ART
Western flavor permeates unheralded art of the Taisho era

By Virginia Wageman
Advertiser Art Critic

There are a great many unexplored areas and periods in the history of art, most of them awaiting discovery by doctoral students in need of dissertation topics. One such period has been the Taisho in Japan, now brilliantly examined in a new exhibition at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

	Taisho Chic: Japanese Modernity, Nostalgia and Deco
•	Honolulu Academy of Arts
•	Through March 17
•	532-8700

Like artists everywhere, artists in Japan tended to mirror societal trends in their work. During the Taisho period, they increasingly turned to the West for inspiration, eliciting ideas and images from the prevailing modernist styles of art nouveau and art deco to create works in the traditional Japanese mediums of painting and woodcut prints.

The present exhibition, drawn mostly from the academy's collection, includes paintings, prints, textiles and items of home furnishing from the Taisho period.

The changing role of women in the first part of the 20th century is a central theme of the show. Reflecting the emancipation they enjoyed during the Taisho period, the women sport fashionable Western hairstyles and attire. They drink cocktails and smoke cigarettes, lounging in Western-style rooms with Western-style furnishings.

In Taisho paintings, carpets replace tatami mats; cafes and dance halls replace the teahouse. The women wear bobbed or permed hairstyles rather than the old-style coiffure known as shimada.

The new and old are combined in many paintings. A kimono-clad woman may have a Western-style hairdo, for example. In "Two Girls by the Sea," one of the most ravishing paintings in the show, by an artist named Kafu, two young girls, possibly sisters, sit reading at the shore. One has short hair and wears a Western-style dress with lace collar; the other has a long braid and is wearing a kimono. One wears sandals, the other Japanese slippers. Their book is open to a page showing an illustration from a French fairy tale.

The Japanese film star Irie Takako was painted by Nakamura Daizaburo reclining on an ornate chaise longue that could have been plucked from a Victorian parlor. To add to the mixture, Irie is in traditional Japanese dress, her femininity accented by the ruffled pillows on which she reclines. (Note: Following the style used in the exhibition, names are given in traditional Japanese format, family name first.)

Uemura Shoen, the foremost female artist of the period, is unfortunately not included in the show. The painter Wada Seika, however, is represented by a portrait of her friend "Mrs. T," depicting the worldly woman sitting in a bentwood rocker, a popular art nouveau design. Her velvet jacket is trimmed with white ermine or fox, and she wears decidedly fashionable shoes and jewelry.

There are two paintings in the show by Kakiuchi Seiyo, who adeptly portrayed women as thinking, feeling creatures rather than mere objects of beauty. In her "Summer Evening," she shows a contemplative woman traditionally attired, in a kimono that is decorated with symbols of love and passion.

A large section of the exhibition is devoted to the display of stunning kimono from the period whose fabrics bear clear evidence of art nouveau and deco influence. The modernist designs are as fine as any produced during the same period.

The exhibition is beautifully installed in the new Luce Pavilion. Exhibition design is by Julia White, the academy's curator of Asian art, who has painted the walls in colors borrowed from the stylish textiles in the show. A varicolored band that wraps around the tops of the walls provides orientation to the different sections of the exhibition.

In addition to informative text labels, there are several reproductions of Western paintings to illustrate the link between Japanese and European styles. However, some of the comparisons seem a bit tenuous.

Daizaburo's "Woman" is paired with Manet's "Olympia" (itself based on Titian's "Venus of Urbino"), for example, because they both depict reclining women with crossed ankles. It remains questionable if the Japanese artists were actually influenced by particular Western paintings. It would seem more likely that style and content were the primary influences, especially because few in Japan would have seen the Western masterpieces (though it's true that Manet's scandalous "Olympia" sent shock waves around the world).

The Taisho period is rarely mentioned in Japanese art history books, and if it is mentioned at all, it is in a footnote. Now all such footnotes will lead to Honolulu, for the exhibition's catalog, by guest curator Kendall H. Brown, is a model of scholarly rigor (although comparative illustrations in the introductory text might have proven useful). It is also lavishly designed and produced, with full-color illustrations throughout.

Reach Virginia Wageman at VWageman@aol.com.

Correction: In "Two Girls by the Sea," one subject wears Japanese slippers. A previous version of this review included erroneous information.