Rookwood and the Japanese Mania in Cincinnati by Kenneth Trapp

Rookwood and the Japanese Mania in Cincinnati by Kenneth Trapp ntroduced to the arts of Japan at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, the I American public quickly developed a near-manic taste for things Japa- nese. Just as the English and the French two decades earlier had warmly embraced Japanese themes and styles, Americans now found an irresistible charm in the art from the exotic Land of the Rising Sun.1 A virtual Japanese fever swept America, burning most intensely and with indelible effect in the Arts and Crafts Movement. In few American cities was the Japanese mania more avid than in Cin- cinnati, where it manifested itself most strikingly in the decorative arts movement which began to flower in the Queen City in the late 1870's. With the founding of the Rookwood pottery in 1880, the powerful influence of Japanese art upon Cincinnati's decorators was soon to become a matter of nationwide note and emulation. While the Japanese influence upon Rookwood is commonly acknowledged by authorities on the pottery, only recently has there been an attempt to study the subject with some thoroughness. The dispersion of documents, a paucity of examples, and the complex nature of the subject have doubtless impeded serious investigation. Furthermore, a thorough study of the Japa- nese influence on Rookwood must be directed to more than the location, identification, and cataloguing of Japanese sources used by Rookwood decorators. Involved and important as this task is, it does not, however, focus upon the larger picture: the context of the Japanese mania in Cincinnati and in America and the effects the Japanese influence had upon the artistic and technical developments of Rookwood pottery. Many questions persist. Why are there so few examples of Rookwood which exhibit forms or decorations drawn from traceable Japanese sources? What kinds of Japanese art were being collected in Cincinnati in the late nineteenth century? These two questions lead to a third: To what extent were nineteenth-century American conceptions of Japanese art predeter- mined by Western aesthetics and predilections and to. what extent did the Japanese themselves contribute to and reinforce entrenched preconceptions, if not misconceptions, of their own art through Japanese export wares? Finally, to what extent was the Japanese influence on Rookwood derived from secondary sources such as printed material and from the work of European Japonisme decorators? While the answers—if indeed there are answers—to these questions are beyond the scope of this paper, nonetheless an examination of the Japanese influence upon Rookwood provides invalu- able insight into the pottery's history. The first Japanese influence on Rookwood is inextricably linked to the taste of Mrs. Maria Longworth Nichols (became Mrs. Bellamy Storer in 1886), the founder of the pottery. In 1875, Mrs. Nichols was given "some little Japanese books of designs" which a friend had brought her from Lon- don. Perhaps the books had been purchased from the orientalia shop on Regent Street which Arthur Lasenby Liberty had opened in May of that year. Mrs. (Nichols) Storer said of these books in an 1897 article published in the Art Journal: "This . was almost my first acquaintance with Japa- nese Art of the imaginative and suggestive kind. It prepared me for the wonderful beauty of the Japanese exhibit at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876."2 While attending the Centennial, Mrs. Nichols became captivated by the Japanese exhibits. Shown for the first time in America in great quantity, the Japanese ceramics, bronzes, lacquer work, and screens fired in her "a desire to have a place of my own where things could be made." She suggested to her father, Joseph Longworth, that a Japanese pottery—workmen and all—might be brought over.3 He was not thrilled with the suggestion. Undoubtedly, Mrs. Nichols would have seen the Haviland and Company of Limoges, France, exhibits of faience painted under the glaze, works which greatly inspired another Cincinnatian, Mary Louise McLaughlin. Included in the Haviland display was Felix Bracquemond's he Service Parisien.4 Strongly suggestive of Japanese imagery, the lyrical decorations of the service depicted the atmospheric effects of the changing seasons. Returned to Cincinnati, Maria Longworth Nichols and her husband ad- vanced the Japanese mania in the Queen City. In Art Education Applied to Industry, published in 1877, George Ward Nichols wrote: the novelty, freshness, and infinite grace of the decoration of . Japa- nese ceramics, bronzes, screens, fans, and lacquer work will exert a wide and positive influence upon American art industries, an influence more immediate and enduring in its action than that of any one coun- try, or perhaps of all the countries combined, which exhibited at the Centennial Exposition.5 Mrs. Nichols in turn began to develop her highly idiosyncratic Japanesque style. In 1878, examples of her Japanese-inspired drawings appeared in two publications by her husband: as a cover design and interior vignettes in The Cincinnati Organ and as a cover design and five plates of suggested 52 s •«- • The designs on the cover of Pottery, How It Is Made by George Ward Nichols in 1878 were compiled and drawn by Maria Longworth Nichols, wife of the author. designs for decoration after the Japanese in Pottery, How It Is Made. The drawings for the latter volume were copied, directly or through secondary sources, from at least four Japanese books of illustrations.6 Perhaps Mrs. Nichols compiled her drawings for Pottery, How It Is Made from the little books of Japanese designs given to her by a friend in 1875. It is doubtful that she knew either the names of the artists or the titles of her Japanese books. By 1878, the interest in Japanese art in Cincinnati had reached a fevered pitch. The Women's Art Museum Association (1877-1886) opened a Loan Exhibition on May 6, bringing to public attention a wide selection of Japa- nese art in private Cincinnati collections. Satsuma, Kaga, Yokohama, Kyoto, Hizen, and other ceramic wares, as well as bronzes, lacquer work, carvings in wood, swords, cloisonne, and musical instruments were shown. The selection of Japanese art was clearly decorative. Interestingly, the Loan Exhibi- tion catalogue listed no Japanese scrolls, screens, illustrated books, or wood block prints. Sixteen pieces of Japanese art from the collection of George Ward Nichols were exhibited, as were several examples of Japanese art from the Joseph Longworth collection.7 On May 13, 1878, a major exhibition and sale of Japanese art took place in Cincinnati. The sale catalogue, which listed 433 works of art, included this puffery: Rare examples of all the choicest Potteries, Porcelains Cloissone ]sic[ on Copper and Porcelain, rare old Bronzes, Ivory Carvings, pure Gold and Ancient Cinnabar Lacquers will be found here. Nothing finer can be laid down in this or any other city, since nothing finer or more beau- tiful can be found and purchased in Japan.8 That a sale of this magnitude was held in Cincinnati testifies to the intense interest in Japanese art in the Queen City in the late 1870's. The Nicholses might very well have purchased objects from this sale. In May 1879 Mrs. Nichols approached Frederick Dallas about the possi- bility of using the facilities of his commercial pottery. Dallas consented to make and fire pieces for Nichols. Her earliest decorated pottery was strongly Japanese in spirit. Typifying her pre-Rookwood Japanese decoration are three pieces —two large vases and a short bottle vase.9 A second major exhibition and sale of Japanese and Far Eastern art oc- curred in Cincinnati in May 1880. The sale catalogue listed 309 separate entries, comprising mostly ceramics which included Awata, Bishu, Hizen, Imari, Kaga, Ota, Owari, and Satsuma. Many of the ceramic pieces were described as being decorated with flowers, birds in flight, bamboo and birds, foliage, insects, and delicate blue clouding. 10 Such natural subjects had particular appeal to the pottery decorators and wood carvers of Cincinnati. 54 Undoubtedly an exhibition and sale of this scope attracted Mrs. Nichols. Although not mentioning her by name, the August 1880 Potter's American Monthly described Mrs. Nichols' decorated pottery: Upon a delicate buff foundation there will be perhaps a panel of blue, shaded with pure nicety, with here and there a dragon in relief, richly gilded, and coiled it may be, around the bottom or near the top, where it is made to form quaint handles, while the introduction of one or two droll figures in human shape, give [sic] these vases a decidely Japanese appearance.11 In the summer of 1880, Mrs. Nichols founded her own pottery in a former schoolhouse at 207 Eastern Avenue. Named "Rookwood' after her childhood home in bucolic East Walnut Hills, her small pottery would, she hoped, achieve a prominence in ceramics equal to that of Wedgwood. The first kiln was drawn on Thanksgiving Day. Although the contents of the kiln are a matter for speculation today, these earliest pieces were very probably a con- tinuation of Mrs. Nichols' Japanese-inspired work.12 With the founding of Rookwood, Mrs. Nichols continued to cultivate her own distinctively primitive style. Grotesque subjects, often treated humor- ously, predominated. Dragons, gaping-mouthed fish with bulging eyes, crabs and other crustaceans, marine creatures, leaping and dancing frogs, march- ing crickets, spiders in their webs, flying bats, and owls perched on branches with a full moon as a back drop were painted and modeled with vigorous naivete. More lyrical interpretations of common Japanese decorative motifs included sprays of flowers, leafy bamboo and berries, flying swallows, and cranes. Imitations of Japanese calligraphy often enhanced a decorative scheme. Elizabeth Perry succinctly described Mrs. Nichols' decorative work in an 1881 Harper's New Monthly Magazine article as having: the inevitable dragon coiled about the neck of the vase, or at its base, varied with gods, wise men, the sacred mountain, storks, owls, monsters of the air and water, bamboo, etc., decorated in high relief, under glaze color, incised design, and an overglaze enrichment of gold.13 Within a year after she had opened Rookwood, Mrs.

Load more