Henri Rivière
(French, 1864–1951)
La Feerie des Heures – Arc en Ciel (Enchanted Hours- Rainbow in the Sky)
Object Details
Artist
Henri Rivière
Date
1901-02
Medium
Color lithograph with 12 color progress proofs
Dimensions
9 7/16 × 23 9/16 inches (24 × 59.8 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Judith Prenske Rich, Class of 1962, and Bruce A. Rich, Class of 1960
Object
Number
99.101.001 a-m
For an artist such as Henri Rivière, working in late nineteenth-century France, Japanese art was a (…)
For an artist such as Henri Rivière, working in late nineteenth-century France, Japanese art was a powerful inspiration, particularly in the use of perspective, flat space, and broad application of color. Rivière taught himself many processes, including woodcut, photography, ceramics, and lithography, and was among the artists to successfully translate Japanese style into a lithographic format. For this print, the Museum owns the final work and several sheets showing the individual colors as they were sequentially printed. While it may seem that Rivière “uses few colors,” it can be seen here that in fact many were used, some so close in hue that is difficult to differentiate them clearly. This method is also used in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblocks, which could often use up to twenty colors in one print. (“Imprint/ In Print,” curated by Nancy E. Green with assistance from Christian Waibel ’17 and presented at the Johnson Museum August 8 – December 20, 2015)
