Eva Maria Räpple

The French nineteenth century artists Henry Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) is known for his distinctive style and bold character portraits of the theatrical scene of the gaslight era in Paris. The paper examines some of the formative influences of eighteenth century Japanese art on the development of visual characters, with specific focus on a lithograph entitled Divan Japonais. Alluding to the refined representation of Japanese courtesans, subtle nuanced reminiscences to an ideal of elegance create an allusion to highly respected courtesans in the Japanese ‘Green Houses’ of the Asian Yoshiwara the famous “Good Luck Meadow” in Edo, present day Tokyo. I argue that Lautrec draws on techniques in Asian art, effectively creating a visual language that suggests a carefully crafted reevaluation of values. Lautrec’s visual language promotes sensibilities characteristic for a Japanese aesthetic and lifestyle that are also intrinsic to a traditional cultivation of moral virtues in Asia. The argument will be developed in conjunction with an analysis of diverse forms of visual language apparent in two works of Lautrec, a print by the Japanese artist Kitagawa Utamoro (1753-1806), and a photo of the dancer Jane Avril (1868—1943).

The relation between seeing, knowledge, and language has concerned philosophers and artists throughout history. The current article examines the relation between word, image, and knowledge in some prominent Renaissance artworks. It is argued that the shift from revelatory truth in the word to evidence in “seeing the real” as Leonardo da Vinci (1452 -1519) argues in his writings, marks a moment in history in which the human being takes center stage as the interpreter of knowledge. In the search for perfect proportionality and beautiful harmony, Renaissance artists, therefore, did not just create an aesthetic dimension yet were central in a process leading to a reevaluation and alternative modes of knowledge about the human being.

This article examines the relation between the biblical Word and visuality in one of the surviving early thirteenth century manuscripts of the Bible moraliseé, the codex Vindobonensis 2554 today housed in Vienna. The analysis focuses specifically on the relations between word and visuality. The goal is to investigate the vitality that may set the Word into motion. It is argued that the matrix of textual visuality in the Vienna codex 2554 is used as an effective tool that adds vitality to the biblical passages while simultaneously creating a firm hierarchy of representation and resemblances that enforces not only certain norms but also a particular world order in 13th century French society.