Footnotes

Provenance
Ian MacNicol, Glasgow.
Private collection, UK (acquired from the above, c. 1965).

The Glasgow art dealer Alexander Reid was impressed with the way that Hornel had embraced the most dynamic, Japanese-inspired aspects of Post-Impressionist art, and he subsequently represented the artist as his dealer. Reid, along with the wealthy shipping merchant William Burrell, agreed to fund Hornel's, and his fellow artist and friend George Henry's, trip to Japan. From 1893–94 the two artists travelled the country, sketching and painting, and most crucially learning much about a new approach to decorative design and spacing.

Hornel believed that 'Japanese art, rivalling in splendour the greatest art in Europe, engenders in the artist the desire to see and study the environment out of which this great art sprung, to become personally in touch with the people, to live their life, and discover the source of their inspiration. (B. Smith, The Life and Work of Edward Atkinson Hornel, 1997, p. 89). The two artists arrived in Nagasaki in late April, a beautiful time of the year to be introduced to Japan, with the last snow still on the ground and the plum trees laden with blossom. It is likely that the current work was inspired by Hornel's memories of this time, as a snow-capped Mount Fuji is visible in all its splendour in the background of this composition.

The present work was painted just a few years after the artist's return. Typically for Hornel, it demonstrates a tightly restricted view, very close to the picture plane. It has a steep and flattened perspective, often seen in Japanese prints.
The impact of photography on Hornel's work is also evident here. The focus of the camera lens was the most modern way of viewing a subject at that time. Imitating the eye of the camera, the focus is on the girls' faces, whilst the surrounding areas appear slightly out of focus. It encapsulates Hornel's approach to painting from the late 1890s onwards. Photographic sharpness dissolves into the blurriness of his thick impasto backgrounds, sometimes verging on abstraction.

Hornel's intentions are decorative and design-inspired, not naturalistic, and above all, modern. These stylish and sophisticated works of the late 1890s are rare and important. (After 1900 Hornel seemed to give up on experimentation and settled into a more formulaic style of painting).

Japanese ladies with Mount Fuji beyond has been in the same family collection for the past 6 decades.