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1890s Japonism in Western Arts and Culture

William Moo

Ryerson University

On April 15, 1894, American Henry Harland and British artist Aubrey Beardsley released the first volume of an innovative anthology of stories and artwork to bookstores in London. Known for its scandalous reputation, The Yellow Book forwarded a unique mantra of modern art during a transitioning period from the Victorian to the new modern age (Weintraub 136). Courtesy of the Bodley Head publishing house, The Yellow Book was a quarterly hit, with some praising its challenging content while others criticized its sexually suggestive art.

The Balcony, Yokohama

Edward Atkins Hornel. Yale Center for British Art

It is in subsequent time that Beardsley gained recognition for his artwork featured in The Yellow Book and on the first four front covers of the magazine. Inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblocks and the Grotesque, Beardsley and the rest of Europe praised these works of art as something unique and inspirational for the modern artist. This movement was called Japonism and it involved the borrowing of Japanese aesthetics and incorporating them into European art. Incorporating intricate Japanese designs and settings into paintings or pottery are prime examples of this.

As a result of this phenomenon, another illustrator named Edward Hornel used Japanese elements and dynamic coloring to create the oil painting Geisha, originally titled The Balcony, Yokohama. Meanwhile, a female writer named Ella D’Arcy managed to work in a brief cameo of a Japanese fan into her short story At Twickenham. My digital exhibit will explore Japonism and its influence on these two artists, The Yellow Book, and Western arts and culture during the late nineteenth century.

William Moo

Ryerson University

The Yellow Book: A New Frontier

Marked with a distinct yellow cover, The Yellow Book was influential to many writers and painters as a source of bizarre modern artistic aesthetic. The collection was not a conventional publication because it targeted a highly respected and audience. After the departure of Aubrey Beardsley, many critics noted the diminishing quality of works in later volumes. In a review of the twelfth volume, Ella D’Arcy’s At Twickenham was criticized as having realistic female characters, but lackluster male characters.

The Yellow Book’s demise can be traced to the arrest of contemporary writer Oscar Wilde, whom was arrested carrying a French novel mistakenly identified by the media as a volume of The Yellow Book. This scandal carried over to Beardsley, whose public image and artistic merit were challenged by many (Weintraub 146-47). As a result, The Yellow Book lost most of its writers and readers, but provided the opportunity for new artists to emerge (Weintraub 147). However, the ninth volume presented a thinner list of contributors, relying upon the regular roster of talent such as William Watson and Ella D’Arcy to sustain itself (Weintraub 149-50). There was lack of any new talent for the magazine and this troublesome trend would continue to the Yellow Book’s final volume.

The Yellow Book: Volume 1 Front Cover

Aubrey Bearsdley

Ella D'Arcy and The Yellow Book

Ella D'Arcy

Wikimedia Commons

Ella D’Arcy led a tumultuous career at The Bodley Head publication house. Although she gained the position as sub-editor for The Yellow Book, she found herself in rebellious conflicts with Beardsley and Harland (Windholz 121). Anne Windholz suggests that her editorial roles were limited and dependent upon the male governed relations at the office (118-19). Her role as sub-editor was in name only because she could not overrule Beardsley and Harland's decisions regarding content. Frederic Chapman, the magazine’s business manager, refused to give D’Arcy higher status and both were at a stalemate (Windholz 118). Literary history did not focus on female writers like D'Arcy and her bibliography and reputation as a writer have become lost through time (Windholz 116-17). The decision to subjugate women’s voices reflects the helpless feelings of passivity D’Arcy despised and often saw in “damsels-in-distress” archetype characters. It increased her desire to further her status as an editor of respectable art (Windholz 122). Her career ultimately ended the same time The Yellow Book was facing heavy criticism, but she would be remembered as one of its proponents during its golden years.

Japanese Fan (1835)

Cincinatti Art Museum. Wikimedia Commons.

The 12th volume of The Yellow Book features her short story At Twickenham. The story reads like a naturalistic narrative because it details each character's actions to a specific point. In this scene, D'Arcy describes a character named Letty decorating a typical upper middle class home and mentions the Japanese fan among other foreign objects:

“Letty, dressed the windows of "Braemar," with frilled Madras muslin, draped the mantel-pieces with plush, hung the walls with coloured photographs, Chinese crockery, and Japanese fans” (314).

D'Arcy represents the Japanese fan as an effeminate item in this scene. This is prevalent when Letty and her sister Minnie are cleaning and decorating the room for the day. In this context, women are given the responsibility to distinguish their house from the rest by placing a Japanese fan among other exotic items.

According to Cynthia Brandimarte, Japanese fans would often be purchased for personal use and then placed in nooks and corners of the households to display along with other fans (18). These fans were constructed out of cheap paper and palm and mass produced by Japanese novelty shops as promotional materials to pin on walls. Along with umbrellas, fans were also branded as sacred items and symbols of royal authority (Brandimarte 18).

In connection to Brandimarte’s obervations, Japanese fans made for attractive items to keep in any household. Much like Japanese woodblock prints, they were items that were small, intimate, and easy to place in any setting. Ella D’Arcy added an exotic element to her stories which reflected a market of Oriental items in middle class homes. D’Arcy’s role as sub-editor, in later volumes of The Yellow Book, pressured to revitalize the magazine’s reputation. Although D’Arcy may have little to do with diversifying the Yellow Book’s readership, this scene signifies the Oriental imagery used to supplement her work. It provides the reader with a brief exotic image that distinguishes itself from the European mentality present in past Yellow Book volumes.

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1890s Japonism in Western Arts and Culture

William Moo

Ryerson University

The Colours of Edward Hornel

From 1893-94, Edward Hornel spent eighteen months on his first visit to Japan. His artwork featured young girls in non-naturalistic, flattened perspectives with high toned colours (Smith 37). He was a notable colorist with exquisite detail of the joyful nature around him and brought out the beauty in colours alone instead of the subjects associated with it (Kurtz 56). He was one of many members of the Scotland based Glasgow School of artists to have been influenced by the Japanese aesthetic.

Concerning Hornel’s Geisha, the oil painting was originally titled The Balcony, Yokohama and was colored before it went through half tone engraving. The title change suggests that the editors wanted to give the image a short and identifiable name. Whereas Hornel's original title emphasizes the aspect of everyday life, the new title Geisha can be interpreted as highlighting an exotic femininity.

Geisha

Edward Hornel. The Yellow Nineties.

Geisha features a Japanese woman looking ahead at the sailing ships underneath a clouded sky. Hornel omits the woman's facial expression, so the viewer cannot see her emotions towards the ships. It is a still image of a typical Japanese outing and could be either a portrayal of a woman curiously glancing at the sea or glumly saying farewell to the ships.

In this context, the Japanese fan is a personal symbol of femininity with an exotic curiosity that was never featured in The Yellow Book. It is difficult to say if the woman is an actual geisha or her attire is akin to a geisha's gown. The inclusion of this painting in the eight volume of The Yellow Book suggests that people were taking interest in Japanese items as a result of Japonism styled artworks. In this case, it is promoting the clothing this woman is wearing, as well as accessories such as the fan.

Japonism in the Nineteenth Century

Aubrey Beardsley Portrait

Frederick Hollyer. Wikimedia Commons.

Prior to the nineteenth century, Japanese art was largely ignored and did not influence parts of French art and culture until the opening of Japanese foreign trade. While many Western artists were influenced by the aesthetics of Japonism, they only saw it as a self-fulfilling supplement to their own Eurocentric perspective of their work. Chae Ryung Kim suggests that that mentality eventually deteriorated and Japanese art was considered a “cultural engine” that drove the Western arts world to achieve originality (11) and provide a fresh start from the illusionary representations of the past (12). This would progress to the creation of a new visual reality and these aspects, as Kim later mentions, would go on to influence early twentieth century Impressionists, Realists, Post Impressionists, and Symbolists (12).

Aside from Hornel, The Yellow Book featured many Aubrey Beardsley paintings in the style of the Japanese Grotesque. Linda Zatlin suggests that his obsession with the Grotesque was because of the exaggerated way it expresses fear and helplessness and how it critiques those emotions (89-91). In the Japanese tradition, this is seen as commonplace, as it was okay to satirize human fears. Furthermore, the erotic art prevalent in some of Beardsley’s work is influenced by the Japanese perception of sex (Zatlin 93). In Japanese society, it was much more accepting in contrast to the strict Victorian values held in the West. Beardsley used his erotic images in The Yellow Book to progress past old notions of sexual relations and it is this action that contributed to his controversial reputation as an artist.

During the Paris Universal Exposition of 1867, Japanese ukiyo-e prints, fans, vases, and screens were sold off and became popular items for collectors, craftsmen, and dealers (Kim 8). In this instance, Japanese art became a commodity of cultural exchange and Westerners would seek interest in other objects from the county. During a time when industrialization and capitalism started to flourish, Japanese art was viewed as intimate and small images that were considered valuable for upper and middle class homes (Kim 9-10). This stressed the capital value of Japanese art as exotic decorations at sale markets. Monetary success stressed the need for innovation and pieces of work that had personality and an air of genius (Kim 10).

Japonism began to influence the Western aesthetic of the average household. As discussed with D'Arcy's At Twickenham, Japanese objects such as fans made their way as exotic decorations to Western markets during the popularity of ukiyo-e woodblocks and prints. Household owners boldly displayed these objects in their homes, satisfying an exotic taste for the commoner or the artist (Brandimarte 4). By the 1880s, Japanese novelty shops were established in the United States and new items, seasonal gifts, or fashionable trinkets were often featured in women's household art books and journals (Brandimarte 12). Furthermore, Japanese products were affordable because of mass production and its accessibility to rural and urban citizens made them popular purchases (Brandimarte 16).

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1890s Japonism in Western Arts and Culture

William Moo

Ryerson University

Conclusion

The 1890s was, in some ways, ahead of the twentieth century that introduced great change to Western arts and culture. The Yellow Book introduced many weird and intriguing works of art that transitioned people out of a Victorian state and into a new modern era. Japonism was only the beginning of the West’s lifelong admiration of the exotic and cultural exchange between the two would last until the start of World War II. The movement changed how the West viewed foreigners and best exemplifies how one culture can influence one another. Japonism did not die at the end of the 1890s, as many people today admire Japanese culture and are still inspired by their many distinct art styles and landscapes.

Works Cited

Algabal. “Ella D’Arcy.” Photograph. Wikimedia Commons, 2007. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.

Beardsley, Aubrey. "Front Cover." The Yellow Book 1 (Apr. 1894): n. pag. The Yellow Nineties Online. Ed. Dennis Denisoff and Lorraine Janzen Kooistra. Ryerson University, 2010. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.

Brandimarte, Cynthia A. “Japanese Novelty Stores.” Winterthur Portfolio 26.1 (1991): 1–25. Web. 11 Nov 2015.

D’Arcy, Ella. “At Twickenham.” The Yellow Book Jan. 1897: 313–332. Print.

Hollyer, Frederick. Aubrey Beardsley Portrait. 1896. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 18 Nov 2015.

Hornel, Atkins, Edward. Geisha. 1896. Oil on canvas. Collection of The Yellow Book. London, England.

Hornel, Atkins, Edward. The Balcony, Yokohama. 1894. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. British Art. Web. 18 Nov 2015.

Kim, Chae Ryung. “East Meets West: Japonisme in the Discourse of Colonialism in the Development of Modern Art.” Diss. State University of New York at Buffalo, 2012. Web. 12 Nov 2015.

Kurtz, Charles M. “The Glasgow School: The Men and Their Work.” Modern Art 4.2 (1896): 55. CrossRef. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

Pyne, W.H. The Japan Room – Frogmore. 1819. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Art &Architecture Collection. New York Public Library Digital Collections, New York. Web 18 Nov 2015.

Smith, Bill. “Hornel: The Life and Work of Edward Atkinson Hornel.” The Art Book June 1998: 37–38. Web. 12 Nov 2015.

Weintraub, Stanley. “The Yellow Book: A Reappraisal.” The Journal of General Education 421.2 (1964): 136–152. Web. 14 Nov 2015.

Windholz, Anne M. “The Woman Who Would Be Editor: Ella D’Arcy and the ‘Yellow Book.’” Victorian Periodicals Review 29.2 (1996): 116–130. Web. 14 Nov 2015.

Wmpear. Japanese Fan. 2015. Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 18 Nov 2015.

Zatlin, Linda Gertner. “Aubrey Beardsley’s ‘Japanese’ Grotesques.” Victorian Literature and Culture 25.01 (1997): 87–108. Web. 7 Nov 2015.

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