Safran

de Niverville 1 Barbara Safran de Niverville Jan Avgikos, Faculty Advisor 04 April 2013 Japonisme: From Edo to Rothko It is easy to be charmed by the arabesque lines, graceful color and stylized details in traditional Japanese art. The Edo period, particularly, produced opulent, yet simplified, images of nature1 on screens, scrolls and prints such as Irises at Yatsuhashi (Eight Bridges) by Ogata Krin (1658-1716) or Flowering Plants and Vegetables of the Four Seasons (early 18th century). The depiction of plants and birds rivals the finest drawings in Europe of the same period (1615 1868). Much has been written about the opening up of Japan to trade with the West in 1854 following a 200-year period of seclusion. European artists looking for ways to break with European academic tradition adopted expressive line, abstract graphic style, decorative colors and dramatic asymmetrical compositions as a response to ukiyo-i woodblock prints and Japanese applied arts. This enthusiasm also coincided with a fascination for decorative styles. From the early 1860s, Japonisme could be found in nearly all media across a variety of stylistic movements. (Floyd) Jean-Pierre Lehman summarizes that Japonisme was born from the Edo era and was concentrated on the world of the senses: Japan was extolled as a land of ascetic superiority and sensual sensitivity. (758) An impressive number of western artists fell under the spell of Japanese prints and artifacts, including James McNeill Whistler, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, 1 Nature: that which is not directly produced by humans, and which acts independently of humanity. See Soper page 15.

Safran de Niverville 2 and Vincent Van Gogh. (Floyd) However, this enthusiasm was not without its problematic aspects. Images, and the attitudes and stereotypes which they give rise to, tend to be formed at an early stage of encounter between two societies; in other words initial impressions have a strong power of preservation. Following from this, it is clear that images rarely keep pace with reality. (Lehman 757) European artists tended to introduce external, stylistic elements of Japanese arts into their own work. For instance, James McNeill Whistler believed that borrowing Japanese motifs liberated his art from the narrative and moralistic demands of Victorian painting. Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen (1864) is a portrait of Joanna Hiffernan costumed in a sumptuous kimono, examining prints by Hiroshige. She is seated on the floor in front of a golden Japanese screen. The composition tilts slightly, as if Whistler is viewing the scene from above. Diagonals of the carpet add visual movement to an otherwise static arrangement, but the painting remains an occidental view of exotic artifacts. Another more well known painting from the same series, La Princesses du pays de la porcelaine 1863-65, hangs in the famed Peacock Room in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The model, Christina Spartalli, poses as one of the elongated figures typical of Chinese porcelain and Japanese ukiyo-I prints. (Freer/Sackler) Whistler succeeded in integrating Japanese elements in more minimalist compositions in his series of Nocturnes. Nocturne: Blue and Gold Old Battersea Bridge 1872-5 seems reminiscent of Hiroshiges prints of bridges in his One Hundred Famous Views of Edo series, while it stands as a signature piece of Whistlers work.

Safran de Niverville 3 Claude Monet also posed a model in an ornate kimono, his wife Camille, in the painting La Japonaise of 1876. Holding a fan, she wears a blond wig, as if to point out her European origins. Looking back in 1918, Monet called it a fantasy. He related that he had exhibited the dark The Woman in Green at the Salon of 1866 with success and it was suggested that he try to repeat it. He was shown the gold-embroidered robe, which became the focus of the light-hearted and airy painting La Japonaise. (Gimpel qtd. in Stuckey) In 1906, Kakuzo Okaruras The Book of Tea was published in an effort to explain Japanese traditions to the West. At the time, Okakura was known as a scholar, art critic and curator of Chinese and Japanese Art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In this essay, Okakura explained the peculiar orientality of the Orient and used tea as his symbol. (Bleiler qtd. in Okakura iii:xv) Teaism ia a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life. (Okakura 1) The contrasting of the opulent or the perfect with the impoverished or imperfect facilitates the appreciation of each. This Japanese notion of wabi, is a . . . quintessentially Japanese taste. . . . One of the hallmarks of the traditional Japanese design principle is harmony brought about by juxtaposing disparate, often contrasting, elements. The unity of the whole is designed to emerge spontaneously from the contribution of each element (Saito 377 - 379)

Safran de Niverville 4 Kamisaka Sekka (1866-1942) is often regarded as the father of modern Japanese design. His three woodblock-printed books A Thousand Grasses (Chigusa) produced between 1899 and 1900, are stunning samples of restraint, elegance and simplicity. They seem to form a bridge between Japanese tradition and Western modernism.2 Another key period in the exchange between East and West occurred mid-century in

the 1940s - 50s. The avant-garde beat generation in New York and San Francisco developed an intense interest in the Buddhist religion as an antidote for the paranoia and conformity of American society at that time. Resembling the earlier theosophists3, some Beats were convinced that eastern religion expressed an ancient wisdom required for balancing the excesses of western technological society. They envisioned a universal human community undivided, without obstacles imposed by ethnic origin or creed. The Beat poets introduced Buddhism to Americans in a refreshing way.4 (Chandler 312-13, 316) 2 On display in the Designing Nature: The Rinpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, May 26, 2012 January 13, 2013.
3 Theosophy: the teachings of a modern movement originating in the US in 1875 and

following chiefly Buddhist and Brahmanic theories especially of pantheistic evolution and reincarnation. Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed.
4 Allan Ginsberg stumbled upon Zen Buddhism in the New York Public Library in 1953.

He also found books on Chinese painting. In 1954, Jack Kerouac read various Buddhist and Hindu texts. (See Chandler 314) Beat poets frequented the same bar as Abstract Expressionist artists. (See Landau)

Safran de Niverville 5 The origins of the word 'beat' are obscure . . . More than mere weariness, it implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw. It involves a sort of nakedness of mind, and, ultimately, of soul; a feeling of being reduced to the bedrock of consciousness. (Holmes) Of the same era, Mark Rothkos paintings have been described by many commentators as representations of nothingness.5 The common characteristics of these writings is that Rothkos paintings, because of the reduction of figure, line, space and color, are on the verge of nothing. Natalie Kosoi maintains that Rothkos nothingness is reminiscent of Heideggers slipping away of the whole. . . . It is a state in which we touch the deepest core of ourselves. (27) The enveloping effect of Rothkos colored rectangles also recalls the oneness sought by practitioners of Zen Buddhism, who through meditation, seek to empty the mind and discover the center of their being. Shunryu Suzuki, an influential Zen teacher in America, taught that it is necessary to believe in nothing. This nothing has nor form or color, it exists before all forms and colors appear. Something appears from nothing in a phenomenal existence. (144)6 5 Nothingness: Non-existence, void, emptiness. Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. In her essay Nothingness Made Visible: The Case of Rothkos Paintings, Natalie Kosoi cites James E. B. Breslin, Barbara Novak and Brian O Doherty and Robert Rosenblum as examples.
6 I have quoted a small element from Suzukis seminal text, Zen Mind, Beginners Mind. See

the entire text for a better grasp of Zen concepts. Rothkos paintings have also been related to nothingness as death. See Wilkin for a full discussion.

Safran de Niverville 6 However, in 1943, Mark Rothko and Adolph Gotlieb declared in the New York Times, There is no such thing as good painting about nothing. We assert that the subject is crucial and only that subject-matter is valid which is tragic and timeless. (Gotlieb, Rothko and Newman) Perhaps these statements are indicative of the artists intention differing from the interpretations of his viewers. By 1949, Rothko had developed his classic style of floating rectangles, which have become synonymous with his style (Wilkin 28) and perhaps with nothingness, in spite of his comments to the contrary. Rothkos paintings intrigue me with their ambiguous manipulation of figure- ground relationships and their apparent simplicity of concept. The subtle colors amplify the sensation of being engulfed in a primal void. Earlier works such as No. 13, (White, Red on Yellow) 1958 seem to glow in a happier state than the dark canvases of the late 1960s such as Untitled 1967 and Untitled (White, Black, Rust or Brown) 1968. The close tonality of these later works creates an atmosphere of mystery and deepness.7 Despite their apparent simplicity, Rothkos paintings achieved a richness of color through hundreds of meticulously layered sheets of paint. He mixed his own paints, often with unusual materials. (Waters) Karen Wilkin notes that Rothko deliberately confused the conventional reading of pictorial space, creating ambiguity between distant and near forms, between depth and flatness. His paintings also blur differences between boundaries and colors, at times disappearing into dark monochromes. (28) This ambiguity approaches the Zen notion of oneness, of letting go of the duality of Western thinking. (Suzuki 2, 7)

7 These dark canvases seem to foreshadow Rothkos suicide in 1970.

Safran de Niverville 7 Although this concept can be read into Rothkos work, he was known to be more influenced by the nihilist8 writings of Nietzsche. (Lequeux 122 and Nehamas) As an artist, I can appreciate the splendor of Edo-period works like Irises at Yatsuhashi (Eight Bridges) as well as the restraint and elegance of rustic Japanese tea bowls and water vessels9. What I admire in these works are the figure-ground relationships, simplified line drawing, asymmetry and simplicity in the use of natural, rough materials. The notion of wabi, finding beauty in the unfinished or the rough, becomes a way of simplifying the tangled and baroque subject of my garden. Asymmetrical figure-ground relationships help me to arrange pictorial elements as I develop a work. The contrast between the perfect and the imperfect, the worn and the new can create visual tension in a subject that could descend into hackneyed sentimentality without it. In a different way, Mark Rothkos large canvases inspire me in awe and contemplation with their subtlety, drawing me into their depths. 8 Nihilism: A viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless. Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed.
9 View Gallery 280, Arts of Japan, Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

Safran de Niverville 8 Works Cited Chandler, Daniel Ross. "The Beat Generation And Buddhist Religion." Asia Journal Of Theology 21.2 (2007): 312-324. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 Mar. 2013. Ann Davis. "Theosophy." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. Floyd, Phylis. "Japonisme." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 26 Mar. 2013. Flowering Plants and Vegetables of the Four Seasons. Early 18th century. Ink and color on gilt paper. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

Freer/Sackler Gallery. Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen. Slideshow: Whistler. Web. 1 Apr. 2013. <https://www.asia.si.edu/explore/american/Whistler_slideshow.asp> Gotlieb, Adolph, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. Statement. New York Times. 13 June 1943. Art in Theory. Ed. by Charles Harrison & Paul Wood. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. 2003. Print. Holmes, John Clellon "This is the Beat Generation". The New York Times Sunday Magazine. 19 November 1952. Web. 26 March 2013. <http://websupport1.citytech.cuny.edu/Faculty/pcatapano/US2/ US%20Documents/beatgeneration.html> Landau, Ellen G. "Beat Movement." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 3 Apr. 2013. Krin, Ogata. Irises at Yatsuhashi (Eight Bridges) Ogata Krin (1658-1716 ) Date-

Safran de Niverville 9 after 1709 Edo period 1615 1868 six-panel folding screens. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Web. 1 Apr. 2013. Kosoi, Natalie. "Nothingness Made Visible: The Case Of Rothko's Paintings." Art Journal 64.2 (2005): 21-31. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 15 Mar. 2013.

Lehmann, Jean-Pierre.Old and New Japonisme: The Tokugawa Legacy and

Modern European Images of Japan. Modern Asian Studies , Vol. 18, No. 4, Special

Issue: Edo Culture and Its Modern Legacy (1984), pp. 757-768 JStor. Web.12 March 2013.
Lequeux, Emmanuelle. "Mark Rothko: La Lumire Noire. (French)." Beaux Arts Magazine 292 (2008): 120-127. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 15 Mar. 2013. Monet, Claude. La Japonaise. Oil on canvas. 1876. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Monet: A Retrospective. New York: Beaux Arts Editions. 1985. Page 84.Print.

---. The Woman in the Green Dress. 1866. Oil on canvas. Kuntshalle, Bremen.

Monet: A Retrospective. New York: Beaux Arts Editions. 1985. Page 24. Print.

Nehamas, Alexander. "Nietzsche, Friedrich." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 29 Mar. 2013.

Okakura, Kakuzo. The Book of Tea. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1964. Print.
Rothko, Mark. No. 13 ( Red, White on Yellow). 1958. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ---. Untitled. 1967. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ---. Untitled (White, Black, Rust or Brown) 1968. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan

Safran de Niverville 10 Museum of Art, New York. Saito, Yuriko . The Japanese Aesthetics of Imperfection and Insufficiency. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 55.4 (Fall 1997): 377385. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 14 Nov. 2012 Sekka, Kamisaka. A Thousand Grasses (Chigusa). Three woodblock-printed books. Private collection. Designing Nature: The Rinpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 26 May 2012 13 Jan. 2013. Soper, Kate. What is Nature? Culture, Politics and the non-Human. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1995. Print. Stuckey, Charles F. Ed. Diary of an Art Dealer 1918-1923. Ren Gimpel in Monet: A Retrospective. New York: Beaux Arts Editions. 1985. Pages 306-7. Print. Suzuki, Shunryu. Zen Mind, Beginners Mind. Boston: Shambhala Library. 2006. Print. Waters, Florence. Vandalised Mark Rothko Could Take 18 Months to Restore. The Telegraph. 21 Nov. 2012. Web. 29 Mar. 2013. Whistler, James McNeill. Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen. 1864. Oil on wood panel. Freer/Sackler Galleries, Smithsonians Museums of Asian Art. ---. La princesse du pays de la porcelaine. 1863-65. Oil on canvas. Freer/Sackler Galleries, Smithsonians Museums of Asian Art. ---. Nocturne: Blue and Gold Old Battersea Bridge 1872-5. Oil on canvas. Tate Britain. Wilkin, Karen. "Mark Rothko: The Decisive Decade." New Criterion 31.3 (2012): 42-46. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 15 Mar. 2013.