Renegade EDO and Paris: Japanese Prints and Toulouse-Lautrec

By Xiaojin Wu

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

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0932216072
• ISBN13: 9780932216076
• Release Date: June 2023
• Publisher: Seattle Art Museum
• Length: 104 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 9.3" x 10.6"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher