An exhibition in Barcelona explores the fascination with Japan through 200 pieces from private collections that had never been shown to the public
If you enter the unexplored path, in the end infinite secrets will appear. It is a sentence of Bushido, the way of the samurai, the code that defines the principles and behavior of Japanese warriors. As if it were a maxim of Taoist philosophy, the phrase serves as a guide to delve into the complexity of Japanese art and culture, which already fascinated artists of the 19th century, especially the impressionists, but above all Van Gogh already Picasso.
“I envy the extreme cleanliness of all things in the Japanese,” Van Gogh wrote in his letters to his brother Theo. “It’s never boring and it never feels rushed. His work is as simple as breathing, and they can make a figure with a few sure strokes, with the same ease as if they were buttoning their vest,” continued the Dutchman. The exhibition Geisha/Samurai. Memories of Japan, which occupies the two floors of the Palau Martorell, is traveled like that unexplored path full of infinite secrets, which is as easy to travel as the act of breathing, as Van Gogh would say.
«Japan leaves no one indifferent. Throughout Spain there is great interest in Japanese culture, especially in Madrid and Barcelona,” highlights the commissioner. Ferran López Alagarda, president of the Spanish Federation of Antique Dealers, collector and expert in Japanese art. “Thanks to the gateway that manga represents, younger generations are interested in the entire Japanese tradition, which still marks the entire society with that ancestral balance between nature and spirit,” he adds.
The antique dealer has conceived the exhibition with 200 pieces from private collections, especially national ones. “Practically 95% of the works had never been shown to the public,” he points out.
As soon as you enter the neoclassical palace, a wall covered with the mythical great wave of Hokusai it seems to engulf the original engraving, in a theatrical effect that continues in all the rooms. In the cloister of columns an entire gallery of ukiyo-e which, simply, is wonderful: the prints take on all the meaning of the word in Japanese, paintings of the floating world. And among them an almost secret art is discovered, that of kuchi-e (literally, image mouth), illustrations on bamboo that were used for the frontispieces of books or magazines and that “are very difficult to locate,” says López Alagarda. A courtesan offering a green leaf to a sparrow under the leaves of a willow, a thoughtful young woman under the full moon, a girl who looks towards the forest with melancholy… Each image seems like the reflection of a haiku, with the brevity and intensity of his verses.
With semi-dark lighting and crimson velvet, the Palau has been transformed into a geisha’s bedroom: here are her refined combs, her obi that they tie like a wide sash over the kimono, its fans and rich silks… Two hand-embroidered ceremonial kimonos, one white and the other black, face each other from wall to wall, like a closet that conjures the duality of ying and yang. “Without the S geisha we wouldn’t understand Japan. They embody delicacy, beauty and subtlety. They are not simply women, they show all their inner and outer potentials and share them with society. They sublimate everything they wear. Here they show their beauty and their everyday objects, which are works of art,” considers López Alagarda.
We wouldn’t understand Japan without the samurai either. After climbing the marble staircase, the warriors’ barracks unfold, with their armor, katanas, yaris (long-handled spears) or wakizashis (short sabers). In an almost dark room, a red circle that refers to the rising sun of the Japanese flag lights up to frame a suit of armor that seems to have a life of its own. «The samurai is a symbol of loyalty. That concept has passed down the DNA of different generations until today. It is something we still see in the correction and education of the Japanese. They do not wear the samurai suit but they are samurai in their essence, in their way of relating, in respect…», compares the commissioner.
After traveling the samurai path, there are two more secrets to discover. The first: the exquisite collection of netsukes made of ivory, miniatures of three to 15 centimeters that were used to attach bags or boxes to the kimono due to its lack of pockets. “He netsuke It is the great unknown but at the same time the most collected piece in the world. It allows access to all social classes, because you can purchase anything from a piece of carved wood to a small ivory sculpture. There is a great demand in the West,” says the antique dealer.
At the end of the exhibition, a sign warns: Warning! Explicit erotic images. With the same delicacy of the ukiyo-e a whole collection of shungas, erotic prints that surprise with the explicitness of the genitals, both female and male (these stand out for their large size, nothing to do with the brief form of Greco-Roman or Renaissance sculpture). “He shunga “It is the maximum expression of Japanese eroticism,” highlights López Alagarda. An eroticism in which women’s pleasure becomes most evident, represented in a very different way from Western tradition. Picasso came to possess more than fifty shungashad a predilection for the courtesan scenes of Yoshiwara, the neighborhood of brothels, which he later reinterpreted in his own style. His Japanese images always accompanied him during his many moves. For more than a century, Japanese memories have also explained European art. And the fascination with its secrets continues to increase.
