Liu 11 However, beyond his down-to-earth viewpoint, ultimately Utamaro’s ukiyo-e depictions felt so honest due to his focus on raw, sensuous love. French art dealer Edmond de Goncourt referred to Utamaro as “the painter of Japanese love,” stating that “one must not forget that love for the Japanese is above all erotic.” 28 In October 1863, de Goncourt wrote that: The other day I bought some albums of Japanese obscenities. They delight me, amuse me, and charm my eyes. I look on them as being beyond obscenity, which is there, yet seems not to be there, and which I do not see, so completely does it disappear into fantasy. The violence of the lines, the unexpectedness of the conjunctions, the arrangement of the accessories, the caprice in the poses and the objects, the picturesqueness.29 Cassatt clearly did not see this aspect of ukiyo-e as fit for emulation, choosing to exclude it from the realm of inspiration she drew from Japanese art. Instead, Cassatt focused on depicting the non-sexual love that exists between a mother and her child, rendering it in its most pure and honest form within her works.30 Formalist Aesthetics: Cassatt’s Meticulous Emulations of the Ukiyo-e Style After her initial introduction to ukiyo-e, Cassatt produced a series of 10 aquatint prints for her first solo exhibition at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1891.31 Cassatt felt so fascinated that she
28
Edmond de Goncourt, Michael Locey, and Lenita Locey. Utamaro. (New York: Parkstone International, 2012) ix. 29
Lambourne, Japonisme: Cultural Crossings, 34.
30
Mari Yoshihara, Embracing the East: White Women and American Orientalism. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) 51. 31
Kelsey Martin and Nicole Myers. "Women Artists in Europe from the Monarchy to Modernism." Dallas Museum of Art. 2018. https://collections.dma.org/essay/ogGq1G4j.
