Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Riverwalk Gallery, Kitakyushu
12 July � 31 August 2014
The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo
13 September � 9 November 2014
Grand Palais, Paris
1 October � 18 January 2015
What exactly do we know about Japan? What is the image common Westerners have of this faraway country? A few films and comic books come to mind (not to mention high-tech equipment and vehicles), but it is more than likely that most of our Japanese imagery is second-hand. Despite globalisation, there is still a somewhat exotic aura surrounding the West�s view of this ancient nation.
In terms of Japan�s cultural exports, there are, of course, remarkable examples. For instance, the films of the great Akira Kurosawa, whose Seven Samurai (1954) earned him a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and an indelible place in history. The interest Western film-makers have taken in Japanese cinema since then greatly resembles the craze for everything Japanese among the European artists of the previous century. Having been isolated from the world for more than 200 years, Japan reopened its doors to foreign influence in 1868, provoking an enormous exchange of goods with the West. Among these goods were ukiyo-e, the traditional Japanese woodblock prints that would prove a decisive source of inspiration for the likes of Claude Monet, Pierre Bonnard, James McNeill Whistler, and Vincent van Gogh. The latter not only adopted some formal lessons from Japanese artists, but even made direct homages to some of their works.
in Bloom in Nakanocho
a Piece of Fabric
BOOKS & E-BOOKS
A foremost example of this tendency to look to the East in the field of writing was Edmond de Goncourt, who was the first European to produce comprehensively researched monographs on Japanese artists. He wrote on Kitagawa Utamaro and Katsushika Hokusai, but died before he could accomplish a further twelve planned essays. His deep interest in Japanese culture was part of a general fascination amongst Western writers and artists with the Far East in general and Japan in particular. But for the majority of them (Goncourt included) this fascination was felt at a distance, since very few of them actually travelled to the places they so admired. This is why the writings of Pierre Loti, a French naval officer and novelist who travelled across the globe, proved so alluring for the public. His 1887 novel, Madame Chrysanth�me, was a major success, and it would partly inspire Giacomo Puccini�s celebrated opera, Madama Butterfly (1904).
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GALLERY
The works of Loti, Puccini, and so many other European artists revolve around the figure of a Japanese woman. A more modern example would be John Huston�s The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958). This film faced many difficulties, foremost among them the disagreements between Huston and the leading actor, John Wayne, which put an end to their creative collaboration. There was also trouble after the shooting: Huston had intended to reflect influences from Japanese cinema in aspects like photography and pace, but he found that so many changes had been made in post-production that he even asked his name to be removed from the credits. To find out more...
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