Fables choisies (ou) Choix de fables de La Fontaine illustrées par un groupe des meilleurs artistes de Tokio, sous la direction de P. Barboutau

LA FONTAINE Jean de
illustration by KAJITA Hanko & KANO Tomonobu & OKAKURA Shûsui
& KAWANABE Kyôsui & EDA Sadahiko
Fables choisies (ou) Choix de fables de La Fontaine illustrées par un groupe des meilleurs artistes de Tokio, sous la direction de P. Barboutau
[Selected fables (or) Choice of La Fontaine fables illustrated by a group of the best artists of Tokio, under the editorship of P. Barboutau]
Tsoukidji-Tokio printing house on behalf of E. Flammarion, Tokyo 1894, 15,3 x 19,7 cm, 2 sewn volumes with original slipcase
First edition illustrated with 28 color prints, one of 200 copies printed on Hosho paper, yamato-toji sewing.
A remarkable encounter between traditional Japanese prints and a monument of French literature, these Fables choisies form an exceptional work, signifying the opening of Japan to the outside world and the Western interest in this culture. It was on the initiative of Hasegawa Tojiro, who specialized in the edition of Japanese books translated for Europeans, and Pierre Barbouteau, a French publisher living in Japan, that the ambitious project of the Fablescame to fruition. A meeting of two cultures, the book is for an exclusively Western audience, underlined by the choice of an exemplary text of French literature, proposed to readers in its original language since the Fables had not yet been translated in Japan.
Hanko Kajita, Tomonobu Kano, Shûsui Okakura, Kyôsui Kawanabe, and Sadahiko Eda were the heirs and masters of the tradition of the ukiyo-e, a printmaking movement then regarded as obsolete in Japan, but which was however an object of fascination among
Westerners in the late 19th century, who were seeking new aesthetic emotions.
This particular craze, permitted by the Meiji Restoration that marked the opening of the country in 1868, is stated in the preface by Pierre Barbouteau: “Our purpose… is to make known to those who are concerned with this so interesting branch of the art of drawing the genre to which we are so absolutely indebted, this host of Japanese arts, including the Séshiou, the Kanô, the Kôrin of the past; the Ôkio, the Outamaro, the Hokousaï, the Shiroshighé, at a time nearer to ours, are the coryphées; their remarkable works are increasingly appreciated by Artists of all countries and all schools"].
The Fables were an opportunity to honor Japanese flora and fauna as well as to transpose the fabulist world into the shintô universe so central to Japanese culture, and which can be discerned in the figures of the Fox, considered to be an animal of divine essence, and in the presence of torii, porticos erected at the entrance of temples. The fineness of stroke, the color rendering provided by full color printing, the references to typical Japanese landscapes, among them the island of Enoshima, represented in the famous prints by Hiroshige, and the omnipresent Mount Fuji which dominates several illustrations, are all example of the subtleties of the art of printing so appreciated by fans of this movement.
This edition is directly related to the history of the illustration of La Fontaine's Fables, with the influence of the drawings of Chauveau (1665) discernible in the print of the Oak and the Reed, which are similar in composition.
An exceptional piece of bibliophilic art, the Fables choisies are the fruit of the union of distant countries, at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, with the influence of Japonism opening the way to Art Nouveau, which continues even during the 20th century.
$ 1 900