europe 1870 1900 & japanese art

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.