Aion - East, West and Back Again
Welcome to Aion Art Blog!
Aion Art Blog is run in conjunction with Aion.co.nz, an online gallery with a mission to bring exciting, obscure and sometimes overlooked art to you with exhibitions of works from across the ages and around the world.
Our first posts feature works from our inaugural exhibitions, 19-21: Japan Evolving, a collection of (predominately) woodblock prints from Japan contrasting the traditional ukiyo-e style of the 19th and early 20th centuries with modern and contemporary Japanese prints from the mid 20th to the early 21st century that reinterpret traditional Japanese printmaking in line with modern abstractionism; and, Second Half: Post-War German Prints, which shows a range of works from German print makers working in various mediums between 1950 and the 1990′s, rebuilding and carrying forward the pre-Second World War German expressionist revolution of the 1900-1930′s that sparked much of the modern art movement.
Both of these exhibitions represent spectacular movements that deserve wider recognition in and of themselves, but we are especially excited to be able to present the two in conjunction with each other, as combined they also encapsulate the spirit behind Aion Art, demonstrating how our cultural heritage can be both universal and regional without contradiction.
Both German and Japanese cultures have a long and independent history of printmaking, but the story of the journey that our exhibitions show begins in the East.
Ukiyo-e
Hiroshige, Moonlight View of Tsukuda with Lady on a Balcony, Wikimedia Commons
The use of woodblocks to produce printed images in Japan dates back to the 8th Century CE, having spread with Buddhist religious texts from China. However, the Japanese tradition of the print as a stand alone artistic form (as opposed to being a supplement to a greater work (such as illustrations to a text), or purpose (as in religious iconography)), has it’s origins in the 17th century when the relative ease of producing large numbers of images with woodblocks (which made prints an affordable and accessible form of art) coincided with an emerging urban middle class whose new affluence allowed them time and money to spend on leisure activities.
The term ukiyo-e is used to describe the art that emerged in this period. “Ukiyo” is usually translated as “floating world” and in association with printed images came to describe the depiction of the developing hedonism and fleeting pleasures of the emergent middle classes - scenes and actors from kabuki plays (classical Japanese dance drama), female beauties and courtesans, sumo wrestlers, travel scenes and even erotica, along with more austere images such as depictions of historical or mythological events, landscapes, plants and animals.
Ukiyo-e prints are defined as much by their style as they are their subject. Perhaps the most prominent features of ukiyo-e prints is the use of bold, flat lines to depict shapes, creating flat fields that, particularity in later prints, are often filled with bright blocks color (although as technical expertise developed, sophisticated techniques of graduation of color, the use of mica, and other effects such as over painting, burnishing or patterning the paper itself would allow for more variety within the fields of the print).
Compositionally, ukiyo-e typically do not depict depth and are often arranged with asymmetrical key focus points, view points from unusual angles and cropped images.
Depictions of people are generally heavily stylized, with significant contrast between the detail paid to clothing and hair compared to the simplicity of the depiction of physical features, which are often exaggerated or distorted. Dynamic poses are common, although again this tends towards distortion, particularity in the depiction of women.
Despite these predominate characteristics, ukiyo-e is by no means a stagnant art form and there is significant variation between works of different eras and artists.
Print Making in Germany
Albrecht Dürer, The four horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1498, Wikimedia Commons
Printmaking came later to Germany than it had to Japan, beginning in the 1400′s following the arrival of woodblock printing from the east (largely used for fabric prints) early in the 1300′s, then given impetus by the technology and knowledge necessary to make paper which emerged in Europe towards the end of that century.
But despite this late start, the use of printmaking to create works of art occurred both quicker and earlier in the West than it did in the East.
To begin with, printmaking’s dominate use in Europe outside of the textile industry was largely as an illustrative art to accompany books, decorate playing cards or as a method of quickly and easily creating religious icons, rather than to create objects that were primarily considered to be art in and of themselves. However, the development of increasingly refined woodcut images, followed by etching and engraving methods of various kinds, soon saw printmaking techniques used to create purely artistic works, with woodcut in particular arguably reaching it’s zenith in the works of Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528). Germany would retain a strong tradition of printmaking as an art form over the next 300 years before the medium underwent a mark decline in popularity across Europe as a method to create stand alone art forms in the early-mid 19th century.
From East to West
Mary Cassatt, Woman Bathing, Wikimedia Commons
The opening up of contact with previously isolationist Japan in the 1860′s brought Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints to Europe in great number.
The asymmetrical and irregular compositional structures of the prints; use of radically different perspective; strong use of light contrasted with little or no depiction of shadow; and the bold use of flat, curving lines, patterns and areas of strong colour, were fresh to Western eyes. These works stood in marked contrast to the contemporary academic style of painting that predominated in European art of the era and inspired a break with it’s more ridged traditions. This was revolutionary in terms of its effect on the developing European art movements of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, and had significant influence (for which the term ‘Japanism’ was coined) on the works of several notable painters associated with these movements, including Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, James Tissot, James Whistler, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, as well as artists associated with other movements of the time, such as the Symbolist, Gustav Klimt.
Ironically, with the exceptions of works by Paul Gauguin and Félix Vallotton, printing, and woodcut in particular, was not initially strongly effected by this interest in Ukiyo-e. However, this was to change with the development of the Expressionist movement in Germany in the late 19th and early 20th century. Inspired by artists who bridged the Impressionist, Symbolist and early Expressionist movements, such and Vincent van Gogh and Edvard Munch (who made good use of woodcut himself), the German artists of the Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider) and Die Brücke (the Bridge), favored woodcut for it’s relatively simple process, and the sharp contrasts and lines that the medium allowed. Their innovative use of the medium, often in simple black and white or with a limited and muted palette, lead to a revitalization of the use of the woodcut in Western art. Since, we have seen further development of print making techniques throughout the 20th century and printmaking has played an important part in most of the subsequent phases of abstractionism that followed on the heels of the Expressionists.
From West to East
The first obvious indication that the artistic communication in printed works between East and West went both ways was the introduction of European synthetic dyes that supplemented the traditional Japanese palate of water based dye. But ideas flowed as well as ink, and in the early 1900′s two distinct print making traditions emerged in Japan as a result of contact with Western art.
Hiroshi Yoshida,Hikaru umi, 1926, Wikimedia Commons
The first of these is the shin-hanga method which retained the traditional techniques from the production of ukiyo-e but experimented with European Impressionism, the play of light, and the depiction of emotion. It lead to works with more depth, greater detail in the depiction of physical characteristics, a greater use of shadow, and more realistic applications of perspective while continuing to depict traditional ukiyo-e images.
Yamamoto Kanae, Fisherman, 1904, Wikimedia Commons, (widely regarded as the first example of the sōsaku-hanga movement)
At around the same time, the sōsaku-hanga movement developed. Like shin-hanga, sōsaku-hanga continued to depict scenes taken from traditional Japanese culture, however it took a radically different approach to how it did so. The primary defining characteristic of this movement was a departure from the workshop-like production of ukiyo-prints (where the artist might only be involved in the initial design, leaving the creation of the woodblock and the printing to others) to a system where the artist controlled the entire process of designing, carving and printing the works. This movement was idealistically driven by similar impulses as those behind European Expressionism (although a direct analogy is not entirely appropriate). Suppressed during Japan’s extended wartime involvement, the movement saw new light during the American occupation, slowly becoming the predominant printmaking movement in post-war Japan, and, as communications between Japan and the West reopened and eased, sōsaku-hanga artists began experimenting with other Western developments such as abstractionism, laying the ground for contemporary Japanese art.
Bringing it Back Home
Gerhard Grimm, Skifahrer Beinbruch (Skiers Fracture), 1984
Our two exhibitions celebrate this global evolution.
9-21: Japan Evolving begins with examples of the types of Japanese ukiyo-e prints that sparked the Impressionist movement in Western painting, while Second Half: Post-War German Prints shows us (in printed form) the post-war continuation of the spectacular Expressionist reaction to Impressionism and the re-invigoration of the Western art of the woodcut, amongst other printing mediums, in a manner sympathetic to the cultural needs of post-war Germany, and developing the artistic lessons learnt from Japan in conjunction with the increasing abstractionism prevalent in 20th century European art. Finally, we return to Japan to see how modern and contemporary Japanese artists have themselves reinterpreted and built on their traditions in a manner that both absorbs the influence of this Western artistic revolution while maintaining a uniquely Japanese spirit.
The story describes a web of influence and inspiration rather than a neat circle of cause and effect. Nevertheless, the result is an aesthetically stunning display that encapsulates the universal power of art to communicate across culture and time while expressing the regional cultural interests of the individual artists who create it.
Kunichika (1835 - 1900), Iwafuji Berating Onoe, Detail
Over the next few weeks we will follow this post with specific stories of the art in 9-21: Japan Evolving and Second Half: Post-War German Prints.
In the meantime, you can visit aion.co.nz to check out these exhibitions yourself.
Further Reading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ukiy/hd_ukiy.htm
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/The_Great_Wave_The_Influence_of_Japanese_Woodcuts_on_French_Prints#
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/prnt/hd_prnt.htm
http://spokenvision.com/japonism-influence-japanese-ukiyo-e-woodblock-prints-western-art/
http://www.lacma.org/art/installation/german-woodcut-renaissance-and-expressionist-revival
