_full_journalsubtitle: 0 _full_abbrevjournaltitle: JOJ _full_ppubnumber: ISSN 2405-4984 (print version) _full_epubnumber: ISSN 2405-4992 (online version) _full_issue: 1-2 _full_issuetitle: 0 _full_alt_author_running_head (neem stramien J2 voor dit article en vul alleen 0 in hierna): Book Reviews _full_alt_articletitle_running_head (rechter kopregel - mag alles zijn): Book and Exhibitions _full_is_advance_article: 0 _full_article_language: en indien anders: engelse articletitle: 0

Journal of Japonisme 4 (2019) 132-139

132 Book and Exhibitions

Enquêtes vagabondes, Le voyage illustré d’Emile Guimet en Asie, Musée national des asiatiques, Musée Guimet. December 6, 2017–March 12, 2018. Catalogue: Cristina Cramerotti and Pierre Baptiste (eds), Enquêtes Vagabondes, Le Voyage Illustré d’Emile Guimet en Asie (: Gallimard, 2017). Hardcover, 256 pp., 177 ills, € 39,00. ISBN 978-2-0727-5390-9

The names and achievements of Emile Guimet and Félix Régamey remain con- joined in the history of nineteenth-century exploration as central figures in the dissemination of Japanese culture, life, and religion critical to an understand- ing of the spread of Japonisme. Without the verve and drive of Emile Guimet, who used his vast family fortune to establish two museums (first in and next in Paris), and the considerable talent of Régamey in visually recording their experiences on their 1876 trip through , an early record of Japan would have been lost forever (fig. 1). Luckily the fruits of their labor have been documented in books and articles, but not until this majestic exhibition was conceived, was it possible to see what superb examples of Japanese culture they shared with each other and eventually with the world. The scope of the recent exhibition was mind-expanding, even for viewers already familiar with the works of Guimet and Régamey. Why was this the case? What did this exhi- bition do that had not been broached before? And how could this have been done so effectively that the average viewer could fully understand what was achieved by both men? For an answer to these questions, we need to partially reconstruct the exhibition itself, to grasp its plan, and to recognize how an ex- hibition with a vibrant didactic message could be effectively realized within a museum. The Guimet Museum possesses much of the work that was done by Félix Régamey on his travels with Guimet; what works they did not have in their ar- chives, the curators referenced in the exhibition by noting that other works were either lost or destroyed. With the materials at hand, they organized the exhibition chronologically in order to examine how and where the two men traveled; Régamey’s large-scale paintings, completed after his return to France, were positioned at crucial moments in the exhibition to contextualize what both men saw (figs 2 and 3). In some cases Guimet or Régamey were included in the paintings, which helped to personalize the message. In other cases, working from drawings on the spot or possibly photographs, Régamey com- pleted the didactic paintings in Paris with the aim of presenting them as a large scale exhibition along with numerous objects at the Exposition Universelle (1878) at the Trocadéro. Always in the minds of both men was the fact that the completed paintings were to be done on the scale of Salon entries, large enough to convey their message, and accurate enough to prevent people from saying

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/24054992-00412P03Journal of Japonisme 4 (2019) 132-139 _full_journalsubtitle: 0 _full_abbrevjournaltitle: JOJ _full_ppubnumber: ISSN 2405-4984 (print version) _full_epubnumber: ISSN 2405-4992 (online version) _full_issue: 1-2 _full_issuetitle: 0 _full_alt_author_running_head (neem stramien J2 voor dit article en vul alleen 0 in hierna): Book Reviews _full_alt_articletitle_running_head (rechter kopregel - mag alles zijn): Book and Exhibitions _full_is_advance_article: 0 _full_article_language: en indien anders: engelse articletitle: 0

Book and Exhibitions 133

Figure 1 Wall text: Introduction

Figure 2 Félix Régamey, Sacred and common bridge at Nikkō, 1877-1878.

that they were inspired by imagination or dreams. In 1878, at the Trocadéro (figs 4 and 5) the effect would have been mesmerizing, overwhelming. Coming at a moment when Japonisme was being written about by critics such as Ernest

Journal of Japonisme 4 (2019) 132-139