Post 5: Impressionism and Japonism

 

West meets East in Paris

Boulevard Saint-Denis, Argenteuil in Winter, 1875
Claude Monet (1840-1926)
60.9 x 81.6 cm, oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts Boston

 

 Evening Snow at Kanbara, 1833-34

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 - 1858)

22.5 x 34.9 cm, woodblock print

Met Museum Japanese art

One of the main resources for this post was the book Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal. A fascinating story of a family actively involved in art movements at the turn of the XIX to XX century, only to be a victim of the events leading to world wars. My constant obsession is how did we as a civilisation, on the brink of liberating power of art becoming integrated in growing middle class' everyday life, took the wrong turn towards the world wars in the XX century. And how is it possible to have the same anxiety in 2024...

Back to the blossoming second half of the XIX century... Art connoisseurs and artists in Paris (most of Impressionists too) were passionate collectors of art and decorative objects coming from Japan. Manet, Monet, Van Gogh, Degas and many others collected Japanese prints. Monet was greatly influenced by Japanese art, his house at Giverny has a considerable amount of Japanese art displayed there. The most passionate was Degas, in whose collection were found more than 100 eighteenth-century Ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

 

A bit of historical context: after centuries of isolation, in 1854 Japan (forced by Americans) opened up its ports to the world. Merchandise and art started flowing towards the West and once it reached Paris, it's artists had an instant "coup de coeur" (immediate favourite). The phenomenon of Japanism (love for décor and art coming from 'the land of the rising sun"), started after Japan's unique and diverse exhibition at the World Fair in Paris in 1878. That year, to help with translation for the Japan exhibition, came Hayashi who will be from then on the main connection between Japanese and French art. While importing to Paris hundreds of thousands of Japanese prints and illustrated books, he bought many  Impressionists and other famous French artists' paintings. Hayashi himself is to be thanked for the rich French and European XIX century art collections in Japan museums. 

What Impressionists liked in Japanese prints? Similarly to Impressionists, Ykiyo-e artists from the XVIII century rebelled against the old tales' and history, turning to light-hearted scenes from the quotidian life around them. Those prints presented "transient beauty and pleasures of everyday life". Some of the characteristics that we can find both in Impressionist' and Japanese work are: empty space in the fore and middle grounds of the paintings, "the flattened scene" without deep perspective nor detailed background, lack of tonal gradations.

Manet was one of the first to be influenced by the Japanese art. He felt encouraged by Japanese prints, as well as Spanish masters, to use 'flat' colour or often just black and white (although if we examine closer his colours are never 'flat'). Emile Zola, a big supporter of Impressionism as well as the influence Japanese art had on it, is here down painted by Manet together with a Japanese sumo wrestler print on the wall.

Emile Zola, 1868
Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
146 x 114 cm, oil on canvas
Manet, Museum d'Orsay

     Combing the Hair (La Coiffure), 1896

H.G. Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

114.3 x 146.7 cm, oil on canvas

Degas National Gallery

Illustration from One Hundred Qualities of Women, 1723

Nishikawa Sukenobu (1671-1751)

28.5 x 19.5 cm, Woodcuts

ukiyo-e Prints

Mary Cassatt inspired by Utamaro's domestic scenes produced a series of ten colour etchings

Hour of the Rat: Mistress, 1790

Kitagawa Utamaro (1754-1806)

36.5 x 24.4 cm, Woodblock print 

                                                                                            Utamaro in Met                                                                                                                

Maternal Caress,1890-1

Mary Cassatt (1844-1926)

36.8 x 26.8 cm, aquatint on paper

Cassatt in National Gallery of Art

Japonisme is at the very foundation of Western Modern Art. Besides Impressionists, it  influenced Post-Impressionists (Vang Gogh, Cezanne, Gaugin...), Art Nouveau artists, as well as the artists of the Aesthetic movement in Britain (Whistler, Rosetti, Wild...). Enjoy the immersive experience of visiting The Peacock Room by James Whistler in  Smithsonian Museum of Asian Art in Washington DC. It was created in 1923 as an homage to the aesthetics of East Asia in general. 

To make the connection with contemporary art, here is a link to Japanese artist Mari Katayama. "By photographing herself in poses reminiscent of the works of the Impressionists, Katayama reinterprets Western aesthetic canons while confronting viewers with contemporary questions about identity and representation."

Sources:

Book: The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010) by Edmund de Waal

Met Museum publication: "The Private Collection of Edgar Degas" 1997.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jvXfux6mTM
Japan, 1800–1900 A.D. | Chronology | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (metmuseum.org)

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/avant-garde-france/impressionism/a/japonisme

https://mymodernmet.com/japanese-art-impressionism-japonisme/Perry Expedition - Wikipedia

NCAW_436.pdf (19thc-artworldwide.org) - About Charles Ephrussi, he got Edgar Degas pass for the Opera coulisse, which is not in the bookThe Private Collection of Edgar Degas - Ann Dumas, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) - Google Books

Degas and Hiroshige

Les amis de l'art japonese - Sorbonne

‘A true multi-sensory experience’: the Met celebrates Japanese poetry, calligraphy and painting | Art | The Guardian

When east inspired west: the extraordinary influence of Japanese art | Art UK
tissot.pdf (dijon.fr)5 Mary Cassatt Artworks Inspired By Japanese Woodblock Prints – Street Art Museum Tours