END NOTES
fLOATING pLEASURE wORLDS OF pARIS AND EDO
To return to your place in the text, just press your Back button.
1. Currently held at the British Museum, London. The print has been given various titles. For convenience, I will refer to it in this article by the shorthand term, Shikian. It is variously dated as being between 1786 and 1788. The precise date may actually be significant, because it would indicate whether the print was created before or after the 1787 Yoshiwara fire which contributed to the heyday of Nakasu, the setting for the print.
2. 1757-1820. The name is also spelled as Shunman, though this version has been described as an “archaic romanisation”: Richard Lane, “Ukiyo-E Paintings Abroad: A Review Article”, Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 23, No. 1/2 (1968), 190-207.
3. In French, Le Déjeuner des Canotiers. This work, which I shall generally refer to by the shorthand term, Luncheon, is held in The Phillips Collection, Washington.
4. 1841-1919.
5. Donald Jenkins, The Floating World Revisited, Portland Art Museum in association with University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1993, 15.
6. Asai Ryoi, Tales of the Floating World (c 1661), trans, Richard Lane, quoted in John Reeve, Floating World: Japan in the Edo Period, British Museum Press, London 2006, 5. The full quotation is: “Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, sun, the cherry blossoms and the maple leaves, singing songs, drinking wine, and diverting ourselves just in floating, floating, caring not a whit for the pauperism staring us in the face, refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current: this is what we call the floating world, ‘ukiyo’”. Pictures of the Floating World were known as ukiyo-e.
7. This was not simply a throwaway line; it is referred to a dozen times in his son’s biography: Jean Renoir, Renoir My Father, Collins Fontana, London 1962, 38.
8. Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen, What Great Paintings Say (Vol 1 and 2), Taschen, Cologne 2003, vol 1, 440.
9. C Nakane, and S Oishi (eds), Tokugawa Japan: the social and economic antecedents of modern Japan, (transl C Totman),University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo, c1990, 135.
10. Nakane, 132. It is interesting that present-day entertainment quarters in Kyoto and Osaka are also close to water.
11. R Brettell, “The River Seine: Subject and Symbol in 19th Century French Art and Literature”, in Eliza E Rathbone (ed) Impressionists on the Seine, White Collection, Washington 1996, 87; K Rothkopf, “From Argenteuil to Bougival: Life and Leisure on the Seine 1868-1882” in Rathbone, 57.
12. Robert L Herbert, Impressionism: Art, Leisure and Parisian Society, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 1988, 305.
13. Brettell, in Rathbone, 87. It has also been suggested that the theme of canotiers [boatmen] was inextricably linked, in popular mythology, with narratives of amorous interchange and sexual intrigue: John House, La Promenade, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, c1997, 73. It is interesting that Watteau’s Embarkation for Cythera (1717),a painting that was influential on Renoir, depicts a visit to the “Isle of Love” where Venus originally arose from the water: Michael Levey, “The Real Theme of Watteau’s Embarkation for Cythera”, The Burlington Magazine, v 103, No 698 (May 1961) 180.
14. Edo was not an industrial or commercial centre, and the system of alternate attendance, which required domain lords to spend long periods in the capital, meant that many of its inhabitants were essentially non-productive in an economic sense.
15. This was also largely due to alternate attendance.
16. Merchants were ranked at the bottom of a rigid social scale, below samurai, farmers and craftsmen. They were prevented from displays of ostentation, or significant participation in government: Jenkins, 13.
17. Also spelled as Nakazu. It has a literal meaning of “sandbank in the river”. Nakasu turned out to be short-lived. It was torn down by the authorities in 1790, supposedly because of flooding problems, though moral disapproval possibly played some role in the decision: see generally Tim Clark, “The Rise and Fall of the Island of Nakazu”, Archives of Asian Art, Vol XLV 1992, 72.
18. The Yoshiwara was a virtual city within Edo, and had its own rules, customs and even dialect. Far from presenting a seedy image, the Yoshiwara came to acquire an extraordinary reputation for glamour. The most prestigious courtesans were fabulously outfitted, charged enormous amounts, had an air of sophisticated, fashionable refinement, and were very discriminating. Elaborate procedures and an educated, civilised manner were required for men even to get access to them. Of course, the majority of the women were not at this level, ranging all the way down to the lowly “nighthawks”, but to a significant extent the whole industry bathed in the reflected glamour of its top practitioners: Jenkins, 17.
19. Cecilia Segawa Seigle, Yoshiwara: the glittering world of the Japanese courtesan, University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu 1993, 163.
20. See generally Clark, 72
21. For example, clothes were changed less often: Seigle, 164.
22. Reeve (Floating World), 44; Clark, 82. The restaurant was also the subject of a painting by Kitao Masanobu, Shikian Restaurant, Nakasu, which appears to be set in a similar room to Shumman’s work. Clark comments that the depiction of specific buildings were quite rare in ukiyo-e paintings (as distinct from prints), and is indicative of the restaurant’s eminence. It was also celebrated in a kyoka (lit “crazy verse”) by Ota Nampo, On hearing a cuckoo at the Shikian, 1785.
23. Clark, 84.
24. As with the Shikian, La Maison Fournaise had been painted before. Renoir himself had depicted it in his Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise (1875). The restaurant was typical of the open air establishments known in French as guingettes.
25. Many employees had been freed up for leisure by the recently-introduced shorter working week.
26. Commercial prostitution itself had been legalised in France from the start of the nineteenth century, though there were also, of course, a host of unlicensed establishments and freelance operators.
27. Jacques and Monique Lay, “Rediscovering La Grenouillere: Ars longa, vita brevis”, Apollo, CXXXVII; 375 (May 1993) 281-286, at 281.
28. John House, exh cat, Renoir: Master Impressionist, Art Exhibitions Australia Ltd, Sydney 2000, 15.
29. Michael P Farrell, Collaborative Circles: Friendship Dynamics and Creative Work, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,2001, at 40.
30. This is illustrated in the different gender balance in the two works. The preponderance of women in the Shikian reflects the fact that the function of the women was to entertain and wait upon the men, whereas the preponderance of men in the Luncheon reflects the fact that that the venue had other attractions.
31. Sea bream (tai), was considered a particularly appropriate dish for a celebration, because of its verbal association with the word medetai (“auspicious”). The red colour was also regarded favourably.
32. Geisha (lit “accomplished persons”) were entertainers who danced, played music sang and conversed with guests, but were not intended to necessarily engage in sex. They were generally more restrained in costume and coiffure, though often livelier in spirit than the traditional courtesans. Female geisha emerged in the 1750s, and proliferated particularly in the high-class restaurants in unlicensed pleasure areas. By 1779 there were at least 27 in Nakasu: Seigle, 163.
33. Reeve (Floating World), 44. See also Reeve, John, Japanese Art in Detail, British Museum Press, London, 2005 at 14.
34. Renoir evidently added the awning at a very late stage in the painting, after agonising over ways in which to provide some structural context for the scene. Previously there had been a fully developed river scene, and the full span of the bridge was visible: E Steele, “Achieving the Composition in The Luncheon of the Boating Party”, in Rathbone, 229. Renoir could probably have saved himself a lot of worrying about the awning if he had had a copy of the Shikian to inspire him on this point.
35. This is possibly the traditional game kitsune-ken (“fox-fist”), which is somewhat similar to the “rock, paper scissors” game of the west. The “fox”, indicated by the man’s two raised hands imitating a fox’s ears, wins over the “headman”, indicated by the woman’s hands towards her knees. The loser may be required to.take a drink as a forfeit: see the website of the Victoria and Albert Museum at www.vam.ac.uk, notes on Geisha Playing the Hand-Game Kitsune-Ken, a brocade print by Kikukawa Eizan, c 1820), consulted 13 May 2008.
36.As quoted by Ambroise Vollard, in Nicholas Wadley (ed), Renoir: a Retrospective, Bay Books, Sydney and London 1987, 305. For the influence of Japonisme on French artists, see Lionel Lambourne, Japonisme: Cultural Crossings between Japan and the West, Phaidon Press, London 2005; and. Klaus Berger, Japonisme in Western Painting from Whistler to Matisse, Cambridge UP, Cambridge 1992.
37. Wadley, 245.
38. The placement of a crowd on one side of the canvas, with fewer people and a view to the distance on the other side of the canvas, is characteristic of some of Renoir’s larger compositions, such as Au Moulin de la Galette (1876): Walter Pach, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Henry N Abrams, Inc New York [1960], 74.
39. In Japan, the knowledge of perspective necessary for three-dimensional depictions may have been gained through translations of European books on perspective. The Japanese term for perspective depictions is uki-e (“floating pictures”), possibly because the picture seems to float out at the viewer – yet another type of floating world.
40. The detail in this deep optical field is so clear that it can be seen to be virtually identical with the background of Enshi’s View from the Balcony of the Yamashiro Teahouse, which must have been almost next door to the Shikian: Jenkins, 112.
41. Reeve (Floating World), 44. The fade-proof Prussian blue colour was not introduced until the 19th century: see our article Prussian blue and its partner in crime.
42. Clark, 85. He gives as an example the unrealistic yellow of the tatami matting (though does not necessarily show up in some reproductions). Shumman’s approach to the use of colour in other works has been described as “capricious”: Jack Hillier, The Japanese Print: A New Approach, Charles E Tuttle, Rutland VT and Tokyo 1975, 104. Shumman had also experimented with the non-naturalistic benirigai-e prints, which avoided the use of red colours.
43. Woodblock prints did allow for some degree of gradation of colour. This was later used to great effect, for example in conveying sky effects in the landscape prints of Hokusai and Hiroshige.
44. Elizabeth de Sabato Swinton, The Women of the Pleasure Quarter – Japanese Paintings and Prints of the Floating World, Hudson Hills Press, New York 1995, 107.
45. Pach, 74, suggests that the painting has a glowing opulence reminiscent of Venetian painting.
46. It has been suggested that a sense of lightness appropriate to summer is also preserved by keeping background colour to a minimum: Clark, 85.
47. Actually, on close examination, it is predominantly a light lavender: Rathbone, 223.
48. The cheapest prints cost about half the price of the cheapest Kabuki ticket: Hickey, Gary, Beauty and Desire in Edo Period Japan, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 1998, 10.Of course, factors such colour, brocading, quality of paper and reputation of the artist would affect the price.
49. Jenkins, 3;Lawrence Smith (ed), Ukiyoe: Images of Unknown Japan, British Museum Publications, London 1988, 15.
50. Smith, 8. This transformation would be repeated in the the posters produced by Toulouse-Lautrec in Paris a hundred years later: see Toulouse-Lautrec, the bicycle and the women's movement
51. There is a particularly extreme elongation of the legs of the standing man at the left and the waitress entering the right.
52. Shumman was a skilled creator of kyoka (comic verse), works of fiction, haiku poetry, and a skilled artisan of lacquer work and shell inlay articles. The Shikian was one of only a limited number of commercially-produced prints that he designed: John Carpenter, “Textures of Antiquarian Imagination: Kubo Shunman and the Kokugaku Movement” in A Newland (ed), The Commercial and Cultural Climate of Japanese Printmaking, Hotei Academic Publishing Amsterdam 2004, 78; Hillier, 102ff.
53. Jenkins, 113; Hillier, 102ff.
54. House, Renoir, 20; Wadley, 163.
55. This was perhaps ironic given that during this period, the new French administration was strongly encouraging painters to tackle contemporary subjects: House, Renoir, 20.
56. The degree of dappling has, however, been reduced since The Swing (1876).
57. Wadley, 371: Robert L Herbert, Impressionism: Art, Leisure and Parisian Society, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 1988, 248.
58. Swinton, 56.
59. Seigle, 36.
60. Renoir, 206.
61. Individual identification was, however, an important aspect of many kabuki actor prints.
62. Wadley, 263.
63. The main figures have been provisionally identified as follows: the standing man on the left is Alphonse Fournaise, the son of the restaurant proprietor, and the smiling woman leaning on the balustrade is his sister Alphonsine. The woman with the dog is Aline Charigot, a milliner/seamstress who later became Renoir’s wife. The singleted man on the right is the artist and patron Gustave Caillebotte. The woman near him is Angele, an actress/model, the man leaning over her is Antonio Maggiolo, an Italian journalist. Ellen Andree, an actress/model is the woman drinking from the glass. The brown suited man in front of her is Baron Raoul Barbier. The top hatted man is the wealthy collector Charles Ephrussi and the capped man he is speaking to is the poet Jules Laforgue. The prominent actress Jeanne Samary is the woman with her hands over her ears and the men talking to her are the artist Paul Lhote and the bureaucrat Pierre Lestringuez: http://www.phillipscollection.org/html/lbp.html, consulted 13 May 2008.
64. Typical was Berthe Morisot’s reaction when she met Renoir’s wife (Aline: see note 63) for the first time: “I shall never succeed in describing to you my astonishment at the sight of this ungainly woman whom, I don’t know why, I had imagined to be like her husband’s paintings”: Wadley, 33. This “ungainly woman” is the woman playing with the dog in the lower left foreground of the painting.
65. Rathbone, 39. The novel, an engaging read, is by Susan Vreeland (Luncheon of the Boating Party, Penguin Books, 2008).
66 Jenkins, 136.
67. The exception is the geisha siting with her back to the viewer in the right foreground, whose neck is turning a little awkwardly.
68.Y Shirabake, “Development of Aesthetic Facial Surgery as Seen Through the Study of Japanese Pictorial Art”, Aesthetic Plastic Surgery 1990, 14(3) 215-221.
69. These however are nowhere near as elaborate as those displayed by the most elegant courtesans of this and earlier eras.
70. In Paris, wearing a hat was considered, until well into the 20th century, as an outward sign of female middle class respectability. If a woman went out en cheveux, “in her hair”, it could indicate that she belonged to the lowest social class, or had a dubious reputation: Hagen vol 2, 396, 397.
71. Swinton, 50, 51. Depictions of male kabuki actors impersonating women may also contribute to some confusion.
72. Other gender indicators for the males are facial hair, short haircuts, browner complexions, and their relatively drab-coloured clothing. As with women, hats (top hats, straw boaters, bowlers or caps) are prominent. Parisian men tended to wear them even when dancing: Hagen vol 2, 397.
73. Colin B Baily, Renoir’s Portraits: Impressions of an Age, Yale University Press, New Haven 1997, 66.
74. As quoted in Wadley, 288.
75. For example, the woman in the left foreground is absorbed with her dog, the woman drinking looks somewhat alienated, two people have their backs to the viewer, the tall man at left looks somewhat aloof, and the black clad woman at the left is evidently closing her ears to the conversations of her companions.
76. Clark, 84.
77. Periodic censorship crackdowns by the authorities, such as Kansei Reforms from about 1790 onwards, would also have been a disincentive to presenting a frank view.
78. As quoted in Wadley, 360; Bailey, 66.
79. Wadley, 35.
80. Wadley, 32; Renoir, 19.
81. The restaurant survives to this day, still trading on its association with the Luncheon: see the website of the Fournaise Museum at http://www.musee-fournaise.com/fournaise/us/mf010201.asp. At a more general level, many of the Impressionists consciously or unconsciously publicised those areas in which they were fond of working: Herbert, 305.
82. As quoted by Ambroise Vollard, in Wadley, 304.
83. This also meant that there was no “original” in this process.
84. This was similar in some ways to the detailed prescriptions often given to European artists by their patrons or sponsors.
85. Jenkins, 112.
86. Carpenter, 82.
87. An example is provided by the innovations attributed to Kiyonaga. As we have noted in the discussion of the “golden age”, some of these innovations represented significant advances that in themselves increased the artistic reputation of prints.
88. Apart, of course, from the subsidiary aspects of producing the raw materials (canvas, paints) and framing.
89. Swinton, 127.
90. A technical examination carried out on the Luncheon by the Phillips Collection revealed that Renoir had adjusted every figure, some many times: Steele, 221ff.
91. It has actually been suggested that the limitations imposed by the size helped inspire new ways of composition: Swinton, 107.
© Philip McCouat 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019
Mode of citation: Philip McCouat, "The floating pleasure worlds of Paris and Edo", Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com
We welcome your comments on this article
Back to Home
1. Currently held at the British Museum, London. The print has been given various titles. For convenience, I will refer to it in this article by the shorthand term, Shikian. It is variously dated as being between 1786 and 1788. The precise date may actually be significant, because it would indicate whether the print was created before or after the 1787 Yoshiwara fire which contributed to the heyday of Nakasu, the setting for the print.
2. 1757-1820. The name is also spelled as Shunman, though this version has been described as an “archaic romanisation”: Richard Lane, “Ukiyo-E Paintings Abroad: A Review Article”, Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 23, No. 1/2 (1968), 190-207.
3. In French, Le Déjeuner des Canotiers. This work, which I shall generally refer to by the shorthand term, Luncheon, is held in The Phillips Collection, Washington.
4. 1841-1919.
5. Donald Jenkins, The Floating World Revisited, Portland Art Museum in association with University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1993, 15.
6. Asai Ryoi, Tales of the Floating World (c 1661), trans, Richard Lane, quoted in John Reeve, Floating World: Japan in the Edo Period, British Museum Press, London 2006, 5. The full quotation is: “Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, sun, the cherry blossoms and the maple leaves, singing songs, drinking wine, and diverting ourselves just in floating, floating, caring not a whit for the pauperism staring us in the face, refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current: this is what we call the floating world, ‘ukiyo’”. Pictures of the Floating World were known as ukiyo-e.
7. This was not simply a throwaway line; it is referred to a dozen times in his son’s biography: Jean Renoir, Renoir My Father, Collins Fontana, London 1962, 38.
8. Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen, What Great Paintings Say (Vol 1 and 2), Taschen, Cologne 2003, vol 1, 440.
9. C Nakane, and S Oishi (eds), Tokugawa Japan: the social and economic antecedents of modern Japan, (transl C Totman),University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo, c1990, 135.
10. Nakane, 132. It is interesting that present-day entertainment quarters in Kyoto and Osaka are also close to water.
11. R Brettell, “The River Seine: Subject and Symbol in 19th Century French Art and Literature”, in Eliza E Rathbone (ed) Impressionists on the Seine, White Collection, Washington 1996, 87; K Rothkopf, “From Argenteuil to Bougival: Life and Leisure on the Seine 1868-1882” in Rathbone, 57.
12. Robert L Herbert, Impressionism: Art, Leisure and Parisian Society, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 1988, 305.
13. Brettell, in Rathbone, 87. It has also been suggested that the theme of canotiers [boatmen] was inextricably linked, in popular mythology, with narratives of amorous interchange and sexual intrigue: John House, La Promenade, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, c1997, 73. It is interesting that Watteau’s Embarkation for Cythera (1717),a painting that was influential on Renoir, depicts a visit to the “Isle of Love” where Venus originally arose from the water: Michael Levey, “The Real Theme of Watteau’s Embarkation for Cythera”, The Burlington Magazine, v 103, No 698 (May 1961) 180.
14. Edo was not an industrial or commercial centre, and the system of alternate attendance, which required domain lords to spend long periods in the capital, meant that many of its inhabitants were essentially non-productive in an economic sense.
15. This was also largely due to alternate attendance.
16. Merchants were ranked at the bottom of a rigid social scale, below samurai, farmers and craftsmen. They were prevented from displays of ostentation, or significant participation in government: Jenkins, 13.
17. Also spelled as Nakazu. It has a literal meaning of “sandbank in the river”. Nakasu turned out to be short-lived. It was torn down by the authorities in 1790, supposedly because of flooding problems, though moral disapproval possibly played some role in the decision: see generally Tim Clark, “The Rise and Fall of the Island of Nakazu”, Archives of Asian Art, Vol XLV 1992, 72.
18. The Yoshiwara was a virtual city within Edo, and had its own rules, customs and even dialect. Far from presenting a seedy image, the Yoshiwara came to acquire an extraordinary reputation for glamour. The most prestigious courtesans were fabulously outfitted, charged enormous amounts, had an air of sophisticated, fashionable refinement, and were very discriminating. Elaborate procedures and an educated, civilised manner were required for men even to get access to them. Of course, the majority of the women were not at this level, ranging all the way down to the lowly “nighthawks”, but to a significant extent the whole industry bathed in the reflected glamour of its top practitioners: Jenkins, 17.
19. Cecilia Segawa Seigle, Yoshiwara: the glittering world of the Japanese courtesan, University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu 1993, 163.
20. See generally Clark, 72
21. For example, clothes were changed less often: Seigle, 164.
22. Reeve (Floating World), 44; Clark, 82. The restaurant was also the subject of a painting by Kitao Masanobu, Shikian Restaurant, Nakasu, which appears to be set in a similar room to Shumman’s work. Clark comments that the depiction of specific buildings were quite rare in ukiyo-e paintings (as distinct from prints), and is indicative of the restaurant’s eminence. It was also celebrated in a kyoka (lit “crazy verse”) by Ota Nampo, On hearing a cuckoo at the Shikian, 1785.
23. Clark, 84.
24. As with the Shikian, La Maison Fournaise had been painted before. Renoir himself had depicted it in his Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise (1875). The restaurant was typical of the open air establishments known in French as guingettes.
25. Many employees had been freed up for leisure by the recently-introduced shorter working week.
26. Commercial prostitution itself had been legalised in France from the start of the nineteenth century, though there were also, of course, a host of unlicensed establishments and freelance operators.
27. Jacques and Monique Lay, “Rediscovering La Grenouillere: Ars longa, vita brevis”, Apollo, CXXXVII; 375 (May 1993) 281-286, at 281.
28. John House, exh cat, Renoir: Master Impressionist, Art Exhibitions Australia Ltd, Sydney 2000, 15.
29. Michael P Farrell, Collaborative Circles: Friendship Dynamics and Creative Work, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,2001, at 40.
30. This is illustrated in the different gender balance in the two works. The preponderance of women in the Shikian reflects the fact that the function of the women was to entertain and wait upon the men, whereas the preponderance of men in the Luncheon reflects the fact that that the venue had other attractions.
31. Sea bream (tai), was considered a particularly appropriate dish for a celebration, because of its verbal association with the word medetai (“auspicious”). The red colour was also regarded favourably.
32. Geisha (lit “accomplished persons”) were entertainers who danced, played music sang and conversed with guests, but were not intended to necessarily engage in sex. They were generally more restrained in costume and coiffure, though often livelier in spirit than the traditional courtesans. Female geisha emerged in the 1750s, and proliferated particularly in the high-class restaurants in unlicensed pleasure areas. By 1779 there were at least 27 in Nakasu: Seigle, 163.
33. Reeve (Floating World), 44. See also Reeve, John, Japanese Art in Detail, British Museum Press, London, 2005 at 14.
34. Renoir evidently added the awning at a very late stage in the painting, after agonising over ways in which to provide some structural context for the scene. Previously there had been a fully developed river scene, and the full span of the bridge was visible: E Steele, “Achieving the Composition in The Luncheon of the Boating Party”, in Rathbone, 229. Renoir could probably have saved himself a lot of worrying about the awning if he had had a copy of the Shikian to inspire him on this point.
35. This is possibly the traditional game kitsune-ken (“fox-fist”), which is somewhat similar to the “rock, paper scissors” game of the west. The “fox”, indicated by the man’s two raised hands imitating a fox’s ears, wins over the “headman”, indicated by the woman’s hands towards her knees. The loser may be required to.take a drink as a forfeit: see the website of the Victoria and Albert Museum at www.vam.ac.uk, notes on Geisha Playing the Hand-Game Kitsune-Ken, a brocade print by Kikukawa Eizan, c 1820), consulted 13 May 2008.
36.As quoted by Ambroise Vollard, in Nicholas Wadley (ed), Renoir: a Retrospective, Bay Books, Sydney and London 1987, 305. For the influence of Japonisme on French artists, see Lionel Lambourne, Japonisme: Cultural Crossings between Japan and the West, Phaidon Press, London 2005; and. Klaus Berger, Japonisme in Western Painting from Whistler to Matisse, Cambridge UP, Cambridge 1992.
37. Wadley, 245.
38. The placement of a crowd on one side of the canvas, with fewer people and a view to the distance on the other side of the canvas, is characteristic of some of Renoir’s larger compositions, such as Au Moulin de la Galette (1876): Walter Pach, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Henry N Abrams, Inc New York [1960], 74.
39. In Japan, the knowledge of perspective necessary for three-dimensional depictions may have been gained through translations of European books on perspective. The Japanese term for perspective depictions is uki-e (“floating pictures”), possibly because the picture seems to float out at the viewer – yet another type of floating world.
40. The detail in this deep optical field is so clear that it can be seen to be virtually identical with the background of Enshi’s View from the Balcony of the Yamashiro Teahouse, which must have been almost next door to the Shikian: Jenkins, 112.
41. Reeve (Floating World), 44. The fade-proof Prussian blue colour was not introduced until the 19th century: see our article Prussian blue and its partner in crime.
42. Clark, 85. He gives as an example the unrealistic yellow of the tatami matting (though does not necessarily show up in some reproductions). Shumman’s approach to the use of colour in other works has been described as “capricious”: Jack Hillier, The Japanese Print: A New Approach, Charles E Tuttle, Rutland VT and Tokyo 1975, 104. Shumman had also experimented with the non-naturalistic benirigai-e prints, which avoided the use of red colours.
43. Woodblock prints did allow for some degree of gradation of colour. This was later used to great effect, for example in conveying sky effects in the landscape prints of Hokusai and Hiroshige.
44. Elizabeth de Sabato Swinton, The Women of the Pleasure Quarter – Japanese Paintings and Prints of the Floating World, Hudson Hills Press, New York 1995, 107.
45. Pach, 74, suggests that the painting has a glowing opulence reminiscent of Venetian painting.
46. It has been suggested that a sense of lightness appropriate to summer is also preserved by keeping background colour to a minimum: Clark, 85.
47. Actually, on close examination, it is predominantly a light lavender: Rathbone, 223.
48. The cheapest prints cost about half the price of the cheapest Kabuki ticket: Hickey, Gary, Beauty and Desire in Edo Period Japan, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 1998, 10.Of course, factors such colour, brocading, quality of paper and reputation of the artist would affect the price.
49. Jenkins, 3;Lawrence Smith (ed), Ukiyoe: Images of Unknown Japan, British Museum Publications, London 1988, 15.
50. Smith, 8. This transformation would be repeated in the the posters produced by Toulouse-Lautrec in Paris a hundred years later: see Toulouse-Lautrec, the bicycle and the women's movement
51. There is a particularly extreme elongation of the legs of the standing man at the left and the waitress entering the right.
52. Shumman was a skilled creator of kyoka (comic verse), works of fiction, haiku poetry, and a skilled artisan of lacquer work and shell inlay articles. The Shikian was one of only a limited number of commercially-produced prints that he designed: John Carpenter, “Textures of Antiquarian Imagination: Kubo Shunman and the Kokugaku Movement” in A Newland (ed), The Commercial and Cultural Climate of Japanese Printmaking, Hotei Academic Publishing Amsterdam 2004, 78; Hillier, 102ff.
53. Jenkins, 113; Hillier, 102ff.
54. House, Renoir, 20; Wadley, 163.
55. This was perhaps ironic given that during this period, the new French administration was strongly encouraging painters to tackle contemporary subjects: House, Renoir, 20.
56. The degree of dappling has, however, been reduced since The Swing (1876).
57. Wadley, 371: Robert L Herbert, Impressionism: Art, Leisure and Parisian Society, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 1988, 248.
58. Swinton, 56.
59. Seigle, 36.
60. Renoir, 206.
61. Individual identification was, however, an important aspect of many kabuki actor prints.
62. Wadley, 263.
63. The main figures have been provisionally identified as follows: the standing man on the left is Alphonse Fournaise, the son of the restaurant proprietor, and the smiling woman leaning on the balustrade is his sister Alphonsine. The woman with the dog is Aline Charigot, a milliner/seamstress who later became Renoir’s wife. The singleted man on the right is the artist and patron Gustave Caillebotte. The woman near him is Angele, an actress/model, the man leaning over her is Antonio Maggiolo, an Italian journalist. Ellen Andree, an actress/model is the woman drinking from the glass. The brown suited man in front of her is Baron Raoul Barbier. The top hatted man is the wealthy collector Charles Ephrussi and the capped man he is speaking to is the poet Jules Laforgue. The prominent actress Jeanne Samary is the woman with her hands over her ears and the men talking to her are the artist Paul Lhote and the bureaucrat Pierre Lestringuez: http://www.phillipscollection.org/html/lbp.html, consulted 13 May 2008.
64. Typical was Berthe Morisot’s reaction when she met Renoir’s wife (Aline: see note 63) for the first time: “I shall never succeed in describing to you my astonishment at the sight of this ungainly woman whom, I don’t know why, I had imagined to be like her husband’s paintings”: Wadley, 33. This “ungainly woman” is the woman playing with the dog in the lower left foreground of the painting.
65. Rathbone, 39. The novel, an engaging read, is by Susan Vreeland (Luncheon of the Boating Party, Penguin Books, 2008).
66 Jenkins, 136.
67. The exception is the geisha siting with her back to the viewer in the right foreground, whose neck is turning a little awkwardly.
68.Y Shirabake, “Development of Aesthetic Facial Surgery as Seen Through the Study of Japanese Pictorial Art”, Aesthetic Plastic Surgery 1990, 14(3) 215-221.
69. These however are nowhere near as elaborate as those displayed by the most elegant courtesans of this and earlier eras.
70. In Paris, wearing a hat was considered, until well into the 20th century, as an outward sign of female middle class respectability. If a woman went out en cheveux, “in her hair”, it could indicate that she belonged to the lowest social class, or had a dubious reputation: Hagen vol 2, 396, 397.
71. Swinton, 50, 51. Depictions of male kabuki actors impersonating women may also contribute to some confusion.
72. Other gender indicators for the males are facial hair, short haircuts, browner complexions, and their relatively drab-coloured clothing. As with women, hats (top hats, straw boaters, bowlers or caps) are prominent. Parisian men tended to wear them even when dancing: Hagen vol 2, 397.
73. Colin B Baily, Renoir’s Portraits: Impressions of an Age, Yale University Press, New Haven 1997, 66.
74. As quoted in Wadley, 288.
75. For example, the woman in the left foreground is absorbed with her dog, the woman drinking looks somewhat alienated, two people have their backs to the viewer, the tall man at left looks somewhat aloof, and the black clad woman at the left is evidently closing her ears to the conversations of her companions.
76. Clark, 84.
77. Periodic censorship crackdowns by the authorities, such as Kansei Reforms from about 1790 onwards, would also have been a disincentive to presenting a frank view.
78. As quoted in Wadley, 360; Bailey, 66.
79. Wadley, 35.
80. Wadley, 32; Renoir, 19.
81. The restaurant survives to this day, still trading on its association with the Luncheon: see the website of the Fournaise Museum at http://www.musee-fournaise.com/fournaise/us/mf010201.asp. At a more general level, many of the Impressionists consciously or unconsciously publicised those areas in which they were fond of working: Herbert, 305.
82. As quoted by Ambroise Vollard, in Wadley, 304.
83. This also meant that there was no “original” in this process.
84. This was similar in some ways to the detailed prescriptions often given to European artists by their patrons or sponsors.
85. Jenkins, 112.
86. Carpenter, 82.
87. An example is provided by the innovations attributed to Kiyonaga. As we have noted in the discussion of the “golden age”, some of these innovations represented significant advances that in themselves increased the artistic reputation of prints.
88. Apart, of course, from the subsidiary aspects of producing the raw materials (canvas, paints) and framing.
89. Swinton, 127.
90. A technical examination carried out on the Luncheon by the Phillips Collection revealed that Renoir had adjusted every figure, some many times: Steele, 221ff.
91. It has actually been suggested that the limitations imposed by the size helped inspire new ways of composition: Swinton, 107.
© Philip McCouat 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019
Mode of citation: Philip McCouat, "The floating pleasure worlds of Paris and Edo", Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com
We welcome your comments on this article
Back to Home