KIMONO – Reflections of art between Japan and the West: the exhibition is in Prato

kIMONO – Reflections of art between Japan and the West is the title of the new exhibition organized by Prato Textile Museum which has obtained the prestigious patronage of the Japanese Embassy in Italy, running from 29 April to 19 November 2023.

The exhibition explores creative and cultural contaminationsthe – occurred between Europe and Japan mainly from the end of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century – through the display of a careful selection of works that bear witness to the fundamental passages of those reciprocal influences.

Alongside the already well-known phenomenon of Japonismor rather the way in which European art of that period received and reinterpreted the expressive and decorative language of Japanese art, path exhibition focuses above all on illustrating the opposite process, defined by some as Westernismwithin which also the most iconic object of the culture of the Rising Sun, the kimono is influenced by western culture and figurative art.

On display are a series of paintings, woodcuts, vintage postcards, prints and fabrics coming both from important private collections and from unpublished collections of the Museum, but above all i fifty male and female kimonos belonging to the exclusive private collection of Lydia Manavelloall datable to the first and second quarter of the twentieth century, made of woven, embroidered or printed silk.

Two-way contamination

This extraordinary exhibition of works bears witness with variety and vivacity to the extraordinary artistic and stylistic contaminations that occurred in those decades between East and West, with particular reference to the formal innovations of the European avant-gardes such as Futurism, Secession and Cubism which, at the beginning of the twentieth century, profoundly changed the traditional Japanese decorative language.

The path opens with a suggestive animation of two Nanbansi.e. two pairs of six-panel historiated screens, made by Japanese court painters at the end of the sixteenth century, illustrating the first ever contact between the West and Japan, which occurred in 1543 thanks to the landing of a fleet of Portuguese ships in the Japanese archipelago. They are some of the most impressive visual evidence of how Japanese painters perceived the first Europeans who arrived in Japan.

The exhibition then continues with the “second” discovery of Japan; we are at the end of the nineteenth century when Japanese art makes its disruptive appearance on the European art scene giving rise to the phenomenon known as Japonism.

Through a second suggestive video, i paintings by the Impressionists and then by post-impressionists such as Van Gogh and Gauguin, ideally dialogue with the Japanese prints of Hiroshige, Utamaro and Hokusaiwhich soon became an inexhaustible source of inspiration, assimilation and reworking by Western artists thanks to their bright colors in flat backgrounds, unprecedented perspectives, a very different reading of the movement of the bodies of the figures.

On display the very rare Paris illustrated. Le Japan of May 1886, a famous French magazine, with a woodcut by Keisai Eisen on the cover which portrays a splendid and sinuous female figure in a traditional Japanese dress, faithfully reproduced by Van Gogh in 1887 in his painting “La Courtisane”.

Also by Eisen, the polychrome woodcuts can also be admired on display “Beauty Striding with Umbrella” and “Young Woman in Cherry Patterned Kimono and Tortoiseshell Patterned Obi”) together with Kunimaru’s Courtesan (“Courtesan with Chrysanthemum Patterned Uchikake”): three examples of female figures in position slightly screwed on itself and wrapped in kimonos with highly sought-after geometric or natural motifs.

In this section also some Japanese fabrics from the Museum’s collectionssuch as the nineteenth-century silk fabric with bamboo leaf motif applied on mulberry paper and the late Edo period fabric also in silk and silver mulberry paper with butterfly and dragonfly motif.

Japan and modernity

At the same time, however, we also witness the reverse phenomenon, Westernism or the fascination exercised by European modernity in Japanboth in terms of scientific and technological progress, and above all in terms of customs and way of life.

Western fashion – the emblem par excellence of modernity – particularly fascinated Japanese culturewhich in the textile field was linked to centuries-old rigid technical and stylistic traditions.
On display is a rich section of prints, postcards, magazines portraying Japanese women dressed in European fashion, but above all the exhibition of fifty kimonos from the private collection of Lydia Manavello to which the entire second part of the exhibition is dedicated.

The marvelous kimonos, the true fulcrum of the exhibition, parade side by side in the evocative trussed room of the Museum.

Path

After an initial introduction to the complex and extraordinary traditional textile and decorative techniques (nishiki, yuzen, katagami, kasuri, shibori), the kimonos are exhibited by thematic islands, grouped by subjects and decorative motifs, to help the public better understand how traditional Japanese culture has drawn inspiration from the languages ​​of European avant-garde art and textile design.

A first group of kimonos tells how the traditional Japanese decorative and stylistic language (chinese roundels and key of Buddha, cherry blossom motif, cloud motif, peony motif just to name a few) is revisited in the light of western stylistic influences.

In this context, the objects of the Museum find their place, which exhibits, in dialogue with the Japanese clothes, pages of sample books of the late nineteenth century of French production, planche and fashion sketches to underline the connections and artistic influences between these two worlds.

A second nucleus, almost all men’s kimonos, expresses the fascination for modernity and progress through the introduction of entirely new decorative subjects, such as ships, airplanes and sports.

The third and most conspicuous nucleus – and certainly the most fascinating – is the central nucleus which brings together as many as 19 kimonos from the early twentieth century. Unique objects, in textured, embroidered or printed silk that testify the attraction for the stylistic suggestions coming from the European avant-gardes such as Fauvism, the Viennese Secession, Futurism, Cubism, Déco, who profoundly modified the decorative language by introducing concepts such as three-dimensionality, strong and violent colors, abstract shapes in textile design.

The 176-page catalog is available and published by the Antiga Edizioni publishing house with essays by Francesco Morena, Roberta Orsi Landini, Raffaella Sgubin and Lydia Manavello as well as the descriptions of the kimonos on display.

A free APP is available to each visitordownloadable on IOS and Android, usable on smartphones or tablets, which can also be used as a web app by scanning a qrcode at the museum entrance.

Thanks to the particular technology of the app, just frame the display cases with the camera of your mobile phone to have a “digital assistant” at your disposal who, during the visit, will explain the contents of the showcases and the objects on display just like a real professional guide would. The audio contents are available in Italian, English and Spanish.

Furthermore, a rich calendar of initiatives is planned for the entire period for adults and families, with guided tours, workshops and other events that will take place until November.

INFO: Prato Textile Museum, from 29 April to 19 November 2023.
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