Commemorating the 120th Anniversary of His Death: Emile GalléーFrom Japonisme to Art Nouveau

1. Lamp (rhododendron design)

Emile Gallé

Émile Gallé created luxury products he could show at exhibitions, but he also aspired to make craftworks available to the masses; to this end, he sold affordable works with simplified designs manufactured via simplified processes.

Gallé was both artist and business owner, and his business acumen no doubt played a part in his continued efforts to popularize craftworks despite facing criticism.

In fact, his workshops worked toward this goal even after his death.

Although they were no longer able to produce luxury goods using sophisticated processing techniques, his workshops continued to produce reasonably priced, quality-controlled vases and lamps, and glass craftworks inscribed with the “Gallé” name were distributed widely.

The 1920s saw a rise in the popularity of the “soufflé” technique, in which glass is blown into molds of various shapes, decorated with various relief patterns.

Made around this time, the lamp you see before you is an outstanding example of this blown-glass technique and, with its exquisite rhododendron patterning, bears many of the hallmarks of Art Nouveau.

2. Cat-shaped Pottery

Emile Gallé

In addition to glass art, Emile Gallé also practiced a form of pottery known as “faience”—a tin-glazed pottery suitable for painted decoration.

He created wide-ranging faience works, including vases, decorative plates, candlestick holders, and animal-shaped ornaments—and their sheer variety reveals the richness of Gallé’s imagination and the depth of his inspiration.

Perhaps the most well-known of his faience pieces, are his cat-shaped fireplace ornaments.

Gallé is thought to have created the work before you while working as a design assistant to his father, Charles.

Records show it was titled “Japanese cat” and, for this reason, it is thought to have been modeled after Arita or Satsuma ware porcelain cats.

Gallé created several cat figurines with different designs.

This work features a bright yellow base color interspersed with indigo-and-white spots and hearts; the cat’s emerald-green glass eyes contribute to a cute, smiling design.

Simose Art Museum also owns a faience dog made by Gallé.

3. Lamp (tulip-shaped)

Emile Gallé

As Europe modernized toward the end of the 19th century, so the use of light bulbs became increasingly commonplace.

At the 1900 Paris Exposition, the Palace of Electricity—which was powered by large numbers of electric lights—proved particularly popular.

Émile Gallé exhibited electric lamps at the Exposition, but it was only from 1902, when he was already beset by illness, until his death in 1904 that Gallé devoted himself fully to their creation.

Here, a tulip-shaped glass shade sits upon a calyx-shaped bronze stand.

This lamp is one of the few Gallé created during his lifetime, and is characteristic of his later years, when many of his creations were made to resemble flowers and buds.

When illuminated, the etched surface of the shade and its chromatic mottling are revealed to splendid effect.

Gallé created this unique mottling through a technique called “patination,” which entailed deliberately contaminating the glass paste with powdered glass and other impurities.

4. Goblet with Figure after Callot

Emile Gallé

This traditional goblet is one of just a small number of glass works that Emile Gallé created during his early years.

He first blew the glass, then etched the design onto the surface.

The upper body of the cup is decorated with stage curtain-like garlands, and trumpet-blowing monkeys, chickens, owls, and cats; beneath them, a misshapen knight wields a sword in both hands.

The knight was modeled after the “Varie Figure Gobbi” series of prints by the Baroque printmaker Jacques Callot.

The long-nosed face and letters inscribed into the base of the cup are based on Callot’s Balli de Sfessania, a series of prints inspired by Italian comedies.

Like Gallé, Callot was born in Nancy, France.

He lived through the start of the Thirty Years’ War and so, in addition to his fantastical prints, he also created works that depicted the darker aspects of humanity.

Gallé had the greatest respect for Callot, and frequently looked to his works for inspiration.

Gallé himself lived through the Franco-Prussian War, and the cession of his Alsace-Lorraine to the Prussians fueled a powerful love for his hometown and motherland.

There can be little doubt that he empathized strongly with Callot’s experiences.

5. Carafe and glasses

Emile Gallé

In July 1870, France declared war on Prussia and started the Franco-Prussian War.

Yet the French were defeated, and forced to cede part of Emile Gallé’s hometown of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany.

Gallé, who fought in the war as a volunteer, witnessed with his own eyes the devastation inflicted on his hometown, and this intensified the love he felt both for the town and the country of his birth.

Gallé expressed in his artworks the hope that the land lost during the war would one day be returned, and instilled in them a spirit of defiance that would not bow to suffering.

Such defiance can also be sensed in this work, which he exhibited at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair.

The carafe is decorated with a knight raising a cup; with a thistle, which forms part of the coat of arms of Nancy; and with a lion, a cross, three alerions, and other motifs associated with the Lorraine region.

They have been carved in relief, and colored with enamel.

The thistle has long been an important motif in Gallé’s work.

Believed since ancient times to repel its enemies with its thorns, for Gallé the thistle symbolizes both his love for his country and his desire that the lands it has lost would one day be returned.

6. Vase (Jeanne d’Arc design)

Emile Gallé

Emile Gallé created this vase in 1890; the previous year, he had received a gold medal at the Paris World Expo in the glass category, and his reputation was beginning to grow.

The body of the vase is long, thin, and funnel-shaped, with a rounded shoulder, and stands on a stable circular base; its neck is cone-shaped, and transitions smoothly to the lip.

In terms of technique, the vase has been created using three layers of flashed glass—a dull-green base glass, a transparent second layer, and a third layer of ochre-colored glass.

The design has been carved into this third layer.

The design depicts Joan of Arc riding a horse, with flag in hand, surrounded by soldiers; the reverse side of the vase is decorated with her coat of arms—a crown, sword, and two lilies.

The body of the vase is decorated with spotted bellflowers, the neck and base with lilies. It is an exquisite design.

7. Vase (butterfly design)

Emile Gallé

Glass is characterized by its transparency.

Seeking to maximize this transparency, in glass art care was typically taken to eliminate impurities from the production process; the presence of impurities caused bubbles and mottling, which were regarded as faults.

However, Émile Gallé saw the decorative potential of these bubbles and mottling, and deliberately incorporated them into his works; in so doing, he expanded the expressive possibilities of glass.

Gallé created this vase in his later period; it consists of areas of purple and orange-colored glass layered on top of a transparent base.

He used marquetry techniques to decorate the trunk of the glass with three butterflies—in yellow, red, and purple.

Each of the butterflies have eyespots and other unique patterns on their wings; Gallé often incorporated butterflies and moths into his works, perhaps indicating a particular interest in the patterns on their wings.

Bubbles and speckles have been incorporated into the base glass, which also features engraved swirls; the butterflies are expertly shown fluttering in the air.

9. Vase (inky cap mushroom design)

Emile Gallé

The common inky cap is a mushroom that grows on dead wood from spring to autumn.

They have long stems and grey caps but, when they mature, their caps disintegrate in the course of a single night and turn into black slime—hence their Japanese name means “one-night mushrooms.”

Émile Gallé sought inspiration in nature for his works, and he appears to have sensed the fragility of existence in the common inky cap.

In his later years, Gallé produced multiple versions of a common inky cap lamp—indeed, it is a work of his that is particularly well known.

Of the six versions that still exist, two are in the collection of Japanese galleries.

This vase is also inspired by the common inky cap.

Gallé used various techniques—such as sandwiching decorative elements between layers of glass—to create a wondrous natural scene on the surface of the vase.

In addition to spider webs and withered leaves—motifs that are associated with death—he also depicts five common inky cap mushroom.

The caps of these mushrooms are in varying states of opening, as if representing different stages of their development, and Gallé has succeeded in capturing the fragility of their existence.

10. Vase, “Rose of France”

Emile Gallé

Stalks covered with poisonous-looking dark-red buds and thorns cling to a warm-pink vase.

Known as “rosa gallica,” or the “Gallic rose,” in the Lorraine region of France, the Gallic rose only grows in the mountains on the outskirts of Metz, and it was used by Émile Gallé as a symbol of his love for his homeland.

After the Franco-Prussian War, the Lorraine region was ceded to Germany.

The Gallic rose that continued to grow there came to embody Gallé’s desire for France to recapture this land.

In his later years, Gallé created a large, footed cup decorated with a Gallic rose for Léon Simon, when he retired as chairman of the Central Horticultural Society of Nancy.

This was in homage to Simon who, after the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War, had left his hometown of Metz, chosen to become a French citizen, and devoted himself to the research of roses.

This vase shares similarities of design with that cup, and its small, fleshy rose buds seem to encapsulate Gallé’s emotions.

11. Dicentra Spectabilis

Emile Gallé

Thought to have been created by Emile Gallé in his later years, this rare work is themed on the Asian bleeding heart flower—from its overall shape to the bold relief decoration on the front and the patterns engraved on the back.

Distinctive for its heart-shaped flowers, the Asian bleeding heart was often used by Emile Gallé in his designs, and the elaborateness of this vase’s design powerfully suggests just how taken he was by the flower’s unique ecology and lovely form.

Gallé died of leukemia on September 23, 1904, at the age of 58.

The following week, L’Illustration carried an obituary of Gallé together with a photograph of one of his Asian bleeding heart-themed vases.

The Shimose family called this work “The heart-shaped tear,” after the German name for the flower, and displayed it with great care in the middle of a large, altar-like cabinet made by Gallé.

12. Chair”Le Merisier”

Emile Gallé

Emile Gallé studied the piano throughout his life, and this education no doubt helped him develop musical sensibilities.

Indeed, he is thought to have found inspiration for some of his works in his friendships with musicians and in his visits to the opera.

Gallé created these chairs in 1890.

Their backrests are inlaid with depictions of wild cherries and violins.

His vibrant depictions of the cherry branches and leaves and are richly poetic, and the viewer can almost hear the hum of the violin strings.

At the 1889 Paris World Expo, Gallé exhibited a group of dining chairs whose stiles were decorated with traditional molds in the shape of tuning pegs, whose backrests were shaped after Middle Age shields, each of which was inlaid with a depiction of a different plant.

These two chairs share a similar design theme to the World Expo exhibits.

In fact, the Simose Art Museum collection also possesses a chair made for the World Expo, which features two butterflies and a plant from the berry family.

Gallé had submitted works in the furniture category for the first time just one year earlier, at the 1889 fair; then, praised for his outstanding inlaying techniques, Gallé received the silver medal.

13. Vase (colchicum design)

Emile Gallé

The autumn crocus produces leaves in the spring, which die back in the summer; then in autumn, the stem grows out and produces a light-purple flower.

Emile Gallé was drawn to the plant’s unusual lifecycle; he called it “the night-light of autumn,” and frequently included it in his designs as a symbol of death and rebirth.

The three autumn crocus vases in the Simose Art Museum collection belong to Gallé’s inaugural series of marquetry glass art.

The papers in which he noted down his plans for the series are in the possession of the Musée d’Orsay.

While the autumn crocus resembles the true crocus, it actually belongs to a separate family of flowers.

And, since Gallé used the names of both flowers when titling his designs, it is unclear whether this series of works depicts true crocuses or autumn crocuses.

What is clear, however, is that in the shapes of these vases and in the decorative lines that stretch their full length, Gallé sought not only to represent the form of these flowers but even to capture their life force.

14. Vase (cyclamen design)

Emile Gallé

In the run up to the 1900 Paris Exposition, Emile Gallé was nominated to be vice-chair of a committee for a certain category.

However, he declined the position as he did not wish to exhibit as a state-appointed, unscreened participant; instead, he wished to be eligible for the various awards on offer, to show the world the art he had devoted himself to, and to earn even greater success.

One of the glass-making techniques Gallé developed for the Expo is known as “glass marquetry.”

In this technique, pre-prepared fragments of colored glass are applied to a still-molten glass object, and marvered into the surface.

Gallé also made wooden furniture, and is thought to have taken the idea of glass marquetry from wooden marquetry techniques.

In this work, Gallé has used marquetry to depict cyclamen flowers, leaves, and stems.

Extant photos show that he exhibited a similar vase at the 1900 Paris Exposition, which was entitled “Repose amid the solitude.”

15. Vase （wallflower design）

Emile Gallé

Émile Gallé created this vase in his later years using glass marquetry techniques.

It is decorated with wallflowers, which commonly grow in the gaps between stones and rocks; indeed, its name comes from the fact that they can often been seen climbing old castle walls.

The flowers, leaves, stalks, and even the roots of the wallflower are depicted in relief.

Gallé imbued the flowers with a luster by sandwiching metal leaf between layers of glass—they have a sense of energy, and exude a powerful vitality.

The unique shape of the vase is one of its distinguishing features: its lip is shaped like a crown, while its belly is covered in thick glass.

Although the exact reason for its shape is not known, some believe that the vase resembles flower pistils or seeds, others that the lip is modeled after the closed petals of a flower.

Gallé created many variations on this work, some inscribed with phrases or poems.

The numerous versions indicate that the wallflower was, for Gallé, a major source of inspiration.

16. Vase (orchid design)

Emile Gallé

Emile Gallé was a botanist as well as a practitioner of glass art.

He developed a fondness for plants at an early age and, receiving instruction from botanists, he devoted himself to making a book of plant specimens.

In later life, he helped establish a horticultural association in his hometown of Nancy, and even submitted papers to botanical journals.

Indeed, due to his botanical background, the plants in his designs are so accurately depicted that their exact species can be determined.

This vase has been elaborately decorated with Venus slippers—a type of orchid—and the leaves of a fern using purple, pink, and gold enamel.

Orchids were among Gallé’s favorite flowers, and he continued to study them until his death.

Here, he has emphasized the great beauty of the orchids by surrounding them with delicate fern leaves.

17. Vase (nut design)

Daum Frères

For the 1900 Paris World Expo, the Daum brothers turned to the ceramicist Ernest Bussière for inspiration, using his ceramic designs in their glass art.

Like the Daum brothers, Bussière was also working in Nancy, and his use of plants in the very shape of his works had a great influence on the Daum brothers’ own approach to form.

It is also worth noting that Emile Gallé, perhaps the leading glass maker in France at that time, was also incorporating flowers and buds into the shapes of his glass works.

Before long, the Daum brothers were using glass appliqué to incorporate three-dimensional depictions of insects and plants in their works.

In this work, what appears to be the leaves and fruit of the medlar tree have been depicted in three dimensions.

The leaves that have been fused on to the base glass are green; the leaves that have been etched away are red and yellow.

In autumn, the leaves of the medlar tree turn red, and its fruit ripens.

The Daum brothers have sought to represent the seasonal changes of the tree and, in so doing, demonstrate a very Japanese sensibility.

18. Lamp (snow landscape design)

Daum Frères

Jean Daum and his family originally lived in Bitche, in northeastern France.

Bitche was annexed by Germany during the Franco-Prussian War, and the Daums left their hometown and opened a glass factory in Nancy in 1878.

Initially, the factory produced tableware and other everyday products, but when his sons Auguste and Antonin Daum took over the business, they soon began creating artworks and gradually began to distinguish themselves.

The Daum brothers’ popularity rested on their enameled landscapes.

The snow scenes enameled onto the two works here are also to be found on other containers and lamps of various shapes.

The brothers first created glass dappled with yellow and orange; they etched their designs in relief on the surface of this glass; they then used enamel to decorate the glass with a winter scene of forests covered in snow.

In a truly painterly manner, they skillfully distributed trees of different sizes to create a sense of depth in the scene, and used thick layers of enamel to hint at the texture of the snow-covered ground.

When the lamp is lit, the mottled base layer of glass glows orange like a sky during sunset.

19. Vase

Emile Gallé

A long thin neck extends out from a low, round body.

Chrysanthemums and butterflies have been depicted using a combination of relief etching, enamel colors, and gold leaf, and the design—and the Yamato-e-inspired haze, in particular—suggests the influence of Japanese art.

Western chrysanthemums are single-flowered, but the chrysanthemums on this work are the double-flowered variety more common in the East.

In fact, Emile Gallé strongly associated chrysanthemums with Japan, as evidenced by a note he addressed to Tokuzo Takashima, in which he wrote that “there are many things I would like to ask you about the land of chrysanthemums.”

Tokuzo Takashima was a government official who later in life was also active as a painter under the name Hokkai Takashima.

He was sent by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce for approximately three years to study forestry in Nancy.

For Gallé, who had long had an interest in Japanese art, his interactions with Takashima must have been extremely stimulating.

20. Cabinet (insect design)

Emile Gallé

In Emile Gallé’s works, both insects and plants are key elements of his designs.

Ever since his student days, Gallé was passionate about collecting plants from the plains and forests of Lorraine, France; and, while out collecting these plants, he must have frequently come into contact with insects.

This work features inlaid sunflowers, and carvings of moths, butterflies, snails, bees, and cicadas.

Hinges and other fittings have also been shaped after dragonflies and beetles.

Depicted larger than life and in grotesque detail, these creatures have an unusual presence.

As to why he began making furniture, Gallé explained that he had been drawn to the rich colors and woodgrain patterns of the wood, when seeking stands for his vases at stores selling precious wood stores.

He then started collecting wood, and joining pieces of wood into furniture; as his interest in furniture developed, he began to incorporate figurative depictions of nature into his works.

21. Vase (lotus design)

Emile Gallé

Emile Gallé is known for his attractive, ornamental glass art, but he created a large number of darker, more sorrowful works, too.

When he won the Grand Prix at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair, among his exhibits he included pieces incorporating black glass which would later be called his “sadness vases.”

This vase comprises a short, hemispherical lower body, a long, thick neck, and a mouth that tapers slightly outwards.

It was made using a sophisticated technique known as “gravure,” in which black glass was flashed over a transparent base, then carved away until the transparent glass was visible, so creating patterns in relief.

The vase has been boldly decorated with the flowers and leaves of the lotus flower, which is associated in Japan and China with Buddhism.

Fittingly, Gallé has depicted this Far Eastern motif with realism and calm.

22. Vase（pine tree in the snow design）

Emile Gallé

Émile Gallé often incorporated quotes from poetry—both modern and ancient—in his works.

At times, these quotes hinted at hidden themes or at his emotions, and were an attempt to make his works even more abundantly symbolic.

This drive toward enhanced symbolism stemmed from Gallé’s strong desire to raise the standing of glass art so that it stood side-by-side with more established arts such as painting and sculpture.

This vase consists of yellow-green uranium glass covered with white glass, then shaped into the form of an urn.

Gallé portrays the falling snow by adding a layer of white glass powder; he has etched the outline of the motifs on the surface, and drawn the pine cones and branches and needles in enamel.

The influence of Japanese art can be seen in Gallé’s choice of snow and pines as his subject and in his careful representation of snow.

In the body of the glass, Gallé has carved a line of poetry from “La reine du bal (the queen of the ball)” by Sully Prudhomme, a contemporary of Gallé’s.

“Tears of winter, like the tears of unfortunate people.”

It is as if these words, which compare the falling snow to tears, convey the cries of the pine as it seeks to hold out against the cold and withstand weight of the snow.

23. Purple bouquet

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall was one of the 20th century’s leading artists.

He is known for his many paintings inspired by his love for his first wife, Bella.

And for Chagall, a bouquet of flowers came to have a special meaning.

On July 7, 1915, on Chagall’s birthday, Bella celebrated his birthday by giving him a bouquet of flowers from the rowan tree.

The two married soon after, and a bouquet of flowers became for Chagall a symbol of love.

He often painted bouquets alongside scenes of his hometown of Vitebsk, Russia, or of embracing lovers.

A vase of purple flowers stands in the center of this painting.

The blue of the background represents the color of the sky and the sea in the south of France, where Chagall had an atelier.

A red donkey, a memory of his hometown, and a person, likely Bella, lie side-by-side in the bottom-left of the canvas.

Although his beloved Bella passed away during the Second World War, she lived on in his memory—and Chagall continued to paint her with artistic effects and colors that elicit great emotion.

24. Dancer in a blue tutu

Henri Matisse

A dancer in a blue tutu sits on a bench. Drawn in thick black lines, her crossed legs are depicted with greater vigor than her upper body and give off a sense of immense power.

A vase filled with purple and yellow flowers stands beside her, adding color to the scene.

In 1941, at the age of 71, Henri Matisse underwent major surgery.

Resulting complications meant that he was frequently bedbound, but this by no means diluted his creative passions.

Around this time, Matisse predominantly created charcoal and pencil drawings that he could draw from his bed, rather than the more physically demanding oil painting.

Even when painting in oils, he gradually simplified the elements he included, and the lines and speed of his brushwork becomes more noticeable.

Matisse painted this work in the year after his surgery.

In contrast to the imposing figure of the dancer, he captures the texture of the tutu through vigorous, rhythmic brushwork, so bringing a sense of nimbleness and energy to the canvas.

25. Roses

Ryuzaburo Umehara

Ryuzaburo Umehara is best known for his landscapes of Sakurajima and Mt. Fuji, but he also painted outstanding still lifes of flowers.

When he visited Beijing in 1939, Umehara brought an overglaze enamel vase back with him to Japan.

He filled the vase with roses, understanding they would not be overpowered by the gorgeousness of the vase.

Indeed, roses stimulated Umehara’s creativity.

He noted: “I am drawn to paint roses. I find them extremely interesting: the way they bulge as if they are bursting to open, and their spiral form.”

The square vase in this painting has an unusually low center of gravity.

Umehara has created a stable composition with his placement of fruit and a fruit bowl on the table; despite using contrasting reds and greens, perhaps because of their muted values, the scene appears tranquil.

26. Roses

Takeshi Hayashi

Takeshi Hayashi created works that were incredibly distinctive, combining his unique compositional theory based on tetrahedrons, with thick layers of paint and black outlines.

Hayashi specialized in landscapes of Mt. Fuji and Mt. Asama, but he also painted numerous still lifes of roses.

In this painting, he has filled a multicolored square vase almost to bursting with roses.

Both the background and table are painted a chromatic red; he has outlined vivid yellow, red, purple, and white roses in black, making them stand out with great dynamism.

While the green leaves occupy only a small proportion of the painted surface, they play a critical role in the overall color balance.

27. Nio statues

Koun Takamura

Koun Takamura was a student of Toun Takamura, a 19th-century sculptor of Buddhist statues.

In 1877, at the age of 25, he exhibited Byakue Kannon (White-robed Bodhisattva of mercy) at the Naikoku Kangyo Hakurankai exhibition, and was awarded the first prize.

By the end of the 19th century, wood carving in Japan had begun to decline in popularity, but Takamura promoted a modern style of realistic wood carving.

He created many statues of Buddha—particularly standing statues of Kannon, the Bodhisattva of mercy, as well as of Nio, the two muscular guardians of Buddha that stand guard at many temple entrances.

Takamura’s most famous depictions of Nio are the 5.3-meter-tall statues installed at the Niomon (Nio gate) of Zenko-ji Temple in Nagano City, which he made together with his disciple Unkai Yonehara.

The 1.5-meter-tall studies they created are also in the possession of the temple.

The two Nio figures before you stand 55 centimeters tall.

They differ in form to the Nio guardians at Zenkoji Temple.

Following tradition, the “agyo” (open-mouthed form) statue stands to the right, and wields the mythical “vajra” in his left hand.

As is the case with many Buddhist statues, these works are attributed to the Takamura workshop—that is, they are understood to have been made by Takamura together with his disciples.

28. Kagami Jishi: Lion Dance at New Year

Denchu Hirakushi

“Kagami Jishi” is the name of a splendid kabuki dance first performed in the late-19th century by the actor Ichikawa Danjuro IX, and later perfected in the mid-20th century by Ogami Kikugoro VI.

In 1936, Kikugoro VI performed his Kagami Jishi at a kabuki theater in Tokyo; Denchu Hirakushi attended the play 25 days in a row and resolved to create a sculpture of the dance.

He observed the Kikugoro VI’s performance from various angles, had photographs of the dance taken, and also consulted directly with Kikugoro VI, even asking him to pose naked.

Hirakushi’s work was interrupted by the war but, some 20 years after he had begun, he finally completed his Kagami Jishi sculpture.

Today, it is on display at the National Theater in Tokyo.

Hirakushi made this one-quarter-scale replica when he was 100 years old.

The form of Kikugoro VI’s body, and the refinement both of his wig and of his dynamic and splendid clothing, are the fruit of long years of dedication and possess a power that belies Hirakushi’s age.

29. Sunrise, the Seto Inland Sea

Takeji Fujishima

The paintings of the Romantic artist Takeji Fujishima are full of emotion.

His most famous work is “Kuro ogi (black fan),” which depicts a woman cloaked in a white veil holding a black fan with astonishing chromatic delicacy.

Following his accession to the throne, in 1928 Emperor Showa commissioned Fujishima to paint a work to decorate the Togu ongakumonjo, a part of the Imperial Palace.

Fujishima chose the morning sun as his subject, and began researching how to depict sunrises over seas and mountains across Japan; he traveled around Toba City in Mie Prefecture, and Shodoshima Island in the Seto Inland Sea, painting seascapes.

It was around this time that Fujishima painted this work, too, showing the sun rising over the Seto Inland Sea.

The sun makes its way up over a gentle sea, dyeing the clouds and the waves red, two seabirds are silhouetted against the sky, three boats bob in the waters, and rocks protrude break through the surface in the foreground.

Fujishima has captured the gradations from red to blue in this playful early-morning scene with great delicacy.

30. Mt. Fuji

Ryuzaburo Umehara

Evacuated to Izu Peninsula during the Second World War, Ryuzaburo Umehara was moved by the beauty of Mt. Fuji he saw there.

After the war, wishing to paint Mt. Fuji properly, he frequently visited Izu and the nearby city of Numazu.

Umehara started this painting in 1951, while staying at a hotel in the Ohito region of Izu, and finished it the following year.

Umehara painted this work in a technique known as “distemper,” in which mineral pigments—commonly used in traditional Japanese nihonga painting—are dissolved in a vinyl solution. He then sprinkled gold dust onto the sky and foreground in a technique known as “sunago,” to accentuate the beauty of Mt. Fuji.

Umehara’s incorporation of nihonga techniques was extremely well suited to the depiction of Mt. Fuji.

Umehara received the Order of Culture the year he painted this painting.

31. Morning of Japanese sea

Taikan Yokoyama

Yokoyama Taikan painted this work when he was in his 70s, and is thought to have been inspired by the coast in Izura, Ibaraki Prefecture, where he had lived with Okakura Tenshin some 34 years earlier.

Yokoyama’s eldest daughter had recently died, he house had burned down, he was stricken with poverty, and he was on the verge of having to return to Tokyo.

The Izura coast reminded him of the difficulties he had endured in his life.

The thick, black-trunked pines to the left of the picture are braced against the wind and the violent waves that crash against the rocks.

Buffeted by powerful Pacific gusts, the seagulls in the center of the picture fly about in search of food.

It is a wild seascape.

Yet the sun is rising, marking the start of a new day, and bringing hope for what is to come.

32. Mt. Hourai

Taikan Yokoyama

This picture combines Mount Fuji with the mythical Mount Penglai, a mountain that stands in the legendary Chinese utopia of Penglai.

Taikan Yokoyama painted the mountain on countless occasions throughout his life, noting that “Mount Fuji is beautiful at all times.”

In his earlier works, he took great pains to capture the different aspects of Mount Fuji as it changed with the time of day or with the seasons; in time, however, he began to depict it as a symbol of Japan.

In this painting, Yokoyama uses the technique of “morotai,” in which the silhouettes are depicted not with line but with gradations of color and tone, to depict the sea of clouds; using the technique of “katabokashi,” which combines line with the blurring of the inner side of an object’s silhouette, he has depicted the peaks of Penglai.

The presence of the castle and thick vegetation add great depth to the picture.

Interestingly, this scene also resembles the Izura Coast in Ibaraki Prefecture.

Yokoyama previously lived at Izura with Tenshin Okakura, founder of the Nihon Bijutsuin (Japanese Art Institute), after the institute was forced to relocate there due to financial difficulties.

This painting may well be a tribute to those days when, despite various hardships, Yokoyama devoted himself to study.

33. Mt. Fuji

Tamako Kataoka

In the 1960s, Tamako Kataoka began visiting and painting volcanoes across Japan, before narrowing her focus onto Mount Fuji.

Wishing to depict the mountain from various viewpoints, Kataoka traveled all around its foothills; in her own unique style, she painted Mount Fuji many times—as if she was conversing with it.

In this work, Kataoka has skillfully captured the brilliance and dynamism of Mount Fuji—its silhouette, its cap of snow, and the marks left by the meltwaters—and the peach-colored cherry blossoms in the foreground herald the arrival of spring.

In her paintings of Mount Fuji, Kataoka frequently included flowers—as if gifting flowers to Mount Fuji as an offering, or as if clothing the mountain in a floral kimono.

In the cherry blossoms in this picture, too, Kataoka’s respect and admiration for the mountain is tangible.

34. Ｄecorated floats

Heizo Oki VII

This is a model of “Naginata Hoko”—the float that leads the procession at the Gion Festival, one of the most famous festivals in Japan, and a symbol of the Japanese summer.

Naginata Hoko represents the Naginata hoko district of Kyoto, and is renowned for having a symbolic halberd—made by famed swordsmith Sanjo Kokajimunechika—mounted on a long pole that extends above the float’s roof.

The inner ceiling of the float is decorated with the “Kinji chakusai hyakucho-zu,” a color painting of many birds by Keibun Matsumura.

Beneath the front and rear gables are full-color, carved-wood human statues.

The drapery that hangs from the second floor of the float is emblazoned with depictions of vermilion birds, black tortoises, white tigers, and blue dragons; decorative rugs depicting Chinese lions playing with balls, or featuring Persian flower designs extend beneath them.

Naginata Hoko is therefore also called “a moving gallery.”

The float is pulled by hand to the beat of taiko drums, the clatter of handbells, and the tunes of flutes.

Heizo Oki has faithfully depicted the float in great detail: the halberd hokogashira, the ceiling art and carvings, the drapery and other decorations, and even the musicians.

35. The Sick Child

Edvard Munch

Love, solitude, anxiety, despair, and death: Edvard Munch captured great power the indescribable feelings and experiences of human existence.

At the age of 22, he began painting a group of pictures showing a young girl afflicted with an incurable illness.

He said later that “this was my childhood, this was my home,” referencing the fact that he lost his mother to illness at the age of five, and his sister at the age of 14. Losing these beloved family members as a child cast a great shadow over his life.

Munch created numerous pictures on the theme of “the sick child,” but the work you see before you is the first.

It depicts a young girl losing her life force, and a mother overcome with grief.

The girl’s face is marked with deep despair and resignation.

And for some mysterious reason, Munch drew what appears to be unrelated landscape beneath the sick child.

36. Still life under the lamp

Pablo Picasso

A lamp shines in the dark and illuminates some fruit and a glass cup.

The limited number of colors and the simple outlines depicted in fluid, rhythmical lines imbue the scene with a sense of energy.

From 1958 to 1963, Pablo Picasso devoted himself to a type of print called linocut, in which images are carved onto a rubber-like material called linoleum.

Ordinarily, one sheet of linoleum is used to print one color, and so creating a multicolored scene requires numerous sheets of linoleum.

But Picasso developed a new method of carving and printing a single color, then carving a little more and printing a second color, and so on.

Corrections could not easily be made using this method, and so it relied on making careful color designs in advance.

The complexity of this method may well have stirred Picasso’s creative urges.

This work was created toward the end of Picasso’s linocut period, and showcases the great technical skills he has acquired—not least in his mastery of thin lines, which are extremely difficult to achieve in linocut.

37. Head of a girl

Amedeo Modigliani

Amedeo Modigliani was a leading artist of the School of Paris.

Within the traditional portrait format, he developed his own unique style, characterized by well-defined noses, pupil-less eyes, and lengthened necks.

He sought to uncover the inner lives of his sitters.

His painting was informed by his sculpture.

Soon after arriving in Paris, Modigliani encountered the sculptor Constantin Brâncuși, and began to fully immerse himself in sculpture.

Around this time, Modigliani was influenced by African masks and non-Western-European sculpture, and he incorporated their primitive, powerful forms into his artworks.

This bronze head is a cast of a stone sculpture Modigliani had recently created.

It features his characteristic pupil-less eyes and long nose and neck.

Modigliani’s foray into sculpture did not last long, both due to the difficulty of procuring materials, and due to the physical effort it demanded.

However, by drawing on his experiences in this artform, Modigliani founded a new mode of expression for 20th-century painting.

38. May

Léonard Foujita

Léonard Foujita is famed for his love of cats.

However, he also painted dogs, and in this work he has depicted a black poodle.

As the inscription shows, Foujita painted this work in Les Eyzies, in southwest France, in 1939.

This was his first visit to France for eight years, and he spent the summer in Les Eyzies, with his friend Genichiro Inokuma, due to the outbreak of the Second World War.

A mother dog lies in the center of the painting, while two small pups run and play beside her.

The painting is almost monochrome, and the painter has focused instead on accurately portraying the various textures—the hardness of the floor, for example, and the variations in the dogs’ fur.

While the mother attends watchfully to the unsteady steps of her pups, she also appears to have half a cautious eye on the viewer; perhaps her caution reflects Foujita’s own anxiety about the coming war.

39. Birds and child

Léonard Foujita

Léonard Foujita was a leading member of the School of Paris; yet he also worked as a war artist during the Second World War, making war paintings in Japan.

War paintings came to be condemned following Japan’s defeat, and Foujita himself also became the subject of criticism.

Foujita left Japan for France and became a French citizen.

He developed a fascination with children, and their blend of innocence and evil.

Foujita, who did not have children of his own, said: “The children in my paintings are my sons and my daughters—they are the children I want to love the most.”

He frequently painted children with large heads, slanted eyes, and doll-like features.

In this painting, Foujita depicts an innocent-looking girl who smiles as she carefully holds a parakeet.

He has returned to the detailed lines and youthful, porcelain-like, milky-white base colors which earned him admiration from the School of Paris.

The viewer can almost sense the warm gaze of the artist on the girl.

40. Portrait of a woman

Moïse Kisling

A black-haired women is wrapped in a colorful scarf, her lustrous skin accentuated by the dark background.

Unspeaking, her eyes facing emptily forward, she exudes a sense of sadness.

Born into a Jewish family in Poland, Moïse Kisling became a leading member of the School of Paris.

As anti-Semitism grew more widespread during the first half of the 20th century, Kisling moved to Paris, where he sought to leave such ethnic issues behind him and dedicate himself to his art.

He immersed himself in all things French as a means of avoiding discrimination and persecution, even volunteering for the French Foreign Legion during the First World War.

Yet Kisling also strongly opposed anti-Semitic movements such as Nazism.

There can be little doubt that the incompatibility of his Jewish ancestry and his desire to live as an ordinary French citizen caused Kisling great anguish—and this may well be the source of the melancholy that permeates his portraits.

41. Lying nude

Jules Pascin

Jules Pascin was active in Paris in the 1920s, a period commonly referred to as the “roaring twenties.”

The fleeting peace that reigned after the end of the First World War inspired Parisians to live with great freedom, and the city was incredibly lively.

Pascin was no different: he devoted himself to his art by day, then partied with his models and friends at night.

The Frenchman prided himself on his drawing ability and, around this time, he began thinning his paints with turpentine, and creating oil paintings that were dominated by line.

This period came to be known as his “mother-of-pearl” years, for the pale color palette he used.

Pascin painted this work in his Paris atelier.

He has accurately captured the voluptuous form of a woman with his skilled pencil drawing, and overlayed the lines with pale, pastel-like colors.

Pascin’s atelier was frequently used to host parties; he would invite numerous models on a daily basis and attempt to capture them in their natural state.

Just five years after he painted this work—shortly after the roaring twenties ended—Pascin committed suicide in this same atelier.

42. Sitting girl

Marie Laurencin

A woman elegantly clothed in a white dress and yellow ribbon sits on a chair.

Gorgeous ribbons and other accessories in her hair, a pearl neckless around her neck, in her left hand she holds a single rose.

Despite her grown-up appearance, her pink cheeks and her expression point to a residual childlikeness.

When Marie Laurencin aspired to be a painter in Paris at the start of the 20th century, there were almost no female artists.

She interacted with and was influenced by talented poets and painters around her, including a still-unknown Picasso.

Yet she protected her unique female sensibilities toward color and form, and began to establish her own style of expression.

Laurencin painted this portrait in the second half of her artistic career.

Layering dark reds upon a grey background to give depth to her painting, she skillfully captures the delicate disposition of a young girl.

Laurencin disliked using reds and yellows, regarding them as “masculine colors”; here, however, she uses them to great effect, and demonstrates a mature understanding of color.

43. Moulin de la galette

Maurice Utrillo

Maurice Utrillo was a French painter active in the first half of the 20th century in the Montmartre quarter of Paris.

His mother was a free spirit, and so Utrillo’s childhood was a lonely one. Perhaps because of this, he showed a tendency toward alcoholism even as a child, and was afflicted by mental illness.

Utrillo took up painting as a form of treatment and gradually came to regard himself as an artist.

In his latter 20s, he distinguished himself with landscapes containing large amounts of white.

This was the period when Utrillo was happiest, and is known as his “white period.”

Painted toward the end of his white period, this work depicts the Montmartre cityscape.

Two windmills—symbols of the city—stand in the center of the painting.

The right windmill is emblazoned with the words “Moulin de la Galette”—it was a dance hall that flourished in the 19th century, and was attended by large numbers of artists.

With its overcast cloudy sky and paucity of pedestrians, a feeling of sorrow pervades this painting.

Around 1910, the majority of artists moved to the left bank of the Seine; enamored by Montmartre, however, Utrillo chose to remain and continued painting landscapes of the city.