1888, the year that Siegfried Bing began publishing the influential journal Le Japon artistique
, the art dealer also put on the first exhibition in Paris, and indeed in the western world, of prints by the Japanese master Kitigawa Utamaro (c. 1753-1806). In contrast to Hokusai and Hirsohige, to name just two Japanese ukiyo-e artists, whose prints had become know in Paris, Utamaro was an acknowledged master of the classical period from the previous century, rather than a recent vernacular artist.
, the art dealer also put on the first exhibition in Paris, and indeed in the western world, of prints by the Japanese master Kitigawa Utamaro (c. 1753-1806). In contrast to Hokusai and Hirsohige, to name just two Japanese ukiyo-e artists, whose prints had become know in Paris, Utamaro was an acknowledged master of the classical period from the previous century, rather than a recent vernacular artist.
You can see in the prints of Utamaro that Emile Guimet collected for his eponymous museum, that Utamaro's great subject was women. His portfolios included Famous Beauties of Edo, Array of Supreme Beauties of the Present Day, and Twelve Hours in the Pleasure Quarters, to name a few. 
What is striking to our eyes is how familiar the design elements look to us; we can only imagine how Utamaro's works looked to those who first encountered them at Bing's. I'm not thinking, here, of the borrowed motifs, the fans, kimons, standings screens, etcetera. Felix Vallotton's bathers arrayed across the canvas as they step down into the water and Mary Cassatt's mothers holding their infants up close are gestural images from Utamaro's beauties.Consider instea
d the multiple layers and shifting perspectives, the strong diagonal elements pointing away from the center, the mixture of patterns, the flat colors, and even the poses - and then think of the Nabis. The group didn't yet exist, as such, but it would shortly, and we knoow from the art historian Klaus Berger's researches, that several of them attended the Utamaro exhibition. The word 'nabi' comes from the Hebrew word for prophet and Utamaro was one in Paris in 1888.
d the multiple layers and shifting perspectives, the strong diagonal elements pointing away from the center, the mixture of patterns, the flat colors, and even the poses - and then think of the Nabis. The group didn't yet exist, as such, but it would shortly, and we knoow from the art historian Klaus Berger's researches, that several of them attended the Utamaro exhibition. The word 'nabi' comes from the Hebrew word for prophet and Utamaro was one in Paris in 1888.
Images: Musee Guimet, Paris.
You may also be interested in Emile Guimet's Promenades Japonaises, posted here 19 June 2010 and also L'Art Nouveau According To Bing, posted here 13 August 2009.
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