LÉONARD TSUGUHARU FOUJITA, (1886-1968)

Les grues

Les grues
signed 'T. Foujita' (lower left) and further signed in Japanese; signed 'T. Foujita' and further signed, inscribed and dated in Japanese (verso)
gouache, pen, India ink and gold leaf on paper
31.8 x 39.9cm (12 1/2 x 15 11/16in).
Executed in 1920

Provenance
Private collection, Paris.
Private collection, Paris (a gift from the above in the 1930s).
Thence by descent to the present owners.

Exhibited
Paris, Musée de Montmartre, Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita et l'Ecole de Paris, 10 April - 23 June 1991, no. 8.
Dinard, Palais des Arts et du Festival, Foujita, le maître japonais de Montparnasse, 27 June - 25 September 2004, no. 35.
Paris, Musée Maillol, Foujita, peindre dans les années folles, 7 March - 15 July 2018, no. 3.

Literature
S. Buisson, Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, Vol. II, Paris, 2001, no. 20.12 (illustrated pp. 47 & 178).

While it is certainly true that Foujita immersed himself fully in the stylistic nuances of the Western avant-garde, one often finds at the very least a trace of his Eastern sensibility and Japanese aesthetic. In some cases, such as Les grues executed in 1920, the reference is overt, and we see Foujita returning to the visual motifs of his homeland.

Cranes hold a particular significance in Japanese and wider Asian culture, and were a favourite subject for Japanese artists and craftsmen. The elegant birds were said to live for a thousand years, and came to symbolise longevity and prosperity. Following the popularisation of the folktale Tsuru no Ongaeshi ('the Crane's Return of a Favour'), in which a crane returns to the man who saved his life in the form of a beautiful wife and provides him wealth and sustenance, the birds also took on a strong romantic connotation. During this time Foujita was in the midst of an intense romance with his new wife, Fernande Barrey, whom he had married in 1917 a mere two weeks after their first meeting. Perhaps it was the notion of the birds mating for life, as cranes are said to do, that inspired the artist at this particular moment in his life.

Here Foujita revels in the flat planar representation and elaborately gilded backgrounds of the Edo period screens and lacquer-work that he would have been surrounded by at the time of his education in Tokyo. The two proud figures of the cranes are shown in perfect profile, against a delicately applied gold ground. The foreground of cerulean water and vivid green grass are, in contrast, depicted in a more representational style that recall the early Renaissance naturalism of Duccio or Cimabue. Foujita studied panel paintings by these artists at the Louvre after moving to Paris in 1913, and the melding of this very Western tradition with the references and myths of Japan exemplifies what makes Foujita such a singular artist.