The Influence of Japanese Architecture on the West Scott Abel Paper #3 A great deal of European and American people

of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries visualized Japan as a place of buildings that were unlike anything in the West. Western artist tried to depict what Japanese life was like with the buildings they lived in. These different styles of architecture influenced not only architects of the West, but also western painters who wanted to depict life in Japan. This exhibit will show depictions of Japanese styled architecture by Japanese, European, and American artists and architects. The exhibit will display all works of art that will be discussed. Rather than put some of the buildings in the museum, there will be photographs and models of Phoenix Hall, the Warren Hickox House, and the Shinto shrine of Knutsford. The exhibit would look like a rectangle from an aerial view. The first work would be a scale model and some photographs of the Tea Pavilion at the Imperial Villa in Katsura, Kyoto. On the opposite side of the wall would be Sumiyoshi from Meisho-e. On one side of the exhibit there will be Blums LAmeya: The Sweet Stall and next to it would be Sir Alfred Easts watercolor painting. On the opposite wall would be a model and some photographs of Phoenix Hall from the 1893 Columbian Exhibition. Next to it would be a model and some photographs of Frank Lloyd Wrights Warren Hickox House, so one could compare the two buildings. At the back of the exhibit would be an accurate replica of the Shinto shrine from Knutsford. The carpet would be green to represent the grass that the

buildings are built around. The walls will be sky blue to represent the sky and a white ceiling to represent clouds. Many nineteenth century European and American artists learned about the buildings of Japan through Japanese prints. These prints often depicted famous places within Japan. A particular set called Meisho-e which means Pictures of Famous Places was brought to Europe by a German doctor named Engelbert Kaempfer in the late seventeenth century. It is a strong possibility that the works Kaempfer brought back were an influence on the Japonisme Movement and it is certain that the works had an influence of what Europeans thought of Japan. One ink on paper from Meisho-e is called Sumiyoshi1 and it depicts a scene of everyday life from an aerial view. In this picture there are some people carrying out their business. The picture uses a lot of linear forms; the banks of the canal, one of the bridges, the houses, the walls, and a road are all made in a very linear form. This picture has almost no shading or modeling in it with some exceptions and the colors are very flat. This was the style of the traditional Japanese picture as described by Mortimer Menpes, A black dress would be one beautiful broad tone of black, the flesh, one clear tone of flesh, the shadows growing out of the mass forming a part of the whole.2 The artist uses a tan color as the background and some blue for the water. The people in the print wear clothes of various colors such as orange, green, blue and black. The tori gate has the color red on it and on some of the buildings and there is use of white and black for the buildings as well. Another color that is used in the picture is green, which has been used for the leaves of trees and the grass. This picture depicts people of varying status and buildings of varied status as well. On one
1

Lambourne, Lionel, Japonisme Cultural Crossings between Japan and the West (New York: Phaidon, 2005), 191 2 Robin Spencer, Whistler and Japan: Work in Progress. 1980

side of the canal one can see well dressed warriors with swords who are purchasing what appears to be rice. In the lower right side of the print there is a peasant who is poorly dressed and has some sort of tool. The roofs of buildings on the left side of the canal have tiles and shingles with ornate rooftops, but to the lower right side the roofs are thatched. This shows the disparity of wealth and status of people within the picture.3 The buildings are plain and generally in the shape of rectangular prisms, but the roofs may have interested westerners, because it was uniquely East Asian how the roof bends upwards from the eaves. Another building that also demonstrates why westerners may have been interested in Japanese buildings is how often the roof not only covered the structure, but the area around it as well. One such example is the Tea Pavilion at the Imperial Villa in Kyoto,4 which has a large black roof. The building also depicts what some late 19th century Europeans thought Japanese buildings looked like. European painters would incorporate Japanese styled buildings into their paintings. One such example is Robert Blums LAmeya: The Sweet Stall (1892).5 This painting depicts a Japanese street vender selling an edible sugar toy and the vender is surrounded by children and young mothers. There are pedestrians walking in the street and there are shops on the side of the road. To the left of the picture there is a rickshaw waiting for a costumer. The painting gives a feeling of poverty, because of the colors, the depictions of the buildings, and how the roads seem to be in terrible shape. The scene is very believable, because it is very likely that this event could have happened in Japan. Blum does not glorify or idealize the Japanese, but paints a town in a
3

Midori Nishi. Regional variations in Japanese Farmhouses. Annals of the Association of American Geographers: 1969 4 P191 Garden and the Tea Pavilion at the Imperial Villa, Katsura, Kyoto, built 1658. 5 P135-6 Lambourne text

manner that seems realistic, despite how some areas of the oil on canvas are somewhat blurry. Most of the brighter colors are the clothes of the women and children in the painting. Some of the clothes are a bright orange color. The mothers carry their infants on their backs while some older children stare in great interest at the street vender making his product. The street vender is wearing a light blue shirt and a bandanna. Some other red and orange colors are the background to street signs with white writing on them. The environment of the painting is mostly light brown. There is some use of the color white in the painting. It is used in clothing, the rickshaws hat, and some of the signs. Blum effectively models the people in the painting and as a result the faces of the painting are realistic. The buildings in the painting are important to the overall mood of the painting. The unpainted buildings tell us that the setting is in the not so wealthy part of a city. This painting demonstrates the effect Japonisme had on an individual artist. Sir Alfred East decided to paint a very different picture of Japan with a different type of paint. Around 1889 to 1890 Sir East painted a watercolor called The Entrance to the Temple of Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto, With Pilgrims Ascending.6 This painting depicts a famous and important place in Japan, the Temple of Kiyomizu-dera. This watercolor is also a realistic depiction of Japanese life, but there are some differences between Blums and Easts works. Alfred East paints a lot brighter picture of Japan than Blum does. For example, this temple seems well maintained with ornate tiled roofs and painted walls. The ground is not mud but seems to be made of stone and the temple complex seems a lot cleaner than Blums city. However, Alfred Easts painting differs from Japanese prints, because the prints of the temple show the pleasure of the pilgrimage to the temple. In the case of the pilgrimage mandala for the Kiyomizu and Chinno temples in Kyoto, the
6

Lambourne P.166

artist does not forget to show the pleasures of pilgrimage and worship: he illustrates the tea shops selling tea and the sweet dumplings in front of the gateway.7 In Easts painting, there is a lot less focus and detail on the people, because their faces are very simple. Two people have eyes and a mouth, but most people do not have any details on their faces. Furthermore, there is also a lack of modeling of the faces, but the buildings, lanterns, and the area around the temple are well modeled. The effective use of modeling and shadings gives a sense of plasticity. The subject of the painting is also what a westerner might imagine Japan looks like, because the Japanese pagoda has an easternstyle roof. The colors in this painting are not as bright as in Blums painting, but there is some minimal use of bright colors for outfits. There are high toned colors on the bottom and top of the painting, because the ground is stonework and the sky is cloudy. There is some brown representing the dirt of the hill and there is the green of the trees that covers part of the pagoda. The closest part of the temple has purple columns and an ornate black roof. The temple tower in the background rises from the hill and takes up the space to the upper left of the painting. Alfred did not paint from his imagination like most European and American Artist of the 19th century; rather he painted what he saw in Kyoto, Japan. It is also possible that he was inspired by the Japonisme movement to visit Japan for himself. However, many artists and architects could not go to Japan to see types of architecture. Some people believed that Japan did not have any architectural principles. In 1893, William Morris stated, the Japanese have no architectural, and therefore no decorative instinct.8 Such assumptions were obviously false, but that all that began to

7 8

Chi Nakane and , Shinzaburo Oishi, Tokugawa Japan (University of Tokyo Press) P.173 Lambourne p. 180

change as Japanese influenced buildings began to pop up around the United States. The most influential of such was The Japanese Pavilion of the Chicago Exposition Worlds Fair of 1893.9 This building, also known as Phoenix Hall, showed America what Japan really looked like, since it was a copy of an eleventh century Buddhist Pavilion near Kyoto called Hoo-den. The Chicago version was constructed from light-weight timbers and was built near a pond. This building had some major differences in design from western buildings. For example, the roof extended from the wall and curved upwards at the corner. Furthermore, there is an emphasis on horizontal lines rather the than the increasingly vertical buildings of the West. Also, the roof of the building had other interesting differences, such as the use of curved triangles. This building had an influential effect on who would be Americas most famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Frank Lloyd Wright took many of the principles of Japanese architecture and mixed it with his own style in his Warren Hickox House in Kankakee, Illinois in 1900. This building has long eaves protruding from the walls of the house and also there is a use of timber in the walls. Furthermore, Wright also used horizontal lines in the building and kept the house relatively flat, similar to Phoenix Hall. He also was influenced by the low apex of the gable and put that into his work. In both buildings, it is difficult to find the entrances at first glance. Wright enjoyed Japanese architecture, because he believed that it followed the same principles that he believed in. One architecture critic declared: Wright reinterpreted this [form follows function] to suit his own philosophy: Form and function are one. Spatial compenetration is a Japanese feeling for the oneness of man, nature, and shelter, a correlation
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Lambourne p. 181

of unity which through study in Japan became part of Wrights own repertoire of architectural idiom.10 Wright agreed with the Japanese philosophy and applied it to his work. As a direct result of Japonisme, Frank Lloyd Wright incorporated Japanese ideas in his buildings. An interest in Japanese buildings also spread to Great Britain around this same time. Japanese buildings were put into the setting of a Japanese Garden in Great Britain. One such example is the Japanese Garden of Tatton Park of Knutsford, Cheshire, which was built from 1910-1913.11 The gardens were built by Alan de Tatton who received inspiration from the Japanese exhibition of 1910 which where located in the White City, London. Overlooking the golden brook is a simple small Shinto shrine. The shrine has a simple thatched roof and a cubic structure. It has black painted timbers for edges and the outline white squares. There is also a circular window with a smaller rectangular window on another wall. This shows that architectural Japonisme was applied in Europe as well. Japanese architecture captured the imagination of Europeans and Americans alike. Painters like Sir Alfred East painted the interesting Japanese buildings, while architects like Frank Lloyd Wright used elements of the Japanese style to design buildings. This exhibit will try to demonstrate the different influences Japanese architecture had on the West.

10

Cary James, The Imperial Hotel, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Architecture of Unity (Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1968), p207 11 Lambourne p. 199