Georges Ferdinand Bigot (7 April 1860 – 10 October 1927) was a French cartoonist, illustrator and artist. Although almost unknown in his native country, Bigot is famous in Japan for his

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...

s, which depict life in

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

Japan.

Biography

Bigot was born in the

5th arrondissement of Paris The 5th arrondissement of Paris (''Ve arrondissement'') is one of the 20 Arrondissements of Paris, arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''le cinquième''. The arrondissement, als ...

, France and was encouraged into the arts by his mother. At the age of twelve, he was accepted by the

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth century ...

in Paris, where he was trained by artists such as

Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme (11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The ran ...

and

Carolus-Duran Charles Auguste Émile Durand, known as Carolus-Duran (Lille 4 July 1837 – 17 February 1917 Paris), was a French painter and art instructor. He is noted for his stylish depictions of members of high society in Third Republic France. Biograph ...

. While in school, Bigot was introduced to

Japonism ''Japonisme'' is a French term that refers to the popularity and influence of Japanese art and design among a number of Western European artists in the nineteenth century following the forced reopening of foreign trade with Japan in 1858. Japon ...

and befriended a number of collectors of

Japanese art Japanese art covers a wide range of art styles and media, including ancient pottery, sculpture, ink painting and calligraphy on silk and paper, ''ukiyo-e'' paintings and woodblock prints, ceramics, origami, and more recently manga and anime. It ...

. He was also impressed with the Japanese pavilion at the

Exposition Universelle (1878) The third Paris World's Fair, called an Exposition Universelle in French, was held from 1 May to 10 November 1878. It celebrated the recovery of France after the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War. Construction The buildings and the fairgroun ...

, all of which aroused in him a strong interest to move to Japan. In order to pay for the trip, he became an illustrator for newspapers, ''La Vie Moderne'' and ''The World Parisien'' and sold illustrations for

Émile Zola Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...

's novel ''

Nana Nana, Nanna, Na Na or NANA may refer to: People and fictional characters * Nana (given name), including a list of people and characters with the given name * Nana (surname), including a list of people and characters with the surname * Nana ( ...

''. Bigot arrived in

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

in 1882. On arrival, he took lessons in the

Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ma ...

and

Japanese painting is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competitio ...

, and taught

watercolor painting Watercolor (American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the U ...

to students at the

Imperial Japanese Army Academy The was the principal officer's training school for the Imperial Japanese Army. The programme consisted of a junior course for graduates of local army cadet schools and for those who had completed four years of middle school, and a senior course f ...

as an ''

oyatoi gaikokujin The foreign employees in Meiji Japan, known in Japanese as ''O-yatoi Gaikokujin'' (Kyūjitai: , Shinjitai: , "hired foreigners"), were hired by the Japanese government and municipalities for their specialized knowledge and skill to assist in the m ...

''. He also sold illustrations to Japanese newspapers, and issued an illustrated book ''Japanese Sketches''. On the expiry of his government teaching job, he found employment as a

French language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...

teacher at a school run by the writer and liberal political philosopher

Nakae Chōmin was the pen-name of a journalist, political theorist and statesman in Meiji-period Japan. His real name was . His major contribution was the popularization of the egalitarian doctrines of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Japan ...

. He also traveled extensively around Japan. In 1887, Bigot published a satirical magazine, ''

Tōbaé ''Tōbaé'' (トバエ) was a Japanese and French weekly satirical magazine published in the period 1887–1889. History and profile ''Tōbaé'' was started by French cartoonist Georges Ferdinand Bigot Georges Ferdinand Bigot (7 April 1860 � ...

'', in which he illustrated mostly scenes of everyday Japanese life, but also ridiculed Japanese politicians and what he felt to be excesses of in the Westernization of Japan. The newspaper had to be published in Yokohama for fear of Japanese censors. During the

First Sino-Japanese War The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between China and Japan primarily over influence in Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the po ...

(1894-1895), Bigot traveled to Korea on special assignment from the English magazine ''London Graphic''. In 1895, Bigot married Masu Sano and fathered a son named Maurice. However, with the revision of the

unequal treaties Unequal treaty is the name given by the Chinese to a series of treaties signed during the 19th and early 20th centuries, between China (mostly referring to the Qing dynasty) and various Western powers (specifically the British Empire, France, the ...

and the end of

extraterritoriality In international law, extraterritoriality is the state of being exempted from the jurisdiction of local law, usually as the result of diplomatic negotiations. Historically, this primarily applied to individuals, as jurisdiction was usually cla ...

in Japan in 1899, Bigot decided to return to France. He divorced his wife, but kept custody of their son. After his return to France, he worked for ''

Le Chat Noir Le Chat Noir (; French for "The Black Cat") was a nineteenth-century entertainment establishment, in the bohemian Montmartre district of Paris. It was opened on 18 November 1881 at 84 Boulevard de Rochechouart by the impresario Rodolphe Salis, ...

'' and other French magazines and newspapers. He also provided cartoons depicting the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

and the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

. On retirement, he moved to

Bièvres, Essonne Bièvres () is a commune in the Essonne department and Île-de-France region of north-central France. The commune derives its name from that of the River Bièvre which flows through the village. ''Bièvre'' is the old French word for a beave ...

, where he died in 1927.

References

*Shimizu, Isao, ed. ''Bigô Sobyôshû, Iwanami Bunko.'' Tôkyô: Iwanami shoten, 2003. *Shimizu, Isao, ed. ''Zoku Bigô Sobyôshû, Iwanami Bunko.'' Tôkyô: Iwanami shoten, 2001.

External links

*
Lambiek.net
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bigot, Georges Ferdinand 1860 births 1927 deaths French cartoonists French draughtsmen Foreign advisors to the government in Meiji-period Japan Foreign educators in Japan French expatriates in Japan

Biography

See also

References

External links