Just Published: A Tale of Two Balconies

What’s different about the view from a balcony? The geometry of a balcony creates a picture within a picture. It constructs a view, at once private and public, defined by a building and location, to visualize and juxtapose different worlds.

Our latest publication, A Tale of Two Balconies, examines two balcony views: Katsushika Hokusai’s The Sazaidō of Gohyakurakanji (F1974.63) and James McNeill Whistler’s Variations in Flesh Colour and Green—The Balcony (F1892.23a-b). A double-sided format divides the book into two equal parts, each by a different author, that meet in the middle. The center section includes hands-on activities that bring the balcony to life.

This book proposes a new model for comparative art history. Whistler’s work is often understood as an instance of Japonisme, a late nineteenth–century Western art trend of incorporating and appropriating aspects of Japanese art. But this book is not about Whistler, Hokusai, or Japonisme. Instead, A Tale of Two Balconies attempts to move beyond reductive narratives of influence. Each artist made careful choices about what to include, discard, or adapt based on a variety of possibilities, their artistic practices, and contemporary currents. As much as a balcony is a physical structure, it is also a compositional and intellectual framework that can be applied to many artworks and contexts.

The two halves of this book share a parallel organizational structure. Mirrored sections examine the details of each work: the geographical location; the pictorial devices, innovations, and pigments; the visual strategies; and how the balcony serves as a framing device for landscapes that combine the real and the imagined. Other sections address broader contexts, such as race and gender dynamics, tourism and urbanization, globalization, and the circulation of ideas and materials.

You are invited to remix these works and their themes in the innovative central section of the book. From pop-out dioramas to collage and coloring, the enclosed exercises help you see these balcony views anew. Such close considerations allow us to appreciate each work’s particular features. You may also want to take this toolbox of interpretive approaches with you, whether to interrogate other images or to create new ones.