Art Eyewitness Review: Firing the Imagination: Japanese Influence on French Ceramics, 1860-1910 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

Firing the Imagination:
Japanese Influence on French Ceramics, 1860-1910

Philadelphia Museum of Art

 August 31, 2024-August 17, 2015

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Original Photography by Anne Lloyd

Firing the Imagination is an intriguing exhibition which surveys the influence of Japanese artistic conventions on French ceramics during the age of Impressionism. Currently on view in the Colket Gallery of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA), the exhibit provides new insights on the impact of Japonisme on decorative arts and craft, rather than exclusively on Impressionist painting.

The Colket Gallery, I recently discovered, is named for Tristram Colket, a  grandson of John Dorrance, the Campbell's Soup Company founder. Mr. Colket, who died in 2020, was a generous supporter of numerous worthy causes. But he was quiet, low-keyed benefactor, whose name did not often figure in newspaper headlines or advertisements. 

By a curious twist of circumstance, a similar lack of name recognition applies to the ceramic artists whose exquisite works are displayed in Firing the Imagination.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)

Art works from the Firing the Imagination exhibit.

 At left, is a vase made by Théodore Deck & decorated by Marie-Caroline-Eléonore Escallier, c. 1870; at right, is a vase by Auguste Jean, 1885

Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Paul Cezanne need no introduction. The same does not hold true for the remarkably long list of "potters" whose plates, vases, bowels and jardinieres grace the walls and display cases of the Colket Gallery. 

Edmund Lachenal, Ernest Chaplet, Joseph-Théodore Deck, Albert-Louis Dammouse - do these names sound familiar? Until I began visiting Firing the Imagination, I am chagrined to admit that I had not heard of a single one of these masters of art pottery.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)

A selection of ceramic plates decorated with Japanese motifs, made in France by Felix Bracquemond and the J. Viellard Co., c. 1875-1880.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)

Gallery view of the Firing the Imagination exhibition,

 showing a display of works by Edmund Lachenal, Léon Parvillée and other French ceramic artists of the late 19th century

How these beautiful Japanese-inspires ceramics found their way to the Colket Gallery is a fascinating story. It is a brilliant instance of "niche' collecting.

A New Jersey school teacher named Larry A. Simms focused his attention and financial resources on building a representative collection of works by overlooked Belle Epoque ceramic artists. With commendable generosity, Mr. Simms has donated much of his collection to the PMA. This is a major addition to the Philly Museum's impressive holdings of French nineteenth century art, brilliantly complementing its Impressionist paintings and Rodin sculptures.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)

Gallery view of the Firing the Imagination exhibition

 in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Colket Gallery

Of the artists collected by Simms, only one approaches the renown of the Impressionist painters. This is Felix Bracquemond, whose major claim to fame is his role as one of France's leading print makers. Bracquemond also designed Japonisme-inspired dinnerware including the "Parisian" and  "Rousseau" dinner services. Both are on view in the exhibit. Yet Bracquemomd's work in ceramics is often accorded only minimal attention. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)

Gallery view of Firing the Imagination, with ceramic dinner ware, designed by Felix Bracquemond & others displayed on the walls.

Why painters, especially those working in oils, should be accorded precedence above artists engaged in other media is a question too weighty to be discussed here. But one aspect of the debate should be noted. Ceramic artists devoted themselves to a very dangerous form of creative enterprise. Until the 1970's, the glazes used to paint the various types of ceramic ware were lead-based. Inhaling the fumes during the heating process or touching dust-covered surfaces in the work room have claimed many a potter's life. 

Creating ceramics, therefore, is not a genteel, leisure pursuit. Even in today's safer conditions, it is an exacting discipline. There is plenty of hard labor involved and "brain work" too. One of the thematic displays of Firing the Imagination deals with the difficulty of using volatile, hard-to-control red glazes. 

As the exhibit wall text notes, European artists and chemists made concerted efforts during the late nineteenth century to "replicate the prized colors and surface effects of Japanese and Chinese ceramics." They were especially determined to match the deep red brown which the French called sang de boeuf, ox-blood.

Ernest Chaplet (1835-1909) led the way in developing a durable sang de boeuf glaze, for which he won a gold medal at the 1889 Paris World's Fair. Chaplet was a major innovator in the science of ceramics, though it should be noted that trying to get "just the right tone" of red still poses a challenge for potters.

A strikingly modern porcelain vase by Chaplet, drenched in sang de boeuf and dating close to the time of his award-winning success, is on view in the exhibition. If asked to date this magnificent vase, I would have thought that it had been created during the 1990's - or just yesterday!

Ernest Chaplet, Porcelain vase with sang de boeuf glaze, c. 1889

Equally impressive are examples of small vases which were glazed with traces of sang de boeuf, used to accentuate the other glaze hues. When such subtle color effects were applied to simplified, yet elegantly shaped pieces, as shown below, a true liberation of color and form occurred. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)

A selection of small vases, glazed with accents of sang-de-boeuf. The vase, second from left, was made by Théodore Deck. All others were created by Albert-Louis Dammouse.

There are several dramatic story lines to Firing the Imagination which the wall texts explain in cogent and understandable terms. The ceramic objects d'art which we see in the exhibition testify to experiments in science, especially chemistry, as well as attempts to represent nature in tangible formats similar to what the Impressionist painters were doing in two dimensions. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)

Glazed-stoneware dish, made by Albert-Louis Dammouse, c. 1900

A perfect illustration of this desire to "honor" nature is a glazed-stoneware dish, shaped like a lily-pad. It was created by Albert-Louis Dammouse around 1900, at the same time that Claude Monet was laying-out his water-gardens at Giverny. 

It is ironic that the French ceramics displayed in Firing the Imagination should have played an important role in the rise of the aesthetic of Modernism. It did not start out that way back in the 1860's when Japanese prints, followed soon after by Japanese craft objects, first reached Europe. 

Page view from Hokusai Gafu, vol. 1, 1849, an important source book for French artists, including Albert-Louis Dammouse & Felix Bracquemond

The amazement and exhilaration of European artists and the art-appreciating public in the West was so intense upon seeing the "floating world" images of Hokusai and Hiroshige that the immediate reaction was simply to imitate Japanese art. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)

Plate made by Albert-Louis Dammouse, c. 1874, 

with decorative imagery based on a drawing by Hokusai, 1849

As a consequence of this enthusiasm for the art of  the "land of the rising sun", many of the ceramic plates and vases on view in Firing the Imagination appear to be authentically Japanese. In fact, not one was made in Japan. All are examples of French decorative art, though very much in l'esprit du Japon. 

In the case of the design for the parasol-carrying Japanese lady, Albert-Louis Dammouse borrowed this directly from a book of Katsushika Hokusai's prints (shown above). This book was the Hokusai Gafu, Volume 1, published in 1849. This publication date is important because it preceded the arrival of the U.S. Navy squadron which "opened" Japan's doors to the West in 1853. 

Hokusai Gafu was intended for a Japanese audience but it was perfectly timed to "fire" the imagination of Albert-Louis Dammouse, who transposed the parasol-carrying lady from a rainy landscape to a sparkling, blossom-strewn dinner plate.

Felix Bracquemond was similarly smitten by Hokusai's image and he lifted it, almost without alteration to the elegant vase below. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Japanese masters like Hokusai should have been very flattered.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)

Felix Bracquemond's Vase, c. 1875

Real artists of talent and vision are never content to merely imitate. Very soon, French artists were drawing upon the Japanese aesthetic to create new art forms. Some of these, like the sang de boeuf-glazed vases, discussed earlier, helped set the trajectory of decorative arts towards the future.

Other French artists like Edmund Lachenel and Léon Parvillée, used Japanese motifs as a passport to realms of whimsy and wonderment that defy precise categorization - and are all the more enjoyable for just that reason. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)

From left, Léon Parvillée's Figure of a Guardian Lion, c. 1880;

 Edmund Lachenal's Vase, c. 1885

Léon Parvillée was a multi talented French architect who worked in the Middle East for many years, restoring historic buildings. Parvillée's spirited rendition of a Chinese guardian lion, popularly known as a "fu dog", certainly captured the ethos of the orient. But closer inspection reveals more than a touch of Gallic bravado in this feisty temple guard. The brilliant handling of the blue and yellow glazes is impressive, as well.

What Edmund Lachenal (1855-1930) intended to represent with the cheerfully bizarre vase, shown to the right of Parvillée's fu dog, is anyone's guess. The vase, shaped like a bottle gourd, was created around 1885. A gourd of the type known in Japan as a hyotan, it is symbolical of longevity and success. 

The two winged dragons, squaring-off on the gleaming blue surface of the vase are perhaps more indicative of the deep interior well into which Lachenal cast for ideas and inspiration. The winged-dragons are an indelible icon of East Asia, but here, in Lachenal's treatment, they breathe the air - and fire - of his French imagination.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)

Edmund Lachenal's Vase (detail), c. 1885

From a conventional potter's apprenticeship, with Théodore Deck, Lachenel went on to become France's leading Art Nouveau potter. His individuality and originality could not be contained, even by the vast riches of Japonisme. 

The "show-stopper" of Firing the Imagination demonstrates to perfection how Lachenal and his colleagues drew inspiration from Japanese art and then in a process of personal alchemy - which is the essence of all art - created something new, something magical, something unforgettable.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)

Edmund Lachenal's Vase in the Form of a Lantern, c. 1895

Lachenal's Vase in the Form of a Lantern is an homage to Japanese art and culture. But it is also a personal statement and a manifesto on behalf of all artists. Lachenal shows here that inspiration is only the beginning. Like the cheeky little bat hovering over the lantern's crinkled surface, Edmund Lachenal was determined to flap his creative wings - and did.

Thanks to the collecting genius and generosity of Larry Sims and this remarkable exhibition at the PMA, a vital chapter of French art has been brought to life. Little known ceramic artists have finally been given their due. And the imaginations of those fortunate to visit the Colket Gallery have been touched with fire.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved                                                   

Original photography, copyright of Anne Lloyd

Unless otherwise noted. all art works are from the Philadelphia Museum of Art Collection, by gift of Mr. Larry A. Simms

Introductory Image: Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) Gallery view of the Firing the Imagination exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) Art works from the Firing the Imagination exhibit. At left, is a vase made by Théodore Deck & decorated by Marie-Caroline-Eléonore Escallier, c. 1870. Earthenware with underglaze and enamel decoration: 10 ½ x 9 7/8 inches (26.7 x 25.1 cm); at right, is a vase by Auguste Jean, 1885. Glazed earthenware. Larry A. Simms collection.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) A selection of ceramic plates decorated with Japanese motifs, made in France by Felix Bracquemond and the J. Viellard Co., c. 1875-1880.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) Gallery view of the Firing the Imagination exhibition, showing a display of works by Edmund Lachenal, Léon Parvillée and other French ceramic artists of the late 19th century

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) Gallery view of the Firing the Imagination exhibition in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Colket Gallery.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) Gallery view of Firing the Imagination, with ceramic dinner ware, designed by Felix Bracquemond & others displayed on the walls.

Ernest Chaplet (French,1835-1909) Porcelain vase with sang de boeuf glaze, c. 1889. Porcelain: 11 ¾ x 10 x 10 inches ( 29.8 x 25.4 x 25.4 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art photo.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) A selection of small vases, glazed with accents of sang-de-boeuf. The vase, second from left, was made by Théodore Deck (Porcelain: 6 x 4 inches (15.2 x 10.2 cm.). All others were created by Albert-Louis Dammouse.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) Glazed-stoneware dish, made by Albert-Louis Dammouse, c. 1900. Diameter: 13 3/4 inches (34.9 cm)

Katsushika Hokusai Page view from Hokusai Gafu, vol. 1, 1849, an important source book for French artists, including Albert-Louis Dammouse & Felix Bracquemond. Open access image from Smithsonian digital library book.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) Plate made by Albert-Louis Dammouse, c. 1874, with decorative imagery based on a drawing by Hokusai, 1849. Hard paste porcelain:  (diameter) 9 1/2 inches (24.1 cm)

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) Felix Bracquemond's Vase, c. 1875. Made for Haviland & Co. Limoges, France.  Porcelain with hand-painted transfer images. Larry A. Simms collection.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) From left, Léon Parvillée's Figure of a Guardian Lion, c. 1880, Glazed earthenware: 8 1/4 × 9 × 5 inches (20.9 × 22.9 × 12.7 cm); Edmund Lachenal's Vase, c. 1885. Glazed earthenware: 17 3/4 × 8 3/4 × 7 inches (45.1 × 22.2 × 17.8 cm)

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) Edmund Lachenal's Vase (detail), c. 1885

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) Edmund Lachenal's Vase in the Form of a Lantern, c. 1895. Height: 11 1/4 inches (28.6 cm)

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) Gallery view of the Firing the Imagination exhibition in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Colket Gallery