A study in contrast

In one of Yoshu Chikanobu’s woodblock prints, a young girl practices calligraphy, her hair styled incongruously in a Western bob. In another, well-to-do men and women in Victorian garb are depicted at a horse race against the backdrop of a traditional Japanese landscape, illuminated by a display of fireworks. When East met West in late 19th-century Japan, Chikanobu documented the infatuation in hundreds of woodblock prints, created in the same style and with the same exquisite attention to detail that we associate with the masterpieces of the genre.

The first major exhibition of his work in this country, Chikanobu: Modernity and Nostalgia in Japanese Prints, runs through May 13 at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. Curated by Bruce Coats, professor of art history and the humanities at Scripps College, the exhibition includes 60 woodblock prints that span Chikanobu’s career from 1862 to 1912 in Meiji Japan, a period of rapid westernization.

What’s interesting about Chikanobu’s work is that it documents a society in transition – not unlike our own – and asks whether progress is in fact progress. (Cell phones? MySpace? Second Life?) Using newly imported aniline dyes from the West, Chikanobu experimented with a new color palette – brilliant greens, purples, blues, and reds – quite different from the subtle colorations we associate with traditional Japanese prints. Interestingly, Chikanobu overcame his fascination with all-things-Western and, later in his career, returned to more traditional Japanese themes and color schemes.

According to Coats, quoted in the Los Angeles Times (“Fashioning Imprints of Progress,” August 20, 2006), “At first, he celebrated the modernization of Japan. But as he grew older, he began to resist the changes and focus on traditional culture and nostalgic recollections of life in Edo Japan. His late works are mostly rosy-eyed views of the past.”

Ongoing tours of the exhibit will also run during the art center’s extended Thursday night hours. Visit fllac.vassar.edu for more information.