Ukiyo-e/Hollywood

		Ukiyo-e/Hollywood Penny Webb

1. The Age Monday July 11, 2005

2. John Kobal The Art of the Great Hollywood Portrait Photographers (London: Pavilion Books 1998)

The recent exhibition 'Pictures of the Floating World' at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne was illuminated in a review by Penny Webb (1) which revealed that 'the Japanese portrait prints function a similar economy of glamour and desire as Hollywood publicity photos'. Recognising the relation to Hollywood historian John Kobal’s characterisation of the 'interior and exterior gaze', (2) she compares, as an example of the interior gaze, 'Shunsen Natori’s 1925 portrait of Nakamura Ganjiro with William A Fraser’s 1931 photographic portrait of John Wayne. The downward tilt of the head, the averted or shadowed eyes suggest vulnerability, not heroics.'

Natori Shunsen
Japanese 1886–1960
The actor Nakamura Ganjiro
from the Collection of Shunsen portraits series 1925
colour woodblock
38.2 x 26.0 cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

'Or, exemplifying the more open gaze, the strong, simple design of Natori’s 1926 portrait of Ichikawa Samizo may be compared with Lazlo Willinger’s portrait of Tyrone Power of 1938, made almost at the end of great glamour photography.'

Natori Shunsen
Japanese 1886–1960
The actor Ichikawa Samizo
from the Collection of Shunsen portraits series 1926
colour woodblock
38.2 x 25.7 cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

'Once I started to see the Japanese portrait prints functioning in a similar economy of glamour and desire as Hollywood publicity photos, the cinema itself inflected my viewing of other works in the show, so that Kobayashi Kiyochika’s 1895 Scouts Near Newchang on a Snowy Night became not three riders in a triptych, but, read from right to left, a rider approaching in mid shot; then passing in profile in closer shot; and then fading into the distance, obscured by falling snow.'

Kobayashi KIYOCHIKA
Japanese 1847–1915
Scouts near Newchang on a snowy night 1895
colour woodblock (triptych)
36.0 x 71.5 cm (image) (overall)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Howard Hawks, El Dorado 1967

'There is so much movement here and in many other prints of scenes from narratives, that Hollywood had to go via Hong Kong to catch up with them.'

Tsukioka YOSHITOSHI
Japanese 1839–1892
The king of the Tengus teaching martial arts to Yoshitsune 1886
colour woodblock (diptych)
35.4 x 46.7 cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2000

		© Penny Webb and Rouge 2005. Cannot be reprinted without permission of the author and editors.