![]() ![]() ![]() This was in fact one of a series of 12 books published in the form of woodblock prints entitled The Hokusai Manga, literally meaning ‘drawings just as they come’. The pages of the book were crammed with amusing and humorously drawn sketches-lively character studies of children, fishermen, mythical creatures as well as delightful studies of animals and plants. In 1856, the young engraver and ceramics decorator, Félix Bracquemond, discovered a small sketchbook by a Japanese printmaker named Hokusai, who intriguingly signed his work ‘Old Man Mad about Drawing’. He wrote this letter from Antwerp, but it was 30 years earlier in Paris that the Ukiyo-e Japanese woodblock print first began to influence the group of painters later known as the Impressionists. Van Gogh’s letters are perhaps one of the most interesting and vividly descriptive sources that we have in relation to a painter’s thoughts on his art, and in them he often refers to traditional Japanese prints, of which his collection numbered more than 400. ![]() You know those little women’s figures in the gardens, or on the beach, horsemen, flowers, knotty thorn branches…’ wrote Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo in 1885, describing his Antwerp studio. ‘I have pinned a lot of Japanese prints on the wall which amuse me very much. The explosion of interest in traditional Japanese art in the 1860s influenced and inspired leading Impressionists including Van Gogh, Monet and Degas. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |