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UKIYO-E AND JAPONISM IN THE YOUNG PICASSO’S CIRCLE Ricard Bru ‘Whenever a new fashion appears, in whichever field, it usually of Japanese Art was still open and had recently moved to Carrer Pau begins with exaggeration. Such is the case at present, in the artistic Claris; rich collections of oriental art were continuing to expand, and sphere, with Japonism, whose derivation is clear from its name... everyone was aware of the presence of Japanese prints (ukiyo-e) A fancy for Japanese ceramic and bronze objects, embroidery and craftsmanship in many artists’ studios and in the homes of many and cloth led to the reproduction, with varying degrees of success, a Barcelona industrialist (fig. 1). In October 1895, businessman of the decorative style employed in ages past, and still today, by Santiago Gisbert had just opened a new branch of his famous Almacenes Japanese artists and manufacturers. From this was born what has del Japón (Japanese stores) in the Plaça Reial, supplementing the come to be known as Japonism, which today shows signs of ubiquity various Japanese art shops which had been operating in Barcelona’s and of introducing into the arts a kind of new Gongorism, much historic centre, the Casc Antic, for at least a decade. In 1896, as in worse than the literary style extolled by our most celebrated poet.’1 previous years, the city’s theatres were also full of Japanese-inspired entertainments, from the Imperial Japanese Company at the Teatre Picasso’s arrival in Barcelona and the city’s Japonist boom Principal and the acrobatics of Sadakichi and Ando Genjiro (1895-1896) at the Teatre Eldorado, to the successful comic operettas Ki-ki-ri-ki and La Japonesa at the Teatre Gran Vía. When art critic Francesc Miquel i Badia penned this disparaging During those years, when Modernisme was in full swing, Japonism opinion of the out and out popularity of Japonism, in 1896, Pablo had a major following amongst artists and the wealthy middle classes Ruiz Picasso had been settled in the Catalan capital for just one year. and also amongst the less well-to-do sections of the population in At that point, the artist was no more than an adolescent of fourteen, which Picasso moved. Proof of this is young artist’s oil portrait of his studying painting at the Llotja School. Influenced by the academic sister Lola, in which an oriental doll with a parasol and fan hangs on aspirations of his painter father, Picasso was to discover an effervescent, the wall of the house in Carrer de la Mercè where the family came Moderniste and Symbolist Barcelona, fascinated by Japonism. to live in the summer of 1896 (fig. 2). The Museu Picasso in Barcelona Following in the wake of the major European centres, Barcelona also has a small drawing, dated soon after Picasso’s arrival in the city, was striving to emulate the international artistic momentum. The which shows he was familiar with the fashion for Japonism in Barcelona city was in a ferment of social and aesthetic ideas. Local bohemians from the outset. It is an erotic drawing, finished in watercolour, and emerging artists, imbibing the precepts of Montmartre and of a semi-nude Japanese woman emerging from her kimono like of English art, wanted to revitalize an artistic tradition which had a chrysalis from a silk cocoon (p. 47). This brief sketch lies half way become impoverished. The fashion for Japonism had begun to appear between the women represented in bijinga (beautiful women) prints in the city at least twenty years earlier, and there was no longer any and the Manga sketches of Katsushika Hokusai (p. 46); it’s a fantastical doubt as to the role of Japanese art in reforming the arts as a whole. image which seems to evoke the geisha or courtesans of Japanese Picasso was no stranger to the phenomenon. All things considered, engravings (see fig. 6, p. 32), frequently represented and reinterpreted he must have come into contact with it quite naturally. As a Barcelona by Western artists. magazine of 1896 put it, ‘[...] visit any contemporary art gallery or exhibition, the studio of any artist, sculptor or decorator and you will The Quatre Gats and Japanese art in Picasso’s circle (1897-1900) see, as clear as day, the influence of Japonism [...]’.2 Paris and Barcelona, the two cities in which Picasso trained and Biographies of Picasso usually depict the young artist in around 1900 matured as an artist, were both still experiencing the vogue for as dividing his time between brothels and the Edén Concert, moving Japonism at the close of the 1800s. When Picasso arrived in Barcelona within a small circle of friends and favouring one particular place, in September 1895, the city centre already boasted several shops the Quatre Gats. He has never been regarded as closely connected specialising in oriental art; Consul Richard Lindau’s Museum to the Japonism movement because the artist himself was the first to UKIYO-E AND JAPONISM IN THE YOUNG PICASSO’S CIRCLE [182] deny any interest in such a widely popular trend. It is undeniable, influence of Japanese prints on some of the artists who frequented however, that those artists who gathered at the famous café, and were the café. The lack of perspective, the flat surfaces and stylised therefore part of the young Picasso’s circle, were precisely those upon silhouettes, the chrysanthemum print on the woman in the foreground, whom Japonism made the most profound impression. the definite outlines and, finally, the artists’ monograms in the style Over the six years in which it operated on the ground floor of of Toulouse-Lautrec, are indications of the strong influence exerted the Casa Martí, between 1897 and 1903, the Quatre Gats was the by Parisian Japonism. The work of Santiago Rusiñol also evolved as haunt of major figures of the day, a focus for modernity and a result of his various stays in Paris and, by 1893-1894, his paintings Modernisme, a place for art and entertainment, and a haven for a large had begun to incorporate technical and compositional solutions group of young artists who hoped to make a name for themselves gleaned from Japanese woodcuts.5 How could the young Picasso have alongside the recognised artists. Modelled on the bohemian cabarets remained indifferent to the fever for Japonism? Each in his own way of Montmartre, a stamping ground for musicians, artists and writers, – Casas as a modern portraitist and poster artist, Rusiñol as decadent the café set out to be the main centre of the city’s artistic revival. Its symbolist, and Utrillo as critic and illustrator in the style of Toulouse- host – and its soul – was Pere Romeu, who organised solo and group Lautrec – the patriarchs of the Quatre Gats left a strong impression exhibitions, literary and musical soirées, puppet shows and Chinese on Picasso’s early career, before he forged his own artistic syntax.6 shadow plays, alongside informal discussion groups and improvised Of all the Catalan artists at the Quatre Gats, Picasso got on best with musical performances around the piano in the main room. Isidre Nonell, a painter he admired for his modernity, his humanism The Quatre Gats spawned a weekly newspaper of the same name, and the rawness with which his art tackled poverty and the poor.7 Quatre Gats (1899), of which Pere Romeu was the driving force, and Nonell, who had already demonstrated his debt to the ukiyo-e aesthetic a magazine which had a more successful career, Pèl & Ploma (1899- in his series Cretins de Boí (1896), also confessed to having been 1903), founded by Ramon Casas and Miquel Utrillo. At the tavern’s captivated by the discovery of various collections of Japanese prints tables, as well as jugs of beer and thousands of ideas, customers during his stay in Paris in 1898. He wrote to art critic Raimon swapped the key international art magazines of the era such as The Casellas, ‘I’ve seen the Japanese prints at the Louvre, those in Count Studio, Art et Décoration, L’Art Décoratif, La Plume, Le Chat Noir, Camondo’s collection and the ones in the museum near the Trocadero The Sketch, Jugend, Gil Blas illustré, and Hispania, all of which were [Musée Guimet]. The first I saw were in the Louvre and they disseminating the Japanese aesthetic across Europe.3 Closer to home, immediately won me over. I’ve since been to see the others and my Pèl & Ploma published summaries and extracts from those magazines admiration for the Japanese has grown each day. They were true as well as articles on some of the main exponents of Japonism artists and when one speaks of them, one forgets that Forain, Lautrec, such as Whistler and Toulouse-Lautrec. In 1902, it published Ramon Mucha; etc even existed.’8 Casas’ portraits of the celebrated Japanese actress Sadayakko – whom Nonell talks of having discovered them in Paris, but Japanese Picasso had sketched some months earlier – and her husband Kawakami prints and illustrated books had been known in Barcelona for years; Otojiro with whom Casas and Utrillo were on friendly terms (fig. 3 although less widely available than in cities like Paris or London, they and p. 49). When Kawakami Otojiro died in 1912, El Noticiero had nonetheless been circulating in Barcelona for some time. Universal published an article recalling the Japanese couple’s many They had been shown in various exhibitions since 1878 and from exchanges with Casas and Utrillo in Casas’ studio in Passeig de Gràcia the middle of the following decade, they were displayed and sold in 1902.

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