Page 10 - Expanded Media & the MediaPlex

Expanded Media - and the MediaPlex 10/206
This print by Utamaro (previous page - part of the Laughing Tippler series) only just hints at the overt eroticism of others in the set. The exceptionally beautiful quasi-isometric perspective, the disposition of objects in space, the fine curvilinearity of his figure drawing, the rich colour inks, the sense of the sensuality and theatre of the Floating World - all these aspects influenced and inspired European artists - especially notable perhaps in the work of Gauguin, in Toulouse Lautrec’s lithographs, and Aubrey Besrds;ey’s drawings, but referenced in some of Van Gogh’s work and in James McNeill Whistler too.
The Japanese prints were brightly coloured, mass-printed, popular art, and like the popular art of comics and adverts introduced into Europe by US soldiers in the 1940s, had a profound effect on the visual culture of the time. It was the radically different perspectives and depiction of space, as well as the sublime colour, that impacted most. They could be said to have had an effect on the avant garde artists of the 19th century as impactful as Cubist paintings had on the early 20th century.
Utamaro Kitigawa: page-spread from The Laughing Tippler series 1803. The erotic prints were probably the most explicit scenes of physical love-making (rather than merely sexual diagrams) that had ever been seen in Victorian England...