In Love with London Fog

I kept coming across paintings of London by Yoshio Markino – gauzy portraits of a mysteriously colorful, old-world city often shrouded in gray mist or yellowy brown fog but always dreamily evocative of another era that was both familiar and yet eerily distant. 

Time to find out more.

Yoshio Markino: The Japanese Artist Who Painted London’s Fog

Yoshio Markino (1869–1956) found fame in Edwardian London, capturing its misty streets and river scenes in luminous watercolors.

He was born Makino Heijirō in Koromo (now Toyota City), and came from a family of educators of samurai descent.

This is Cale street in Chelsea.

December is my favourite month in London – he wrote

From San Francisco to London

In 1893, to took off for San Francisco in search of adventure and opportunity. He found poverty, racial discrimination, and culture shock. (Markino tells the story of how he was treated in San Francisco in the first chapter of A Japanese Artist in London.)  He struggled to earn enough to live and took menial jobs to survive.  At one point he worked as  a ‘houseboy’  where his employer refused to learn his name and simply called him “Charlie”.

He did take some art classes, however, and he developed his distinctive “silk veil” technique—soft, atmospheric washes that captured fog and mists. Markino became obsessed with trying to represent the mists and fogs of San Francisco.  The “silk veil” involved soaking art paper in water and beginning the background while it was still damp. This created his characteristic muzzy blurred effect. These were the skills that defined his paintings of London.

Markino lived in various parts of London including Greenwich, New Cross, Kensal Rise, Norwood and Brixton. But he found his longest lasting home in Kensington and Chelsea.

This is Chelsea embankment:

In 1897, Markino moved to London, where he initially lived in near-destitution, surviving on Bovril and rice, and walking everywhere because he could not afford to pay fares.

In spite of the hardship his work began to attract attention and he made friendships and connections in London’s literary and artistic circles,  He had an commercial breakthrough in 1901 when The Studio published his work, and that led to more commissions  illustrating The English Illustrated Magazine and King Magazine.

In 1910, Markino visited the Japan-British Exhibition and he published a successful autobiography A Japanese Artist in London.  He wrote other autobiographical books over the next decade, as well as continue to produce paintings to illustrate the books such as The Charm of London in 1912.  

Markino’s evocative watercolors and illustrations of fog-draped landmarks drew an appreciative audeince and his 1907 book, The Colour of London, was a hit. He followed it with companion volumes on Paris and Rome.  Edwardian high society was charmed. He counted many well known people including suffragette Christabel Pankhurst among his friends. He even presented a painting to Queen Mary.

The outbreak of World War I disrupted his career and as an alien, he faced restrictions. He turned to literature and philosophy. In later years, his popularity waned, and a brief marriage in the 1920s ended in divorce. By the 1930s, he was living a bohemian existence, struggling to sell his work.

In 1942, when Japan and Britain became wartime enemies, he was repatriated to Japan. He remained an Anglophile, reminiscing about his London days and even in old age, climbing temple steps, sketchbook in hand, and recalling the city’s fog and the friends he had left behind.

Markino died in 1956, but his delicate, dreamlike, paintings captured the essence of fog shrouded Edwardian London that was often romantic and glamorous. 

In A Japanese Artist in London, Markino …

…relates his stern battles with starvation, and the strange experiences into which he was plunged by the extraordinary succession of trades to which his poverty condemned him. When he first came over he was working in the Japanese Legation and Art Schools. Then he tried starvation for a time. He became a model in one of the Art Schools where he had been a student; then a tombstone-maker at Norwood. Then he starved again until he met his good fairy, Mr. M. H. Spielmann, who got him various commissions. He helped to stage ” The Darling of the Gods”; illustrated magazines and newspapers, not at all in his own line ; and finally obtained a commission to illustrate ” The Colour of London,” and arranged an exhibition where he sold the originals. – Douglas Sladen

The book is full of interesting and often amusing anecdotes of his experience as a foreigner in the big city and his encounters with the natives and his struggles to earn enough to live on.

It’s written in an idiosyncratic style and Markino’s English is not perfect. Fortunately he was not over edited and  that lends the stories an additional and personal charm. 

Markino arrived in London via Paris in December 1897.  He learns to love the fog.

At this time I began to stroll on Sunday afternoons. At first I was so frightened with London fogs. I thought, if I live in such dreadful fog I will soon become consumptive. So I bought a respirator at a drug store, and used to wear it whenever I went out. When I visited peoples they laughed at me because I got a round black mark round my mouth. Nevertheless I kept it on until some doctor told me the fog was not so injurious as I thought. (Who knows? This “dreadful fog” has become my greatest fascination, only a few years later!)

The Painter of Fog

The Colour of London 1907 contains reproductions of 48 of his watercolours, together with his written observations on life in the capital. Here he commented on the city:

‘Age and the fogs have made the buildings so beautiful … The colour and its effect are most wonderful”

How do I like London Mists ? I have written that in my essay of ” The Colour of London,” so I am not going to repeat it here. Only one thing I must say. It is so difficult to get the real effect. I have never done it right yet. At the same time it is most interesting subject to study. I used to wander about the streets day and night. Sometimes twelve hours in a day. I was quite in a dream whenever I loitered outdoors.

Sometimes I started my place after midnight and walked about until sunrise. The more 1 observed the mists the more I fell into love. But it was most disappointing thing when I tried to put my impressions on paper. I could never be able to paint London fogs as I saw. I cursed my stupid hand. Every morning when I saw a white paper I had such a great anticipation to do something ” grand,” and after all day’s hard work, I found out my paper only too hideous, and I threw it in the fire. Sometimes I repeated the same subject six or seven times, and when it was finished after five or six weeks it was simply unbearable to look at it. It was buried in the fire again.

Rome is not Foggy and Paris Fogs are Weak

When i was in Rome Rome I often exclaimed, ” Only if Rome had London fogs ! ” Paris often had fogs, but her colour is quite soft enough on the clear days, so any little fog made Paris colour rather weak, and not so lovable as London.

Markino painted solitary figures in th landscapes as well as the hustle and bustle of the crowds in the big metropolis. Here, the  crowds gather round the departing tram and walk past the brightly lit oyster bar.

He painted the city in many moods but his preference seemed to be for overcast  days, for night time and above all for fog.  

London in mist is far above my own ideal….the colour and its effect are most wonderful. I think London without mists would be like a bride without a trousseau….The London mist attracts me so that I do not feel I could live any other place but London.

 This austere monochrome view of his lodging house – 68, Sydney Street, Chelsea reminds me of Edward Hopper. 

And rain, and water

There were some summer and autumn days, but always the mist.

And here are the crowds in Brompton Road outside the grand museums Markino admired.

But  he loved fog and mist and gloom the best and he often painted scenes of people entering brightly lit interiors or stepping out setting out in to the night. This is the Brompton Oratory,

And this is  the Carlton Hotel.

Brixton Road and Yone Noguchi

When Markino was lodging in Brixton he was visited by his friend the poet Yone Nuguchi who also took a room at 151 Brixton Road, (one pound a week, cold and fireless) not far from the Oval. Many theatre and show people lived in that area at that time. Charlie Chaplin and his brother Sydney lived at number 15 from 1906 to 1912).

This painting appears in Noguchi’s memoir The Story of Yone Noguchi

Markino assures his friend that he will grow to love London and its people:

“Yes, my dear Yone, you may think English people are very slow; you may not like them now. But be patient and stay there a little longer. Some day you will find out something.

Yone was a very sharp observer. It did not take long time that he fell into love with the English peoples. Indeed, after only four months’ stay in London when I went to see him off at Paddington Station I saw his eyes were much inflammated with tears. He peeped out from the train window and said to me, ” I am sure I shall come back to England. Yes, I must come back again. I promise you faithfully. So you wait here until I come. Markino, you are a lucky fellow to stay in sweet London all the time.”

I used to live on a nearby street and took the bus to work on Brixton Road. The house i lived in was already condemned and scheduled for demolition The whole street now runs in a different direction although they retained the name – Chryssell Road.

I wondered what had happened to 151 Brixton Road. Was it still there? 

At 9.15pm on  the first night of the London Blitz – September 7th, 1940 a high explosive bomb damaged three houses -146-150 across the road and other bombs fell in nearby Southey Street. The house where Markino and Noguchi lodged was torn down by the council in 1950. 

From the Eastern Sea

This was the work that established Noguchi’s reputation and influence. As Markino describes below he published the first edition himself and he sent copies to literary journals and notable people. It was well received and The Unicorn Press published an enlarged edition ‘Dedicated to the Spirits of Fuji Mountain’ that sold well. 

Yone’s four-month visit to London was my great comfort. We both had something nobler and sweeter than anything which one can get with money. Although I was meeting great sympathy of those landladies wherever I went, my art was suffering a great deal through their ignorance. Now Yone was my complement. It was this time that he told me the story of Keats, which I wrote in my essay of ” The Colour of Rome.” Yone used to sit on a chair in front of the fire-place stretching his two feet high above the mantel-piece, drooping his head on his chest and grasping his two hands together

We two often had walk along the Victoria and Albert Embankment in nights to enjoy London fogs. I remember he made many poetries about London Mists. I wonder if he ever published them. Yone thought the English publishers were ” too slow ” for the publication of his works, so he decided to publish them himself. We saw the advertisements of those job printers, and found out the one at Kennington was the fairest. Yone ordered him to print some two or three hundred copies of his few poetries on brown paper. It was about sixteen pages, entitled, ” From the Eastern Sea,” by Yone Noguchi, a Japanese. Price two shillings. A messenger came from that printing-office to see Yone especially about the lettering of the price. He asked Yone again and again to assure that it was really two shillings and not two pence ! Yone gave him positive answer. After the messenger was gone Yone told me that the messenger looked into his face so seriously to find out if Yone’s head was ” a bit off,” and we laughed so much until our landlord’s dog began to bark at us!

Soon after this the Unicorn Press wanted to publish a more ” elaborate ” edition, and I made a design for the bookcover — many Japanese boats loaded with parchment sailing forward, and each sail had Yone’s family crest. My original design was dark indigo on bluish grey ground. Yone liked it very much. But to our great disappointment the publishers printed it vermilion on cream ground — to make it more ” effective.” I said, ” Effective ? Indeed, it is effective enough to make us sick Commercial elaboration means our Hell ! “

A very young and very poor Arthur Ransome insisted on paying for a copy. 

While we were talking a very young fellow came to buy Yone’s book. It was Arthur Ransome (he was only seventeen or eighteen then). I told Ransome that Yone wanted two shillings a copy. Ransome was willing to pay. Yone shouted, “No, Markino. It is ‘lie!’ it is ‘lie!'” and he ran out of the room. However, Ransome insisted to leave two shillings. We decided to buy some cigarettes, and when Ransome came we three should enjoy the smoking. Afterwards I learnt that Ransome was as poor as we were then.

In A Japanese Artist in London Markino wonders whether hsi friend Noguchi ever published his poems about the fogs of London that they has shared along the River Thames. Of course he did. 

I do not quarrel with the Englishmen when they hate the fogs ; but I should like toimpress on them their strange beauty. It is altogether their prejudice, not their blindness,not to sing them in poetry, paint them inpicture; I feel much pleased to speculate onthe possible effect of even Markino’s picturesof fog, although they might be unsatisfactoryto you, and think that they might open theireyes to the fogs without the appreciation ofwhich these months of London’s winter wouldbe sadder than total blank. I often thoughtof the London fogs as of a great artisticproblem (why not ?) ; they might stand in thesame relation as tsuyu^ or rainy season, for usJapanese. The beauty of the fogs can onlyappeal to one whose aestheticism is older thanlife; their grey effect is a far more livingthing than darkness or death. What a worldof twilight, where your dream and reality shallbe joined by one long sorrow of Eternity! What a song of greyness, which is the highest! What an atmosphere by whose magic youshall find slowly a mysterious way to yourideal. It is one month of rain that makesJapanese reflective, teaches them a lesson ofpatience, while the fogs turn Englishmen, the most unpoetical of people, even poetical, ac- cepting the theory that poetry is a criticism of life. It is again by reason of the mental effect they receive from them that they cannot leave poetry alone. Both of them, rain and fogs, force us within the door, and result in making us home people ; it is true, I think, we wouldnot have conceived such an elaborate way of making tea or arranging flowers, if we did not have the rainy season ; and without the winter of fogs, the English people would be less bright in conversation, and the delightfulness of the English drawing-room would be less complete. Indeed, for the existence of the society and the club in England the fogs should be thanked. Who will say they are disagreeable ? I believe that what I have said here is not merely a psychological speculation. It is not too much to say that there is no country like England, where people show their best at afternoon tea ; while the talk of gentlemen is always effective, the silence of the ladies is far more effective. (It reminds me that the voice is silver and silence gold.)

And there you have it. Rain makes the Japanese character and fog makes the English. And thanks to the fog there is afternoon tea.  

Words and illustrations from:
Yoshi Markino, The Colour of London (with W J Loftie) (1907)
Yoshi Markino, A Japanese Artist in London (1912)
Yoshi Markino, My recollections and Reflections (1913)
Alfred H. Hyatt compiler, Yoshio Markino illustrator The Charm of London: an anthology.
Yone Noguchi, The Story of Yone Noguchi (1914)

Markino also wrote a book about women – My Idealed John Bullesses – in which he writes extensively about his views on women and women’s suffrage. 

But that’s for another post.