The Anglo-Japanese style developed in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
through the
Victorian period
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian ...
and early
Edwardian
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...
period from approximately 1851 to the 1910s, when a new appreciation for
Japanese design and
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
influenced how designers and craftspeople made
British art
The Art of the United Kingdom refers to all forms of visual art in or associated with the United Kingdom since the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 and encompasses English art, Scottish art, Welsh art and Irish art, and forms ...
, especially the
decorative arts
]
The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usual ...
and
architecture of England
The architecture of England is the architecture of modern England and in the historic Kingdom of England. It often includes buildings created under English influence or by English architects in other parts of the world, particularly in the Engli ...
, covering a vast array of
art objects
A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...
including
ceramics
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...
,
furniture
Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Fu ...
and
interior design
Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordina ...
. Important centres for design included
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
.
The first use of the term "Anglo-Japanese" occurs in 1851, and developed due to the keen interest in Japan, which due to
Japanese state policy until the 1860s, had been closed to the Western markets. The style was popularised by Edward William Godwin in the 1870s in England, with many artisans working in the style drawing upon Japan as a source of inspiration and designed pieces based on Japanese Art, whilst some favoured Japan simply for its commercial viability, particularly true after the 1880s when the British interest in Eastern design and culture is regarded as a characteristic of the
Aesthetic Movement
Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century which privileged the aesthetic value of literature, music and the arts over their socio-political functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be prod ...
. By the 1890s–1910s further education occurred, and with the advent of bilateral trade and diplomatic relations, two-way channels between the UK and Japan occurred and the style morphed into one of cultural exchange and early modernism, diverging into the
Modern Style
The Modern Style is a style of architecture, art, and design that first emerged in the United Kingdom in the mid-1880s. It is the first Art Nouveau style worldwide, and it represents the evolution of the Arts and Crafts movement which was native ...
,
Liberty style
Liberty style ( it, Stile Liberty) was the Italian variant of Art Nouveau, which flourished between about 1890 and 1914. It was also sometimes known as ''stile floreale'', ''arte nuova'', or ''stile moderno''. It took its name from Arthur Lasenby ...
and anticipated the minimalism of 20th-century
modern design principles.
Notable British designers working in the Anglo-Japanese style include
Christopher Dresser
Christopher Dresser (4 July 1834 – 24 November 1904) was a British designer and design theorist, now widely known as one of the first and most important, independent designers. He was a pivotal figure in the Aesthetic Movement and a major cont ...
,
Edward William Godwin
Edward William Godwin (26 May 1833, Bristol – 6 October 1886, London) was a progressive English architect-designer, who began his career working in the strongly polychromatic " Ruskinian Gothic" style of mid-Victorian Britain, inspired by ...
,
James Lamb,
Philip Webb
Philip Speakman Webb (12 January 1831 – 17 April 1915) was a British architect and designer sometimes called the Father of Arts and Crafts Architecture. His use of vernacular architecture demonstrated his commitment to "the art of common ...
and the decorative arts wall painting of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Further influence can be found in works from the
Arts and Crafts movement; and in British designs in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, seen in the works of
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (7 June 1868 – 10 December 1928) was a Scottish architect, designer, water colourist and artist. His artistic approach had much in common with European Symbolism. His work, alongside that of his wife Margaret Macdo ...
.
Design Principles
Design features such as
Fukinsei (不均斉) and
Wabi-sabi(侘寂, imperfection) and simplification of layout prominently feature as aesthetical importation and adaptation in many Anglo-Japanese designers works and pieces. Christopher Dresser, who was the first European designer to visit Japan in 1876, brought back and popularised many influential
Japanese aesthetics
Japanese aesthetics comprise a set of ancient ideals that include '' wabi'' (transient and stark beauty), '' sabi'' (the beauty of natural patina and aging), and ''yūgen'' (profound grace and subtlety). These ideals, and others, underpin much of ...
in his books, ''Japan: Its Architecture, Art, and Art Manufactures'' (1882). The design principle shifted from one of first directly copying (practiced in Japonisme by figures like
Van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inclu ...
or
Lautrec
Lautrec (; oc, Lautrèc) is a commune in the Tarn department in southern France.
Demography
Remarkable sites
Lautrec is listed among "The Most Beautiful Villages of France" as well as a "Remarkable Site for Taste" thanks to its renowned ...
), to understanding the aesthetic principal behind Japanese art (practiced by Dresser and later Godwin), leading penultimately creating the new Anglo Japanese style. The impact of the shift in how design should be approached can be in seen in
C. F. A. Voysey
Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (28 May 1857 – 12 February 1941) was an English architect and furniture and textile designer. Voysey's early work was as a designer of wallpapers, fabrics and furnishings in a Arts and Crafts style and he ma ...
for his wallpaper at
Liberty's
Liberty, commonly known as Liberty's, is a luxury department store in London, England. It is located on Great Marlborough Street in the West End of London. The building spans from Carnaby Street on the East to Kingly Street on the West, where ...
, who felt that the underlying aesthetic of Japanese workmanship must first be understood to create an independent Anglo-Japanese work, and that to try to reproduce it when solely
aesthetical
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, ...
purpose and outside tradition would pragmatically create superficial work. Speaking in 1917, comparing his abhorrence of the many poor contemporaneous imitations and 'traditional Japanese' works to 18th century English
Chinoiserie
(, ; loanword from French ''wikt:chinoiserie#French, chinoiserie'', from ''wikt:chinois#French, chinois'', "Chinese"; ) is the European interpretation and imitation of China, Chinese and other East Asia, East Asian artistic traditions, especial ...
Japanning
Japanning is a type of finish that originated as a European imitation of East Asian lacquerwork. It was first used on furniture, but was later much used on small items in metal. The word originated in the 17th century. American work, with the ...
furniture, he noted that although "we may fitly imitate in an object of our own, the finish we find in Japanese workmanship, but the imitation of its traditional thought and feeling is absurd,
Chippendale exhibited this kind of
isualabsurdity when he produced his Chinese furniture".
Interior Design
![Maru-ni Neagari Tachibana inverted 3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Maru-ni_Neagari_Tachibana_inverted_3.png)
In the design of furniture, the most common and characteristic features are refined lines and nature motifs such as '
Mons
Mons (; German and nl, Bergen, ; Walloon and pcd, Mont) is a city and municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the province of Hainaut, Belgium.
Mons was made into a fortified city by Count Baldwin IV of Hainaut in the 12th century. T ...
', and most particularly an
ebonized
Ebonising is a process for darkening wood, giving it an appearance similar to ebony, hence the name.
It is particularly used for pianos and fine furniture.
History
While little record exists of who invented ebonizing, it was popular among the upp ...
finish (or even ebony) echoing the well known '
japanned
Japanning is a type of finish that originated as a European imitation of East Asian lacquerwork. It was first used on furniture, but was later much used on small items in metal. The word originated in the 17th century. American work, with the ...
' finish. Halen (p. 69) proposes an ebonized chair exhibited at the 1862 International Exhibition by A.F. Bornemann & Co of Bath, and described (and possibly designed) by
Christopher Dresser
Christopher Dresser (4 July 1834 – 24 November 1904) was a British designer and design theorist, now widely known as one of the first and most important, independent designers. He was a pivotal figure in the Aesthetic Movement and a major cont ...
as the ''quaint and unique Japanese character'', to be the first documented piece of furniture in the Anglo-Japanese style. The types of furniture required in England such as wardrobes,
sideboard
A sideboard, also called a buffet, is an item of furniture traditionally used in the dining room for serving food, for displaying serving dishes, and for storage. It usually consists of a set of cabinets, or cupboards, and one or more drawers ...
s and even dining-tables and easy-chairs did not have a Japanese precedent therefore Japanese principles and motifs had to be adapted to existing types in order to meet English requirements.
Dresser noted that the 'Mons' of Japanese Art also have their similarities in
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
* Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Fo ...
'rudimentary art'.
Architecture
![Japanese Ornament by Christopher Dresser 1879](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Japanese_Ornament_by_Christopher_Dresser_1879.jpg)
Many British designers of the Victorian period were taught the
Neo-gothic
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
design principles of
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...
and
Owen Jones
Owen Jones (born 8 August 1984) is a British newspaper columnist, political commentator, journalist, author, and left-wing activist. He writes a column for ''The Guardian'' and contributes to the ''New Statesman'' and ''Tribune.'' He has two w ...
, principally the ''Grammar of
Ornament'' (1856), which did not include Japan. 'Ornament' referring to an important aspect of English architectural decorative design for the period, deriving from the popular ornamentation at the time found on the exterior of European churches, and placing this beside nature. Yet by 1879, it was reported that ornamental gothic 'natural forms
adall the nature flattened out of them,
eingarbitrarily and mechanically arranged', and thus for satisfactorily replacing the Ornament of Owen Jones, Japanese art had 'taught
he British architectthe lesson we wanted, in teaching us how to adapt natural forms without taking the nature out of them. Gothic art showed us something of this; but it did not show it so clearly, nor in so many ways, as Japanese
rt has done; 'for even their copies are not slavishly mechanical but free ...
hown inhow the Japanese can introduce into a panel something of pictorial expression without loss of decorative simplicity.'
Pottery and Porcelain
When designing pottery and ceramics, early influences on the style came from 'japonaiserie' influence and early influences show how Dresser working with Minton's incorporated the superficial exterior of Japanese pottery techniques and colour in
porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainl ...
, but not its design principles or aesthetical practices. Dresser turned to designing a number of direct Japanese-influenced pieces such as his wave ceramic (pictured in gallery), and later drew from the direct influence of Japanese aesthetics, which he took from his time learning from artisans in his visit to the country in the 1870s. This in turn became in the 1880–1889 period known as 'Art Pottery', under the Aesthetic branch of the style, and was practiced by a number of other potters and ceramicists, particularly stoneware pots. Common motifs included prunus blossom, pine branches, storks and roundels.
[http://www.victorianweb.org/art/design/ceramics/haslam1.html (Accessed 23 October 2020)]
Metalwork
Metalwork in the 1880s also drew from a blend of 'Gothic Revival, naturalism and a Western interpretation of the arts of Japan'.
[https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/furnishing-the-aesthetic-home (Accessed 1 November 2020)]
Furniture
Many Anglo-Japanese pieces of furniture were made, but the furniture designed by Godwin for William Watt is the most definitive of its kind. Godwin never travelled to Japan, but collected Japanese art objects circa 1863, and designed his furniture based on replicating adapted forms from these objects, creating a distinctive English style of Japanese inspired furniture in the 1870s, dubbing it the 'Anglo-Japanese Style'. Japanese illustration, woodblock prints, Japanese family crests and the Manga series inspired many of his furniture designs 'curved lintels and geometric grille patterns'. Furniture in Godwin's image was refined, sparse of ornament and asymmetrical in its design, often in ebonized woods with simple decoration using Japanese paper or minute wood carved detailing. In the White House in Chelsea, he organised the furniture to be distributed asymmetrically, and the walls to covered in gold leaf inspired by Japanese design and interiors.
England
Whilst trade with
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
had first commenced in 1613–1623, under the policy of
Sakoku
was the Isolationism, isolationist Foreign policy of Japan, foreign policy of the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate under which, for a period of 265 years during the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868), relations and trade between Japan and other countri ...
the import and export market of Japan had been limited to smuggled contraband and was only available once again 150 years later when 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 ...
ensured British trade once more, after the
opening of Japan
was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji government. ...
in
1853.
1850–1859: Early Exchange
The Museum of Ornamental Art, later the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
, bought
Japanese lacquer
is a Japanese craft with a wide range of fine and decorative arts, as lacquer has been used in '' urushi-e'', prints, and on a wide variety of objects from Buddha statues to ''bento'' boxes for food.
The characteristic of Japanese lacquerware ...
and
porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainl ...
in 1852, and again in 1854 with the purchase of 37 items from the exhibition at the
Old Water-Colour Society
The Royal Watercolour Society is a British institution of painters working in watercolours. The Society is a centre of excellence for water-based media on paper, which allows for a diverse and interesting range of approaches to the medium of wat ...
, London. Japanese art was exhibited in London in 1851,
Dublin in 1853; Edinburgh 1856 and 1857; Manchester in 1857, and Bristol in 1861.
![Japan 1862 International Exhibition](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Japan_1862_International_Exhibition.jpg)
In 1858, a 'series of roller printed cottons' with direct Japanese influence were made by Daniel Lee of Manchester.
[Liberty's : a biography of a shop, Alison Adburgham, 1975, p. 14]
1860–1869: Import Influx
With
Rutherford Alcock
Sir John Rutherford Alcock, KCB (25 May 1809''London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538–1812''2 November 1897) was the first British diplomatic representative to live in Japan.
Early life
Alcock was born in St J ...
also organising the unofficial Japan Booth, the
1862 International Exhibition
The International Exhibition of 1862, or Great London Exposition, was a world's fair. It was held from 1 May to 1 November 1862, beside the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society, South Kensington, London, England, on a site that now houses ...
in London displayed a number of everyday objects; the impact of which has been considered 'one of the most influential events in the history of Japanese art in the West', introducing people such as Christopher Dresser to
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 ...
. Early examples of Japanese influence and inspiration in ceramics were noted by Dresser in his reviews of the International Exhibition, London 1862, where he remarked on Minton's 'vases enriched with Chinese or Japanese ornament', and in his purchasing and sketching of the goods at the exhibition.
Alcock noted that of the 1862 exhibition: "I occupied myself in collecting, for the gratification of the cultured and the instruction of the working and industrial classes of England, evidence of what Art had done for the Japanese and their industries".
When the exhibit closed, interest began around Japanese objects and Japan itself, and collectors, artists and merchants such as
Arthur Lasenby Liberty
Sir Arthur Lasenby Liberty (13 August 1843 – 11 May 1917) was a London-based merchant, and the founder of Liberty & Co.
Early life
Arthur Liberty was born on 13 August 1843 in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England, the son of a draper. He be ...
and Farmers and Rogers Oriental Warehouse began to collect Japanese art and objects.
[Art nouveau, Robert Schmutzler, 1978, p. 21] With the opening of the
treaty ports
Treaty ports (; ja, 条約港) were the port cities in China and Japan that were opened to foreign trade mainly by the unequal treaties forced upon them by Western powers, as well as cities in Korea opened up similarly by the Japanese Empire.
...
in Japan, four Japanese cities began exporting goods to the United Kingdom. Most of these items eventually began to influence the art of British artisans and enter the home of British elites.
[''Japantastic: Japanese-inspired patterns for British homes, 1880–1930'', Zoë Hendon, 2010, p. 4, Middlesex University London, Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture] A number of artists from the
Pre-Raphaelite
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...
circle such as
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...
,
[http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/pr5246.a43.rad.html (Accessed 7 November 2020)] Ford Madox Brown
Ford Madox Brown (16 April 1821 – 6 October 1893) was a British painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often William Hogarth, Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his mos ...
(Rossetti's friend),
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...
[http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/sime/polm1.html (Accessed 30 October 2020)] and
Simeon Solomon
Simeon Solomon (9 October 1840 – 14 August 1905) was a British painter associated with the Pre-Raphaelites who was noted for his depictions of Jewish life and same-sex desire. His career was cut short as a result of public scandal following h ...
also was beginning to use
Oriental
The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the ...
influences in their works;
Albert Joseph Moore
Albert Joseph Moore (4 September 184125 September 1893) was an English painter, known for his depictions of languorous female figures set against the luxury and decadence of the classical world.
Life
Moore was born at York on 4 September 1841 ...
and
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...
also began to frequent the warehouse importing these goods in London. Architect
Edward William Godwin
Edward William Godwin (26 May 1833, Bristol – 6 October 1886, London) was a progressive English architect-designer, who began his career working in the strongly polychromatic " Ruskinian Gothic" style of mid-Victorian Britain, inspired by ...
also designed his home and bought
ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...
in 1862 to decorate his home;
William Eden Nesfield
William Eden Nesfield (2 April 1835 – 25 March 1888) was an English architect. Like his some-time partner, Richard Norman Shaw, he designed several houses in Britain in the revived 'Old English' and 'Queen Anne' styles during the 1860s and 1 ...
also designed early pieces in the style.
![Cult-of-beauty-001](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Cult-of-beauty-001.jpg)
In 1863
John Leighton (artist) gave a lecture on 'Japanese art' to the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
and Alcock gave another at the
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...
Philosophical Society in the same year. The rise of Yokohama Shashin (Yokohama photography) from early photographers such as
Felice Beato
Felice Beato (1832 – 29 January 1909), also known as Felix Beato, was an Italian–British photographer. He was one of the first people to take photographs in East Asia and one of the first war photographers. He is noted for his genre works, ...
also introduced the ''pictorial arts'' to Britain, and alongside the imports of new woodblock prints, became fashionable objects to own and discuss in artistic and academic circles.
Glass ware was also influenced by Japanese art and the 'Frog decanter' exhibited by Thomas Webb at the International Exhibition in Paris 1867 is in its subject, simplicity and asymmetry the earliest example of Japanese influence on English glass identified to date.
Certainly by 1867, Edward William Godwin and Christopher Dresser had become aware of Japanese art objects, particularly Japanese woodblock printing styles, forms and colour schemes.
[In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement, Doreen Bolger Burke, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, 1986, p. 149, Metropolitan Museum of Art – New York, Rizzoli] Further interest was taken by the British government on the collection of
Washi
is traditional Japanese paper. The term is used to describe paper that uses local fiber, processed by hand and made in the traditional manner. ''Washi'' is made using fibers from the inner bark of the gampi tree, the mitsumata shrub (''Ed ...
paper for the
V&A when the like was collected on masse for exhibition in London, collected by
Harry Parkes between 1867 and 1868.
Influenced by Whistler and a love of historical painting styles, Moore blended the aesthetical vernacular of Greek and Japanese using the Art for Art's sake Japanese decorative and aesthetical style, seen in Moore's 1868 painting ''Azaleas'', which 'reconciled the arts of Japan and Greece, and the aesthetic and classical, in a new Victorian combination'. Whilst Whistler certainly influenced the popularity of Japanese art, he often butted heads with other collectors on
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 ...
, frequently butting heads with the
Rosetti Brothers on the collection of
Ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...
and Japanese woodblock prints.
Dante saw the refinement of line in Japanese arts as having "nothing to ask of European attainment or models; it is an integral organism ...
eing in its accuracy and finessemore instinctive than the artists of other races." Whereas Whistler drew on the French ideal of
''l'art pour l'art'', and that Japanese ''art d'object'' where simply there with 'no social message, no commitment,
no reason to exist except to be beautiful'.
By 1869, Godwin, not only having involved living with Japanese intereriors in his home in
Harpenden
Harpenden () is a town and civil parish in the City and District of St Albans in the county of Hertfordshire, England. The population of the built-up area was 30,240 in the 2011 census, whilst the population of the civil parish was 29,448. Har ...
with
Ellen Terry
Dame Alice Ellen Terry, (27 February 184721 July 1928), was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Born into a family of actors, Terry began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and tour ...
, had begun to design in the early incarnation of Anglo-Japanese design at Dromore Castle in
Limerick
Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2016 ...
, Ireland in the Gothic and Japanese style.
James McNeill Whistler - La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine - Google Art Project edit2.jpg, Whistler, La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine (1863–1865), an example of the Art for art's sake
Art for art's sake—the usual English rendering of ''l'art pour l'art'' (), a French slogan from the latter part of the 19th century—is a phrase that expresses the philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only 'true' art, is divorce ...
style
Dante Gabriel Rossetti - The Blue Bower.jpg, Rossetti
The House of Rossetti is an Italian noble, and Boyar Princely family appearing in the 14th-15th century, originating among the patrician families, during the Republic of Genoa, with branches of the family establishing themselves in the Kingdom o ...
, ''The Blue Bower'' (1865), sitter holds a Koto
Koto may refer to:
* Koto (band), an Italian synth pop group
* Koto (instrument), a Japanese musical instrument
* Koto (kana), a ligature of two Japanese katakana
* Koto (traditional clothing), a traditional dress made by Afro-Surinamese women
* K ...
The Japanese Fan by Simeon Solomon (1865).jpg, Solomon
Solomon (; , ),, ; ar, سُلَيْمَان, ', , ; el, Σολομών, ; la, Salomon also called Jedidiah (Hebrew language, Hebrew: , Modern Hebrew, Modern: , Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yăḏīḏăyāh'', "beloved of Yahweh, Yah"), ...
, ''The Japanese Fan'' (1865)
File:James Abbott McNeill Whistler - Whistler in his studio.jpg, Whistler's London Studio (1865)
The Temple of Kamakura, Japan Wellcome V0037652.jpg, Beato and Kerr
Kerr may refer to:
People
*Kerr (surname)
*Kerr (given name) Places
;United States
*Kerr Township, Champaign County, Illinois
*Kerr, Montana, A US census-designated place
*Kerr, Ohio, an unincorporated community
*Kerr County, Texas
Other uses
...
, Example of Yokohama Shashin (c. 1866)
William Eden Nesfield Japanese Screen 1867.jpg, Nesfield Japanese Screen (1867)
1870–1879: Influence and Imitation
![Vase (England), 1871-1875 (CH 18633979-2)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Vase_%28England%29%2C_1871-1875_%28CH_18633979-2%29.jpg)
Early in the decade, the
Watcombe pottery
The Aller Vale Pottery was formed in 1865 on the northern edge of the village of Kingskerswell in South Devon, England on the likely site of a medieval pottery. It became well known for the creation of art pottery at the end of the 19th century a ...
in
Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...
produced unglazed
terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, a ...
wares, some of which rely entirely on Japanese forms and the natural colour of the clay for their ornamental effect. Japanese inspired porcelains by the
Worcester porcelain
Royal Worcester is a porcelain brand based in Worcester, England. It was established in 1751 and is believed to be the oldest or second oldest remaining English porcelain brand still in existence today, although this is disputed by Royal Crown De ...
factory at a similar date were much admired by the Japanese themselves. In 1870, Japanese pottery began to influence British ceramics, the potter
Hannah Barlow made a number of animal designs, omitting heavy ornamentation/decorative foliage common in Victorian pottery, on clay during her time at
Royal Doulton
Royal Doulton is an English ceramic and home accessories manufacturer that was founded in 1815. Operating originally in Vauxhall, London, and later moving to Lambeth, in 1882 it opened a factory in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, in the centre of Engl ...
, inspired by Ukiyo-e. Dresser had a successful line with
Minton of blue closionne vases. In 1873,
George Ashdown Audsley
George Ashdown Audsley (September 6, 1838 – June 21, 1925) was an accomplished architect, artist, illustrator, writer, decorator and pipe organ designer who excelled in many artistic fields but is perhaps best known today for having designe ...
gave a lecture on Japanese Ceramic artworks at
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
.
Thomas Jeckyll
Thomas Jeckyll (1827 Wymondham, Norfolk – 1881 Norwich) (baptised on 20 June 1827) was an English architect who excelled in the creation of metalwork and furniture strongly influenced by Japanese design, and is best known for his planning in 1 ...
designed a number of his 'mon' fireplaces, used by architects like Dresser and Norman Shaw, becoming extremely popular in 1873. Jeckyll also designed the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition's 1876 Japanese Pavilion in wrought iron, the decorative motif here of the sunflower was heavily employed in the structures ornament, which although used before as a motif by Jeckyll, popularised the association of the sunflower as a floral motif in the Anglo-Japanese style.
Other artists such as Walter Crane, particularly his ''The Frog Prince'' (1874), began to display signs of Japanese influence in how they employ the bright colours of Japanese woodblock prints he had first used in other children series (between 1869 and 1875) which he had first been introduced to in his time in art school in England.
Japan took part in the 1874 International Exhibition. In 1874–1876, Warner & Sons produced a number of successful wallpapers, designed by
Edward William Godwin
Edward William Godwin (26 May 1833, Bristol – 6 October 1886, London) was a progressive English architect-designer, who began his career working in the strongly polychromatic " Ruskinian Gothic" style of mid-Victorian Britain, inspired by ...
, heavily featuring circular 'mons', and chrysanthemum motifs, the mons being directly taken from Japanese design, found in a book; owned by Godwin's wife; Beatrice Godwin. As well by 1874, Japanese imports had also picked up and
Arthur Lasenby Liberty
Sir Arthur Lasenby Liberty (13 August 1843 – 11 May 1917) was a London-based merchant, and the founder of Liberty & Co.
Early life
Arthur Liberty was born on 13 August 1843 in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England, the son of a draper. He be ...
became well known as a Japanese goods importer at his store Liberty's (or for example 'small silver hinged boxes cloisonne-enamelled in an Anglo-Japanese style'), particularly for ladies fan in 1875. In the same year, Thomas Edward Collcutt began designing a number of Japanese inspired ebonized sideboards, cabinets and chairs for Collinson & Lock.
Augustus Wollaston Franks set up an exhibition of ceramics, mainly porcelain, at the Bethnal Green Museum in 1876; having collected netsuke and tsuba from Japan. Godwin in the British Architect reported that Liberty's ''[has] Japanese papers for the walls; curtain stuffs for windows and doors; folding screens, chairs, stools [etc. ... Sometimes] one stumbles across a rug that is irritating in its sheer violence of colour. Such coarseness, however, is rarely or ever to be found even in the ''modern'' products of Japan. ... Either the European market is ruining Japanese art, or the Japanese have taken our artistic measure and found it wanting; perhaps there is a little of both.'' Godwin was commenting on the increase in Japanese goods both original and made for the European market at the time. Stencilled mulberry wallpapers, fabrics made and imported with tussore silk on a wider loom by Liberty and Thomas Wardle (industrialist), Thomas Wardle alongside other Japanese imports were also said to be being sold by this time in London at William Whiteley's, Debenham and Freebody and Swan & Edgar.The imported silks were incredibly popular with painters like Moore who preferred their use in drapery on artists-models.
In 1877, Godwin designed the white house for Whistler in Chelsea. He also made his William Watt Anglo Japanese Style furniture, and his Japanese Mon inspired wallpapers. Thomas Jeckyll also then designed the Peacock Room for the shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland; and these types of Japanese ornamentation can also be found in the design of his fireplaces. The Grosvenor Gallery opens; showcasing Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket, Whistler's Black Nocturne leading to the infamous dispute with Ruskin over the worth of an artwork. In 1878, Daniel Cottier finished a series of stained glass window panels ''Morning Glories'' which detail 'a lattice fence ... which adapt from a variety of Japanese ... screens, textile stencils, manga and ukiyo-e prints'. Indeed, Cottier ( a Glaswegian who worked in London and New York City) had his Studio and shop full of Aesthetic and Anglo-Japanese ebonised-wood furniture, his Studio producing through his apprentice Stephen Adam until the 1880s a number of Japanese decorative carpentry pieces, frequently using dark woods and gold floral Chrysanthemum accents, all popular Japanese motifs amongst westerners produced for the Western markets. Alcock also published his ''Art and Art Industries in Japan'' in 1878.
In 1879, Dresser was in partnership with Charles Holme (1848–1923) as Dresser & Holme, wholesale importers of Oriental goods, with a warehouse at 7 Farringdon Road, London. Collectors such as the Liverpool magnate James Lord Bowes began collecting Japanese goods. James Lamb (cabinetmaker) and Henry Ogden & Sons also began making Anglo-Japanese furniture for the western market such as hanging cabinets and tables and chairs. With some pottery produced at the Linthorpe Pottery, founded in 1879, closely followed Japanese examples in simple forms and especially in rich ceramic glaze effects quite revolutionary in the English market. In commercial mass-produced tablewares, the style was most represented by transfer prints depicting Japanese botanical or animal motifs such as bamboos, and birds; scenes of Japan or Japanese objects such as fans. Often these were placed in a novel asymmetrical fashion in defiance of French architecture#Baroque, Western tradition. Other potters who designed in the style included Martin Brothers from 1879 until 1904, with many of their works mostly decorative stoneware, heavily reliant on the principle of fish and floral motifs and some glazes in their later works.
Aesthetic painters included William Stephen Coleman, Henry Stacy Marks,
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...
and Jean-Charles Cazin. Aesthetic artist who drew from the style frequently used imagery such as Peacocks, and came to be known by their artistic peers as belonging to the 'Cult of Japan'.
Cottier 1870 or so cabinet.jpg, Daniel Cottier, Cottier Cabinet
TheFrogPrinceCover.jpg, Walter Crane, Crane, ''The Frog Prince'' (1874)
File:2006AC7218 jpg l.jpg, Edward William Godwin, Godwin Anglo-Japanese Wallpaper (c. 1874)
Anglo Japanese Furniture 1875.jpg, Edward William Godwin, Godwin, Anglo Japanese Furniture (1875)
Tile MET DP-13486-039.jpg, Christopher Dresser, Dresser, Staffordshire Ceramic tile (c. 1875)
Keramic art of Japan Plate IV.jpg, James Lord Bowes, Bowes, Keramic art of Japan Plate IV (1875)
Keramic art of Japan Plate XVLIII.jpg, Bowes, Awagi Keramic Ware (1875)
Thomas jeckyll per barnard, bishop and barnard, norfolk iron works, mostra di camino, ferro, 1875 ca.jpg, Thomas Jeckyll, Jeckyll Mon (emblem), Mon Fireplace for Barnard, Bishop & Barnards (1875)
Thomas Jeckyll Sunflower 1876 Japanese Pavilion.jpg, Jeckyll, Sunflower railing for the Japanese Pavilion (1876)
Edward william godwin per william watt, credenza, londra 1876.jpg, Edward William Godwin, Sideboard for William Watt (1876)
Tall vase with four roundels MET DP704001.jpg, Martin Brothers, Japanese bird motif Vase (1876)
Anglo Japanese Furniture.jpg, Godwin, Art Furniture (1877)
Peacock Room 1890.jpg, Peacock Room (1877; image taken in 1890)
Christopher Dresser - Teapot - 1879.jpg, Dresser, Teapot, (1879)
Vase MET ES5471.jpg, Dresser, Linthorpe Art Pottery Vase (1879–1882)
1880–1889: Aesthetical Art
By the 1880s, the style had become a major influence on the art and decoration of the time, particularly Aestheticism. When the aesthetes began to incorporate Japanese styles into their movement, they took on common motifs such as the sunflower, butterfly, peacock and Japanese fan.
Particularly in 1880, Bruce James Talbert produced a number of ebonised Anglo-Japanese siedeboards and chairs using the sunflower motif throughout. He also produced a number of aesthetical wallpapers in the style for Warner and Ramm, notably 'characteristic [using] Japanese simplicity of line and colour' drawn from the aesthetial practices taught in the works of Dresser and Godwin. Another popular fabric employed in the Aesthetics were the tussore silks of 'Liberty Colours'. As aestheticism began to grow more popular, designers found the 'cult of personality, particularly when it involved creators of art, fundamentally conflicted with Ruskin's and Morris's emphasis upon the importance of traditional craftsman and artisans.' Liberty in particular, who sided with the ideals of William Morris; rejected early aestheticism, reflected later in what became the
Liberty style
Liberty style ( it, Stile Liberty) was the Italian variant of Art Nouveau, which flourished between about 1890 and 1914. It was also sometimes known as ''stile floreale'', ''arte nuova'', or ''stile moderno''. It took its name from Arthur Lasenby ...
.
Frederick William Sutton, an early Collodion photographer who had travelled to Japan in 1868 with the Royal Navy, gave eight lectures (between 1879–1883) on the new art form of photography in Japan. These lectures showcased early photographs and travel in Japan and in his sixth lecture, identified the concepts of 'Old and New Japan', a Victorian Ideal which divided the Meiji period into the time before Western contact and afterwards; Old Japan denoting an idealized, rural notion of the country from a time before the Meiji Restoration and ''New Japan'' being the industrial, Sonno joi, westerner-tolerant Japan.
Stevens & Williams then in 1884 began to make their 'Matsu-no-Kee' decorative glass and fairy bowls, which took on the simplified nature so prominent amongst the Anglo-Japanese style and from the bright colour schemes seen in contemporary woodblock prints. Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo also began designing furniture inspired by Ikebana, as was noted further by many periodicals in the time on the subject of Japanese flower arrangement.
In 1887, Charles Holmes founder of The Studio Magazine, travels to Japan with Arthur Liberty. In the same year, Mortimer Menpes also presents his first Japanese inspired exhibition in London; rousing the ire of Whistler.
Alfred East is commissioned by the Fine Art Society to paint in Japan for 6 months in 1888, and Frank Morley Fletcher becomes introduced to Japanese woodcuts, helping through the next 22 years to teach about them in London and Reading, Yorkshire. In 1889 Oscar Wilde noted on The Decay of Lying how "In fact the whole of Japan is pure invention. ... The Japanese people are ... simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art." Also see Whistler's paintings and designs (principally in ''The Peacock Room'' and his Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, nocturnes series).
Arthur Morrison begins his 'collecting' of Japanese paintings (culminating in his 1911 publication) and woodblock prints, buying wares in Wapping and Limehouse and bought through his friend Harold George Parlett (1869–1945), a British Japanese diplomat and writer on Buddhism; this eventually became the Arthur Morrison collection in the British Museum.
File:Sidewall, ca. 1880 (CH 85010155-2).jpg, Anonymous, Aesthetic Wallpaper (1880)
Sidewall, ca. 1880 (CH 85010181-2).jpg, Aesthetic Wallpaper (c1880)
Wave bowl MET LC-2001 549-001.jpg, Dresser, 'Wave bowl' (c. 1880)
Daniel Cottier cabinet from 1880.jpg, Daniel Cottier, Cottier, Ebonised Cabinet (1880)
Nagasaki fabric 1880.jpg, Bruce James Talbert, Talbert, ''Nagasaki'' design (1880)
Thomas Jeckyll01.jpg, Thomas Jeckyll, Jeckyll, Butterfly motif (c. 1880–1881)
Matsu-no-Kee Art Glass.jpg, Steven & Williams, 'Matsu-no-Kee' Style Art-Glass (c. 1884)
Theodor Roussel Reading Girl 1886.jpg, Theodore Roussel, Roussel, ''Reading Girl'' (1886)
Late 19th century interior design, Museum of the Home.jpg, Museum of the Home, Aesthetical Interior (1882–1888)
Steps to Maruyama by Alfred East.jpg, Alfred East, East, ''Steps to Maruyama'' (1888)
1890–1899: Class Consciousness
During the 1890s, the Anglo-Japanese was at the height of its popularity, with the middle classes in Victorian Britain also began to begin collecting and buying Japanese imports and Anglo-Japanese style designs and pieces.
In 1890 the Bowes Museum of Japanese Art Work in Liverpool opening; in The Magazine of Art under Marion Harry Spielmann a number of articles were also published regarding Japanese art in the decade.
Two years prior, the painter Mortimer Menpes had travelled to Japan. Whilst there, Menpes developed a fascination with the architectural and decorative arts and upon return to London in 1889, had his home 'decorated in the Japanese style' by the architect Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo at 25 Cadogan Gardens, London by 1890.
[http://www.victorianweb.org/art/design/japan/menpes.html (Accessed 23 October 2020)]
Menpes issued an Osaka-based Japanese company to furnish his home with stained curved wood panelling, traditionally seen in Japanese castle, Shiro interiors or Cornice, cornicing with gold detailing; based on Lacquerware, Japanese lacquer, installed Kunmiko Ramma (decorative latticed ventilation screens), double-sided Anglo-Japanese window frames and employed typical minimal decoration. Furniture was also imported from Europe and Japan, with European chairs, sofa's and woven tapestries, simplistic 'Japanese character' drawers and cabinets, bronze and paper lanterns and lighting fixtures and porcelain jars which Menpes collaborated with Japanese potters on whilst in Japan.
:"Mr. Menpes, by his free application of gold and colours and by his display in European fashion of numerous ornaments, has rather gone beyond Japanese custom in domestic interiors, ... as he has wished to adapt from rather than slavishly imitate the prototype. ... there is a growing feeling in the minds of many, and especially among those to whom the question of expense is not of paramount importance, that a house, to be in the highest sense an artistic house, should contain no decorations but those made by the hands of man, and especially adapted to their surroundings. Let ornament be used as sparingly as may be desired, but whatever there is of it, let it be of the best. Plain structural forms and plain surfaces add to rather than detract from the beauty of a house, provided their proportions are duly considered and that they are so placed that they relieve in effect some object of consummate decorative value." The Studio (magazine), ''The Studio'' #17 (1899)
In 1891 the the Japan Society of the UK, Japan Society was founded, and began to disseminate the writings of Britis
expatriatesWilliam Gowland, who had worked within Japan, and
writings on Japanese art on topics such as Japanese woodwork, metalwork and Japanese artists Toyokuni I, Hiroshige, Kyosai, the Kano School. Contemporary Japanese art critics also published with the society such as Yone Noguchi and Okakura Kakuzō. Arthur Silver at Rottman, Strome, and Co began using the Ise katagami technique to make wallpaper. Andrew White Tuer also publishes information on katagami stencilling, promoted in England as sanitary 'leather paper' in his ''Book of Delightful and Strange Designs, Being One Hundred Facsimile Illustrations of the Art of the Japanese Stencil Cutter'' (1892). Furniture in the Anglo Japanese style was also reported by this time to have begun to use Mother-of-Pearl-inlay, a traditionally Japanese material made in Japan and imported for the British market.
Allen William Seaby, pupil of Fletchley at the University of Reading begins to study Japanese woodblock printing.
![Mikado Ricketts](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Mikado_Ricketts.jpg)
One notable example from the decade of the move into the modern style includes Aubrey Beardsley, who intertwined the influence of what was termed in England the Modern Style with Japanese woodblock prints (such as Hokusai's Manga, made from 1814 to 1878) to form an English adaptation of the 'grotesque effects which the Japanese convention allowed' of presenting illustration in the Salome (1893) and ''The Yellow Book'' (1894–1897), particularly his 'Bon-Mots of Sydney Smith' (1893) illustrations. He was known to have received a copy of shunga by the artist Utamaro from William Rothenstein which heavily influenced Beardsley's own erotic imagery, being first introduced to Japanese woodblock prints during his lunch hours working in Frederick Evan's Holborn bookstore circa 1889. Beardsley was drawn to the Japanese sensibility of depicting the nude human body by being open to nudity and depicting this humorously, rejecting Victorian notions of how the body should be depicted in art. As well as the 'asymmetrical distribution of masses, ... absence of compactness, space, or light and shadow' amongst the 'curved lines' of the Peacock skirt.
Charles Ricketts also showcased the influence of Japanese line art in Wilde's 1891 ''House of Pomegranates'' which used Peacock and crocus blooms which 'appear in uniform rows like a repeated wallpaper pattern' (such as in the aesthetical merit of Voysey) and the 'asymmetrical construction of the page [, bookcover and illustration]' design; drawing also from nature; and in his proportions for the 1894 Wilde publication of the Sphinx which also predated the early form of English-Japanese influences of the Modern Style. The forms of waves in House of Pomegranates is also heavily reminiscent of Hokusai's woodblock prints.
The Japanese House in London.jpg, Mortimer Menpes, Menpes, London 'Japanese-House' Interior (c. 1890)
Charles Ricketts Pomegranate book binding design 1891.jpg, Charles Ricketts, Ricketts Pomegranate frontispiece design (1891)
Beardsley-peacockskirt.PNG, Aubrey Beardsley, Beardsley, Peacock-skirt Illustration (1892)
British 1893 Katagami wallpaper stencil.jpg, Andrew White Tuer, Tuer, Katagami wallpaper stencil (1893)
Wilde 1894.jpg, Ricketts, Sphinx design (1894)
Charles Francis Annesley Voysey - Tulip - Google Art Project.jpg, C. F. A. Voysey, Voysey, Liberty Wallpaper (1893–95)
1900–1925: Modernism and Bilateral Exchange
![Berkley Sq, London W1 (25954583006)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Berkley_Sq%2C_London_W1_%2825954583006%29.jpg)
In 1902, with the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Japan gained great power status in the eyes of British foreign policy-makers and along with 'progressive' Industrial Revolution, industrialisation, Japanese influence became more pronounced, particularly with regard to the ship building industry in Glasgow. As such, British society began to exchange further with this fellow industrialised nation, exchanging ideas on Art, Aesthetics (particularly compositional) and academic bilateral exchange so that by the end of the 1910s, with this industrial, educational and academically driven shift, bilateral cultural exchange replaced the one-way Anglo-Japanese Style by way of greater cultural understanding of Japanese Art and its history, certainly among academics and publicly available national museums, and notable Japanese art figures, scholars and critics.
Liberty's and the Modern Style; 1900–1915
![1880 liberty advertisement](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/1880_liberty_advertisement.png)
By 1901, Liberty Style began to flourish in Italy. This derived from a number of Japanese, Greek, Celtic and Renaissance themes, 'with those Japanese elements appealing to English sensibilities: asymmetry, simplicity, sensitivity to medium, and ... modest materials', which 'attained international popularity and came to epitomize British art nouveau' (also known as the modern style in England). First in England, with Liberty's rejection of the Aestheticism movements art principles of Art for Arts sake as poor design, favouring good design in mass manufacturing formats.
With the influence of Mackintosh, and the design department's simplicity or vacui of design seen in the works of Archibald Knox (designer), Archibald Knox, Arthur Silver, C F A Voysey and the popularity of the blend of Japanese and Celtic motif Mackintosh introduced in Europe, Japanese art aesthetic continued to influence and instill itself into the British design schools. Japanese influence was accepted among influences into the modern style from the time Liberty first began importing Japanese goods in the 1860s as 'England not only preceded other countries by several decades in accepting the example offered by Japan, but also underwent its influence over a much longer period' culminating for Liberty in eventually what became the modern style in England, taking from Japanese design the refined elegance inherent in the sparsity of Japanese design.
Otto Eckmann noted in the period that 'only England knew how to assimilate and transform this wealth of new ideas and to adapt them to its innate national character, thus deriving real profit from the Japanese style' in his preface to a series on ''Jugendstil''; these decorative Japanese influenced Liberty textiles had thus become extremely popular in Germany; in Italy the style was known as Stile Liberty after the fabric designs of Liberty's, and seen in the Prima Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa Moderna, Turin 1902 Exhibition and work of Carlo Bugatti. So in England, the Modern Style thus emerged in this melding of cultural motif, and also emerged in the works Ricketts for Wilde and of Beardsley in the last years of his life, inspired by Utamaro prints.
Japanese interior design is also heavily prominent in the works of Charles Voysey, and shared with Mackintosh for their 'abastraction ... of new and individual approaches to the design of interior space'. Seen most heavily in his wallpaper designs which reduced ornamental and decorative elements, Voysey declared he wished in his design to start by 'getting rid of useless ornament and burning the modish finery which disfigures our furniture and our household utensils ... [and] to cut down the number of patterns and [colours] in one room.' The influence on his interiors can be seen in Garden Corner, Horniman House from 1906 to 1907.
Garden Design 1901–1910
With this appreciation of Japan came an influx of interest also in the appreciation of Japanese Garden design. The first acclaimed Japanese garden is often cited as having popularised the style was Leopold de Rothschild Japanese bamboo garden opened at Gunnersby Estate in West London in 1901. In 1903 Reginald Farrer popularised the rock gardening style affiliated by English gardeners with Zen gardens further in his writings. In 1908 this was furthered by the Scottish design proffered by Taki Handa. The Japanese garden at Tatton Park is an example of Anglo-Japanese gardening style. Common elements include 'stone lanterns, the use of large rocks and pebbles, stone bowls of water, and decorative shrubs and flowers like acers, azaleas and lilies' and 'red painted bridges'. The 1910 Floating Isle Garden particularly reinforced these elements in the style. Although elements of traditional Japanese garden design was incorporated, many English garden elements flowed into the overall appearance as well. By 1910 the Japanese garden had become a popular fixture such as at Hascombe Court by Percy Cane and Christopher Tunnard.
Bilateral Artisanal Exchange; 1901–1923
The 1902 Japanese Whitechapel Exhibition was favourably reviewed by Charles Lewis Hind, however Laurence Binyon noted the exhibition was lacking and that 'some day a loan exhibition may be formed which shall at least adumbrate the range and history of that [Japanese] art'. Charles Ricketts and Charles Haslewood Shannon donate their Japanese collection of Harunobu, Utagawa and Hokusai woodblock prints to the British Museum in this period. The Burlington Magazine was established in 1903 and with Charles Holmes editing the magazine, a number of articles on Japanese art were being published in the periodical, as well as in English Illustrated Magazine in 1904.
In 1905, Kokka began to be published in English. In 1906, Sidney Sime produced a number of illustrated works for Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany the Time and the Gods (1906). Dunsany was familiar with Japanese theatre and introduced Sime to a number of the conventions, which can be seen evident particularly in these illustrations, such as the stooping postures and placement of figures, and fore and backgrounds application of stippling combined with wave forms commonly seen in 19th century Japanese kimono for example.
Eric Slater, taught by Fletcher and inspired by Arthur Rigden Read began to make Japanese woodcut prints as well.
In particular, painting and illustration were further elaborated on at this time. Japanese art critic Seiichi Taki (1873–1945) noted in Studio Magazine; how Occidental and Oriental painting regarded the subject matter of painting in expressing an idea to an audience as important; but that they differed in their outcomes and execution by how the western style of painting lays 'stress on [the] objective, and the other [(Japanese)] on subjective ideas'. Taki noted that in Western painting focused heavily on a singular object, such as framing the human body to be the sole focal point of attention in a painting, 'in Japanese pictures, flowers, birds, landscapes, even withered trees and lifeless rocks' are given these points of focal interest; such that the execution of for example a Byobu screen is not draw the eye to one part of the painting, but to all parts of it such it created in the picture as a whole as 'microcosmically complete.' Roger Fry also noted how European artists had begun to forget Chiaroscuro in favour of the Eastern style of what Binyon termed ''sensuosness''; or the 'rejection of light and shade'. Fry noted in 1910 how Chinese and Japanese art "rejected light and shade as belonging primarily to the sculptor's art" concluding "certain broad effects of lighted and shaded atmosphere, effects of mist, of night, and of twilight, they have for six centuries shown the way which only quite modern European art has begun to follow."
![Flag-of-Japan-Postcard-1910-Exhibition](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Flag-of-Japan-Postcard-1910-Exhibition.png)
The Japan–British Exhibition occurred in 1910, where Japan loaned a number of its art and industrial objects to the UK. During this decade though, the style would come to a close as academics and public museums had begun to fully appreciate and exchange more fully with living artisans and the Japanese community in the UK (between 500 and 1000 people at this time) who had arrived for the 1910 exhibition. Harry Allen (potter), Harry Allen (fl. 1910–1925) also designed a number of blue Titianian Vases decorated in Anglo-Japanese motifs such as the Red-crowned crane or Peacock and Matsu pine leaves for Royal Doulton.
In 1913, when Binyon took over the Japanese section of the Oriental Department at the British Museum, he along with Rothenstein, Morrison, Ricketts and Sazlewood had formed a literary and arts based circle of collectors of Japanese prints. Binyon radically helped to improve the quality of the department, and thus helped the general understanding of the depth and variety of Japanese painting styles known by the general public. Ricketts particularly enjoyed the Ogata Kōrin, Korin Rinpa school, or Rinpa style of painting. Binyon's published works also helped to showcase a new Oriental based worldview, rather than espousing a eurocentrism, eurocentric one; for example Binyon explains how the 'Japanese look to China as we look to Italy and Greece : [that] for them it is the classic land, the source from which their art has drawn not only methods, materials, and principles of design, but an endless variety of theme and motive.'
My chief concern has been, not to discuss questions of authorship or archaeology, but to inquire what aesthetic value and significance these Eastern paintings possess for us in the West – Binyon (1913)
With the advent of the further academic understanding of Japanese aesthetics, the Anglo-Japanese style ended, morphing into Modernism with the death of the 'Japan Craze' and Japanese art objects having become permanent parts of European and American Museum collections. Particularly this is noticeable in the sparsity or plain backgrounds in the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the stage and costume design of Edward Gordon Craig. Bernard Leach also helped to inspire a return to more traditional craftsmanship in Japan with the Mingei movement in Japan and on pottery in England for William Staite Murray in his choice of materials.
Christopher Dresser - Sidewall - Google Art Project.jpg, Christopher Dresser, Dresser; Side-wallpaper Design (c. 1880–1904)
The Dirge of Shimono Kani.jpg, Sidney Sime, Sime, ''The Dirge of Shimono Kani'' (1906)
Tatton Park gardens 2009-1.jpg, Alan Egerton, 3rd Baron Egerton, Tatton's Tatton Park, built in the Anglo-Japanese style (c. 1910–1911)
A Japanese Girl Jacob Kramer (1892–1962).jpg, Jacob Kramer, Kramer, A Japanese Girl (1918)
Square bottles by Hamada Shoji 1950-1960 Mashiko Japan stoneware with iron glaze (364587418).jpg, Hamada Shoji Mashiko stoneware with iron glaze bottles (1950-1960)
The Japanese Enclave
Part of the new bilateral cultural exchange which replaced the one-way Anglo-Japanese Style by way of greater cultural understanding of Japanese Art and its history, came from the Japanese in the United Kingdom, Japanese Community itself in London.
For example; in 1900, Sadajirō Yamanaka open his London Branch of Yamanaka and Co. By 1902, a Japanese exhibition opened in Whitechapel, London, in which Charles Lewis Hind reviewed the watercolours of the Japanese artist working in London Yoshio Markino. Markino would go on to become a successful illustrator in Edwardian Britain, publishing illustrated works such as ''The Colour of London''(1907) and ''A Japanese Artist in London''(1910). The writer Douglas Sladen also frequently collaborated with Markino in his publications. Between 1907 and 1910, Wakana Utagawa visits London to train in watercolour painting and showcase her traditional Japanese brush paintings.
In 1911 Frank Brangwyn had begun to collaborate with various Japanese artists such as Ryuson Chuzo Matsuyama working in Edwardian England on woodblock printing techniques. Then in 1915, the Yamanaka gallery in London hosted the British Red Cross Loan Exhibition. These businessmen, taking advantage of improved international relations, set up shop in Europe and America. Dealers such as Tonying, C. T. Loo (q.v.) and Yamanaka all began to sell East Asian objects directly to Western collectors.
Scotland
1870–1879: Glasgow Exhibition
![1878 Chiyo-gami design](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/1878_Chiyo-gami_design.jpg)
In Glasgow, the November 1878 Glasgow Japan Exchange occurs where art goods are traded bilaterally, including 1000 various 'architectural pieces, furniture, wood and lacquer ware, musical instruments, ceramics, metalwork, textiles and costume and paper samples' publicly shown between 1881 and 1882. Bruce James Talbert is also inspired to make Japanese inspired furniture and wallpapers and furnishing fabrics.
Yesso furnishing fabric 1870.jpg, Yesso furnishing fabric (1870)
1880–1889
In December 1881, the Oriental Art Loan Exhibition opened at the Corporation Galleries, showcasing 1,000 art objects from Japan in Glasgow alongside other objects from Liberty & Co and artifacts from the South Kensington Museum, and was seen by 30,000 spectators. Christopher Dresser gave a lecture on Japanese art at an art gallery in Glasgow in 1882 and Liberty became the investor for Art Furnishers' Alliance established by Dresser. In 1883, Frank Dillon (1823–1909); who had visited Japan in 1876; exhibited ''The Festival of the Cherry Blossom, Osaka, Japan'' at the Glasgow Institute. In March 1883, Dresser also visited Glasgow to give a lecture on 'Japanese Art Workmanship'. Japan also began exhibiting its goods in the UK, sepearately exhibiting in 1883, 1884, 1885 in London and in Edinburgh in 1884. Alex Reid (art dealer), Alexander Reid was an art dealer who opened an art gallery named "La Sociète des Beaux-Arts" in 1889, being most remembered for being an acquaintance of Vincent van Gogh, they both began to be influenced by Japanese wares in 1887.
1890–1899: School of Art
George Henry and E. A. Hornel, both graduates of Glasgow School of Art, went on a trip funded by Reid to Japan from 1893 to 1894. Upon their return, they held a lecture and exhibition about the paintings produced as a result of their visit to Japan at the Art Club. The Art Club had just been renovated by Mackintosh in 1893 and had become an important social space for artists in Glasgow. Hornel being a good friend of John Keppie, a partner of Mackintosh being colleagues at the Glasgow School of Art, that Mackintosh may have attended this exhibition and lecture.
[http://www.ks-architects.com/en/column/contents.php?id=7 (Accessed 27 October 2020)] Henry's lectures thus in 1895 furthered the western interest and narrative in Japanese arts as decorative.
The Japanese Baby by George Henry 1893 (watercolour).jpg, George Henry (painter), Henry, ''The Japanese Baby'' (1893)
George Henry-Una dama japonesa con un abanico.jpg, Henry, ''Japanese woman with a fan'' (1893–1894)
Edward Atkinson Hornel - Street Scene, Tokyo - Google Art Project.jpg, Edward Atkinson Hornel, Hornel, – ''Street Scene'' (1894)
Edward Atkinson Hornel - Two Geisha Girls 1894.jpg, Hornel, ''Two Geisha Girls'' (1894)
The Hour-Glass by George Henry.jpg, Henry, The Hour-Glass (c. 1899)
1900–1909: Glasgow and the Modern Style
![Les décors symbolistes de la](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Les_d%C3%A9cors_symbolistes_de_la_%22Glasgow_School_of_Art%22_%283803687862%29.jpg)
Glasgow International Exhibition in 1901 includes Japan Exhibition.
Mackintosh and Japan
Mackintosh first became acquainted with Japanese design in 1884 at the Glasgow school of Art, producing a Japanese inspired work in ''Part Seen, Part Imagined'' in 1896 shown in the kimono style garment portrayed, and also submitting architectural designs to the Glasgow School of Art inspired by the Mon crests based on 'Kinuo Tanaka's ''I-Ro-Ha Mon-Cho (or 1881 edition Catalogue of Mon) and on the 'temporary nature of Japanese joinery'. He is thought to have been introduced to Japonisme by Hermann Muthesius in 1897. In turn, he influenced the arts of Siegfried Bing and Gustav Klimt, with his influence on the European circle of Viennese designers who took inspiration in his blending of Celtic and Japanese motif designs. It is particular noticeable of 'the relationship between Mackintosh and Japan from the interior design of the 120 Mains Street flat' of 1900 and in his kimono cabinet (c. 1906). Notably, 'Japan has played an important role in triggering [the] ideas of modernism, when [Mackintosh also] attracted most attention' at the turn of the 20th century in his designs in Continental Europe.
United States
In the United States, early appreciation of the Anglo-Japanese style was also transferred over in the posthumous publications of Charles Locke Eastlake's ''Hints on Household Taste'' (first published in 1868).
''When I look into the windows of a fashionable establishment devoted to decorative art, and see the monstrosities which are daily offered to the public in the name of taste ... which pass for ornament in the nineteenth century – I cannot help thinking how much we might learn from those nations whose art it has long been our custom to despise[, such as] from the half-civilised craftsmen of Japan''
The Aesthetics brought Japanese influences to the United States. Some of the glass and silverwork by Louis Comfort Tiffany, textiles and wallpaper by Candace Wheeler, and the furniture of Kimbel & Cabus, Daniel Pabst, Nimura & Sato, and the Herter Brothers (particularly that produced after 1870) shows influence of the Anglo-Japanese style. The Herter Brothers drew heavily from the furniture of Godwin and Dresser in their motifs and asymmetrical design, but American Anglo-Japanese styles lent towards the older more favoured heavily decorative and ornamental Victorian styles.
Beginning in 1877, Godwin began publishing his ''Art Furniture'' Catalogue, which popularised Japanese motifs in the United States until the late 1880s, and Dresser became the first designer to visit and design using Japanese decorative art styles, influencing the style in the Occident. Oscar Wilde also reported and commented upon the progress of the style, referring to "the influence which Eastern art is having on us in Europe, and the fascination of all Japanese work" in a lecture he gave in the United States in 1882 (''The English Renaissance of Art'').
By 1893 however the 'Japan Craze, despite its intensity, never amounted to more than dilettantish fascination in the quest for the artful [aesthetical] interior and the identity it imbued.'
[The Influence of Japanese Art on Design, Hannah Sigur, 2008, p. 117, Gibbs Smith]
Anglo-Japanese Works in the US
File:Anglo-Japanese Fall-Front Desk LACMA M.90.76.jpg, Fall-front desk, Herter Brothers (c. 1865–1905)
Sidewall And Border (USA), ca. 1885 (CH 18452099).jpg, American Wallpaper, (c.1885)
File:Tray MET ADA2697.jpg, Silver plate with iris (plant), iris motif, by Tiffany & Company (1879)
File:Herter Brothers - Cabinet - Google Art Project.jpg, Cabinet by Herter Brothers (c. 1880)
File:Candace Wheeler 001.jpg, Stencil for wallpaper with Japanese carp motif, by Candace Wheeler (c. 1885–1905)
File:Chest of Drawers, Nimura & Sato, Brooklyn, c. 1905, woven cane, bamboo, brass, glass - Brooklyn Museum - DSC09520.JPG, Chest of drawers, by Nimura & Sato, 1905
Further reading
Contemporary Reading:
*
The Keramic Art of Japan',
George Ashdown Audsley
George Ashdown Audsley (September 6, 1838 – June 21, 1925) was an accomplished architect, artist, illustrator, writer, decorator and pipe organ designer who excelled in many artistic fields but is perhaps best known today for having designe ...
and James Lord Bowes (1875)
*
Marks and monograms on pottery & porcelain of the renaissance and modern periods, with historical notices of each manufactory, preceded by an introductory essay on the vasa fictilia of the Greek, Romano-British, and mediæval eras; and an appendix containing a brief history of the country of Japan and its keramic manufactures', William Chaffers (1876)
*
Art and Art Industries in Japan',
Rutherford Alcock
Sir John Rutherford Alcock, KCB (25 May 1809''London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538–1812''2 November 1897) was the first British diplomatic representative to live in Japan.
Early life
Alcock was born in St J ...
(1878)
* ''Japanese Pottery'', Augustus Wollaston Franks, (1880)
* ''Sixth Reading for Lantern Exhibitions of Travels in the Eastern Island World, China, Loo-Choo, and Japan : Japan'', ''Seventh Reading for Lantern Exhibitions of Travels in the Eastern Island World, China, Loo-Choo, and Japan : Old and New Japan'', Frederick William Sutton (1882) in the British Library
*
Japan : its architecture, art, and art manufactures',
Christopher Dresser
Christopher Dresser (4 July 1834 – 24 November 1904) was a British designer and design theorist, now widely known as one of the first and most important, independent designers. He was a pivotal figure in the Aesthetic Movement and a major cont ...
, (1882)
*
The ornamental arts of Japan', George Ashdown Audsley (1882)
* ''Descriptive and historical account of a collection of Japanese and Chinese paintings in the British Museum'', William Anderson (collector), William Anderson, (1886)
*
Pictorial arts of Japan', William Anderson, (1886)
*
Things Japanese', Basil Hall Chamberlain, (1890)
* ''The Industrial Arts and Manufactures of Japan'',
Arthur Lasenby Liberty
Sir Arthur Lasenby Liberty (13 August 1843 – 11 May 1917) was a London-based merchant, and the founder of Liberty & Co.
Early life
Arthur Liberty was born on 13 August 1843 in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England, the son of a draper. He be ...
, (1890)
*
Japan and Its Art', Marcus Bourne Huish, (1892)
*
The book of delightful and strange designs; being one hundred facsimile illustrations of the art of the Japanese stencil-cutter', Andrew White Tuer, (1892)
*
A List of Japanese Books and Albums of Prints of Colour in the National Library of South Kensington Edward Fairbrother Strange (1893)
*
Notes on shippo : a sequel to Japanese enamels', James Lord Bowes, (1895)
*
Japanese illustration; a history of the arts of wood-cutting and colour printing in Japan', Edward Fairbrother Strange (1897)
*
', Charles Holmes (1897)
*
Japan, A Record in Colour', Mortimer Menpes, (1901)
*
The Japanese Fairy Book', Yei Theodora Ozaki, (1903)
*
Japan: Its History and Literature' Series, particularly Vol. VII (Pictorial and Applied Arts) & Vol. VIII (Keramic Art), Frank Brinkley(1904)
*
Arts and Crafts of Old Japan', Stewart Dick, (1904)
*
The Colour-prints of Japan: An Appreciation and History', Edward Fairbrother Strange (1904)
*
Hokusai, the old man mad with painting', Edward Fairbrother Strange (1906)
*
Pictures by Japanese artists', Laurence Binyon, (1908)
*
Painting in the Far East : an introduction to the history of pictorial art in Asia, especially China and Japan', Laurence Binyon, (1908)
*
A Japanese Artist in London', Yoshio Markino, (1910)
*
Japan Fairy Tales', Grace James (1910)
*
In Lotus-Land Japan', Herbert George Ponting, (1910, illustrated edition)
*
Three essays on Oriental painting', Seiichi Taki, (1910)
*
The flight of the dragon : an essay on the theory and practice of art in China and Japan, based on original sources', Laurence Binyon (1911)
* ''The Painters of Japan'', Arthur Morrison, (1911)
* ''Pages on Art'', Charles Ricketts, (1913)
*
Painting in the Far East : an introduction to the history of pictorial art in Asia especially China and Japan', Laurence Binyon (1913)
*
Exhibition of Japanese screens decorated by the old masters, held at the galleries of the Royal Society of British artists, January 26th to February 26th, 1914', Arthur Morrison, (1914)
*
Japanese Colour Prints by Utagawa Toyokuni I', Edward Fairbrother Strange, (1920)
*
Japanese Colour Prints', Laurence Binyon (1923)
* ''Colour Printing with Linoleum and Wood Blocks'', Allen William Seaby, (1925)
Academic Reading
* ''In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement'', Doreen Bolger Burke, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen (1986)
* Halen, Widar. ''Christopher Dresser, a Pioneer of Modern Design.'' Phaidon: 1990. .
* Snodin, Michael and John Styles. ''Design & The Decorative Arts, Britain 1500–1900.'' V&A Publications: 2001. .
* ''Japan and Britain After 1859: Creating Cultural Bridges'', Olive Checkland, (2003)
* Morley, Christopher.''Dresser's Decorative Design'' 2010.
See also
* Lafcadio Hearn, Author
*
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (7 June 1868 – 10 December 1928) was a Scottish architect, designer, water colourist and artist. His artistic approach had much in common with European Symbolism. His work, alongside that of his wife Margaret Macdo ...
, Designer (see the Kimono Cabinet, circa 1906)
* Molly Verney, 17th century Japanning, Japanner
* Japanophile
* Orientalism
References
External links
oldhouseonline.comfor Anglo-Japanese Aesthetic Interiors (1872–1889)
External links
{{commons category-inline
Arts and Crafts movement
British art movements
Arts in the United Kingdom
Decorative arts
Modern art
Japanese art
Garden design history of England
Japonisme