Friday, November 21, 2008

Charismatic Yong Joon - Manet Series I


Dear sisters ..... I'd like to organize my little home a bit and include some of my past writings. This is my very first art series on Manet posted in Quilt back in July 2006. I just want to include it here for record purposes. Hehe, if you have read it before, please don't mind me :) Here it goes .....


I am recently studying a rare collection of illustrated letters by French Impressionist painter Edouard Manet. As I peruse each illustration, my heart is overflowed with unspeakable joy and tender emotions. The circumstances surrounding these letters remind me so much of our connections to our dear Yong Joon. I’d like to invite you to join me to stroll down a romantic journey of “Charismatic Yong Joon”, complemented by Manet’s sensuous illustrative writings.

Manet had a genuine admiration for refinement and elegance, an aspect of his personality that was evident in his tasteful attire, his mannerism, courtliness and wit. He had many female acquaintances who admired him, and he reciprocated their affection by writing beautiful letters to them. The text is generally brief touching on topics about fashion, art, social life and relationships, but the enhancements with water-coloured flowers transcend an air of warmth and sincerity. Among the flowers adorned the letters are garden and briar roses, carnations, periwinkles, of particular beauty is its lightness and the way it meshes with the writings. These letters brought tremendous pleasure and tender feelings to their female recipients and constitute some of the most lyrical pages of nineteenth century artistic sensibility.

I cannot resist drawing a parallel comparison between Manet and his female admirers to our dear Yong Joon with us. Throughout all these years, numerous messages were extended to our prince in forms of articles, artworks, music, videos of varying styles and themes - be it sentimental, romantic, powerful or humorous, all subconsciously desiring responses from our prince. Occasionally we received pictures of him revealing himself in the most alluring and demure fashion – we gratefully accepted this as our precious reward from him. Dear sisters, I herein attempt to complement these two sensual subjects – Yong Joon and Manet’s illustrative writings. Let us imagine the way our prince answers to each and every one of us!


Our handsome prince charming is smiling to his family,

gosijo's translated script - only fragments are legible

3rd & 4th line : ‘mon séjour prolongé à Bellevue’ - ‘my extended stay in Bellevue’
8th line : ‘le mois d’Octobre’ - ‘the month of October’


he is thinking about the precious times we spent together …..



he is dreaming about the good times when we meet again …..

gosijo's translated script - only fragments are legible

1st line : ‘Chère petite (?) Demoiselle’ - ‘Dear little Miss’
Last line : donner hier soir de vos - It seems as if Manet is saying that someone else ‘gave me last night’ news about the young woman he’s writing to


he desires to paint out his beautiful sensuous thoughts,



and contemplates to compose a poetic passage to serenade us!

gosijo's translated script - This one seems to have been written on the 20th of October (abbreviated as 8bre since ‘octo’ means 8) and it is possible that Manet, given he was soon due to return to his regular home, is reminding a certain Mademoiselle about a lunch date she had meant to issue. I can’t be sure if Manet’s use of the 1st person plural is meant to include others or just him.


The First six lines are very clear : ‘Chère Mademoiselle,Vous nous aviezpromis de venir nousdemander à déjeuner avantnotre retour. L’avez-vousoublié et ne nous donnerez-vous pas…’ - ‘Dear Miss,You had promisedto come and invite us for lunch beforeour return. Have you (perhaps)forgotten and will you notgive us…’

I have selected 15 beautiful illustrations from Manet’s collection to share with you. If you like these artworks, I hope to post them in various groupings in the future as I attempt to match (at a snail pace) thousands of Yong Joon’s pictures to complement the mood of each painting (and vice versa). Hope you enjoy this first of the Manet series!


Acknowledgements :
1. Thanks to bb for the abundance choice of pictures.
2. Thanks to liezle for the suggestion of links to the pictures.

References :
1. Manet The Still-Life Paintings, George Mauner, The American Federation of Arts. 2000
2. Impressionism Art, Leisure & Parisian Society, Robert L. Herbert, Yale University Press, New Haven & London. 1988
3. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, James N. Wood, The Art Institute of Chicago. 2000
4. Impressionism, Belinda Thomson and Michael Howard, Bison Books Corp. 1988

6 comments:

gosijo said...

Dear Jaime,

How could I ever forget this first artistic series of yours? It led me to find your e-mail address (thanks to Camille!) because I couldn’t see the pictures. And the rest, as they say, is history! I have been waiting for you to re-post them so I could make good on a promise/suggestion I made two years ago about trying to decipher the text and provide translations.

I must warn at the outset that some letters are more legible than others and some seem to have text cropped from the sides. They were all written when Manet was in Bellevue (literal translation of this name place: Beautiful View). I see from Google Map that there are at least 9 places called Bellevue in France so can’t exactly pinpoint the one referred to here.

1st note: only fragments are legible
3rd & 4th line: ‘mon séjour prolongé à Bellevue’ (‘my extended stay in Bellevue’)
8th line: ‘le mois d’Octobre’ (‘the month of October’)

2nd note: only fragments are legible
1st line: ‘Chère petite (?) Demoiselle’ (‘Dear little Miss’)
Last line: donner hier soir de vos (It seems as if Manet is saying that someone else ‘gave me last night’ news about the young woman he’s writing to)

3rd note: This one seems to have been written on the 20th of October (abbreviated as 8bre since ‘octo’ means 8) and it is possible that Manet, given he was soon due to return to his regular home, is reminding a certain Mademoiselle about a lunch date she had meant to issue. I can’t be sure if Manet’s use of the 1st person plural is meant to include others or just him (clearing my throat, here).
The First six lines are very clear:
‘Chère Mademoiselle,
Vous nous aviez
promis de venir nous
demander à déjeuner avant
notre retour. L’avez-vous
oublié et ne nous donnerez-
vous pas…’
(‘Dear Miss,
You had promised
to come and invite us for lunch before
our return. Have you (perhaps)
forgotten and will you not
give us…’)
Haha, no wonder Joonie is putting his pen against his lips and weighing his words ever so carefully!!!

Anonymous said...

Dearest Jaime:
This is a brilliant idea, Bae Yong Joon as text to Eduoard Manet as context, and Impressionism as the larger context. Congratulations! After Manet, perhaps it will be Monet and the rest of the impressionists.
Last monday, tuesday and today, friday, there were flurries of snow in Philly. So I spent the time just watching the snow from the window and remembering Winter Sonata, Bae Yong Joon and Choi Ji Woo, and the meaningfulness of snow as a metaphor of eternal love becomes more authentic to me. Thanks for your caring loving advice for winter.
Sarang Hamnida,
josephine pasricha

jaime said...

My edar gosijo,

How can I thank you for taking the effort to dicipher those scribbles and translate it for me. I never even dream that I can read part of these beautiful scripts! You have made this dream come true. Thank you my dear friend.

Hahaha, I have a very different memory of how I first learned about you. Remember your June diary in KOB about Bay (Bae) Street? As you said, the rest is history :)

love ... Jaime

jaime said...

Dear Josephine,

thank you for reading this. Hehe, I definitely have this plan to do Degas, Monet and so on .... However, these series are very time consuming as I have to do a lot of research and studying, then digest and write with my own understanding, then add the BYJ perspective. I also find the artworks are very challenging but I enjoy this learning process immensely.

My busy schedule in Japan will not allow me the luxury of doing this anymore. I love to continue when I return to Canada as I have an excellent resource library close to my home which I have access to many art and literature materials.

Glad that the Philly winter reminds you of Winter Sonata. Hehe, that's my consolation too that Korea's weather is similar to Canada's. Please take care!

love .... jaime

Anonymous said...

Hi jaime , many thanks , i love your artworks , my favourite one is the one Mr BYJ closing his eyes , so romantic , music is so nice too , may i have the name of this song , thank you.

jaime said...

Hi Hi phuong,

Thank you for reading this post. I love that picture too. I couldn't believe my luck when I saw that painting, this picture immediately came into my mind :) Actually it's like this for #1, 2, 3 and 5 too, glad you like them :)

Errr ...... sorry that I've downloaded that music a long time ago, and I don't remember the origin. A few sisters have asked me before, but I can't name it. Chongmal Miahnae!

love ... jaime