It’s been more than ten years since terrorists forced their way into the offices of the satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 of its staff members. Two of Charlie’s female contributors, Corinne Rey and Catherine Meurisse, survived the horrific onslaught. Yet, both women continue to ply their craft as cartoonists, achieving exceptional levels of success. In 2019, Meurisse was awarded a residency at the Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto. There, she spent several months studying the landscapes of Japan. The result of this lengthy period of reflection and observation is her graphic novel, La jeune femme et la mer.
Preserving Ancient Traditions and Perspectives
Japan and France, two countries that deeply value tradition and artistry, share a long history of cultural exchange and collaboration. Since 2014, the Institut Français has operated a residency program that selects a wide variety of French creatives to spend four to six months at the Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto. The goal is to give talented artisans the time and space to expand the scope of their practice and mindset. There are no deadlines, no ultimate deliverables, no requirements to produce quoique-ce-soit, a useful French expression meaning something, whatever it might be.
Residents are immersed in a world of exploration through exposure to Japanese artists, workshops, traditions, tools, materials, and a mindset that values the collective over the individual. Participants are selected from every corner of the creative universe: printmaking, pottery, textiles, digital art, choreography, music, writing, video game production, exhibit curation, photography, culinary arts… You get the picture. The scope is impressive. Consequently, those lucky enough to receive a residency, leave with a greatly expanded network of creative contacts, not only in Japan, but also back in France.
The Foreign Yet Familiar
It’s not surprising that Catherine Meurisse would be invited to undertake a residency at Villa Kujoyama. She is the first cartoonist to become a member of France’s prestigious Académie des Beaux-Arts. Since surviving the attack in 2015, Meurisse’s self-prescribed formula for recovery has involved immersing herself in beauty, specifically in nature and in the arts. In that light, she focused her attention on Japan’s aesthetically organized landscapes—not only as portrayed by Japanese artists but also as curated by the general population.
La jeune femme et la mer is part memoir, part fantasy, with Meurisse wrapping moments from her Japanese residency in myth and spiritualism. It is a book to linger over, contemplating both Meurisse’s interpretation of Japanese culture as well as Japan’s idyllic countryside.
Meurisse grew up in rural France after her parents purchased a run-down country estate. They spent years restoring the place while allowing their two daughters to roam far and wide. That early propensity for exploration on foot underpins much of Meurisse’s work. In La jeune femme et la mer, we see her traversing the remote fields and natural areas of Japan. At one point, she comments on the strangeness of a landscape that is composed from myriad smaller elements that are entirely familiar.
« Un champ de choux, ça je connais. Un champ de choux au pied d’un volcan qui fume, voilà qui est nouveau.
Le colza est le meme que celui de mon pays natal. Je le connais par cœur. Mais le cola mélangé aux camélias… Mon cœur ne connait pas. »
“A field of cabbage, that I know. A field of cabbage at the foot of a smoking volcano, there’s something new.
The rapeseed plant here is the same as the one in my native country. I know it by heart. But the rapeseed growing amongst camellias… My heart doesn’t recognize.”
Beauty Peppered with Humor
In La jeune femme et la mer, Meurisse manages to capture much of the Japanese aesthetic while remaining true to her personal style. Her landscapes are fetching and her use of perspective is exceptional. There seems to be no viewpoint she’s afraid to tackle.
At the same time, however, the book is peppered with a steady supply of humor, Meurisse often using her ignorance of all-things-Japanese as a foil. Below at left, she depicts herself squeezing her lanky anatomy into the required seating for tea, while her Japanese companion recites Haiku that compares women and flowers. To the right, she enters a scalding bath as a voice from the next room instructs her to allow herself to let go and float.
Delight and Depth
Many books allow the reader to escape into artistry and whimsy. Others call upon us to think. La jeune femme et la mer, blends these two characteristics. Unlike Craig Thompson’s Carnet du voyage, Meurisse did not create her charming travelogue as it unfolded. It wasn’t until she’d completed her residency and was back in France that she began to draw and write the script for the book.
This short autobiography contains relatively little dialog, yet I found it left me with a lot to consider. When finished, I reread to better understand Meurisse’s interpretation of the Japanese mindset and to once again contemplate her many enviable frames. Rarely do I take the time to read a book more than once.
I was lucky to find the French version at my local library but it is also available in English as The Young Woman and the Sea. If you happen to pick up a copy, I hope you have the chance to go through it slowly, giving it a bit of the same mindfulness that went into its creation.
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It’s a remarkable contrast between two different ways of approaching a foreign culture. The jihadists in France slaughtered people of the indigenous culture there because they could not endure the fact that it had standards different from their own. Meurisse in Japan accepted the different indigenous culture there are something to respect and learn from.
One would expect that the landscapes would be unfamiliar given that Japan, unlike France, is one of the world’s most geologically active places (hence the frequent earthquakes). Volcanoes are common and most of the country is steep, rugged mountains, quite unlike France. Yet they must grow their cabbages wherever they can. Culture is often shaped at least partly by geography.
The book’s art is charmingly drawn, and the landscape pages do indeed capture the Japanese aesthetic, but I think I would have difficulty with handwritten text in a foreign language. Still, based on what you say, there is relatively little text.
Does Ça devrait être facile à peindre mean “It will need to be easy to paint”? Getting the exact sense of these variegated verb forms is tricky sometimes.
It’s good that these kinds of programs are being maintained to encourage peaceful contact and familiarization between different cultures.
That’s a striking contrast between the jihadist mindset vs.the mindset of people running and participating in the residencies of Villa Kujoyama, Infidel.
French handwriting is enough different than ours that I always struggle with it a bit before a get used to a particular person’s penmanship. It definitely slows down the speed at which I can read. Since the language here isn’t complicated, having familiarity with many words and expressions also aids the deciphering.
Ça devrait être facile à peindre –> it should be easy to paint. Devrait–>3rd person conditional of the verb devoir (which means “to have to” or “must”).
I agree that programs like this are valuable. Sadly, I have the impression that in the United States, they are disappearing or at least that all government support for such exchanges is disappearing.
This is a lovely peek at the work of a gifted artist. I thoroughly enjoyed the brief side-by-side observations–the cabbage growing in volcanic soil. So good to see how Meurisse was able to help herself heal from trauma by turning to the natural world.
And how fortunate that such cultural exchanges continue–except, alas, here in the US at what I believe is this temporarily aberrant time.
Glad you enjoyed the post Annie, and yes, let’s hope that the U.S. will get back to valuing the importance of such exchanges.