Essay: Japonism

Hokusai - Great wave off Kanagawa

Recreations
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVH07f5KOorPNw-d6LSwsldHHUpQqCDnnYRRzEuOTmpys-BqD4a6HJo3yuD0q0NEnsCE5o3mLrEmyaxTWscsbx9AoDTpcm0LnDmqTOo9WndWE4qnprdKRuprEwYMMk3EYu-2KVLMLhfPE/s1600/Great+Wave+2011_OilStick_1.JPG

 http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/088/d/4/great_wave_on_the_great_sea_by_sirnosh-d4ucb0g.jpg

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Van Gogh and Hiroshige

 http://www.awesome-art.biz/Awesome/images/medium-vg2/Japonese%20tree%20(after%20Hiroshige%20by%20Van%20Gogh.jpg

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/hiroshige/plum.jpg

A sea of Japanese art washed over Europe towards the second half of the 19^th century after japan reopened its borders for trading after 200 years of being shut off from Europe. Around the late 1630s religion was becoming more and more common in Spain and Portugal, so as a way to isolate itself from religious and colonial influences which were thought to pose a threat to the Shogunate’s stability, Japan closed itself off to trade with outside countries. Between 1639 and 1853 Japan only traded with China and Korea, which had severely limited trading, and with the Dutch, who were the only part of Europe they did trade with.

During this time because Japan had very little interaction with foreign countries, it strengthened culture and also brought great prosperity both socially and economically. People were more inclined to pursue activities they found pleasurable, such as painting. This build-up of new artists in a period of unprecedented peace and stability helped to create their own unique style free from outside influences.

After over 200 years of this self-imposed exclusion and many attempts by outside forces trying to bridge a trading path between Japanese shores and the west, U.S. Navy’s Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853 took four warships known as The Black Ships (Named Mississippi, Plymouth, Saratoga and Susquehanna) to the Bay of Edo in Tokyo to demand Japan re-establishes western trade connections. This lead to the first treaty the year after with the west, “The Treaty of Peace and Amity” with the U.S. which then paved the way for others to follow, starting with “The Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty” with the United Kingdom at the end of the year, and many other western countries in the five consecutive years.

When trading finally resumed in 1853 a flood of Japanese art travelled to Europe, with Paris being the main hotspot for art at the time. Similar to 1922 when King Tutankhamen’s tomb was discovered, there was a massive surge in people wanting to collect art. Instead of Egyptian art though, wood block prints, fans and anything related to Japanese culture became people’s obsession.

This was amplified during and after an exhibition in France in 1862, where Japanese stalls introduced prints and objects to the general public. It was all new and exciting to Europeans, and generated popularity quickly.

Visual Cultures: 11: Late 20th Century: Illustrators in relation to graphic novels

By comparing old comic book styles to new we can see how the art work has evolved. These covers of marvel comic books from the 50s show simplistic colour pallets as the technology at that time consisted mostly of screen printing. 

In more recent comics and advances in printing technology as well as digital approaches to illustrating, comic books have changed their styles to more realistic images rather than flat colours as we can see in the new Iron Man comic books.

A company based in London, Nobrow Press work in a unique way similar to the traditional methods. Artists submit different "Layers" of work in different colours to create a CMYK composition when printed repeatedly onto the same bit of paper. These colours are Cyan Magenta Yellow and Key (Black). Although black isn't a colour, the shade is created by mixing a variation of all colours. 

Whilst an artist was trying to create full black by having a dark colour, they realised it turned out grey so this created a bigger variety of tones and colours that can be created. 

Although 4 colours sounds very minimal, they can actually create a full spectrum of colours by mixing each carefully. 

Visual Culture: 10: 1950s and 60s: Pop Art

Pop Art

Means "Popular Art"

Pop art arose because The Independant Group wanted a name for all things relating to popular culture at that time. 

It was a small group, consisting several artists but also critics and architects

The first person to use the term in print was Lawrence Alloway in 1958

Richard Hamilton said that pop art was designed for a large audience, a short term solution that was easily forgotten. 

Because it was designed for a large amount of people, it was mass produced and therefore had to be low cost.

Litter (1955 sheffield, graves A.G.) was an example of Peter Blake's love for folk art and pop culture. Because this was so early on in his student life, it is said he was the first British pop artist.

Eduardo Paolozzi was a surrealist that turned into a pop artist around 1962 with sculptures and then screen prints in 1965 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/paolozzi-no-title-trial-proof-for-as-is-when-p01953

Andy Warhol screen printed icons of hollywood film stars and the four reigning queens at the time.

"American Pop art emerged suddenly in the early 1960s and was in general characterized by a stark and emblematic presentation that contrasted with the narrative and analytical tendencies of its British counterpart. At its most rigorous, American Pop art insisted on a direct relationship between its use of the imagery of mass production and its adoption of modern technological procedures." 

https://www.moma.org/collection/details.php?theme_id=10170

Visual Culture: 7: 1920s in Europe and Russia: Surrealism and sexuality

Surrealism

• Cultural movement that began in early 1920s
• developed from the Dada movement in world war 1 in paris
• famous for visual art
• Aim: Resolve the previously contradictory conditions of a dream and reality
• Paintings were unnerving and illogical
• Contain elements of surprise
• Andre Breton claimed the movement was revolutionary
• 1920+ the movement affected visual art, literature, film and music, as well as political thought, philosophy and social theory

Visual Culture: 2: The Medieval World

Chinese Calligraphy


• Been around for thousands of years
• works towards aspects of being beautiful and elegant
• Is just as important as music, sculpture, painting, dancing
• Closely linked to daily chinese life
• Is practiced by more of the population than any other art form.
• Is a requirement for art courses at chinese universities
• inspires other arts and vice versa

Book - 

Chinese Calligraphy

 By Tingyou Chen
Cambridge University Press, 2011


Chinese Printmaking

Chinese printmaking started in the 1930s but people focussed more on wood block prints that were also popular in Japan at the time. there was a close relation between china and japan in terms of art at that time as japan was under sakoku so all of its borders were shut to the west, making china a primary trading point. After there became "New China", the main arts were all focussed on by artists which saw an increase in their popularity and importance.

"After the founding of New China³, the situation changed out of all proportion. Oil painting, traditional Chinese painting, watercolour painting and gouache painting all under-went massive developments. Not only was printing established in the academies as a specialist area of study but, as well as woodcut printing workshops, lithography and intaglio workshops were starting to be set up. The fundamental tech-niques of making prints are Western in form: planographic printing, intaglio printing, relief printing and stencil printing. Lithography belongs to planographic printing, etching belongs to intaglio printing, and the woodcut belongs to relief printing; only stencil printing remained for a long time without a proper category." - The cradle of screenprinting -

Website -  http://www.artmondo.net/printworks/articles/china.html 13/03/2014

A clip from the movie Hero, this clip shows the importance of calligraphy in a range of aspects to life. Here it shows the importance in martial arts as the fighters imitate the free movement of the brush in their attacks. 

Video Link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjVgX0A8Jtc

Visual Culture: 3: Renaissance in Europe: Hans Holbein

Hans Holbein

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/hans-holbein-the-younger

• One of the most accomplished portraitists of the 1500s
• Born in Germany, Augsburg in 1497
• He was taught to paint by his father, also named Hans Holbein
• In 1519 he joined the Basel Artists' guild
• He traveled a lot, in Italy and France he produced woodcuts, fresco designs and panel paintings.
• Lived in England from 1526-28 and then again from 1532-43 until he died from the plague
• His portrait of Henry VIII from the National Portrait Gallery in London dates between  the 1532-43 period of his stay in England
• Also from this period was "The Ambassadors", one of them was a potential wife for the king

    

Self Portrait, Hans Holbein, 1542, Color Chalk, pen and gold, 32cm x 26cm 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Holbein_the_Younger

• He worked in a Renaissance style
• Produced religious art, satire, and reformation propaganda
• Made a contribution to how books were designed
• Called himself " The younger" to distinguish himself from his father, a painter from the Late Gothic School
• He worked in Basel as a young artist
• He worked for reformist clients when the Reformation reached Basel, whilst continuing to serve traditional religious patrons.
• His style comes from artistic trends in Italy, France and the Netherlands, and by Renaissance Humanism.
• In England, he worked under the Patronage of Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell.
• By 1535 he was King's Painter to Henry VIII

Visual Culture: 5: The Nineteenth Century: War Photography

Photography was invented in the 1830s and during wars around this time the photographic process had not been refined enough to create quick captures. The long exposure time needed meant that a lot of the conflict could not be documented, only the aftermath.

Roger Fenton was the first official war photographer with images such as "Shadow of the Valley of Death".
In this image some people think that there were actually soldiers fighting, but they never stayed still long enough to become part of the image. Another instance of this happening was in Louis Daguarre's "Boulevard Du Temple", believed to be the earliest photograph depicting a living person. On this occasion a busy street was photographed, but only 2 figures can be seen; a man having his shoes shined by a young boy. The reason these figures are there is because they stayed in that position long enough to make an imprint on the image.

Afterwards, in 1855, Fenton left and was replaced by James Robertson and Felice Beato. There was a contrast in images from then on, because Fenton portrayed dignified aspects of war, where the new team preferred showing the destructive side. They traveled to Calcutta to document the destruction after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and took what is believed to be the first photograph depicting a human corpse outside the palace of Sikandar Bagh (seen below). It is also believed that the corpses were rearranged to heighten the photographs. Perhaps this is where the images transitioned from documentation of war to photographs for artistic purposes.

Visual Culture: 9: 1940s and 50s: Illustration, Graphics and Posters in the Second World War

Posters from WW2 had several purposes,
• Specialist Recruiting
• Industrial Production
• Maintianing morale
• Security Concern
• Savings and austerity
• Health and Safety









The posters were quite simple, one large attention grabbing object or figure, usually with a background with large, to the point text. They were designed to grab attention from passersby. 

Posters were a good way to keep morale high as they were easy to produce and distribute and could be placed anywhere for long periods of time without much manpower after application. 

Quite similar to art nouveau which got its style from Japanese wood block prints from the 1800s. 

Visual Culture: 8: 1930s USA: Art Deco

The Royal Mail Line to New York poster,
 Horace Taylor, 1920-1925. Museum no. E.516-1925

Art Deco:

• Started in France after WW1
• Became Widespread around 1930/1940
• Popularity declined after WW2
•  The style combines traditional motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials
• Was mostly Symmetrical 
• Represented luxury and glamour

• roots from Universal Exposition of 1900
• Afterwards a handful of artists from the show established Society of Decorator Artists


These were:

• Hector Guimard
• Eugene Grassat
• Raoul Lachenal
• Paul Bellot
• Maurice Dufrene
• Emile Decoeur

These artists influenced the principles of Art Deco

Visual Cultures: 11: Late Nineteenth Century: Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau was a movement consciously driven as an attempt at modernism, the same aesthetic qualities in everything including fashion, painting, sculpting, glass work, architecture and decoration. Artists scrapped their traditional European influences to use art and styles from Japan, Celtic and folk art as the foundation for the new movement. Most themes of Art Nouveau come from nature though many designs could be symbolic; for instance, a leaf may represent a leaf, or it may represent femininity.

For a style, there really isn't much to say because it consists of different other styles all with things in common, though one rule for Art Nouveau is because of its motifs in nature, there are no straight lines.

It is found in many stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals.

"It had been seen as a collection of different styles with little in common except, perhaps, a taste for excess and flamboyant decoration."- stazjia.squidoo.com/art-nouveau-beginners-guide 

To this day still influences things such as tattoo design.