080050 UE Ukiyo-e - Japanese Woodblock Prints in the 19th Century (2019W)

From October 2019 to February 2020, the MAK Museum of Applied Arts will be showing two
Exhibitions on the Japanese color woodcut:

KUNIYOSHI +
Design and entertainment in Japanese color woodblockprint

and

UKIYOENOW
Tradition and experiment

We would like to take this opportunity to trace the thematic and stylistic development of the Japanese color woodcut in the 19th century.
There are several topics that should be worked out in groups.
A general aspect will be the visual arts of Japan in an international context
with a view to China and Europe.
Japan was not locked up by the outside world, but kept close contacts with his
neighbors and trading partners. This transnationality is visible in the ukiyo-e of the late
Edo time.
Social change within Japan can also be observed through iconographic comparisons. The first two to three sessions serve as general introduction to the topic,
the representation of the available sources and digital
Information opportunities, as well as the history of literature, but also the different
View of East Asian art as opposed to Western.

It will be possible to take part in the exhibition setup.
In small groups we will study originals from the collection of the MAK.

Different topics will be developed in groups (up to five students).

The following topics are available:

Landscapes: the two great artists Hokusai and Hiroshige break with
the traditional landscape representation and go completely
new ways. Her works are today considered "typical Japanese", which is questionable.

Bijin - the beauty: the theme of beauty is found throughout the East Asian
Art, in China court ladies are the theme, in Japan celebrities of the amusement districts and the entertainment industry.
Time and again attempts are made to correct this public image of the woman.

Actors and the Kabuki Theater: popular stars and their well-known theater performances
are celebrated in the Ukiyo-e. A thoroughly urban theme with the
the question of bourgeois mass art closely connected. (Siegfried Kracauer
has thematized this phenomenon in his work "Theory of Film".

Series: Color woodcuts were not just produced as single sheets but
often in series, which could include up to a hundred prints. image sequences
thematize the idea of movement and ongoing narration. Comparisons with Chinese and Western series (eight views, twelve months, etc.) are obvious.

Japan and the West: if the international interdependence of the Japanese
Color woodcut topic are, then the reverse way must be gone.
Key positions are taken by art dealer Tadamasa Hayashi (1853-1906) as well
Siegfried Bing (1838-1905), their Europe-wide work and their networks
traced.

Other topics may still arise.