Arthur Davison Ficke; A Secret Modernist with a Passion for Global Art Awareness

By Jessica Graminske '19, South Beloit, Ill., Asian studies, English; Senior Inquiry project

Ficke has been seen by many as a skilled traditional sonnet writer. In fact, one of his works that made him known in his time was a later sonnet piece called Portrait of a Sonnet Writer in 1914 (Roba 55). However, while sonnets are discussed in American classrooms, William Shakespeare is most notably the only one textbooks shine light on, which in turn limits exposure of sonnet writers. Opinions of Ficke’s sonnets have also hindered his literary popularity. Critics viewed Ficke’s works as very conservative or “civilized” without attempting to challenge any of the standard poetic conventions (Roba 55). In a simpler sense, many can see particular works from Ficke as predictable such as in book II, the second stanza, in The Happy Princess:

Thither the Singer came upon his quest

Of hours more beautiful and life more warm;

And with his lyre at rest upon his arm,

Paused at the threshold of the Emerald Gate;

And then, with seeking and with youth elate,

Entered; and, passing in the busy crowd,

Moving through courts where fountain-jets were loud… (9)

 

This repetitive abbccdd pattern does not surprise the reader or critic. This small piece shows Ficke’s ability to create images with constant rhyming, but if something of a similar pattern was created as a novel today, it would be hard to convince people to read. This work did not create a new sensation or trend, it simply was a form of writing to illicit a story.

Sonnets aside, Arthur Davison Ficke is probably the most well-known now for perpetrating the Spectra Hoax. This is proven by fact that when one tries to look him up, the majority of the scholarly sources and extra information point towards Spectra Hoax (Guriel; Waters; Churchill). Other than Spectra Hoax, most do not know him, and those that have read his other works happen to think that he was merely a traditional sonnet writer. However, Ficke was also an experimental modernist poet based on some of his poems in his lifetime with aspects of Asian art and religion. Through these topics and his passion for poetry, Ficke presented a Midwestern approach to sharing global art, something that was not common for many Midwesterners.

Imagist poetry is often described as, “A reactionary movement against romanticism and Victorian poetry, imagism emphasized simplicity, clarity of expression, and precision through the use of exacting visual images” (“ABGI”). This literary movement started in the early 20th century with Ezra Pound, a poet, given credit for the popularity and rise of the movement. Imagist poetry was based off of Greek lyrics and Japanese haikus (“ABGI”).

Ficke enjoyed the writings of other Imagists by challenging their conventions while at the same time as supporting them. Apparently Ficke would keep, “his humorous poetry unpublished, while concentrating on traditional forms of poetry, especially the sonnet” (Roba 52). Showing that even before Ficke started Spectra Hoax, he was already experimenting in his private literary life, even though he did not publish anything besides the sonnet. Ficke was also a positive supporter of other experimentalist poets, “By 1916 he [Ficke] openly endorsed the Imagists as writers of personalized poetry, supporting the writing of Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell (Roba 54). While studying those around him, he took on different aspects of the movement and converted them into his own style. Thus, like many other Imagists, Ficke was inspired by Japanese poetic art such as the haiku, woodblock prints, and aspects of Buddhism.

New foundations in Imagist poetry schools started to rise and Ficke was one who was not interested in the relatively new institutions in poetry. While mocking the institutions with a hoax, later to be published and called Spectra Hoax, some critics such as Roba say this was the height of Ficke’s experimental style (Roba 55). Some of Ficke’s poetic style for Spectra Hoax is formatted like Japanese haikus. Haikus generally, but not always, focus on a number of syllables, five for the first line, seven for the second, and five syllables for the third and final line. They are centered on nature, and have a drastic shift in the last line. One popular haiku by Matsuo Basho, arguably the father or haikus demonstrates the form:

Furuike ya                               An old pond!

Kawazu tobikomu                  A frog jumps in--

Mizu no oto                            the sound of water.

 

Since this poem is translated from Japanese to English, the reader no longer receives the same effect that a five, seven, five syllable haiku has to offer. However, a lot of the natural imagery still exists. This haiku also has a dramatic shift in the last line. “The sound of water” implies that the old pond is abandoned and peacefully quiet, until the frog disrupts the silence by splashing in. One of the Spectra poems Ficke wrote under his pseudonym Anne Knish also follows these conventions:

Opus 118

If bathing were a virtue, not a lust,

I would be dirtiest.

 

To some, housecleaning is a holy rite.

For myself, houses would be empty

But for the golden motes dancing in sunbeams.

 

Tax-assessors frequently overlook valuables.

Today they noted my jade.

But my memory of you escaped them. (Smith 85)

 

Firstly, nature aspects are significant in this poem. Bathing suggests water, while being the “dirtiest” suggests earthly dirt. The second stanza describes sunbeams, natural light, as dancing. The third note mentions jade, which is a type of precious stone that is coveted by places such as China. Furthermore, the last stanza accurately depicts a “cutting” transition, where it disrupts the stream of thought onto another topic by directly turning the reader’s attention to tax collectors, actual people instead of household objects.

Arthur Davison Ficke also had a unique hobby that tied, in some cases, directly to his poetry. He enjoyed collecting Japanese woodblock prints, and was not the only poet attracted to them. Other literary artists, such as Ezra Pound, became fascinated with the artwork (Arrowsmith 32-33). The sudden rise in popularity was partially due to a foreign artwork being introduced with limited information surrounding it. For instance, most people know of Van Gogh and know what to look for in the potential meanings behind it, but that is not the case for all Japanese art. It provoked natural curiosity out of the viewer, because the artwork style was new and unique to a certain cultural tradition.

Ficke also believed that Japanese prints were tied closely to poetry, where both works are strongly dependent on metaphors and can thus be interpreted in different ways:

Japanese designs are metaphors; they depict not any object, but remote and greater

powers to which the object is related. Often the artist produces his effect by the

exaggeration of certain aspects, or by expressing particular qualities in the terms of some

kindred thing. If his subject happens to be an actor in some great and tragic role, he will

not hesitate to prolong the lines of the drapery unconscionably to give the effect of

solemn dignity, slow movement and monumental isolation. (35)

Not all prints provide all of the details of what a person is thinking, or even their face. When this happens, the observer has to draw the minutest details into consideration in order to come up with a sound conclusion of what is being depicted, and even then it can vary from person to person. Like some aspects of poetry, these prints make abstract patterns come to life to represent people and activities, not always as direct copies of reality to paper.

Ficke was so enthralled with Japanese prints, that he wrote a book primarily focused on them called Chats on Japanese Prints. This book, according to his conclusion, was to bring a global awareness of another form of art that can fill a gap in graphic design as well as an appreciation for another culture, “Alien though this art is, it has power to penetrate to regions of the mind which Western art too often leaves unvisited” (446). The most fascinating part of the book are his poems he wrote as a sort of grand artistic insight into a Japanese woodblock print artist, and then a discussion over the particular artist following his introduction. Within the Fifth Period: The Downfall chapter, he wrote a poem about familiar artist Hokusai, who defined landscape portraits as important art which deserved to be recognized:

Hokusai

Because thou wast marvellous of eye, magic of fancy, lithe of hand,

Because thou didst play o’er many a gulf where common mortals dizzy stand,

Because no thing in earth or sky escaped the pryings of thine art,

I call thee, who wast master of all, the master with the monkey’s heart.

 

Ficke immediately addresses Hokusai’s art skills and attention to detail with “marvellous of eye...lithe of hand”. He makes Hokusai sound as if he was a god due to his skill, because of the divide Hokusai has to other “common mortals”. Ficke praises Hokusai’s attention to detail again, since Hokusai had been known to capture the landscapes around him, as well as the people during a time where people were supposed to be the main subjects in art. The “monkey’s heart” phrase most likely originated from Hokusai’s Saruhashi, translated as Monkey Bridge in English.

 

Where in the streets the drunkards tool--where in the ring the wrestlers sway,

Where rustics pound the harvest rice, or fishers sail, or abbots pray,

In rocky gorge, or lowland field, or winter heights of mountain air,

Wherever man or beast or bird or flower finds place--yea, everywhere

Thou standest, as I fancy, rapt in the live play of mass and line,

Curiously noting every poise; and in that ugly head of thine

Storing it with unsated fierce passion for life’s minutest part,

Some day to use infallibly--O master with the monkey’s heart!

 

Hokusai appears enchanted with the world around him, from drunkards to flowers. With his skillful eye, he recognizes the beauty in every position of a person’s stance to the placing of greenery. Hokusai’s passion for the small details makes him stand apart, and a master of his art.

 

Where Kanazawa’s thundering shores behold the mounded waters rave,

And Fuji looms above the plain, and the plain slopes to meet the wave,

There didst thou from the trembling sands unleash thy soul in sudden flight

To soar above the whirling waste with awe and wonder and delight.

Thou sawest the giant tumult poured; each slope and chasm of cloven brine

Called thee; and from the scattered rout one vision did they sight divine,

One heaven-affronting whelming wave in which all common waves have part--

A billow from the wrath of God--O monkey with a master’s heart

 

This is when Ficke discussed details of Hokusai’s artwork. This stanza specifically discusses The Great Wave of Kanagawa, also known as The Wave. The first line says Kanazawa, and this could either be an error or it could be a mistranslation of Japanese, which is relatively easy to make. The dangerous raging waters meet with the looming mountain, showing two powers and elements at odds with each other. The wave is powerful enough that it is as large as the symbol of Japan, Mt. Fuji. The next three lines explain the sudden inspiration of such powerful forces colliding and the birth of the print. It also challenges the observer to look at the print as if one was flying above it, and experience the grandiose of nature for the first time. One wave, in particular, is extremely strong and sent from nature, with Ficke warning that all waves, and perhaps all people, have a destructive quality to themselves.

 

What Mind shall span thee? Who shall praise or blame thy world-embracing sight

Whose harvest was each rock and wraith, each form of loathing or of light?

Though we should puzzle all our days, we could not know thee as thou art,

Nor where the seer of vision ends, nor where begins the monkey’s heart. (358)

 

Focusing back on Hokusai, Ficke questions if there will ever be someone who has such inspiration and respect for the details in nature. Also, there are scant records of Hokusai, so the actual character of the artist may never be fully known to us. This is the same when it comes to differentiating where the line can be drawn for Hokusai’s imagination, skill, and passion.

There have been varying reviews towards the Chats on Japanese Prints. Arnold Genthe was a photographer well known for his pictures in Chinatown. He enjoyed the book and thought it would promote others to admire Japanese woodblock prints. He also thought the later end of the book detailing how collectors should handle the prints and differentiate them was especially handy (240-242). However, George Woodcock, a Canadian poet and historian, believed the entire book was made by a fanatic of the time period. He explains that the book:

Shows the bewilderment of a man of 1915, aware that the nineteenth-century European

criteria are not sufficient to judge the work of other times and places, but not yet in

possession of the more universal viewpoint toward which we are moving today (18).

He strongly believed, that after a decade since the book had been published, that the collection advice at the back of the book was no longer applicable to the technology and techniques used today to discern forgeries or more valuable prints (18). Interestingly, both reviews that were found were not by art historians, which would have made this more intriguing to see what an expert in art would have to say for Ficke’s conversational material.

Other Asian elements seemed to enter into Ficke’s works, such as Buddhism. The religion first started in India around the 5th century BCE by the founder Siddhartha Gautama, then spread through China, and then to Japan (Gethin 14). The physical transition of the religion created various methods of how to practice it. However, one of the core beliefs most practices have is that Buddhism is a method to reach enlightenment and become free of the wheel of reincarnation after death (Gethin 28). Arguably, Ficke may have adopted Buddhist practices in his life. In a letter responding to Gladys Brown’s memoir of Ficke, “Arthur Davison Ficke and His Friends: An Exchange of Letters”, Alan DeVoe recounts Ficke’s character. To DeVoe, Ficke’s personality was, “very Buddhist-monk, gently and world-wearily antihuman” (40). DeVoe explained that Ficke had openly told him about his other temperament that many rarely saw:

That his [Ficke’s] temperament was essentially Buddhist; and he used very often to say

(not in times of sorrow or sickness or bitterness, but just as one stating a fact about his

psychology) that he could not remember the time when it had not seemed to him more

desirable to be non-conscious than to be conscious. The wickedness of the human

heart...the struggle and pain of life...the central despair of life, in a universe

meaningless...this was for a decade the Arthur presented to me [DeVoe] (40).

Ficke had a sober side to him he showed only to a few close friends. Many of the aspects that troubled him were focused on the pain of life and trying to find a meaning in the universe. He would rather be unaware of the actions in the world. Since Ficke was aware of the world’s despair, he appeared to turn to Buddhism.

Ficke, not too surprisingly after knowing more of his character, wrote a few poems based off of Buddhism. The few of Ficke’s poems specifically describe Buddha as a god who knows the path towards truth. One particular poem, titled Buddha at Nadika, tells a story of how Buddha is trying to convert a fisherman to Buddhism and cease the feelings of desire that are within him and finally rest as he says, “and vain desire, like terror grown/deep in the chambers of thy breast,/shall be from thee forever flown,/and thou shalt rest” (107-108). However, the fisherman cannot fully understand what Buddha is offering him, instead, “he looked uncomprehendingly/and wearily he shook his head;/and turned once more to drag the sea,/knowing not what the Buddha said” (107). The fisherman thus returns back to the only work he knows, missing an opportunity to find higher knowledge. The refusal to change his ways resonates with those who find it difficult to accept a new way of living even if it would provide them with insurmountable benefits. Aquatic nature is prevalent in this poem because of the setting, but it could also reference to life constantly changing, such as a river’s flow, that Buddha discovered as a difficulty for many people. Fick shows this by describing water as “harsh” and “clamourous”, not peaceful. If the fisherman escapes the everyday life he is living, he would find peace and be able to rest. Buddha also discusses “veining desire”, which refers directly to materialistic desire, one of the four struggles in Buddhism that this poem seems to particularly highlight.

Arthur Davison Ficke’s inspiration from Japanese artwork showed a different style in his poetic writing compared to what others believed as traditional. Ficke was a modernist poet who experimented with comparing Asian art, particularly Japanese woodblock prints, and relating to practices in Buddhism. It is valuable that Ficke was engaging with both aspects not just for artistic inspiration, but also because it shows an interest in more than one global form of art, and applying it. Ficke, like many others in his time, helped bring awareness to art forms and a way of living that was not the “normal” Midwestern American view at the time, which in the end helped to spread cultures and ideas.

Works Cited

Arrowsmith, Rupert Richard. “The Transcultural Roots of Modernism: Imagist Poetry, JapaneseVisual Culture, and the Western Museum System.” Modernism/Modernity, vol. 18, no. 1, 2011, pp. 27–42., doi:10.1353/mod.2011.0010.

“A Brief Guide to Imagism.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, 9 Nov. 2017, www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/brief-guide-imagism.

Basho, Matsuo. An Old Pond! 1686.

Brown, Gladys, and Alan Devoe. “Arthur Davison Ficke and His Friends: An Exchange of Letters.” The Yale University Library Gazette, pp. 39–41.

Churchill, Suzanne W. “The Lying Game: Others and the Great Spectra Hoax of 1917.” American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography, vol. 15, no. 1, 2005, pp. 23–41. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2005532454&site=ehost-live.

Ficke, Arthur Davison. Chats on Japanese Prints. EP Publishing Limited, 1975.

Ficke, Arthur Davison. “The Buddha at Nadika.” The Happy Princess and Other Poems. Small, Maynard and Company, 1907. Pp. 106-108.

Ficke, Arthur Davison. The Happy Princess and Other Poems. Small, Maynard and Company, 1907.

Genthe, Arnold. “Arthur Davison Ficke’s “Chats on Japanese Prints:” A Review.” Review of Chats on Japanese Prints, by Arthur Davison Ficke. The Forum, 1915, pp. 240-242.

Gethin, Rupert. The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford University Press, 1998.

Guriel, Jason. “The Spectric Poets by Jason Guriel.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/69923/the-spectric-poe….

Roba, William H. “Twins in My Cradle: Arthur Davison Ficke, Iowa Poet.” Books at Iowa, vol. 39, Nov. 1983, pp. 48–56. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=1983071473&site=ehost-live.

Smith, William Jay. The Spectra Hoax. Wesleyan University Press, 1961.

Waters, Michael. “The Hoax Poetry Movement That Accidentally Became Legitimate.” Atlas Obscura, Atlas Obscura, 28 June 2017, www.atlasobscura.com/articles/spectra-poetry-hoax-witter-bynner.

Woodcock, George. “Chats on Japanese Prints/The Hokusai Sketchbooks.” Review of Chats on Japanese Prints, but Arthur Davison Ficke. Arts Magazine, 1958. Pp. 18.