The Street with the Gallery

Mortimer Menpes

1901

Watercolor

Source: Japan, A Record in Colour, facing p. 12

Menpes found interest and beauty everywhere he turned in Japan. See the excerpt from the text given below. — Jacqueline Banerjee

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"The proper placing of objects is not only an exact science, but also it forms almost a religion with the Japanese. When you just arrive in Japan you are at once impressed with the perfect placing of everything about you. You find yourself surrounded by a series of beautiful pictures; every street that you see on your journey from the station to the hotel is a picture; every shop front, the combination of the many streets, the town in relation to the mountains round about it — everything you chance to look at forms a picture. In fact, the whole of Japan is one perfect bit of placing" (83).

Bibliography

Menpes, Dorothy. Japan: A Record in Colour. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1901. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of California Libraries. Web. 20 June 2019.

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Created 19 June 2019