I brought back a book from San Francisco on Japanesque, an exhibition shown at the Legion of Honor. It was really packed at the museum and very hard to study and read about all the impressive collections on the spot. But now that I read the book, I am finally starting to understand a little bit more about Ukiyoe.I always wondered what was so influential about Ukiyoe by Hiroshige, Harunobu, and Utamaro, to the French and other impressionist painters. Other than that it looks like anime and definitely without depth.
I can now see that it is everything from the color and composition, to the imagery. Composition-wise, the impressionists who followed Ukiyoe-style have always divided the background into geometric components, either through a shoji screen in the background or a painting hung in a diagnal direction.
Imagery is what the artist picks up. As a lot of the "Floating World" of Ukiyoe depicts women in the entertainment business as well as brothels, so does Degas (the perv) and Toulouse-Lautrec with the ballerina and courtesans.
One of the Ukiyoe followers even went further, and completely copied a concept. Henri Riviere in paying tribute to Hokusai's Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji, created a picture book of Thirty Six Views of the Eiffel Tower. It was shown in a small corner of this grandiose exhibition, but what an enchanting concept!
Perhaps back in the day, it was edgy with the contraversy of the Eiffel Tower compared to Mt. Fuji that has no enemy... or perhaps Riviere being an avid fan of the Eiffel Tower wanted to give the same godly status to the French symbol of today?
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