Sir Alfred East (1844-1913)

A few days ago Alex (a post-grad I'm supervising) gave me an article on wabi-sabi, the Japanese quality of... of... well, it's difficult to translate. I didn't quite understand the concept until I got to the bit where the article said that wabi-sabi is what makes Katherine Hepburn sexier than Marilyn Monroe.

In any case, it set me off on a nipponological excursion back through my photos of Japan and I wondered if there were any orientalist artists who recorded pre-modern Japan. I hit upon Sir Alfred East, British landscape artist. In 1889 he was commissioned to spend six months in Japan sketching and painting. He returned with 104 works, which he exhibited to wide acclaim. A British landscape painter in Japan.