Masterpieces: Photography in Japan (1860-1910)

At Palazzo Franchetti, the seat of the Venetian Institute of Sciences, Letters and Arts of Venice, an exhibition entitled “Photography in Japan (1860-1910) is being held since Saturday, December 17th 2011. Masterpieces”. It is the first retrospective ever organized in Italydedicated to the great Japanese and European performers who worked in the field of photography between 1860 and the very early years of the 20th century.

“Photography in Japan (1860-1910). Masterpieces”, the first retrospective in Italy dedicated to the great Japanese and European performers who worked in the field of photography between 1860 and the very early years of the 20th century.

The exhibition presents 150 original prints, the masterpieces of one of the most important chapters in the history of photography – born in Europe but immediately experienced in Japan – just at the time when, leaving an isolation that had lasted for three hundred years, the Land of the Rising Sun opened up to America and Europe, influencing, with the images and expressions of its creativity, the taste of the entire Western world.

The exhibition circuit, organized by sections, is also enriched by the works ofsome great photographers of the origins, including – first of all – the English Felice Beato (1833 – 1907) who, with a small group of Japanese artists, gave birth to a style called the Yokohama School, as well as to a special technique. These personalities were able to combine photography, the most avant-gardist art form of the time, with the tradition of Japanese graphics, making photographic prints on albumin paper lightly hand-coloured individually by refined craftsmen.

The exhibition ends with works by the great interpreters of Japanese and foreign photography, such as Kusakabe Kimbei, considered the master in creating sophisticated hand-coloured albumin photographs.