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Picturing a World

Rules of Summer

As we near Midsummer, I have pulled out Shaun Tan's Rules of Summer and read it two or three times in the past week. At each reading, I've laughed out loud. It's brilliant! It's zany! It's surreal! It's wise. For me, it's one of the indispensable books.

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Tove Jansson for adults

An article in the Guardian tipped me off to an exhibition, For Tove Jansson To Paint Was To Be. It is now at the Didrichsen Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland, where it originates, and will be going to Paris.  How I wish I could see it in either place!

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Carolus-Duran carte-de-visite

Maybe while New York is under a ghastly orange haze, it's wrong the wrong time to post a sepia photograph; but I got such a kick out running across this carte-de-visite , that I can't resist. According to the seller, the picture was taken in 1865 even though the card commemorates Carolus-Duran's winning of a silver medal at the World's Fair of 1878. And doesn't he look young and handsome! For Ferdinand Mulnier's sensitive portrait of Jeanette's other teacher, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, click here. For many more of Mulnier's photographs, click here.

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Kimono and doll

Okay, so not a female artist, but I couldn't resist William McGregor Paxton's portrait of a woman in a kimono contemplating a Japanese doll. (A female artist connection: the model may be his wife, painter Elizabeth Vaughan Okie.) What's useful to me in my musing on Japonisme as part of Jeanette's story is the way the picture can lead to thoughts about how a particular woman might react privately to a particular Japanese object. Is this Jeanette or one of her friends? Does the character hold a doll or teacup? What is the emotion aroused in her? in the reader? Looked at this way, there's no need worry about the Male Gaze or other scholoraly or critical criteria. As for the golden frame, well, of course, I had to include it when I took a screen shot!

Image via Sotheby's

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Pooch with a lion-cut hairdo

Well, I do love seeing paintings in picture frames. And I'm fond of dogs. I even collect images of medieval and Renaissance dogs with lion-cut hairdos. But, no, not $279,400's worth. And I wouldn't take Sotheby's word for it that this is Marie Antoinette's Pompon—though it must have been somebody's celebrity pooch, poor thing,

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Somm, Japonisme

One of the things I'll have to think about is whether Jeanette is more attracted to Japanese objects  per se or to the art of Western Japonists, e.g., Henri Somm—or Mary Cassatt. Certainly, one of Jeanette's friends can be caught up in the craze for netsukes and small decorative objects. They all love fans and parasols. Amy can add Japanese blue-and-white to her teacup collection. Meanwhile, I love this image for reflecting my process of musing. See also Somm's Fantaisies Japonaises of 1879

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Kosome

Really, I have nothing to say about this print except, Wow! Look!
Image via Harvard Musuems

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Helen Hyde, Japoniste

Back to a possible future for my character, Jeanette Palmer, and Japonisme. I have thought for a long time that children's book illustrations could be one direction for her career to take. In that connection, the Red Rose Girls offer lots of hints. And now, although I don't yet know a thing about it really, the influence of Japanese woodcuts on early twentieth century illustrators seems clear. So hurrah for Helen Hyde! She actually went to Japan and learned woodcut technique. A quick search on-line has quickly turned up three informative, well illustrated websites to get me started: (1) An American in Japan: Helen Hyde. (2) Pioneering Women Printmakers: Helen Hyde and Lilian May Miller in Japan. And (3) In Memoriam Helen Hyde, American Japoniste. If you only look at the picture, enjoy!

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Susie Barstow

Exhibition alert: Women Reframe American Landscape: Susie Barstow & Her Circle is on view at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site from now until October 29th. The website has loads of information and images about this female artist who was as successful in her day as the men whose names are remembered for their grand paintings of the American landscape. Simultaneously comes publication of  the first book-length study of her life and art: Susie M. Barstow: Redefining the Hudson River School. I'll be going to the exhibition and look forward to learning more!

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Abbéma's Bernhardt fan

A quick follow-up to Bernhardt and Japonisme. Here's a decorated fan painted by female artist Louise Abbéma portraying Sarah Bernhardt in a kimono. What better to inspire some detail or other for a new story set among women in Paris at the time of the 1889 Universal Exposition? For more about the vogue among Western artists for painting Asian-influenced fans, click here.
 
Image via Wikipedia Commons.

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