Mais conteúdo relacionado Semelhante a Japanese To Japonesque Talk 3 Notes (19) Japanese To Japonesque Talk 3 Notes1. I
jumped
when
asked
for
this
lecture.
Though
my
book,
The
Influence
of
Japanese
Art
on
Design,
only
touched
upon
wallpaper,
I
knew
it
was
a
topic
reflecting
every
concern
about
domesticity
in
the
Gilded
Age.
My
mind
flew
to
home
as
nurturing
refuge
and
wellspring
of
moral
uplift,
beauty
and
aesthetics
in
the
age
of
industrialization,
new
commercialism,
internationalism,
visions
of
“modern,
etc.,
etc.
—all
brought
into
sharp
relief
by
the
unique
and
very
variable
role
that
Japan
played
in
these
things.
An
immensely
fascinating
story.
Putting
it
all
together
is
the
proverbial
Gordian
Knot—I
realized,
another
book!
In
two
hours,
I
can
only
shut
my
eyes,
dive
in
and
keep
my
goals
a
lot
more
modest:
a
little
context,
a
few
important
points,
a
fairly
organized
sense
of
a
process
that
lacked
a
single
straight
sequence
anywhere,
and
hopefully
to
hone
your
eye
in
a
way
that
will
prime
your
later
encounters,
and
to
see
and
think
out
of
the
box.
To
begin:
Japanese
influence
on
wallpapers
originates
in
an
extended
moment
of
international
frenzy
that
began
in
the
late
1850’s,
peaked
in
1872,
when
it
was
simultaneously
dubbed
“Japonisme”
in
France
and
the
“Japan
Craze”
in
England,
crested
in
Europe
by
the
1880’s,
but
burned
brightly
in
the
US
for
another
two
decades.
What
does
a
“craze”
look
like?
1
2. It
meant
ordinary
girls,
prostitutes
and
artists’
models,
America’s
society
daughters,
Monet’s
French
wife,
Whistler’s
English
girlfriend,
women
everywhere
delighting
in
geisha
fantasies,
for
portraits,
tea
parties
and
even
church
sociables.
It
meant
that
few
saw
as
odd
British
Actress
Lily
Langtree
advertising
American
Eagle
Tobacco
in
Japanese
garb.
Langtry
was
portraying
not
just
any
Japanese
lady,
but
a
make‐believe
princess:
YumYum,
heroine
of
the
Mikado,
the
daffy
operetta
that
took
England
and
America
by
storm
in
1883
and
ran
continuously
for
a
century.
When
you
get
that
kind
of
ad
hoc
mixing,
you
are
seeing
a
process
of
assimilation.
2
5. One
person—only
one—truly
understood
this
phenomenon:
the
era’s
most
astute
commentator
and
muse
of
the
Japan
Craze
whose
flamboyant
person
bespoke
the
age,
The
Apostle
of
Aestheticism:
Oscar
Wilde.
with
typical
flair
he
captured
the
spirit
of
Japanese
art—and
what
the
most
imaginative
Westerners
did
with
it:
No
great
artist
ever
sees
things
as
they
really
are.
If
he
did,
he
would
cease
to
be
an
artist…
do
you
really
imagine
that
the
Japanese
people
as
they
are
presented
to
us
in
art
have
any
existence?
If
you
do,
you
have
never
understood
Japanese
art
at
all.
They
are
the
deliberate
self
conscious
creation
of
certain
individual
artists.
If
you
see
a
picture
by
any
of
the
great
native
painters
beside
a
real
Japanese
gentleman
or
lady,
you
will
see
there
is
not
the
slightest
resemblance
between
them.
The
actual
people
of
Japan
are
not
unlike
the
general
run
of
English,
that
is
to
say,
they
are
extremely
commonplace
and
have
nothing
curious
or
extraordinary
about
them.
In
fact,
the
whole
of
Japan
is
a
pure
invention.
There
is
no
such
country,
there
are
no
such
people…the
Japanese
people
are…simply
a
mode
of
style,
an
exquisite
fancy
of
art.
And
so,
if
you
desire
to
see
a
Japanese
effect,
you
will
not
behave
like
a
tourist
and
go
to
Tokyo…you
will
stay
home
and
steep
yourself
in
the
work
of
certain
Japanese
artists,
and
then,
when
you
have
absorbed
the
spirit
of
their
style
and
caught
their
imaginative
manner
of
vision,
you
will
go
some
afternoon
and
sit
in
the
park
or
stroll
down
Piccadilly,
and
if
you
cannot
see
an
absolutely
Japanese
effect
there,
you
will
not
see
it
anywhere.
5
6. That,
in
a
nutshell
is
the
standard
way
of
viewing
wallpapers
like
this
unidentified
frieze—its
“Japanese
effect”
of
random
pinwheels
tumbling
through
floral
sprigs
against
a
flat
ground.
But,
Craze
notwithstanding,
it
is
too
glib
to
emphasize,
as
is
typical,
that
this
look
was
merely
vogue.
Rather,
as
Wilde’s
words
hint,
it
reflects
a
pervasive
experimentation
underway,
spawned
by
the
conviction
of
the
most
influential
and
thoughtful
of
the
Victorian
creative
world,
that
Japanese
design
offered
resolutions
to
their
most
major
dilemmas.
This
is
a
profound
kind
of
borrowing.
It
introduced
design
principles
we
still
follow,
so
what
made
Japonesque
designs
“Japonesque”
is
best
understood
as
an
early
groping
toward
a
modern
language
of
design
appropriate
for
a
modern
world.
Japanese
influence
has
had
long
reach,
and
its
apparent
invisibility
now
is
a
measure
of
its
importance.
Wallpapers
are
telling
examples
of
this.
These
are
the
issues
I
want
to
frame
this
presentation
today,
to
leave
you
poised
to
reconsider
the
design
movements
that
succeeded
the
apparent
end
of
the
Craze
itself.
Firstly,
there
are
factors
to
consider
about
Japan,
the
nature
of
its
links
to
the
west
and
avenues
of
influence:
6
7. “Japonesque”
is
nothing
“Japanese.”
More
nuanced
with
their
walls
than
in
the
Victorian
West,
Japan
linked
their
decoration
with
interior
function
and
even
personal
roles.
The
ivied
walls
of
this
17th
century
imperial
retreat
evoke
literary
associations
and
princely
contemplation;
Seated
beneath
the
arching
pine
in
a
golden
landscape
transformed
a
shogun
into
a
man
endowed
by
the
forces
of
nature—the
pictorial
trope
of
Confucian
superiority
In
the
era
of
the
Japan
Craze,
Japan
was
extricating
itself
from
these
traditions
to
transform
itself
into
a
modern
nation.
It
did
not
want
to
emphasize
its
defunct
recent
past.
Even
if
enthralled
by
their
romance,
few
of
the
very
few
Westerners
who
might
have
seen
such
interiors
comprehended
them.
It
would
have
made
little
difference
anyway,
for
the
values
they
represented
were
too
alien
despite
the
adaptability
of
their
wall
designs.
For
all
its
borrowings,
Japanese
influence
is
distinct
to
itself,
a
child
of
Western
fantasy
on
one
hand,
and
Western
aesthetic
sophistication
and
innovation
on
the
other—as
Wilde
noted.
In
many
ways,
more
important
than
Japan
in
the
transformation
of
wallpaper
design,
is
what
happened
to
Japanese
motifs
and
principles
in
the
hands
of
E.W.
Pugin,
Owen
Jones,
E.W.
Godwin,
Christopher
Dresser,
and
the
American
Arthur
Wesley
Dow,
among
others.
7
8. What
people
were
seeing
that
was
making
them
so
crazy
with
inspiration
were
in
part
objects
from
this
world,
and
in
part
objects
designed
entirely
with
us
in
mind.
A
trickle
in
the
mid‐1850’s
by
the
1870’s
had
become
a
flood
of
prints,
paintings,
lacquers,
bronzes,
silver,
ceramics,
souvenirs,
old
and
new,
cheap
and
expensive,
traditional
and
modern—and
all
of
it
completely
upending
standard
ideas
of
beauty,
of
design,
of
material,
and
let’s
face
it,
as
Wilde
noted,
of
attitude.
the
first
impact
was
felt
in
France.
8
9. There,
ideas
garnered
from
Japanese
item
and
images
found
their
way
not
only
into
radical
experiments
of
painting,
but
also
in
such
things
as
dish
design,
often
by
some
of
the
same
artists.
These
early
efforts
were
quintessential
Japonesque;
such
objects
retained
all
of
their
essential,
traditional
characteristics,
but
in
ornament
replicated
precisely
an
exoticism
found
fascinating,
including
certain
decorative
principles—such
as
the
extension
of
motif
to
the
edges
of
the
plate,
rather
than
confining
it
to
the
center,
as
was
conventional.
The
Parisian
avant
garde
was
international
one;
some
of
the
figures
important
to
us
were
among
those
who
mingled
and
shared
ideas
But
for
an
art
inspiration
to
be
truly
pervasive,
for
a
craze
to
occur,
it
has
to
be
embraced
by
the
broadest
public.
We
can
actually
point
to
a
specific
date
on
which
Japan
exploded
into
Western
consciousness,
and
for
wallpaper
design
it
was
not
the
“Japonisme”
of
France,
but
the
Japan
Craze
ignited
in
England.
9
10. It
is
to
the
International
expositions
that
we
owe
the
Japan
Craze.
The
first
explosive
effect
was
at
the
London
exposition
of
1862:
Sir
Rutherford
Alcock’s
Japanese
Court
transfixed
millions—
among
them
E.W.
Pugin,
Owen
Jones,
Christopher
Dresser,
EW
Godwin,
and
other
reformers
in
the
art
and
design
world.
Convinced
that
Western
society,
sullied
by
the
Industrial
Revolution,
needed
new
solutions,
newly‐opened
feudal
Japan
was
a
highlight
of
the
“orientalism”
they
considered
”a
fresh
well
of
art”
at
a
time
when
“art”
was
thought
the
distillation
of
all
that
was
good
or
bad
about
a
society.
In
addition
to
millions
of
visitors,
journalistic
and
critical
commentary
fanned
awareness
from
this
point
onward.
Japan,
in
the
death
throes
of
its
feudal
era—had
nothing
to
do
with
this
event.
Those
few
Japanese
who
even
saw
it
found
everything
inauthentic
and
aesthetically
beneath
contempt.
Even
an
embarrassment.
But
its
dramatic
success
inspired
those
behind
the
Meiji
restoration
only
6
years
later,
resulting
in
a
huge
official
presence
at
subsequent
fairs,
largely
defined
by
Western
tastes
and
expectations.
As
the
era
progressed,
everything
from
export
goods—wallpapers,
ceramics,
textiles,
bronzes,
fans—to
the
leftover
detritus
of
objects
from
the
old
regime—found
their
way
to
the
fairs
where
people
encountered
them
in
a
grand
oleo.
10
11. But
as
I
said,
there
are
no
straight
lines
in
this
story.
Japan’s
breakneck
modernization
was
built
on
manufacturing.
Some
of
the
most
impactful
influences
on
Western
wallpaper
designs
were
Japanese
export
wall
coverings
so
exquisitely
pegged
to
Western
tastes
that
by
1912
Japan
was
the
world’s
largest
exporter
of
mass‐produced
textiles
and
wall
treatments,
with
ads
in
every
home
magazine,
newspaper
and
design
publication.
The
thousands
of
patterns
were
a
spectrum
from
“oriental”—to
not.
Western
scholars
have
been
perplexed
as
to
how
to
consider
these
products,
due
to
their
clinging
to
a
persistent
myth
of
“authenticity.”
This
elevates
the
arts
of
Japan’s
dead
past
and
rejects
its
mass‐produced,
hybrid,
non‐traditional
production.
This
myth
is
hardly
new.
It
arose
with
the
19th
century’s
most
influential
design
reformer
John
Ruskin
and
was
embraced
by
many
of
the
innovators
in
wallpaper
design:
Pugin,
Morris,
and
Dow,
to
name
a
few.
To
them
mass‐produced
wall
coverings
failed
the
test
of
“authenticity,”
not
only
in
terms
of
what
they
deemed
“real”
Japanese,
but
also
as
imitation
anything.
The
longevity
of
this
myth
is
a
measure
of
the
influence
of
these
reformers
in
our
standards
of
taste
today.
Understanding
Japanese
influence
demands
that
we
drop
this
bias
and
give
export
papers
their
due
for
having
brought
new
motifs,
color
combinations,
formal
relationships
and
concepts
of
taste
to
middle
class
homes
and
sensibilities.
11
12. Besides,
Westerners
were,
frankly,
flagrantly
inaccurate
and
expedient
in
where
they
found
inspiration,
and
how
they
used
it.
The
supreme
example
is
also
one
of
the
earliest
and
finest
examples
of
wall
treatments,
if
not
wall
paper:
the
so‐called
Peacock
Room
of
James
McNeal
Whistler.
The
owner
railed
over
the
unasked‐for
alteration
of
his
dining
room,
especially
when
presented
the
bill—but
this
audacious
extravaganza
was
an
unqualified
critical
triumph
of
décor.
described
by
Wilde
as
“like
a
great
peacock
tail
spread
out”
when
lit,
The
Peacock
room
typifies
Japonesque
as
a
pastiche
veneer
of
Asian
references
over
an
entirely
Western
space.
Peacocks
were
considered
the
requisite
exotic
complement
to
blue
and
white
Chinese
porcelains,
called
by
the
misnomer,
“hawthorne
jars.”
The
rage
for
them
sent
prices
to
fantastic
highs,
assuring
indispensability
to
the
wealthy
who
displayed
them
on
an
elaborate
“Japonesque”
shelving
constructed
of
spindles,
as
here.
12
17. Godwin
never
went
to
Japan.
He
knew
it
from
the
few
books
available,
the
crowded
displays
of
Alcock’s
Japanese
Court
in
1862,
the
imports
of
Liberty
&
Co
and
Parisian
galleries,
and
the
then‐small
collection
in
the
South
Kensington
Museum,
now
the
Victoria
&
Albert.
His
concept
included
a
Western
mantra
of
good
design:
harmony.
As
this
engraving
of
his
own
foyer
shows,
“harmony”
meant
that
“Japanese”
walls
called
for
“Japanese”
textiles,
lampshades,
wood
trim,
vases,
and
plank
floors.
Moreover,
you
can
also
see
in
both
rooms
another
convention
of
“Japanese”
taste—
mixing
of
miscellaneous
patterns—which
we
will
see
again.
His
Anglo‐Japanese
concept
a
long
reach.
This
illustration
was
the
frontispiece
of
the
influential
Art
Furniture,
a
manufacturer’s
catalog
of
Godwin’s
designs.
Available
in
the
US
and
pirated
in
major
American
publications
such
as
Decorator
and
Furnisher,
where
I
discovered
it;
his
designs
and
wallpapers
both
purchased
by
wealthy
Americans,
and
viewable
to
the
general
public
at
one
of
America’s
seminal
events
of
the
late
19th
century:
17
18. the
1876
Centennial
Exposition
in
Philadelphia,
where
along
with
Anglo‐Japanese
style,
Japan
itself
arrived
in
a
tidal
wave
of
art
goods
and
the
first
Japanese
buildings
in
the
US.
The
critical
impact
was,
again,
explosive.
Anglo‐Japanese
style
revealed
to
Americans
a
way
to
adapt
these
exotic
inspirations.
Godwin’s
furniture
featured
in
British
displays.
And,
in
person
the
recognized
design
genius,
mass
production
pioneer
and
charismatically
charming
Christopher
Dresser,
lectured
at
the
fair
and
signed
contracts
with
wallpaper
companies.
Dresser,
in
the
thrall
of
Japan,
was
en
route
on
his
first
trip
there.
Though
the
visit
would
completely
transform
his
vision,
his
wallpapers
reflected
his
earlier
Aesthetic/Anglo‐Japanese
perspective.
Unlike
those
who
condemned
mechanization
on
artistic
and
moral
grounds—Dresser,
like
Owen
Jones,
embraced
it,
and
recognized
in
the
economical
formalism
of
Japanese
design
an
excellent
model
for
mass
production
that
could
bring
the
moral
uplift
of
good
design
to
the
masses.
So
far,
I
have
yet
to
see
his
wallpaper
designs,
yet
his
pre‐Japan
trip
designs
in
other
media
are
quintessential
Japonesque,
and
his
influence
is
such
that
his
ideas
are
present
even
if
we
cannot
precisely
see
them.
So
with
that,
I
want
to
explore
this
process
of
adaption,
beginning
with
work
by
his
friend,
E.W.
Godwin.
18
26. While
innovative
design
reformers
such
as
Godwin,
Dresser,
Jones
and
Pugin
attempted
to
discern
the
underlying
design
principles,
or
“grammar”
of
“Japanese”—
as
Jones
himself
would
have
put
it,
the
Craze
meant
that
the
“vocabulary”
of
Japanese
motifs
was
adapted
willy‐nilly
by
everyone
else.
Wallpapers
share
imagery
and
organizational
schemes
with
all
sorts
of
other
objects.
In
interior
décor,
this
allowed
for
the
equally
important
Victorian
penchant
for
harmony—your
walls,
upholstery,
curtains,
furniture,
lamps,
vases,
windows
and
all
decorative
accents
down
to
the
doorknobs
all
could
be
“Japanese.”
26
27. One
of
my
favorite
motifs,
the
Spider
web,
was
also
a
Victorian
favorite
that
appears
in
every
conceivable
context.
I
think
it
met
the
Victorian
penchant
for
“honesty”,
hominess,
informality—and
also
geometry.
Another—highly
ironic
given
the
noise
about
“honesty”
is
the
common
Japanese
visual
trick
of
projecting
elements
past
a
defined
border,
denying
2‐d.
Also,
this
wallpaper,
with
its
windblown
poppies,
pinks,
daisies
and
other
flowers
in
shades
of
pink
and
pea
greens,
adapts
both
naturalism
and
subtle
tertiary
color
combinations
inspired
by
Ukiyo‐e
prints.
Some
commentators
considered
such
schemes
“barbaric”
in
contrast
to
the
conventional
for
bold
red,
blue
and
gold.
The
preference
for
complex
colors
would
be
among
the
most
long‐lasting
of
Japanese
effects,
extending
well
into
the
era
of
Arts
&
Crafts,
and
therefore
becomes
one
of
the
most
ubiquitous,
and
invisible,
of
conventions
adapted
from
Japan.
27
28. By
the
1880’s
In
addition
to
thousands
of
exported
furniture,
lacquers,
carvings,
paintings,
prints
and
ceramics
to
be
seen
in
shops
everywhere,
mass‐produced
textiles
and
wall
coverings,
Japanese
patterns
came
to
the
public
filtered
through
many
un‐Japanese
sources:
design
journals
such
as
Decorator
and
Furnisher,
Art
Amateur,
Siegfried
Bing’s
Artistic
Japan,
and
others,
their
very
presentation
suggesting
ideas
to
be
replicated.
28
31. This
assimilative
process
catalyzed
many
media—Wallpapers
share
a
quintessential
Victorian
era
design
trend
that
is
simply
a
reorganization
of
Western
pictorial
“vocabulary”
to
Japanese
“grammar.”
The
ukiyo‐e
print—in
addition
to
raising
the
sophistication
of
wall
treatments,
contributed
its
schemes
of
color
and
motif,
composition,
use
of
symbols,
edited
imagery,
and
cropping,
to
the
new
profession
of
advertising
design.
In
other
cases,
we
see
a
kind
of
neutralized
exoticism—the
structural
grammar
applied
to
all
sorts
of
“foreign”
motifs,
and
the
result
given
a
suitably
distant
name—as
in
this
plate,
from
a
series
called
“Cairo.”
“Melbourne”
was
another.
We
see
such
designs
as
quaint.
However,
they
not
only
were
modern
in
their
day,
they
set
the
stage
for
the
absorption
to
the
point
of
invisibility—and
at
the
point
where
Western
designers
and
artists
are
working
with
these
principles
completely
free
of
Japan
itself,
we
have
the
earliest
examples
of
truly
modern
design.
31
32. A
major
step
came
through
an
American.
This
magazine
cover
shares
key
elements
promoted
by
Pugin,
Jones,
and
others—a
nature
motif
edited
to
basics,
two‐
dimensionality,
geometric
structure,
compositional
balance.
The
exotic
flower
and
title
make
clear
the
link
to
Japan.
Indeed,
the
designer—like
his
English
counterparts
—openly
espoused
Japanese
principles.
This
was
Arthur
Wesley
Dow—universally
recognized
as
single‐handedly
changing
art
education
in
America.
Even
more
than
his
lectures
nationwide
and
eminence
at
the
top
schools
of
the
day,
the
heart
of
his
stunningly
successful
campaign
to
uplift
art
at
a
time
when
it
was
considered
a
centerpiece
of
learning
lay
in
his
1899
book,
Composition.
Composition
went
into
13
editions,
for
decades
the
most
influential
art
ed
book
in
the
United
States.
Virtually
every
serious
artist
or
designer
encountered
it,
so
that
it’s
impact
is
felt
even
when
it
is
not
openly
acknowledged
or
recognized.
If
you
think
you
feel
a
kinship
between
the
work
of
Georgia
O’Keefe
and
other
robustly
powerful
works
through
the
1930’s
and
some
of
the
wallpapers
we
are
about
to
see,
you
are
correct.
She
was
one
of
Dow’s
most
famous
students.
32
34. Notan
theory
was
intrinsically
compatible
with
the
American
Arts
&
Crafts
Movement
—which
though
born
in
the
ideas
of
Ruskin
(who
evidently
regarded
Japan
suspiciously)
also
looked
to
Pugin,
Jones
and
Morris,
and
like
them
took
inspiration
from
Japan.
American
A&C
likewise
relied
heavily
on
its
own
interpretations
of
Japanese
concepts
of
color,
material,
form,
and
the
“personal
character”
these
could
generate.
The
ubiquity
of
Dow’s
notan
concept
I
believe
accounts
for
the
aesthetic
unity
of
Arts
&
Crafts
designs,
many
of
which
have
been
specifically
linked
to
his
aesthetic.
Grueby
Art
Pottery
of
Boston
is
frequently
cited
as
representative
of
Dow’s
ideas
as
expressed
in
craft,
and
the
link
between
this
tile
from
the
famous
“Trees”
series
and
the
Japanese
print
is
obvious
in
the
flat
cells
of
color
in
tertiary
graded
hues,
thin
outlines,
abstraction
of
forms
to
geometric
suggestion,
and
asymmetrical
compositions..
We
find
the
same
qualities‐‐flat
cells
of
color,
simple,
abstracted
forms
bounded
by
thin
outline,
organized
in
a
dynamic
balance
in
these
wallpaper
friezes.
Neither
the
tile
nor
the
friezes
have
anything
overtly
Japanese
about
them
but
Nōtan
defines
them:.
So,
four
decades
from
the
first
introduction
of
Japanese
concepts
in
the
1860’s,
late
Victorian
experimentation
had
left
“Japaneseness”
behind
With
this,
everything
is
in
place
for
the
future:
34
35. Fast
forward
to
our
lifetimes—what
is
the
relationship
between
Japan
and
such
papers?
Notan—at
least
as
originally
conceived‐‐does
not
come
into
play
at
all.
There
is
nothing
Japonesque
about
any
of
these,
either.
But
I
would
consider
Japanese
design
as
essential
to
the
process
that
brought
us
to
this
point.
First,
being
representative
of
the
theories
of
the
likes
of
Jones,
Dresser,
Godwin,
Pugin
and
others
embedded
Japanese
aesthetics
in
the
ideas
of
the
cutting
edge
progressives
of
the
early
Machine
Age
—not
so
much
for
specific
motifs,
but
at
a
time
of
transformational
technologies,
as
a
standard
of
color,
line,
and
composition.
Distilled
to
their
most
basic
essence,
we
wind
up
with
designs
like
these—
that
celebrate
“hand
qualities”
on
one
hand,
and
machine
perfection
on
the
other.—and
all,
note,
resolutly
2‐D
But
even
more
important,
for
many,
many
in
the
art
and
design
world
pre‐WWI,
the
overriding
impact
of
their
encounter
with
Japanese
art
and
design
was
that,
in
the
words
of
several,
it
freed
us.
In
an
era
strangling
itself
on
the
challenges
of
industrialization
and
mass
production,
on
the
one
hand
it
showed
that
technology
was
not
incompatible
with
aesthetic
quality,
and
in
a
time
of
extreme
conventionality
on
the
other,
Japanese
design
offered
a
way
out—new
ways
of
color,
of
material,
of
motif
and
of
design.
it
allowed
the
unconventional
people
of
that
time
a
way
to
think
out
of
the
straightjacket
of
their
era.
Without
that
unleashing,
these
designs
could
never
have
been.
35