ca. 1892.
Fig. 13-6.
Impressionism
• One of two women who exhibited regularly with the Impressionists
• Most of her subjects were women & children
• Figures have solidity, surroundings more gestural, flattned
• Influenced by Japanese printmaking
MARY CASSATT, The Bath, ca. 1892.
Fig. 13-6.
Post-ImpressionismDates and Places: • 1890 to 1905• France
People:• Urbanization• Café society • Colonization
GEORGES SEURAT, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884–1886.
Fig. 13-8.
Post-ImpressionismThemes:• Urban life • Landscape• Exotic themes
Forms:• No single approach• Rejection of illusionism,
window onto the world • Expressive use of color,
line, brush stroke• Individual exploration of
feeling, mental state
VINCENT VAN GOGH, Starry Night, 1889. Fig. 13-10.
Looking at the stars always makes me dream…Why, I ask myself, shouldn’t the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? Just as we take the train to gt to Tarascon or Rouen, We take death to reach a star. - van Gogh
VINCENT VAN GOGH, Starry Night, 1889. Fig. 13-10.
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism
HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, At the Moulin Rouge, 1892–1895. Fig. 13-7.
• Bohemian Parisian nightlife (Montmarte)
• Influence of Japanese prints• Expressive exaggeration of
forms, lines• Oblique and asymmetrical
composition• Expressive use of non-local
color (garish, artificial)
HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC
At the Moulin Rouge, 1892–1895, Fig. 13-7.
Post-Impressionism
Symbolist & Fin-de-Siecle Painting
Dates and Places: • End of 19th century • Western Europe
People:• Hedonism,
pessimism, escapism at the end of century
• Influence of psychiatry and study of mind
Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1907-08, oil on canvas, 6’x6’
fig. 13-17
Themes:• Fantasy, dreamlike
images• Mysterious, exotic• Nightmarish
Forms:• Not a unified style • Expressive use of form
and color • Rejected illusionism
Symbolist & Fin-de-Siecle Painting
HENRI ROUSSEAU, Sleeping Gypsy, 1897. Fig. 13-15.
Symbolist Painting
EDVARD MUNCH, The Scream, 1893. Fig. 13-16.
Symbolist Painting
• Angst of modern, urban life
• State of mind, madness
• Expressive distortion of form
• Expressive non-local color
• Circular movementEDVARD MUNCH, The Scream,
1893. Fig. 13-16.
Sculpture
AUGUSTE RODIN, The Gates of Hell, 1880-1900, bronze, 20’10” x 13’1”
Sculpture• Realist and Impressionist treatment (play of light and
dark)• To give anatomy emotional
intensity and directness• Textured surfaces worked over
in clay, then cast in bronze• 20-yr. project, left unfinished• Inspired by Dante’s Inferno and
Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil• Almost 200 writhing, tormented
figures in low to high relief moving in undefined space
• Watched over by a version of The Thinker AUGUSTE RODIN, The Gates of Hell,
1880-1900, bronze, 20’10” x 13’1”
Renaissance vs. Symbolist Sculpture
Lorenzo Ghiberti, Gates of Paradise, Baptistery of San Giovanni, Florence, Italy, 1425
Rodin, The Gates of Hell, 1880-1900, bronze, 20’10” x 13’1”
Architecture 1870-1900
• Created for exhibition
• Honesty of structure and purpose
• Skeleton exposed
• Transparent
ALEXANDRE-GUSTAVE EIFFEL, Eiffel Tower, 1889. Fig. 13-19.
Architecture 1870-1900• New material: steel
• Skyscraper, open work spaces
• Rejects traditions
• “Form follows function”
• Limited ornament
• Honesty to interior organization
LOUIS HENRY SULLIVAN, Guaranty (Prudential) Building, 1894–1896.
Fig. 13-20.