A 19th-century 'warrior' at the Royal Academy, London
World art; we all celebrate it now. Benin bronzes, Aztec turquoise skulls, Mughal miniatures, Chinese scroll landscapes, Aboriginal dot paintings... we don't call them primitive any more. They're all deeply sophisticated art-forms. They're all great, and equally great.
But there are distinctions. When it comes to it, there's only one kind of non-Western art that we, Western arties, feel is fully in conversation with our stuff: the Japanese woodblock print. Ukiyo-e, the "art of the floating world", though in some ways strange, speaks in our visual language.
The geniuses of Ukiyo-e have been adopted as honorary Old Masters in the European tradition. The Oxford Dictionary of Art has entries for only three non-Western artists: Utamaro, Hokusai and Hiroshige. Hokusai's The Great Wave is one of our classics, too.
The sense of communication isn't odd. In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was pictorial contact both ways. First, Japanese artists learnt from European models – then vice versa. The Japanese borrowers were probably more creative. In Dutch prints, pretty inferior examples, they saw post-Renaissance perspective and anatomy. They adapted these techniques into a mixed style that European artists, in turn, found familiar enough to imitate back. From Van Gogh to Aubrey Beardsley, from Monet to George Grosz, painters, illustrators, cartoonists, couldn't resist the draw of the woodblock print.
That was a century back and more. Artists today, both Western and Japanese, are more likely to take inspiration from post-war Manga cartoons. But the floating world can still turn up surprises. Over the years, the Royal Academy has staged superb shows of Hokusai and Hiroshige. Now, a lesser-known master appears.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 1797-1861, was a contemporary of those two, but his fame didn't travel to Europe. He's not such a fine performer. His visuals can look crude beside Hokusai's crisp formulations or Hiroshige's atmospheres. Kuniyoshi is an artist of wild imagination. His patterns are loud. His bent is for violence, fantasy, farce. If he has an influence, it's on Manga itself.
Kuniyoshi specialised in "warrior pictures". Many of his images frame a single famous hero, shown in combat or struggle. Thickly muscle-bound, richly tattooed, elaborately armoured, his mouth raging-open or defiant-closed, he lays into a human enemy, a monster, a giant sea-creature, amid threshing water or bolts of lightning. The scene breathes battle-spirit and slaughter.
But where exactly is the violence?
Read entire article at Independent (UK)
But there are distinctions. When it comes to it, there's only one kind of non-Western art that we, Western arties, feel is fully in conversation with our stuff: the Japanese woodblock print. Ukiyo-e, the "art of the floating world", though in some ways strange, speaks in our visual language.
The geniuses of Ukiyo-e have been adopted as honorary Old Masters in the European tradition. The Oxford Dictionary of Art has entries for only three non-Western artists: Utamaro, Hokusai and Hiroshige. Hokusai's The Great Wave is one of our classics, too.
The sense of communication isn't odd. In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was pictorial contact both ways. First, Japanese artists learnt from European models – then vice versa. The Japanese borrowers were probably more creative. In Dutch prints, pretty inferior examples, they saw post-Renaissance perspective and anatomy. They adapted these techniques into a mixed style that European artists, in turn, found familiar enough to imitate back. From Van Gogh to Aubrey Beardsley, from Monet to George Grosz, painters, illustrators, cartoonists, couldn't resist the draw of the woodblock print.
That was a century back and more. Artists today, both Western and Japanese, are more likely to take inspiration from post-war Manga cartoons. But the floating world can still turn up surprises. Over the years, the Royal Academy has staged superb shows of Hokusai and Hiroshige. Now, a lesser-known master appears.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 1797-1861, was a contemporary of those two, but his fame didn't travel to Europe. He's not such a fine performer. His visuals can look crude beside Hokusai's crisp formulations or Hiroshige's atmospheres. Kuniyoshi is an artist of wild imagination. His patterns are loud. His bent is for violence, fantasy, farce. If he has an influence, it's on Manga itself.
Kuniyoshi specialised in "warrior pictures". Many of his images frame a single famous hero, shown in combat or struggle. Thickly muscle-bound, richly tattooed, elaborately armoured, his mouth raging-open or defiant-closed, he lays into a human enemy, a monster, a giant sea-creature, amid threshing water or bolts of lightning. The scene breathes battle-spirit and slaughter.
But where exactly is the violence?