L’Hanami or knowing how to look at flowers, an ancient tradition dating from the 8th century, i.e. the Nara era.
Admire the flowers, because they bear witness first and foremost after the rigors of winter to the return of nature, or better to the reappearance of life as a whole. Above all, contemplate the cherry blossoms, the most precious, the most silky.
It is also knowing how to watch the blossoming of everything that participates in this new departure of the visual and spiritual world, insects and birds, the water of waterfalls freed from frost, the lengthening of the days, the reflections of the moon , the smiles of children and the elegance of women in kimonos. The mind feels like joy, the body like a recovery of strength. There is, floating in the atmosphere, peace, joy, a kind of universal harmony. The great poet Matsuo Bashô (1644-1694) in a haiku well known in Japan, summarizes this precious moment in his own way:
The bell is silent.
The echoing flowers
scent in the evening!
Another poet, Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), expresses in another way this time when life is reborn but by associating in the same vision what lives and moves with what seems inert and stable.
Spring day.
A single puddle
Holds back the sunset
At the beginning of this book, the author writes that, sublimated in poetry and painting, spring is one of the main sources of inspiration for Japanese prints, in other words, artists who have succeeded in translating this ephemeral passage onto paper in order to fix it, to immortalize it, also says Jocelyn Bouquillard, or at least to try to eternalize for the eyes what accounts for the transience of the moment, of the fragility of everything, of the vulnerability of what we believe to be imperishable.
The prints are presented in an accordion, which allows them to be displayed and compared in their colors, their contrasts, their more detailed approaches or, on the contrary, seen from broad perspectives. They are the work of seventeen artists, some very renowned like Utamaro, Hokusai, Kunisada, Hiroshige, others virtually unknown.
All, according to their sensitivity and their point of interest, grasp an aspect of the season, some trees like the quince tree, the pear tree, the paulownia or the plum tree, others plants and flowers like the narcissus, the camellia, the bellflower, the hibiscus, the clover, still others birds, such as the Java sparrow, the barnacle tit, the black-capped oriole, others finally places and human activities or leisure activities in accordance with the days, for example a hermitage, the banks of a river, a mountain, the tea ceremony, a walk, the music of the shamisen, the romantic conversation.
The reader walks across the country, he strolls in settings which combine the distant with the immediate interiors, he advances in a garden, along a dam, a floral park, he sees Mount Fuji, he rests in a pavilion next to a pond. Each of these masters has their own style, their preferences in terms of composition, framing and format. They capture the immense diversity of landscapes…they highlight the majesty and beauty of spring nature notes the author.
These pages, in harmony of tones, delicacy of subjects, blossoming of forms, relate this annual renaissance, favoring its symbols and materiality, summarizing its aesthetics in the best possible way and reporting in a refined suite of one of the nature’s most joyful and nostalgic cycles.
Dominique Vergnon
Jocelyn Bouquillard, Spring by the great masters of Japanese prints(box) 172×246 mm, 118 illustrations, Hazan editions, April 2024, 120 p.-, €35
