Large is the number of initiatives aimed at celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Italy-Japan Friendship Treaty of 1866 and, among them, an opportunity not to be wasted is the ongoing exhibition which will remain open at the Royal Palace in Milan until next January. The exhibition brings together, by prof. Rossella Menegazzo, over 200 woodblock prints and picture books by artists of Hokusai’s, Hiroshige’s and Utamaro’s stature (http://www.hokusaimilano.it/). As an example, you could see famed original artworks such as Hokusai’s Great Wave and Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji tanks to the cooperation of the Honolulu Museum of Art where the prints come from.
The Milan exhibit could be an opportunity to highlight the characteristic features of the Japanese art which draws inspiration from a culture and worldview different from those affecting the West. The representation of space in the Japanese art is accounted for by the aesthetic notion of asymmetry described by the art critic Okakura Kakuzō in The book of tea. The Japanese art is prone to look asymmetric because, according to the Eastern philosophy, beauty turns rather out to identify itself with research effort than some sort of perfection. Within the framework of Taoism, life is development, dynamism, a succession of ever-changing situations: any form must remain unsymmetrical, thus uncompleted, for symmetry and completeness to be rather created in the mind of the one who contemplates that form. A given symmetrical form is accomplished anymore, stationary, and thereby uncommunicative, unable to trigger in the mind of the observer that otherwise rewarding and expected sort of creative and dynamic process while the form affected by asymmetry, imperfection, incompleteness is bound to encourage the human mind to set in motion an imaginative dynamic process that stops when the perfect form is at long last created. Therefore, the angle of several artworks is often asymmetrical and partial, as is the case for Hokusai’s Honganji Temple at Asakusa in Edo (fig. 1) in which the main subject, notably the temple, is only captured in the painting right-hand side through a portion of the rooftop.
Fig. 1
The overall asymmetry and incompleteness principle is intimately connected to the suggestion one. The Japanese art widely gives room to something unsaid: the artwork merely has an influential role for the Esprit, everything else is left to the observer’s imagination. A true master in the art of suggestion is Hiroshige. In the print entitled Fukuroi: Famous Tôtômi Kites (fig. 2), the Japanese art’s typical birth’s-eye view allows imaginary wandering loose around rice paddies and under a red striated sky, this also riddled with kites which impart a sense of space just as they gauge it by diagonally stretched threads. Hiroshige’s artistic creation is littered with suggestions the purpose of which is to stimulate and even enable the observer to supplement the picture in his mind. Playing on those emotions, an empty-headed viewer is prone to see who is the off-screen person that is operating the flying kites, even to enter the picture for himself to be that maneuverer. Suggestion is a trick largely adopted in cinema when partially framed details do evoke the picture completely, thus by gaining leverage through the spectator’s imagination that is led to precede by the mind’s eye the full screen. It is not coincidence that Hiroshige’s technique, adopted in some prints of him, has been defined “protofilmed art”.
Fig. 2
A further motif characterizing the Japanese art and culture is represented by the special attention that is paid to nature in all its forms: color changes, blooming and withering, daylight duration and manifestations of climate change such as rainfall and snowfall. Also rules and customs are dictated by the periods of nature: the hanami (contemplation of cherry blossoms) and tsukimi (contemplation of the moon) rites in the spring and autumn, respectively. That time dependence is also the case for the holydays, ikebana, tea ceremony, fantasies of kimono and even ornaments in hairstyles for woman. Even as regards the visual arts, as with literature and poetry, the subjects and reoccurring motifs are almost always connected to the seasons: a painting tòpos is the representation of the four seasons, whereas the reference to a season is a clause of style for haiku. The transition from a season to another takes on a symbolic significance of religious nature and is connected to the Buddhist concept of impermanence, namely of the temporary nature of everything. The spring and autumn equinoxes respectively regard the transitions to summer and winter, and, as such, they are comparable to the passage across a river; on religious grounds, they result in the metaphor of the condition of torpor, stillness, ignorance that switches to enlightenment. The terminology itself applied to the above-mentioned equinoxes, namely, in the same order, Haru no Higan and Aki no Higan, includes the word Higan that means “other side”.The special feeling for climatic events, as with wind – see, for example Hokusai’s artwork entitled Ejiri in Suruga Province (Fig. 3) -, rainfall, or snowfall, lies within the described season poetics.
Fig. 3
Within that genuine poetics involving nature and seasons, a special attention is paid to rain, with the relevant varying aspects and displays. Owing to climatic reasons, rain is in Japan not only evocative of autumn, but also of that rainy period, beginning on June and ending on early July. Rain almost disappears in the west art because of the lack of comparable sensitivity to everything that stands for season and, therefore, it was believed that its representation could rather be a distraction from or some way to overshadow the main subject. On the contrary, rain so gains in the Japanese art relevance per se, that it rather provides an enhancing, than hiding, effect on the scenery, precisely because it is immersed in its own seasonal and climatic features. From the Japanese standpoint, in fact, an environment deprived of atmospheric changes would be quite unnatural, as Hokusay’s and Hirosige’s artworks, respectively entitled Kintai Bridge, Suō Province (Fig. 4) and Fujieda (Fig. 5), allow observer to appreciate. In the pair of prints, representing rain obliquely falling from dark clouds, use is made of the bokashi technique, which is to create shades of color with three-dimensional rendering, as in painting. Note that so remarkable were the repositories of expertise needed to engrave straightlines in close proximity each other, that the rain reproduction through the ukiyo-e had lyrical significance, but it also turned out to be a hard skill test.
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Hiroshige is especially skilled, as one can verify through his work entitled Mariko (fig. 6), at transmitting the magic of the snow. In a winter night, the snow falls on the dormant village. The white blanket lies on and completely covers everything, whether they be trees, houses or mountains, thus making the scene color uniform. The originally natural landscape is now a colorless landscape. The author captures with rapid brushstrokes the profiles of trees, rooftops and rocks. Houses, tree’s branches and crows, and mountain ridges are streamlined with proven dexterity. The snowy landscape conveys once again, through the neutral colors by which it was portrayed, a sense of unperturbed serene calm, throughout. It is like the painting could spread up the silence of things.
Fig. 6
The Japanese sensitivity for nature assumes in Hokusai original characters altogether: in fact, he is able to capture the spirit of nature and interpret its viability better than most. The artwork entitled The Great Wave of Kanagawa (fig. 7) is exemplary for having influenced the Western art. The artist successfully draws the purely aesthetic feature from the observation of the physical phenomenon: the conical Mount Fuji inscribed into the semicircular wavefront results in a stroke of art genius. This is a seminal example about how the geometry of nature comes out in all its own artistic beauty. The enchantment of the form is magnified by the wonderful staining adopted: the alternating bands in blue of the wave are such that a deep-to-bright gradient texture is given. The author used the indigo to make the outline sharper. However, the artist not only can see in nature the perfection of shape and color purity, but he can also capture any spirit. In such a case, it is admissible to speak about of an anthropomorphic vision: the wave looks as being enlivened by a sort of willingness to compete in elevation with the mountain in the background; it’s like the formidable dynamism of the former is at odds with the mighty immobility of the latter. The hook-shaped minute components of the wavefront fringing rather resemble claws out in the act of snatching the flattened and tiny human figures on the boards. The destructive force of the sea is in contrast, even in a symbolic sense, to the mountain appearance: if the former evokes the fragility of the human existence facing nature, the latter is instead representative of immortality. These two extremes, namely transiency of being and eternity, seem to exercise significant influence on the artistic sensitivity which hence takes place within a framework of Mt. Fuji’s scenic views.
Fig. 7
Likewise in Big Wave, one can find in the waterfall examples referred to as Kirifuri (Fig. 8) and Yoshino (Fig. 9), from the Series entitled Most popular waterfalls in different Provinces, the reiterated theme of water as a power of nature. That’s how such a natural element can be contemplated by an artist, which is able to highlight its force through the fringing spray. This is masterly expressed under form of light water pearls, as those contouring the jaggedy crest of the above-mentioned Wave. Once again, nature is represented as if it was an anthropomorphic subject, namely as if the waterfall was the hand of a giant, or the thousand fingers of a god of the mountains. The adopted portrayal style turns the subject into a pure form by using an elegantly linear look bearing some resemblance to, even though more vibrant than, Liberty. It’s almost as if the natural elements have been imbued with a principle of life, something as a soul.
Fig. 8 Fig. 9
The sense of nature is expressed even in the kachōga, as well as in the scenery, because of detailed and careful representations of flowers and animals. An artist looks out at nature with care as a botanist does, but the observational skills are clearly distinguished. According to a scientific approach, nature is studied, classified, and measured, for the given knowledge to be invariably used with spirit of domination. This is a consequence of the western culture where the essentially transcendental character of Deity causes the latter and nature he created himself to be far apart. Instead, any utilitarian knowledge of nature is alien to the traditional eastern culture, where the Deity rather assumes an essentially immanent character. The Japanese people is clearly aware of the divine presence, say, in every small flower or leaf subject to his careful observation. In line with the Shinto belief, the Deity is in any Kami, namely, in every aspect of nature. In this case, any natural form or appearance gives rise to a great deal of marvel, attention, respect and contemplation. Perhaps, the most poetical kachōga on display is Hokusai’s Goldfinch and Cherry Tree (Fig. 10). The representation is stripped down to its bare essentials, once the nice-looking blooming becomes the expression of full spring reviving. The striking depiction at hand is enhanced by the sense of absence, in other words, by the void. In the Zen’s and Japanese art’s views, the void is more important than plenty, because the former allows the poetic feeling to loosely flow. According Van Gogh, the Japanese painters “are living in nature as if they themselves were flowers”. So, disregarding some minor details, the painter is better prone to grasp what is essential, as for flowers when open: he is rather driven to represent the energy contained in, than the flowers themselves, so that the subject becomes an unconstrained pure energy. The suggestion is strengthened by adopting a sort of upwardly directed outlook that causes the goldfinch to be rather foreshortened within the overall picture. This unusual (for a western observer) point of view is exactly one which would have occurred, say, if the viewer was lying under a tree and looks up to the blue of the sky.
Fig. 10
There is a bipolar oscillation in the ukiyo-e between the depictions of man and nature. It is with Hokusai and Hiroshige that the attention shifted away from the human figure to landscape and countryside, a transfer regarded as a renewed interest for something sacred, and therefore more important than human being. However, as regards the genres on the whole, it is worth noticing that the ukiyo-e current proved a renewed interest for man and his figurative depiction. Even though the involved subjects revolved mainly around geishas or kabuki actors, this trend was appreciable because, through the related physiognomy and character studies, prepared the ground for what is known as portraiture. In representing human figure, the Japanese art moves deliberately away from lighting and shadowing effects, other than from volumetric shaping, for all to come down to the essentiality of outlining. The form is reduced to elemental graphic signs, such as an oval for the face and a fancy curve for the body: briefly, the representation of the human figure turns out to be rather a sort of abstraction than an imitation of nature. This attitude meets the “ike” aesthetic guidelines : since ike is elegance of simplicity it complyes rather with the representation of a wispy, almost spiritualized beauty than with a corpulent, matronly physicality: see the reproduction of the work entitled Geisha Walking Through the Snow at Night (fig. 11).
Fig. 11
In Utamaro, however, we can feel some sort of tension between idealization and individualization. Utamaro adopted the ōkubi-e technique (broad portrait): only the subject’s head, and, where appropriate, the upper torso are depicted, taking care to emphasize visual expressiveness and individuality; in this regard, see Portrait of a Beauty and Her Admirer (Fig. 12). We can safely speak about “historical”, photographic portrait where great care is taken to furnish informative details as in the case of the refined yoko-hyogo hairstyles. Last, Utamaro developed the technique, largely adopted in the ukiyo-e, consisting in making the background bright with the use of powdered mica (kira-e), thus resulting in a high-contrasted subject in close-up.
Fig. 12
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