Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Renegade EDO and Paris: Japanese Prints and Toulouse-Lautrec

Renegade EDO and Paris: Japanese Prints and Toulouse-Lautrec

Wu, Xiaojin

Paperback

Art HistoryEuropean ArtJapanese Art

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0932216072
ISBN13: 9780932216076
Publisher: Seattle Art Museum
Published: Jun 27 2023
Pages: 104
Weight: 1.30
Height: 0.55 Width: 9.29 Depth: 10.63
Language: English

A critical look at the renegade spirit that permeates Japanese prints and the posters of fin-de-siècle Paris

Both the Edo period (1603-1868) in Japan and the late nineteenth century in France witnessed a multitude of challenges to the status quo from the rising middle class. In Edo (present-day Tokyo), townspeople pursued hedonistic lifestyles as a way of defying the state-sanctioned social hierarchy that positioned them at the bottom. Their new pastimes supplied subject matter for ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world). Many such pictures arrived in France in the 1860s, a time when French art and society were undergoing substantial changes. Fin-de-siècle Paris, like Edo before it, saw the rise of antiestablishment attitudes and a Bohemian subculture. As artists searched for fresh and more expressive forms, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) and his contemporaries were drawn to novel Japanese prints.

While ukiyo-e's formal influences on Toulouse-Lautrec and his peers have been well studied, the shared subversive hedonism that underlies these artworks has been less examined. Through a wide selection of Japanese prints and Toulouse-Lautrec works, this book offers a critical look at the renegade spirit inhabiting the graphic arts in both Edo and Paris, highlighting the social impulses behind a burgeoning art production.

Exhibition dates: Seattle Asian Art Museum, July 21-December 3, 2023

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