Many years ago I was on a visit to Leed Gallery of Art with a friend (who had trained at the Royal College of Art in the Hockney days) and he began to mock the technique used by Frank Brangwyn (1867 - 1956). 'He puts black lines round everything,' he said. When I pointed out that van Gogh had done the same, he only replied, 'That was different.' Well, Brangwyn was different and that's for sure.
He was born in the old Belgian city of Bruges where his father worked on church architecture. After an early childhood spent there, he went back to Britain and was sent to copy things at the old Kensington Museum (now the V&A) and received precious little in the way of formal education. Eventually, he was taken on at William Morris's workshops in Walthamstow so his background was to some extent a practical one, in the arts and crafts tradition.
He may have left Bruges but Bruges did not leave him and at some point during the first war, with Belgium overrun by the German army, he had the idea of translating designs of the city where he had spent his childhood into colour woodcut and the folio he produced with the Japanese woodblock maker Yoshijiro Urushibara (1888 - 1953) turned out to be one of the most personal responses to the terrible events of that war.
The mere choice of the medium was a very interesting one. It shows to what extent colour woodcut was regarded as belonging to the arts and crafts movement by an artist who had after all initially trained under the aegis of the great man himself. More than that the project exemplified the arts and crafts approach to co-operation and their attempt to break down barriers beween disciplines. The woodcuts acted as illustrations to six poems by the writer and scholar, Laurence Binyon. Now, untill 1915 Binyon had been head of the new sub department of oriental prints and drawings at the British Museum where Urushibra had been working as a conservator of prints and scrolls since 1912. Binyon was given leave to volunteer as an orderly in military hospitals so he was the only one of the three men with experience of the war. He returned to the museum in 1918 and this symptomatic folio itself was published the following year.
Symptomatic because I wonder whether Brangwyn already realised that he was going out of fashion, a process that would end in the derision of the sixties. It did happen; he became unfashionable in the way that Augustus John did. He didn't have a good war, as they say, and I think colour woodcut looked sufficiently stylish for him to make a come-back. He had caused outrage in both this country and Germany when he produced a propaganda poster showing a terrified German soldier about to be bayonetted. So much so Kaiser Wilhelm had vowed to have his head. These night pieces of Bruges are about as far as you can get from the eighty war posters he produced in all.
Different and yet not so unlike the posters that designers in the arts and crafts mould like F Gregory Brown were starting to make. Brangwyn approached almost everything he touched with bravura. What Urushibara finally offered him was subtlety.
Before he came to Europe, Urushibara had worked at the publisher Shimbi Shoin who specialised
in fine reproductions of Japanese woodblock prints so he was ideally suited not just to interpret Brangwyn's work but to get a very good likeness. What he added was the kind of trance effect we were later to see when he made prints like Moonlight, Bournemouth.
What is so utterly remarkable about the work of the Japanese artist was the way in which he was able to be true to both Brangwyn and to himself. I know this sounds like an allusion to what we as Westerners see as oriental self-effacement but I am not sure what other term we can use when faced with what to us is a strange displacement of the ego.
I've not really said anything about the individual prints as I would usually do. Perhaps this is because there is only one print and this is also the Urushibara effect. He brings everything together into an overall mood; the differences between these lamplit, evening images is less than what they have in common. I don't think I could really judge without seeing all of them together alongside the poems by Binyon and I still haven't read those nor have I come across all the images in a format suitable for the blog. So, this post must be as partial as Brangwyn was himself.
Charles,
ReplyDeletethe "oriental self-effacement" that you mention reminds me of the print makers of the Japanese Shin Hanga movement. People like Kawase Hasui deliberately made concessions to the expecations and traditions of Western collectors. Still, I think one can say that Hasui remains faithful to himself and is a unique, distingushed artist with a very personal style. "Utterly remarkable", indeed!
Klaus
very interesting, charles. that moon in the pine forest one is thrilling.
ReplyDeleteThere are three, lotusgreen. They will be your Christmas present.
ReplyDeleteThe collaboration between Brangwyn and Urushibara is a fascinating and under-explored thing. Brangwyn is one of those artists who have slipped through the cracks. I'm interested your response to your friend was to compare him to van Gogh, because I have been thinking about the two of them in the context of Steinlen, as all three were interested in depicting mineworkers, at a time when industrial subjects were simply not part of art. Binyon is an underrated poet, too - I've known him since I was a teenager as a poet, I can remember buying a book by Walter de la Mare from a secondhand bookshop circa 1970 and finding a first edition of Binyon's pamphlet Burning of the Leaves tucked inside it - but it wasn't until I stumbled into print collecting and dealing that I had any idea of his standing in the print world.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to dismiss all of them. Henry was being dismissive, of course. I don't really have time to do your comment justice, Neil.I'm in an internet joint in a pretty tacky part of Naples right now and someone across the room is yacking in Afro-Arabic. But I intend to post on Urushibara etc when I get back and try and incorporate views and comments.
ReplyDeleteArrivederla, Charles
I just noted a discrepancy. The Pine print shown above is actually from PEDRO J. DE LEMOS (1882-1954)and called 'THE HARP OF THE WINDS', CIRCA 1915 - it was sold by Christie's on 2010 - http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5392260
ReplyDeleteThe Urushibara's print you probably meant to refer to is Pines at Bournemouth which can be seen on this site - http://woodblock.com/urushibara/landscapes.html#
I haven't had time to track down de Lemos' 'The harp of the winds' but the mistake is not with me but with Christies. The de Lemos print in the catalogue you mention is clearly signed Y. Urushibara and was also sold as 'Moonlight, Bournemouth' by Robin Garton in 1986 (catalogue 35). Apart from that, I have seen the print myself, complete with Urushibara's signature. Part of the confusion arises from the fact that he made at least three versions. I'm not sure offhand whether I posted all these but will check later and post them if I haven't. But thanks for letting me know that Modern Printmakers is more dependable than Christies New York.
ReplyDeleteI note that, in addition misattributing an Urushibara print to de Lemos, Christies has also misattributed a de Lemos print to Urushibara: http://www.artfact.com/auction-lot/urushibara-mokuchu-yoshijiro-1888-1953-307-c-68e9aea2dd. That de Lemos print is actually called (surprise!) "The Harp Of The Winds." http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/20th-century-design-n08999/lot.44.lotnum.html
DeleteSorry not to have been in touch with you for such a long time, Darryl. This is just an immediate reply to your comment; I haven't seen the print you refer to. What is certain is that a lot of fascinating work remains to be done on the cross-fertilisation, let's call it, between artists, everything from plagiarism to inspiration. Your interest in the origins of prints is an important part of that, but Urushibara certainly muddied the waters by blatant use of friends like William Giles to the extent that I have misattributed work in my own files. You just have to know the field to understand by how much printmakers made use of other artists, often improving on the work that provided the starting-point. Once Charles Bartlett began to make prints, you see it straightaway.
DeleteI don't see (and didn't intend to imply) any relationship or influence between Urushibara and de Lemos. I just wanted to note that Christies has twice now called prints "Harp of the Winds" that were either mistitled or misattributed.
DeleteThat's OK. There isn't any. I was making a further general point.
DeleteI have 6 Bruge scene prints including 2 of the above and Bruge at Dawn & Loving Couple. I am trying to find out more about them. I have always known them as Brangwyns and so am fascinated to find out that they are by Urushibara in collaboration with Brangwyn. I took them to a local auction house to get a valuation for insurance purposes and they were very dismissive so I gave up but now having read the above I would love to know more about them. Any suggestions as to where I can go?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as if you have the complete set of large prints from the portfolio called 'Bruges', published, I think, in 1918, but I will check my notes later today. This was a large portfolio that has often been broken up but contained poems by Laurence Binyon of the British Museum where Urushibara also worked. Urushibara had already done fine reproductive work for them already and the prints are more his work in some ways than Brangwyn's.
ReplyDeleteYou can see the portfolio very easily in the Print Room at the V&A. If the condition is good, they are fairly valuable, and almost certainly worth more as a set.
Brangwyn had been born in Bruges, hence his interest, Binyon served as a volunteer orderly during the war, and Urushibara came to Britain in 1910 for the Japan-Britain exhibition only to be offered a job at the Department of Prints at the BM who had been building up an Oriental collection. The set was really a three-way collaboration and my guess is that it was Binyon whose idea it was.
I've looked at these in detail and have researched as far as anyone can. There isn't a huge amount to go on but just leave a comment here if there is any other way I can help.
I think there is another post about the Bruges set here on Modern Printmakers but I will also check later.
Thank you that is really helpful. I will certainly check out the portfolio at the V & A. It is really nice to find out more about them and the story behind them. I grew up with these pictures and am very fond of them so thank you again for your help.
ReplyDeleteAt least three prints (and perhaps all six) in the Bruges portfolio were also issued at some point in a larger size. In fact, at least a half dozen or more other Urushibara prints exist in two sizes; drafts exist showing Urushibara "squaring up" the designs. At least some of the poetry headpieces were issued without the accompanying poems (although they might have been test proofs). One headpiece (The Windmills and the Kruispoort in Bruge) was cut down (or else recarved) and turned into an ex libris print for Brangwyn's Viennese agent Amalia S. Levetus. That small print also exists without the ex libris inscription and bears a title in pencil of "Moonlit Scene."
ReplyDeleteAll very interesting, Darryl, and helps to explain my own confusion about the Bruges portfolio. I was always fairly sure individual prints I have seen were larger than the ones in the V&A.
ReplyDeleteSquaring up was very much a Brangwyn thing to do.
The different sizes appears most frequently with certain Brangwyn-Urushibara collaborations, although it seems that Urushibara did it for one of his Stonehenge designs as well. It may have been away to get around the edition size limitation for a given print design.
ReplyDeleteStill, it surprises me he was prepared to go to all the trouble to cut new blocks. But I don't think the colour woodcut artists were too concerned about editions. There were three editions of Giles 'Midsummer Night' between 1912 and 1923 and Morley Fletcher also published 2nd editions.
ReplyDeleteBeing trained the way he had been, a lot of Urushibara's work was collaborative one way or another and his Stonehenge relies quite heavily on Giles' own print.
It's speculation on my part. But the Bruges portfolio was issued in a numbered limited edition of 50, so printing more Bruges designs in a larger format would insure the sanctity of the original edition. As far as the other non-Bruges designs that were reissued in a larger size, it's difficult to say why. I know in some cases that certain Brangwyn/Urushibara collaborations were hand-numbered (though the edition size is usually unclear because the size of edition usually wasn't indicated on the print). But I haven't conclusively determined that to be the case for each design that exists in more than one size.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Urushibara's Stonehenge print is concerned, I'm aware of at least seven different Stonehenge designs, in different sizes, different perspectives, and/or depicting different times of day. I haven't seen a conclusive date for Giles' print, have you? It's not clear to me yet who was first. Some of Urushibara's Stonehenge prints may be later, but some are considerably earlier than others. I recently bought one at auction (but it hasn't arrived yet). It appears to be rougher than other Stonehenge designs I've seen and therefore earlier than most.
This thread is the only one I've ever posted on. Is there a way to attach images to posts here?
Just briefly for the time being, Giles' preliminary drawings for Stonehenge are dated 1910 and the woodcut would be one of the last ones he made before he began using metal plates. I don't remember the date of Urushibara's first prints without Brangwyn offhand - very soon after the war.
ReplyDeleteThe only way images can go up is if they are sent to me. One good way forward would be to start a new open-ended post about the genesis of the Bruges portfolio.
It's difficult to date Urushibara's original print designs with certainty, since they generally were not dated, so all one has to go by are exhibition records, mentions in art magazines, and museum acquisition dates. The British Museum, however, does have several Stonehenge prints that it acquired in 1916, which predates Urushibara's association with Brangwyn by at least a year. (The British Museum acquired other Urushibara prints circa 1912-1916, but all but one seem to be based on Japanese or Chinese prints or paintings, and I can't be sure about the other one (which depicts a rat).) However, Urushibara met Prosper-Alphonse Issac and Jules Chadel in 1910 and taught them Japanese carving and printing techniques. Urushibara collaborated with Isaac on a number of prints in the teens (as well as generated some original designs for printed menus and the like for La Société de la Gravure sur Bois Originale during that period). Urushibara could have helped Chadel with the printing of some of his early prints, but he never gave Urushibara credit on those early prints like Isaac did. Urushibara's other known collaborations (which include A. Servant, Sir George Clausen, John Sell Cotman, Bo Yin Ra, James McBey, Yoshio Makino, Kurihara Chuji, and Iwai Takahito), seem to post-date his initial relationship with Brangwyn but, as I said, precise dating for many of his prints is shrouded in mystery.
ReplyDelete