Sylvie Buisson welcomes Anne Watanabe, the famous Japanese actress, at La Coupole to give her a tour and talk to her about Foujita, a painting by whom will be featured in the upcoming exhibition dedicated to Brittany at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo from April to June 2023.
The exhibition planned in Tokyo breaks new ground by tracing the journey of contemporary Japanese artists who traveled to France from the late Meiji era to the Taisho period and made their way to Brittany.
Foujita is curiously classified among Japanese artists, even though he was naturalized French in 1955.
Brittany, a peninsula jutting into the Atlantic at the far northwest corner of France, is intimately associated with artists. Clinging to a rich Celtic heritage and culture, independent Brittany long resisted its powerful neighbors, Britain and France, and kept its own language even after incorporation into France in the 16th century. The region retained much of its original character: abundant natural features ranging from cliff-fringed coastlines and rocky heaths to deep inland forests; ancient megalithic sites and numerous medieval and early-modern religious relics; a population devoted to the Catholic faith and practicing a simple lifestyle full of local color. An “unknown country” within France, with a distinctive topography and deep-rooted culture, it continued from the 19th century onward to attract artists seeking fresh subjects.
At La Coupole, with Anne Watanabe for an interview
This exhibition focuses on the period from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries when Brittany hosted a great number of painters and printmakers. In presenting works produced in the region, with their characteristic motifs of nature, historic sites, customs, and local history, we ask the questions: what did these artists seek and what did they find? The exhibition also breaks new ground by tracing the progress of contemporary Japanese artists who traveled to France from the late Meiji to the Taisho periods and made their way to Brittany.
