An original bound volume of the iconic magazine
LE JAPON ARTISTIQUE
Documents d'Art et d'Industrie
Volume Six
comprising issue numbers
31 · 32 · 33 · 34 · 35 · 36
Published in Paris by Marpon et Flammarion
1890/1891
by
Siegfried Bing
Hardcover 320 x 245 mm quarter bound with inferior quality leather, gold embossed on spine and embossed & varnished title on front board. Please note area with loss of colour to the cover cloth. Binding very tight but visible on opening page, plus the marbled endpapers are parting in places at the back, please see my close up photos. Pages of text from 77-156 plus 60 single sided plates/pages, of which two are double page throw-outs. All covers and and un-numbered ancillary pages are bound in. Printed on heavyweight paper that is age tanned but otherwise in good condition, with the exception of a nibbled corner to a blank front endpaper and small tears on both double page throw-outs, clearly visible on my photos. There is a Barcelona bookshop emblem on the front endpaper and a signature in ink on the title page. The text pages are in an overall very good condition with the above exceptions.
PLEASE EXAMINE MY PHOTOS FOR AN IMPRESSION OF THE OVERALL CONDITION
Le Japon Artistique: Documents d'Art et d'Industrie, by S. Bing.
Published in Paris by Marpon et Flammarion. Printed in Paris by the famous art printer Charles Gillot, himself a collector of Japanese art. Text in French. Bing was almost single handedly responsible for popularizing Japanese culture, art and aesthetics in Europe and America late in the 19th century.
Published by German-born French art dealer Siegfried Bing. It ran for thirty-six monthly issues from 1888 to 1891 in French, English, and German editions and contributed to a revival of Japonisme. Art critics and collectors in Europe spearheaded a craze for Japanese art in the late 19th century.
The magazine's reproductions served as models to Western graphic designers. Artistic Japan was a major force in solidifying the valued position Japanese art was to have in the West and the aesthetic quality of the magazine itself won lasting recognition; in 1906 Gustav Klimt obtained a complete run.
The magazine aimed to educate the public, and enjoyed high-quality printing featuring reproductions drawn from private collections. Each issue had several colour pages of reproductions of Japanese artwork such as paintings or prints. It featured essays on Japanese art and art history by critics drawn from Bing's wide circle of acquaintances in the art world.
A wealthy collector and dealer Bing developed connections with art sources in Japan and amassed what was considered one of the finest Japanese art collections in the West. He desired to spread word of Japanese aesthetics to a broad public.