Field Journal 5

It was interesting to learn about Ukiyo-e art movement that existed during years 1603-1867.

Ukiyo-e was a popular style of Japanese art of the Edo (Tokio) period. Ukiyo-e means pictures of the floating world. The art in this period was connected with pleasures of city life and the most commonly illustrated subjects were courtesan life, actors, scenes from theatrical plays, landscape motifs, nature and scenes from Japan's history and old legends.

Novelist Asai Ryoi (1612-1691), in his Ikiyo Monogatari (Tales of the Floating World, 1661), gave explains the meaning of floating world in the following way:

... Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maple leaves; singing songs, drinking wine, diverting ourselves in just floating, floating; ... refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current: this is what we call the floating world…
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e#cite_note-0)

Hishikawa Moronobu (1618-1694) was the most famous painter and printmaker of the Ukiyo-e movement. His first prints were created with only black pigment and his late works were hand colored. But it is his not colored works, created in simple manner using black and grey lines and some solid area with contrast of white paper, that have the greatest impact in the viewer. In his works he shows a life of ordinary people and courtesan life. Ukioy-e art was not expansive, because it could be mass produced and it was intended for the people living in town, who usually were not very wealthy.

Hishikawa Moronobu
Panel from a series of 12
Woodcut, sumi ink on paper
late 1670-early 1680
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hishikawa_Moronobu

The artists Okomura Masanobu (1686-1764) and Suzuki Harunobu (1725-1770) were among the first artists to introduce color woodblock prints. Other famous artists of this period were: Utamaro, Hiroshige, Sharaku, Hokusai.

Suzuki Harunobu

Woodblock print
about 1768
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Harunobu

Woodblock printing is a technique that was used by artist of Ukiyo-e movement. After the end of Edo period, in the beginning of Meiji period, Japan became open to trade with West. Introduction of photography in Japan had largely killed the Ukiyo-e art. It was given so little value, that it was often used as packaging material for traded products. The introduction of woodblock prints in Europe, however, had a great impact. The prints of Ukiyo-e movement had influenced the Art Nouveau style and Impressionism, Post Impressionism and Cubism.

French post-Impressionist Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) was fascinated by these works of art. He liked to visit the Bing Gallery shop that was located in Montmartre and has thousands of Japanese prints. He spent a lot of time in this shop and had become a collector of Ukiyo-e art. There are quite a few Van Gogh works that directly mimic Ukiyo-e style and motifs, like the attached image of Van Gogh - La courtisane (after Eisen), 1887.

Van Gogh

La courtisane (after Eisen)
1887
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japonisme

It is interesting to see how different were impact of western world on eastern world and vice versa. While Japan had moved forward with modernized development of the world, Europe had a made a step in the direction of Japanese art. It even caused a new art movement Japonism, where artist were very much influenced by lack of perspective, shadow and light, and flat bright colored areas of Japanese Ukiyo-e art. A good examples of this would be work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, like May Belfort, poster, 1895.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
May Belfort (singing Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow-wow)
Poster, 1895
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_de_Toulouse-Lautrec

Japan, on the other hand, had two more woodprint movements that were directly influenced by the work of European artists: shin hanga ("New Prints"), which was focused on traditional Japanese themes, but had incorporated western knowledge about light and face expressions, and sōsaku hanga movement, which means creative prints, where artists became involved in all parts of printing process, unlike the original Ukiyo-e movement, where each part of the process was done by different specialists.

It is interesting that while Japanese art had became highly influential and valuable in Europe, it has lost its appeal in Japan. The same is almost true the other way around, though not to the same degree, European artist had ignored the more realistic approach in their works for more bold and contrasting look of Japanese works.

Nowadays we can see both approaches in used in design: while photography and realistic images are a big part of commercial and other forms of art work, the more graphic and less representative approach is still used as well. I really like Ukiyo-e art and I am really glad that these works of art were preserved till today. There is a lot of power in the simplicity of Japanese prints, as if only the most important part of the scene got to be depicted. I like how those images can create powerful statements by simply putting the objects of center. The work that had inspired European artists in the past still inspire people today.

Field Journal 4

In my Storyboarding class I create storyboard for English nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle". It is a very pleasant and funny rhyme:

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
And the fork ran away with the Spoon

And in my textbook “Meggs’ History of Graphic Design,” in chapter 9, I read information that the illustration for this book was created in 1880 by Radolph Caldecott. He was a British artist and illustrator.

His illustration forf children books are amazing. He drew characters and captured so well the facial expressions of animals and people. The characters he created are so lively and relatable that everybody would be touched and mesmerized by them and would not be left indifferent.

I also created storyboard for this rhyme, but of course it not going in any comparison with Radolph Caldecott illustration.

Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/

Field Journal 3

It was interesting to learn about the process used to develop the new font, Romain du Roi in 1692 in France.

French king Louis XIV ordered a committee of scholars to develop new font for royal printing office. The main idea was that the new font should be developed using scientific principles. The head of the committee of scholars was a mathematician Nicolas Jaugeon.

The committee studied all previous alphabets and type designs before developing the new font. They created a grid with a total of 2304 little squares, which is very interesting when taking in account how computer fonts were initially developed a few years back. When developing new font, the committee relied on mathematical harmony verified by the use of measurements and drafting tools, rather than calligraphy tools. Of course, a lot of fine details that were visible on the master alphabets did not transfer to the text-size types. Romain du Roi was only allowed to be used by royal printing office, and its use by others was considered to be capital offense. This however did not stop the creation of very similar fonts, which yet had to have significant differences not be confused with Romain du Roi.