Eine Fotoreise durch das alte Japan (A Photographic Journey through Old Japan) was published by Harenberg in 1985.  The author, Ludwig Hoerner (b. 1919), claims that the photographs were taken by an unknown European traveller to Japan in the late 19^th century.  The 70 hand-tinted black and white photographs are from the author’s own collection and from the Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek (the public library of Lower Saxony), known today as the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek (GWLB) after the 17^th century polymath and philosopher whose manuscripts and correspondence are held in their archive.  Ingrid Siegmund-Rux wrote an afterword to the book that provides readers with the historical context of the rapid modernisation of Japan during the Meiji Era.

Hoerner is an autodidactic researcher and author with a passion for 19^th century photography: both the photographs themselves and the history of the photographic industry.  He has published a number of books on the subject, most notably Das photographische Gewerbe in Deutschland 1839–1914 (The Photographic Industry in Germany, 1839-1914, GFW-Verlag, 1989).  At the time of the book’s publication, Ingrid Siegmund-Rux appears to have been a librarian.  I have found little biographical information about her online apart from the minutes of the European Association of Sinological Librarians annual conference in 1986, which lists her as representing the Universitätsbibliothek und Technische Informationsbibliothek  Hannover (German National Library of Science and Technology / University Library Hannover).  

Most of the photographs in this collection were taken in and around Tokyo and Yokohama including tourist destinations for Tokyoites such as Mt. Fuji, Nikko and Hakone.  There are a few images from Kansai (Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Lake Biwa), as well as images of Nagoya, Nagasaki, and Tomioka (a ghost town today as it is the epicentre of the Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster).  There are also a large number of posed photographs clearly designed to educate Europeans about the customs of Japan (tea ceremony, music and dance, ikebana, etc) and the occupations of people from all strata of Japanese society (silk traders, acrobats, a pipe-maker, sumo wrestlers, a shoemaker, a Buddhist priest, samurai, etc.).

Here are some of the highlights (clock on photos to view larger / as a slideshow):

This book is out of print and can be ordered from second hand bookstores.

2015 Cathy Munroe Hotes 

Makoto Wada (和田誠, b. 1936) is best known as an illustrator whose work has adorned the book covers and pages of writers as diverse as Shinichi Hoshi, Haruki Murakami, and Agatha Christie.  In addition to illustration, he has also dabbled in film directing and animation – winning the Noburo Ofuji Award for 1964 for his comic animated short Murder (殺人).  In Murder, he spoofs a wide variety of famous film and literary icons including Poirot, Sam Spade, Dracula and James Bond.  He has also done a range of paintings inspired by film stars and classic movies.  This is my first in a series of posts looking at his art and his muses.  You can support this artist by ordering collections of his work such as:

Order: Makoto Wada Cinema Art

Charlie Chaplin is a popular subject in Wada's work.  This is the classic scene in The Gold Rush (1925) where the Tramp boils and eats his shoes, imagining that the shoelaces are spaghetti.  As is typical of Wada's style, he simplifies the background in order to put the emphasis on the central character and themes of the scene.   Makoto Wada is known for his love of colour, and I like his choice of green for the Tramp's vest.

This is the final scene in Chaplin's City Lights (1933) when the Tramp finds the Flower Girl again and discovers that she has regained her sight.  She does not recognize him at first and offers him a flower and a coin.  When he grabs her hand, she suddenly realizes that he is no stranger.  It's a moving scene that leaves audiences wiping a tear from their eyes every time.  The colour palette  of Wada's interpretation emphasizes the whiteness of the flower, and the blondness of Virginia Cherrill's hair - the latter of which we only get a notion of in the black and white film.

Wada captures Greta Garbo's austere regalness in her iconic role as Queen Christina of Sweden in Rouben Mamoulian's critical and financial hit for MGM studios.  He's got the Garbo Look just right by capturing the arc of her eyebrows.

I was amused by how fat Orson Welles' head is in Wada's interpretation of this iconic image from Citizen Kane, because I didn't recall Welles looking so fat-headed in this scene.  But then I discovered that some stills of this scene do make his head extraordinarily large.... and of course Charles Foster Kane was indeed getting progressively big-headed throughout the film in the figurative sense. 

The Puerto Rican singer and actor José Ferrer is not as well-known today as many of his contemporaries (Bogart, Peck, Wayne, Tracy, Stewart), but he was a superstar in his time, winning the Tony in 1947 for playing Cyrano on Broadway before going on to win an Oscar and a Golden Globe for this screen portrayal.  Ferrer was the first Hispanic to win an Oscar.  To hear him in action, his best Cyrano speeches are available on iTunes.  He is arguably the top English Cyrano of the 20th century.  

For more by Wada: 

Makoto Wada’s Movie Inspired Art 2: Classic Hollywood

2015 Cathy Munroe Hotes