Edwardian London Through Japanese Eyes: The Art and Writings of Yoshio Markino, 1897-1915

Book launch

By William S. Rodner

Published by BRILL

Edwardian London Through Japanese Eyes considers the career of the Japanese artist Yoshio Markino (1869-1956), a prominent figure on the early twentieth-century London art scene whose popular illustrations of British life adroitly blended stylistic elements of East and West. He established his reputation with watercolors for the avant-garde Studio magazine and attained success with The Colour of London (1907), the book that offered, in word and picture, his outsider’s response to the modern Edwardian metropolis.  Three years later he recounted his British experiences in an admired autobiography aptly titled A Japanese Artist in London. Here, and in later publications, Markino offered a distinctively Japanese perspective on European life that won him recognition and fame in a Britain that was actively engaging with pro-Western Meiji Japan. Based on a wide range of unpublished manuscripts and Edwardian commentary, this lavishly illustrated book provides a close examination of over 150 examples of his art as well analysis of his writings in English that covered topics as wide-ranging as the English and Japanese theater, women’s suffrage, current events in the Far East and observations on traditional Asian art as well as Western Post-Impressionism. Edwardian London Through Japanese Eyes, the first scholarly study of this neglected artist, demonstrates how Markino became an agent of cross-cultural understanding whose beautiful and accessible work provided fresh insights into the Anglo-Japanese relationship during the early years of the twentieth century.

Professor William S. Rodner

Professor William S. Rodner received his MA and PhD in modern British and Irish history from Pennsylvania State University where he also studied English art and architecture. As Chancellor’s Commonwealth Professor at Tidewater Community College in Virginia, he teaches a range of courses on world history. He is also editor of Scotia: Interdisciplinary Journal of Scottish Studies,sponsored by Old Dominion University. He has published widely on early twentieth-century British political thought and history and on the art of the Industrial Revolution. His J.M.W. Turner: Romantic Painter of the Industrial Revolution (University of California Press) appeared in 1997. Professor Rodner’s recent investigations into the career of Yoshio Markino, first presented in the British Art Journal and now in Edwardian London Through Japanese Eyes, reflect a long commitment to exploring the global dimensions of British visual culture.

15 May 2012

6:00 – 7:00pm, followed by a drinks reception to 8:00pm

Daiwa Foundation Japan House

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

BOOKING FORM

Book Launch: Obtaining Images – Art, Production and Display in Edo Japan by Prof Timon Screech

 

24 April 2012 from 6.30pm

The Edo period (1603–1868) witnessed one of the great flowerings of Japanese art. Towards the mid-seventeenth century, the Japanese states were largely at peace, and rapid urbanization, a rise in literacy and an increase in international contact ensued. The number of those able to purchase luxury goods, or who felt their social position necessitated owning them, soared. Painters and artists flourished and the late seventeenth century also saw a rise in the importance of printmaking. Obtaining Images introduces the reader to important artists and their work, but also to the intellectual issues and concepts surrounding the production, consumption and display of art in Japan in the Edo period. Rather than looking at these through the lens of European art, the book contextualizes the making and use of paintings and prints, elucidating how and why works were commissioned, where they were displayed and what special properties were attributed to them.

Timon Screech is Professor in the History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and, concurrently, Permanent Visiting Professor at Tama Art University, Tokyo. He is the author of several books on Japanese history and culture, including Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan, 1700–1820 (Reaktion, 1999) and The Shogun’s Painted Culture: Fear and Creativity in the Japanese States, 1760–1829(Reaktion, 2000). Tim Clark, Keeper of Japanese Art at the British Museum will act as discussant at this event.

This event is presented in partnership with Reaktion Books, with this book having been awarded a grant under the Japan Foundation Support Programme for Publication on Japan.

 This event is free to attend but booking is essential. To reserve a place, please e-mailevent@jpf.org.uk with your name, details and those of any guests.