Example 22: Asian Art Deco (Japanese)

Tsurukichi, Noguchi. Songbook for "Song of the Milky Way" (Ginga no uta). 1931. Chromolithography Poster. Seattle Art Museum, https://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibitions/deco 

Table Clock with Rabbit Pounding Rice-Cake on the Moon, CA. Circa 1920s-1930s. Neya  Churoku, Japanese, 1897-1987, Bronze on wood base. Seattle Art Museum, https://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibitions/deco 

Songbook for "The Modern Song", (Modan Bushi). 1930. K. Kotani, Japanese Ink on Paper. Seattle Art Museum, https://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibitions/deco 

Other notes, NY Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/arts/design/deco-japan-shaping-art-and-culture-at-japan-society.html

After reading the textbook this week, I grew interested in Asian Art Deco graphic design from the poster, Mitsugu Maeda, Eudermine (skin lotion ad), and how Shanghai was a large part of Art Deco with advertising, especially since being called the "Paris of the East". This lead me to find designs that were part of the Japanese Art Deco movement shown above. Japanese Art Deco was formed from a mix of European Art Deco but added a more cultural Japonisme/Japanese woodblock print feel to the designs mainly from the bold flat colors, asymmetry, and crisp linear elements. The main theme of Japanese Art Deco was of the modern girl or in short, "Moga". Along with the posters above that include similar Western geometric shapes, bright colors, and patterns as well as modern elegance in the positions of the females presented, designers in Japan sought out-innovating/modernizing crafts. Examples like the clock above are part of the metalworking sculptures produced during the 1920s/30s. The main differences between Japanese and European Art Deco within the poster world simply were the cultural differences in how they advertised, communicated, etc. using different people, poses, line thickness, etc. which made subtle but noticeable changes within the Art Deco style. A lot of Europe's inspiration in previous decades did come from Asian aesthetics so the newer European design they saw was not super unfamiliar. I think this is an important example of knowing how different parts of the world can change a style completely. From the Italian example by Marcello Nizzoli, there were obviously European references to the design but in this case, moving into a whole new continent can change the overall idea of the Art Deco style culturally.