Japan's Love for Impressionism
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JAPAN’S LOVE FOR IMPRESSIONISM 5493_Japan_Impressionismus_Umbruch7_final.indd 1 07.09.15 08:55 O Moon! –if we Should put a handle to you, What a fan you’d be! Yamazaki Sōkan 5493_Japan_Impressionismus_Umbruch7_final.indd 2 07.09.15 08:55 JAPAN’S LOVE FOR IMPRESSIONISM From Monet to Renoir Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn 8 October 2015 – 21 February 2016 PRESTEL Munich · London · New York 5493_Japan_Impressionismus_Umbruch7_final.indd 3 07.09.15 08:55 5493_Japan_Impressionismus_Umbruch7_final.indd 4 07.09.15 08:55 5493_Japan_Impressionismus_Umbruch7_final.indd 5 07.09.15 08:55 page 2 Édouard Manet Chrysanthemums, 1881 (cat. no. 1) page 4 Shintaro Yamashita Woman Reading, 1908 (cat. no. 2) page 5 Édouard Manet The Walk, ca. 1880 (cat. no. 3) REIN WOLFS BEATE MARKS-HANSSEN 9 Foreword 92 … first a colour and a light … Julius Meier-Graefe, Richard Muther Contents and the Reception of Impressionism SHŪJI TAKASHINA in Germany and Japan 11 Words of Greeting BEATE MARKS-HANSSEN 100 Manet and Impressionism ATSUSHI MIURA Exhibits 59 – 72 12 Japan and the Impressionists: The Collections of French MARIANNE MATHIEU Paintings and the Interrelation 120 Tadamasa Hayashi, between French and Japanese Art Kōjirō Matsukata and the Western Collectors and Collections BEATE MARKS-HANSSEN 28 Japan Encounters Europe BEATE MARKS-HANSSEN A historic sketch 128 Renoir, Cézanne and Rodin Exhibits 73 – 91 BEATE MARKS-HANSSEN 34 Tadamasa Hayashi MASATO SATSUMA 150 The Reception of Western Oil Painting BEATE MARKS-HANSSEN in Modern Japan: The Example 38 The First Japanese Artists in Paris of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts BEATE MARKS-HANSSEN BEATE MARKS-HANSSEN 40 Claude Monet and His Collection 158 Post-Impressionism and the Nabis of Japanese Woodcuts Exhibits 92 – 112 Exhibits 12 – 41 BEATE MARKS-HANSSEN BEATE MARKS-HANSSEN 184 Japanese Artists 74 The Barbizon School and Courbet of the ‘Western Style’ Exhibits 43 – 55 Exhibits 113 – 131 5493_Japan_Impressionismus_Umbruch7_final.indd 6 07.09.15 08:55 206 The Collections in Japan YOSHIYUKI FURUTANI APPENDIX 224 Hiroshima Museum of Art 207 Map (A Public Interest 244 Catalogue of Exhibited Works Incorporated Foundation) 248 Short Biographies of the Artists HIROSHI KUMAZAWA Featured in the Catalogue 208 Private and Corporate Collections AKIRA GOKITA 252 Museums and Collections and Public Museums: 226 The Tokyo Fuji Art Museum with Western and Modern Impressionist Collections in Japan and its Impressionist Collection Japanese Art in Japan Following the Second World War 253 Bibliography YŌKO IWASAKI 254 Index of Names HIDEYUKI YANAGISAWA 230 The Pola Museum of Art 216 The Ōhara Museum of Art and the Collector Tsuneshi Suzuki AKIKO MABUCHI NANAKO SATO 218 The Kōjirō Matsukata Collection 232 The Yoshino Gypsum Collection – and the National Museum A Century of Dreams of Western Art in Tokyo TSUYOSHI KAIZUKA 222 Shōjirō Ishibashi and the DETMAR WESTHOFF Bridgestone Museum of Art 234 Why the Japanese Love Impressionism 5493_Japan_Impressionismus_Umbruch7_final.indd 7 07.09.15 08:55 8 We should like to thank all lenders Shimoda, Uehara Museum of Modern Art Shizuoka, Shizuoka Prefectural Giverny, Fondation Claude Monet – Museum of Art Acknow- Giverny, Académie des Beaux-Arts Tokyo, Bridgestone Museum of Art Hachiōji, Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tokyo, Kume Museum of Art Hakone, Pola Museum of Art Tokyo, Marubeni Corporation ledgements Hatsukaichi, Woodone Museum of Art Tokyo, Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum Hiroshima, Hiroshima Museum of Art Tokyo, The National Museum of Modern Art Kasama, Kasama Nichido Museum of Art Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art Kitakyushu, Kitakyushu Municipal Tokyo, Tokyo University of Art, Museum of Art The University Art Museum Komaki, Menard Art Museum Tokyo, Yoshino Gypsum Art Foundation Kurashiki, Ōhara Museum of Art Tokyo, Yoshino Gypsum Co., Ltd. Kyoto, The National Museum of Toyama, Hokugin Galerie Millet Modern Art, Kyoto Toyota, Toyota Motor Corporation Matsue, Shimane Art Museum Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefectural Matsuyama, The Museum of Art, Ehime Museum of Fine Arts Mito, The Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki Yamagata, Yamagata Museum of Art Osaka, The National Museum of Art, Osaka Yokohama, Yokohama Museum of Art Paris, Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie Saitama, The Museum of Modern Art, and all private lenders who Saitama wish to remain anonymous. 5493_Japan_Impressionismus_Umbruch7_final.indd 8 07.09.15 08:55 9 The “dawn of the modern age” is a familiar which concentrated above all on French phrase that applies in many respects to the Impressionism. The financial potential period of the waning nineteenth century. provided the preconditions, but we must Foreword It was the time when Paris was the centre also focus on the great enthusiasm un- of the art world and French Impression- leashed in Japan by Impressionism as the ists rebelled against the conventions of collectors’ prime incentive. That inter- academic Salon painting. In art history this est in and identification with the art were moment is often referred to as the ‘Birth of of the greatest significance here can be modernism’, but at the very least it is seen attested primarily by the first generation as the origin of a development in which art of Japanese art collectors, who cultivated increasingly liberated itself from academic close contacts – at times even close friend- rules and ultimately resulted in the plural- ships – with the Impressionist artists. ism that characterises the fine arts today. The cultural and artistic dialogue But Impressionism can also be considered bore fruits in both directions, towards the with regard to the ways in which art is a East as well as the West. While in Europe reflection of its times. To the extent that Japonisme broke fresh ground and art- every cultural development flourishes in ists like Monet and van Gogh became pas- the fertile soil of its superordinate and sionate collectors of Japanese woodcuts, coordinate circumstances, it can also be Japan experienced a growing interest in seen as a mirror of the social, political and Western art, but especially an enthusi- economic conditions in which it originated. asm for French Impressionism. This had In Japan’s Love for Impressionism the an effect, firstly, on the production of art, Bundeskunsthalle is presenting an exhibi- as demonstrated in the works of the Japa- tion with masterpieces of French Impres- nese artists who began painting in a West- sionism from Japanese collections. It may ern style at the beginning of the twentieth come as a surprise that the concentration century; many of these works can be seen on these works does not entail any kind of in our exhibition. And secondly, significant qualitative or even quantitative limits for and extensive collections of Western art of an exhibition. The conclusion is evidence outstanding quality were built up in Japan. of a consequential cultural-historical devel- We are now able to present these works in opment. The intense cultural exchange be- the Bundeskunsthalle, hanging side by side tween Japan and the West from the middle for the first time in Europe. of the nineteenth century was principally a result of the economic opening of the We thank the curatorial team, and first Pacific island kingdom towards the West. and foremost Atsushi Miura; together with But it would not be sufficient to view the Beate Marks-Hanßen and Detmar West- consequences of the resulting economic hoff, and supported by Hiroshi Kumazawa growth in Japan as the sole cause of the and Masato Satsuma, he developed the con- origins of these high-quality collections, cept for this exhibition. We are grateful to 5493_Japan_Impressionismus_Umbruch7_final.indd 9 07.09.15 08:55 10 Detmar Westhoff for proposing the idea for and his colleagues at the German embassy the exhibition. I should also like to thank in Tokyo, who showed great commit- my predecessor Robert Fleck for taking up ment in the support and advice they gave the idea as well as conducting the first dis- our project. cussions with lenders and drawing up the And finally, I would like to express our concept for the exhibition with the support special gratitude to our lenders who have of Detmar Westhoff. Without the excellent opened up their magnificent collections contacts of Detmar Westhoff and Atsushi to us and without whose generosity we Miura to the museums and collections could never have realised such an ambi- in Japan the exhibition would not have tious project. taken place. We should like to thank Atsushi Miura and Hiroshi Kumazawa for Rein Wolfs their outstanding expertise in selecting Director of the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Art and Exhibition the works; they also developed the spatial Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany) concept of the exhibition together with Beate Marks-Hanßen, whom we also thank for the scholarly supervision of the cata- logue. We are grateful, too, to the authors of the catalogue, who provide in their texts a well-founded history of the collections in Japan. And I would like to thank my colleague Bernhard Spies, the business manager of the Bundeskunsthalle, for the preparation of the exhibition and his willingness to give advice and support to the project over the past four years. The management of the exhibition lay in the competent hands of Susanne Annen; I would like to thank her for her commitment and for its successful realisation, and also the architect Meyer Voggenreiter for the harmonious devel- opment of the colour scheme and graphic concept of the exhibition. We are grateful to Shūji Takashina for supporting the project in his capacity as director of the Western Art Foundation. And our heartfelt thanks go to the German ambassador Dr. Hans Carl von Werthern 5493_Japan_Impressionismus_Umbruch7_final.indd 10 07.09.15 08:55 11 The June, 1906 issue of the French art regard for the organisers and everyone magazine Gazette des Beaux-Arts printed participating in both Germany and Japan an interview with the painter of the Water who have made this exhibition possible.