Edmond de Goncourt

Without a doubt, Katsushika Hokusai is the most famous Japanese artist since the middle of the nineteenth century whose art is known to the Western world. Reflecting the artistic expression of an isolated civilisation, the works of Hokusai - one of the first Japanese artists to emerge in Europe - greatly influenced the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters, such as Vincent van Gogh. Considered during his life as a living Ukiyo-e master, Hokusai...

If sensuality had a name, it would be without doubt Utamaro. Delicately underlining the Garden of Pleasures that once constituted Edo, Utamaro, by the richness of his fabrics, the swan-like necks of the women, the mysterious looks, evokes in a few lines the sensual pleasure of the Orient. If some scenes discreetly betray lovers' games, a great number of his shungas recall that love in Japan is first and foremost erotic.

L'Ukiyo-e (« images du monde flottant ») est un courant artistique japonais qui naquit pendant la période prospère de l'Edo (1615-1868). Caractéristiques de cette période, les estampes sont l'œuvre collective d'un artiste, d'un graveur et d'un imprimeur. Développées en raison de leur faible coût grâce à l'évolution de la technique, elles représentent la vie quotidienne, les femmes, les acteurs du théâtre kabuki ou encore les lutteurs...

No evocation of Parisian life in the second half of the nineteenth century can match that found in the journals of the brothers Goncourt The journal of the brothers Edmond and Jules de Goncourt is one of the masterpieces of nineteenth-century French literature, a work that in its richness of color, variety, and seemingly casual perfection bears comparison with the great paintings of their friends and contemporaries the Impressionists. Born nearly...