I thought it was about time that the Utamaro Revealed trailer got a bit of an update, as the old one was put together two years ago, when I didn't really know my way around any sort of presentation software. So, the above video is the result of a day's fiddling with Keynote, which is an incredibly interesting program and one that I am now thoroughly obsessed with.
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The most recent addition to my collection arrived today... a lovely design of a rat by Takeuchi Seihō (1864 - 1942), published 1910-12 by Unsodo, from an album of full-page colour woodblocks entitled An Album of the Twelve Zodiacal Signs by Seihō. The rat is shown inspecting the colourful spindle of a kite. As someone who's lived with rats for years, I have to say that Seihō has captured the inquisitive nature of the rat perfectly and his depiction of her physical form can't be faulted. The moment I saw this print, I knew I had to have it. She is the spitting image of one of my girls, Bimbim, who was a black-and-white Berkshire rat. She loved bright colours and would most certainly have loved to have this spindle to investigate.
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I bought the above illustration a couple of years ago, partly because I am always looking for images of rats in art, but also because I am interested in the work of European artists who have been heavily influenced by Japanese art and design.
This particular illustration was taken from the children's story book 'Green Willow and Other Japanese Fairy Tales', written by Grace James, illustrated by Warwick Goble, and published in 1910. It shows a scene from the tale 'The Espousal of the Rat's Daughter', when Mr Nedzumi goes to ask the wind if he would be interested in marrying his daughter.
Warwick Goble was a Victorian illustrator who specialised in children's books, specifically those containing exotic tales of the East. He produced some magnificent watercolours during his career, but despite the quality of his work is nowhere near as well-known as his contemporaries, such as Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac.
Goble was born in 1862 and raised in London. He went to The City of London School and attended the Westminster School of Art. He was exhibiting at the Royal Academy by 1893, but it wasn't until 1896, at the age of thirty-four, that he began his career as an illustrator of children's books, with 'The Oracle of Baal'. Over the next few years, he produced illustrations for only a handful of books, including H.G. Wells' 'War of the Worlds' in 1898, but as the demand for books with colour illustrations grew, so did Goble's productivity. An edition of 'The Water Babies' in 1909 was followed by 'Green Willow and Other Japanese Fairy Tales' in 1910, in which Goble's fascination for Japanese illustrative techniques is very visible.
Click here to read the complete story of 'The Espousal of the Rat's Daughter'.
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A blog by Gina Collia-Suzuki: Art historian, history nut, writer, artist, Victorianist, bibliophile, vegetarian foodie, child of the Enlightenment, friend of Charles Darwin, full-time rat fancier and part-time assassin.
'There are three difficulties in authorship;- to write any thing worth the publishing - to find honest men to publish it - and to get sensible men to read it.' - Rev. Charles Caleb Colton
'A house without books is like a room without windows.' - Horace Mann
'I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.' - Dr.Samuel Johnson
