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''Japonisme'' is a French term that refers to the popularity and influence of Japanese art and design among a number of Western European artists in the nineteenth century following the forced reopening of foreign trade with Japan in 1858. Japonisme was first described by French art critic and collector Philippe Burty in 1872. While the effects of the trend were likely most pronounced in the visual arts, they extended to architecture, landscaping and gardening, and clothing. Even the performing arts were affected; Gilbert & Sullivan's '' The Mikado'' is perhaps the best example. From the 1860s, '' ukiyo-e,'' Japanese woodblock prints, became a source of inspiration for many Western artists. These prints were created for the commercial market in Japan. Although a percentage of prints were brought to the West through Dutch trade merchants, it was not until the 1860s that ukiyo-e prints gained popularity in Europe. Western artists were intrigued by the original use of color and composition. Ukiyo-e prints featured dramatic foreshortening and asymmetrical compositions. Japanese decorative arts, including ceramics, enamels, metalwork, and lacquerware, were as influential in the West as the graphic arts. During the Meiji era (1868–1912), Japanese pottery was exported around the world. From a long history of making weapons for
samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of History of Japan#Medieval Japan (1185–1573/1600), medieval and Edo period, early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retai ...
, Japanese metalworkers had achieved an expressive range of colours by combining and finishing metal alloys. Japanese cloissoné enamel reached its "golden age" from 1890 to 1910, producing items more advanced than ever before. These items were widely visible in nineteenth-century Europe: a succession of world's fairs displayed Japanese decorative art to millions, and it was picked up by galleries and fashionable stores. Writings by critics, collectors, and artists expressed considerable excitement about this "new" art. Collectors including Siegfried Bing and Christopher Dresser displayed and wrote about these works. Thus Japanese styles and themes reappeared in the work of Western artists and craftsmen.


History


Seclusion (1639–1858)

During the most of the
Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...
(1603–1867), Japan was in a time of seclusion and only one international port remained active.
Tokugawa Iemitsu Tokugawa Iemitsu (徳川 家光, August 12, 1604 – June 8, 1651) was the third '' shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty. He was the eldest son of Tokugawa Hidetada with Oeyo, and the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Lady Kasuga was his wet nurse, ...
ordered that an island, Dejima, be built off the shores of Nagasaki from which Japan could receive imports. The Dutch were the only Westerners able to engage in trade with the Japanese, yet this small amount of contact still allowed for Japanese art to influence the West. Every year the Dutch arrived in Japan with fleets of ships filled with Western goods for trade. The cargo included many Dutch treatises on painting and a number of Dutch prints.
Shiba Kōkan , born Andō Kichirō (安藤吉次郎) or Katsusaburō (勝三郎), was a Japanese painter and printmaker of the Edo period, famous both for his Western-style '' yōga'' paintings, in imitation of Dutch oil painting styles, methods, and theme ...
(1747–1818) was one of the Japanese artists that studied the imports. Kōkan created one of the first etchings in Japan which was a technique he had learned from one of the imported treatises. Kōkan combined the technique of linear perspective, which he learned from a treatise, with his own ukiyo-e styled paintings.


Early exports

The primary Japanese exports were initially silver, which was prohibited after 1668, and gold, mostly in the form of oval coins, which was prohibited after 1763, and later copper in the form of copper bars. Japanese exports eventually decreased and shifted to craftwork such as ceramics, hand fans, paper, furniture, swords, armors, mother-of-pearl objects,
folding screens A folding screen, also known as pingfeng (), is a type of free-standing furniture consisting of several frames or panels, which are often connected by hinges or by other means. They have practical and decorative uses, and can be made in a variety ...
, and lacquerware, which were already being exported. During the era of seclusion, Japanese goods remained a luxury sought after by European elites. The production of Japanese porcelain increased in the seventeenth century, after Korean potters were brought to the Kyushu area. The immigrants, their descendants, and Japanese counterparts unearthed kaolin clay mines and began to make high quality pottery. The blend of traditions evolved into a distinct Japanese industry with styles such as Imari ware and Kakiemon. They would later influence European and Chinese potters. The exporting of porcelain was further boosted by the effects of the Ming-Qing transition, which immobilized the center of Chinese porcelain production in Jingdezhen for several decades. Japanese potters filled the void making porcelain for European tastes. Porcelain and lacquered objects became the main exports from Japan to Europe.Chisaburo, Yamada. "Exchange of Influences in the Fine Arts between Japan and Europe." ''Japonisme in Art: An International Symposium'' (1980): 14. An extravagant way to display porcelain in a home was to create a porcelain room with shelves placed throughout to show off the exotic wares, but the ownership of a few pieces was possible for a wide and increasing social range of the middle class. Marie Antoinette and 
Maria Theresa Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (german: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was ruler of the Habsburg dominions from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position '' suo jure'' (in her own right) ...
 are known collectors of Japanese lacquerware, and their collections are often exhibited in the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles. The European imitation of Asian lacquerwork is referred to as Japanning.


Re-opening (19th century)

During the
Kaei era was a after ''Kōka'' and before '' Ansei''. This period spanned the years from February 1848 through November 1854. The reigning emperor was . Change of era * February 28, 1848 : The era name of ''Kaei'' (meaning "eternal felicity")Satow, Ern ...
(1848–1854), after more than 200 years of seclusion, foreign merchant ships of various nationalities began to visit Japan. Following the
Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were r ...
in 1868, Japan ended a long period of national isolation and became open to imports from the West, including photography and printing techniques. With this new opening in trade, Japanese art and artifacts began to appear in small curiosity shops in Paris and London. Japonisme began as a craze for collecting Japanese art, particularly ukiyo-e. Some of the first samples of ukiyo-e were seen in Paris.Yvonne Thirion
japonisme en France dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle à la faveur de la diffusion de l'estampe japonaise"
1961, Cahiers de l'Association internationale des études francaises, Volume 13, Numéro 13, pp. 117–130. DOI 10.3406/caief.1961.2193
During this time, European artists were seeking alternatives to the strict European academic methodologies. Around 1856, the French artist Félix Bracquemond encountered a copy of the sketch book '' Hokusai Manga'' at the workshop of his printer, Auguste Delâtre. In the years following this discovery, there was an increase of interest in Japanese prints. They were sold in curiosity shops, tea warehouses, and larger shops. Shops such as ''La Porte Chinoise'' specialized in the sale of Japanese and Chinese imports. ''La Porte Chinoise,'' in particular, attracted artists James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Édouard Manet, and Edgar Degas who drew inspiration from the prints. It and other shops organized gatherings which facilitated the spread of information regarding Japanese art and techniques.


Artists and Japonisme

Ukiyo-e prints were one of the main Japanese influences on Western art. Western artists were inspired by different uses of compositional space, flattening of planes, and abstract approaches to color. An emphasis on diagonals, asymmetry, and negative space can be seen in the works of Western artists who were influenced by this style.


Vincent van Gogh

Vincent 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, inc ...
's interest in Japanese prints began when he discovered illustrations by Félix Régamey featured in ''
The Illustrated London News ''The Illustrated London News'' appeared first on Saturday 14 May 1842, as the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. Founded by Herbert Ingram, it appeared weekly until 1971, then less frequently thereafter, and ceased publication ...
'' and '' Le Monde Illustré.'' Régamey created woodblock prints, followed Japanese techniques, and often depicted scenes of Japanese life. Van Gogh used Régamey as a reliable source for the artistic practices and everyday scenes of Japanese life. Beginning in 1885, Van Gogh switched from collecting magazine illustrations, such as Régamey, to collecting ukiyo-e prints which could be bought in small Parisian shops. He shared these prints with his contemporaries and organized a Japanese print exhibition in Paris in 1887. Van Gogh's '' Portrait of Père Tanguy'' (1887) is a portrait of his color merchant, Julien Tanguy. Van Gogh created two versions of this portrait. Both versions feature backdrops of Japanese prints by identifiable artists like Hiroshige and Kunisada. Inspired by Japanese woodblock prints and their colorful palettes, Van Gogh incorporated a similar vibrancy into his own works. He filled the portrait of Tanguy with vibrant colors as he believed that buyers were no longer interested in grey-toned Dutch paintings and that paintings with many colors would be considered modern and desirable.


Alfred Stevens

The Belgian painter Alfred Stevens was one of the earliest collectors and enthusiast of Japanese art in Paris.Thomas, Bernadette. "Alfred (Emile-Léopold) Stevens" in ''Oxford Art Online''. Retrieved 27 December 2013. Objects from Stevens' studio illustrate his fascination with Japanese and exotic knick-knacks and furniture. Stevens was close with Manet and to James McNeill Whistler, with whom he shared this interest early on. Many of his contemporaries were similarly enthused, especially after the 1862 International Exhibition in London and the International Exposition of 1867 in Paris, where Japanese art and objects appeared for the first time. From the mid-1860's, Japonisme became a fundamental element in many of Stevens' paintings. One of his most famous Japonisme-influenced works is ''
La parisienne japonaise ''La parisienne japonaise'' is an oil on canvas painting by Belgian painter Alfred Stevens. It depicts a young woman in a blue kimono standing in front of a mirror. The painting testifies to Stevens' involvement with Japonisme. Stevens was one ...
'' (1872). He realized several portraits of young women dressed in kimono, and Japanese elements feature in many other paintings of his, such as the early ''La Dame en Rose'' (1866), which combines a view of a fashionably dressed woman in an interior with a detailed examination of Japanese objects, and '' The Psyché'' (1871), wherein on a chair there sit Japanese prints, indicating his artistic passion.


Edgar Degas

In the 1860s, Edgar Degas began to collect Japanese prints from ''La Porte Chinoise'' and other small print shops in Paris. His contemporaries had begun to collect prints as well, which gave him a wide array of sources for inspiration. Among prints shown to Degas was a copy of Hokusai's ''
Manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is use ...
'', which Bracquemond had purchased after seeing it in Delâtre's workshop. The estimated date of Degas' adoption of japonismes into his prints is 1875, and it can be seen in his choice to divide individual scenes by placing barriers vertically, diagonally, and horizontally. Similar to many Japanese artists, Degas' prints focus on women and their daily routines. The atypical positioning of his female figures and the dedication to reality in his prints aligned him with Japanese printmakers such as Hokusai,
Utamaro Kitagawa Utamaro ( ja, 喜多川 歌麿;  – 31 October 1806) was a Japanese artist. He is one of the most highly regarded designers of ukiyo-e woodblock prints and paintings, and is best known for his '' bijin ōkubi-e'' "large-head ...
, and Sukenobu. In Degas' print ''Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Etruscan Gallery'' (1879–80), the artist uses of two figures, one seated and one standing, which is a common composition in Japanese prints. Degas also continued to use lines to create depth and separate space within the scene. His most clear appropriation is of the woman leaning on a closed umbrella, which is borrowed directly from Hokusai's ''Manga''.


James McNeill Whistler

Japanese art was exhibited in Britain beginning in the early 1850s. These exhibitions featured various Japanese objects, including maps, letters, textiles, and objects from everyday life. These exhibitions served as a source of national pride for Britain and served to create a separate Japanese identity apart from the generalized "Orient" cultural identity. James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American artist who worked primarily in Britain. During the late 19th century, Whistler began to reject the Realist style of painting that his contemporaries favored. Instead, he found simplicity and technicality in the Japanese aesthetic. Rather than copying specific artists and artworks, Whistler was influenced by general Japanese methods of articulation and composition, which he integrated into his works.


Artists influenced by Japanese art and culture


Theater

The first popular stagings of Asia were depictions of Japan from
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 ...
. The comic opera '' Kosiki'' (originally titled ''The Mikado'' but renamed after protest from Japan) was written in 1876. In 1885,
Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which '' H.M.S. ...
, apparently less concerned about Japanese perceptions, premiered their ''
Mikado Mikado may refer to: * Emperor of Japan or Arts and entertainment * '' The Mikado'', an 1885 comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan * ''The Mikado'' (1939 film), an adaptation of the opera, directed by Victor Schertzinger * ''The Mikado'' (1967 ...
''. This comic opera enjoyed immense popularity throughout Europe where seventeen companies performed it 9,000 times within two years of its premiere. Translated into German in 1887, The Mikado remained the most popular drama in Germany throughout the 1890s. In the wake of this popularity, comedies set in Asia and featuring comic Asian figures appeared in rapid succession, both in comic opera and drama. The successor to The Mikado as Europe's most popular Japan drama, Sidney Jones' opera The Geisha (1896) added the title character to the stock characters representing Japan, the figure of the geisha belongs to the "objects " which in and of themselves meant Japan in Germany and throughout the West. The period from 1904 to 1918 saw a European boom in geisha dramas. The most famous of these was, of course,
Puccini Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long li ...
's opera '' Madama Butterfly''. In 1900, Puccini saw a staging of David Belasco's play of the same name and reportedly found it so moving that he wept. The popularity of the opera brought on a slew of Madame Something or Others, including Madames Cherry, Espirit, Flott, Flirt, Wig-Wag, Leichtsinn, and Tip Top, all of whom appeared around 1904 and disappeared relatively quickly. They were not without lasting effect, however, and the geisha had established herself among the scrolls, jade, and images of
Mount Fuji , or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highes ...
that signified Japan to the West. Much as this human figure of the geisha was reduced to the level of other objects signifying Japan in the drama, Japanese performers in Germany served German play wrights in their quest to renew the German drama. Just as ukiyo-e had proven useful in France, severed from any understanding of Japan, the troupes of Japanese actors and dancers that toured Europe provided materials for "a new way of dramatizing" on stage. Ironically, the popularity and influence of these Japanese dramas had a great deal to do with the westernization of the Japanese theater in general and of the pieces performed in Europe in particular. Invented for the Kabuki theatre in Japan in the 18th century, the revolving stage was introduced into Western theater at the Residenz theatre in Munich in 1896 under the influence of japonism fever. The Japanese influence on German drama first appeared in stage design. Karl Lautenschlager adopted the Kabuki revolving stage in 1896 and ten years later Max Reinhardt employed it in the premiere of Frühlings Erwachen by Frank Wedekind. Soon this revolving stage was a trend in
Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...
. Another adaptation of the Kabuki stage popular among German directors was the Blumensteg, a jutting extension of the stage into the audience. The European acquaintance with Kabuki came either from travels in Japan or from texts, but also from Japanese troupes touring Europe. In 1893, Kawakami Otojiro and his troupe of actors arrived in Paris, returning again in 1900 and playing in Berlin in 1902. Kawakami's troop performed two pieces, Kesa and Shogun, both of which were westernized and were performed without music and with the majority of the dialogue eliminated. This being the case, these performances tended toward pantomime and dance. Dramatists and critics quickly latched on to what they saw as a “re-theatricalization of the theater.” Among the actors in these plays was Sada Yacco, first Japanese star in Europe, who influenced pioneers of modern dance such as Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan; she performed for Queen Victoria in 1900, and enjoyed the status of a European star.


Japanese gardens

The aesthetic of Japanese gardens was introduced to the English-speaking world by Josiah Conder's ''Landscape Gardening in Japan'' ( Kelly & Walsh, 1893), which sparked the first Japanese gardens in the West. A second edition was published in 1912. Conder's principles have sometimes proved hard to follow:
Tassa (Saburo) Eida In Trinidad and Tobago, and other parts of the Caribbean, the term ''tassa'' refers to a drumming ensemble drawn from an amalgamation of various North Indian folk drumming traditions, most importantly dhol-tasha, a style that remains popular today ...
created several influential gardens, two for the
Japan–British Exhibition The took place at White City, London in Great Britain from 14 May 1910 to 29 October 1910. It was the largest international exposition that the Empire of Japan had ever participated in and was driven by a desire of Japan to develop a more fav ...
in London in 1910 and one built over four years for William Walker, 1st Baron Wavertree. The latter can still be visited at the Irish National Stud. Samuel Newsom's ''Japanese Garden Construction'' (1939) offered Japanese aesthetics as a corrective in the construction of rock gardens, which owed their quite separate origins in the West to the mid-19th century desire to grow alpines in an approximation of Alpine
scree Scree is a collection of broken rock fragments at the base of a cliff or other steep rocky mass that has accumulated through periodic rockfall. Landforms associated with these materials are often called talus deposits. Talus deposits typically ha ...
. According to the
Garden History Society The Garden History Society was an organisation in the United Kingdom established to study the history of gardening and to protect historic gardens. In 2015 it became The Gardens Trust, having merged with the Association of Gardens Trusts. It was f ...
, Japanese landscape gardener Seyemon Kusumoto was involved in the development of around 200 gardens in the UK. In 1937, he exhibited a rock garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, and worked on the Burngreave Estate at Bognor Regis, a Japanese garden at Cottered in Hertfordshire, and courtyards at Du Cane Court in London. The impressionist painter Claude Monet modelled parts of his garden in
Giverny Giverny () is a commune in the northern French department of Eure.Commune de Giverny (27285 ...
after Japanese elements, such as the bridge over the lily pond, which he painted numerous times. In this series, by detailing just on a few select points such as the bridge or the lilies, he was influenced by traditional Japanese visual methods found in ''ukiyo-e'' prints, of which he had a large collection. He also planted a large number of native Japanese species to give it a more exotic feeling.


Museums

In the United States, the fascination with Japanese art extended to collectors and museums creating significant collections which still exist and have influenced many generations of artists. The epicenter was in Boston, likely due to Isabella Stewart Gardner, a pioneering collector of Asian art. As a result, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston now claims to house the finest collection of Japanese art outside Japan. The Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery house the largest Asian art research library in the United States, where they house Japanese art together with the Japanese-influenced works of Whistler.


Gallery


See also

* Japanophilia * Weeb * Anglo-Japanese style * Arabist – "Arab" style *
Chinoiserie (, ; loanword from French ''chinoiserie'', from ''chinois'', "Chinese"; ) is the European interpretation and imitation of Chinese and other East Asian artistic traditions, especially in the decorative arts, garden design, architecture, literatu ...
– similar Chinese influence on Western art and design *
David B. Gamble House The Gamble House, also known as the David B. Gamble House, is an iconic American Craftsman home in Pasadena, California, designed by the architectural firm Greene and Greene. Constructed in 1908–1909 as a home for David B. Gamble, son of the Pr ...
* Occidentalism – for Eastern views of the West * Orientalism – Western romanticized depictions of Asian (more often Near Eastern) subject matter *
Turquerie Turquerie ( anglicized as "Turkery"), "Turquoiserie" was the Turkish fashion in Western Europe from the 16th to 18th centuries for imitating aspects of Ottoman art and culture. Many different Western European countries were fascinated by the exo ...
* Woodblock printing in Japan *
Woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only t ...
*
Yamashiro Historic District The Yamashiro Historic District is located on Sycamore Avenue in the Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States. The villa that forms the district's centerpiece was constructed from 1911 to 1914 by artisans and craftsmen from Japan ...


Notes


References

;References ;Sources * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* Cluzel, Jean-Sébastien (editor), Adamson, John (translator)
''Japonisme and Architecture in France, 1550–1930''
(Éditions Faton, 2022) . * Rümelin, Christian, and Ellis Tinios. ''The Japanese and French Print in the Era of Impressionism'' (2013) * Scheyer, Ernst. “Far Eastern Art and French Impressionism,” ''The Art Quarterly'' 6#2 (Spring, 1943): 116–143. * Weisberg, Gabriel P. "Reflecting on Japonisme: The State of the Discipline in the Visual Arts." ''Journal of Japonisme'' 1.1 (2016): 3–16.
online
* Weisberg, Gabriel P. and Yvonne M.L. Weisberg. ''Japonisme, An Annotated Bibliography'' (1990). * Wichmann, Siegfried. ''Japonisme. The Japanese Influence on Western Art in the 19th and 20th Centuries'' (Harmony Books, 1981). * Widar, Halen. ''Christopher Dresser''. (1990).
Thesis: Edo print art and its Western interpretations
(PDF)


External links



* ttp://themargins.net/bib/front/intro2.htm "Orientalism, Absence, and Quick~Firing Guns:The Emergence of Japan as a Western Text"
"Japonisme: Exploration and Celebration"

Marc Maison's Gallery specialized in japonismeThe Private Collection of Edgar Degas
fully digitized text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art libraries; contains essay ''Degas, Japanese Prints, and Japonisme'' (pgs 247–260) {{Authority control French art Impressionism Japan in non-Japanese culture Modern art Printmaking French words and phrases