C O N T E M P O R A R Y P R AC T I C E I N P R I N T M E D I A
j a p a n e s e p r i n t s
a n d
w e s t e r n p a i n t i n g s 1
fruitful encounter between east and west
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JA P O N I S M 1 8 5 4– 1 9 0 0 Ever since Japanese ports reopened to trade with the West in 1853, there had been a flood of travelers and goods flooding into Japan and the West. People in the West became strongly attracted to Japanaese culture and art. Especially ukiyo-e, Japanese prints, became an inspiration for many European impressionist painters in France and many other places.
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Claude Monet La Japonaise 1876
Kitagawa Utamaro Sugatami Shichinin Kesho 1792–93
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Artists were affected by the lack of perspective and shadow, the flat areas of strong color and the compositional freedom where they started putting subjects off-centre.
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UKIYO-E’S INFLUENCE ON WESTERN ART
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Japanese color woodblock prints called ukiyo-e, also called “pictures of the floating world,” refers to the world of common people. Originating in the culture of Edo in the early seventeenth century during a period of cultural and politcal stabilization, artists, carver, printers and publishers were closely connected with the rise of prosperous merchant class. Ukiyo-e prints focus on the transient and carefree nature of life and urban pleasures, a poetic idea that is inherently bittersweet. At around nineteenth century, European painters came across ukiyo-e prints and they were inspired by the unusual points of view, asymmetrical compositions, decorative patterns, delicate colors, the expressive curves, bold use of colors and liberal designs.
Their themes often include annual festivals celebrating the blossoming of flowers, flirtatious geishas dancing in elegant kimonos, actors performing in Kabuki theater, and majestic Mount Fuji under a variety of weather conditions.
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Experimentation with a wide range of pictorial modes, coincided with the growing popularity of Japanese woodcuts during the 1890s.
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Simple, transitory, everyday subjects from “the floating world� started to affect the Western paintings.
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Western artists responded differently to their new exposure to Japanese art and culture. Japanese fans, kimonos, lanterns, screens, umbrellas and vases were popular props that were found commonly in French painting during this time period.
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Utagawa Yoshitora Nihonbashi in Tokyo
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T H E J A PA N E S E AESTHETIC Japanese prints used large areas of solid colors bounded by a hard, usually black contour line, and they used an extreme narrow vertical for many of the prints’ formats, which were very unusual in the West. Also, none of Japanese prints used the traditional fixed-viewpoint perspective which most European artists had faithfully followed since the early Renaissance.
European painters were struck strongly by the Japanese woodblock prints that used unusual subject choices and also strange but effective compositional devices they employed. They showed everyday life in Japan in all its aspects with directness and intimacy. On the other hands, woodblock prints of landscapes showed great purity and simplicity. Both appealed to the European painters differently.
Hashiguchi Goyo Woman Combing Her Hair 1920
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The major compositional devices Western artists were attracted to were: 1. The extreme vertical format 2. Irregular format (in the shape of fans) 3. The polyptych 4. Off-centering of the subjects 5. The division of the whole composition or parts of it into large, simple, geometric areas 6. The use of the large, empty space
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7. The adoption of unusually high or low viewpoints to bring foreground and background towards the same plane.
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THE EXTREME VERTICAL FORMAT
Koryusai Courtesan as Jurojin
The extreme vertical format originated from the kakemono, or tall scroll painting. Many of them stretched from floor to ceiling. Kakemono were composed to be read from top to bottom, rather than from the edges towards the centre which is a common composition in Western artworks.
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IRREGULAR FORMATS Many Japanese artists were interested in using irregular formats in their work. Images were often designed in the shape of fans. Also, sometimes, prints were drawn within ovals and other unusual shapes.
Hiroshige Twilight Snow at Ryogoku Bridge Fan Print
POLYPTYCH
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Many prints were composed as polyptychs. Although the design is laid across the several panels, each panel still makes sense in their own, even though the important elements and motifs are often cut by the edges of each panel. When seen individually, it showed figures dramatically truncated.
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Truncated images were often more important than the part that was wholly visible.
Utagawa Hiroshige ‘Ferry at Haneda’ from One Hundred Views of Edo 1858
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LARGE, EMPTY SPACE One of the most common Japanese compositional devices was the use of large, empty areas. It came across as an unique and exotic element to Western artists’ eyes. Often, negative space helped balancing the small areas with concentrated details, and also provided the focal point of the composition.   The empty space was not regarded as a negative element. It was used as an important compositional element that would be as active as the other elements in artwork. It helped to create tension between different elements. Empty space and painted areas equally played important roles in a work. European artists were struck by these compositional elements in Japanese art, and started using them in their own art practice.
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É DOUA R D MA N E T
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The French Impressionist Manet’s use of Japanese motifs is not straightforward. Unlike many other Impressionists, he did not simply use Japanese elements as a source to bring exoticness into his works, but he modified and absorbed the Japanese aesthetic in his own work. He was interested in the qualities of nishiki-e, which refers to Japanese multicolored woodblock printing, which was the technique used in ukiyo-e. He admired its flat-looking presentation of the subject, strong tonal contrasts and bright colors. Not just in his paintings, but Manet’s drawings also showed his admiration of Japanese art, especially in his brush studies of plants and flowers. Also, his brush sketches have elements drawn from Japanese art.
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“ T H E H E A D A N D FRO N T O F JAP N O N E R IE ”
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This painting of the portrait of Zola shows Manet’s interest in Japanese art. The figure is sitting at a book-laden writing desk with a Japanese ceramic. There is a print of a sumo wrestler by Kuniaki II in a frame. There is also a Japanese book laid on the desk. Although these details are important in this painting, the most interesting thing about this painting is the compositional device Manet used in this work. Zola is against the mostly dark background. His jacket is also very dark that it almost blends into the dark tone of the background. The background is framed with the three picture frames and the edges of them are parallel to the canvas. The simplified use of colors, flatten space and suppressed volume were popular decorative treatments of the subjects in Japanese prints.
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Manet Portrait of Zola 1867–8
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The street singer is a painting that shows Manet’s treatment of Japanese elements. His use of Japanese devices are very subtle and it’s modified and absorbed into his own style. This painting has a quality of a full-length nishiki-e of a woman. The model is shown as a full, unbroken figure, framed by louvred doors which is clearly reminiscent of a Japanese screen.
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Japanese objects appear not only in the Zola, but also in later works. In The lady with the fans, the fans are obviously Japanese.
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Manet The lady with the fans 1873
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Repose 1870
Manet placed his signature in a corner of a large Japanese landscape triptych in the background.
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Tama 1875
Manet depicts a lapdog and a dolll brought back from Japan by his friend Cernuschi.
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In Nana 1877
The wall on the back is covered with a large painting of a crane that employed a Japanese style. The most striking element in this painting is the way the seated gentleman in evening dress is truncated. This unique Japanese element was used to enable the composition to be more dynamic, as it transfers viewer’s interest away from a conventional focal point to the edges of the work.
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E DG A R D EG AS
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Edgar Degas was also heavily influenced by the Japanese prints. Degas started borrowing various compositional devices from Japanese prints, which helped Degas to explore cropping and asymmetry in his art practice.
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Degas Sur la Plage 1876
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Degas Woman with chrysanthemums 1865
The female figure is gazing off into the space, while the entire scene is covered by a huge vase of flowers on a table, viewed from a high angle. This kinds of decenralization of the major figure was very unique in Degas work. This painting is known to be the first instance in which Degas used an assymetrical composition in his painting.
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Unique truncation of the figure is obvious in Carriage at the races, in which the major figure is put on the edge of the image. Also, the composition contains a large negative space.
Degas Carriage at the races 1871
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Degas Before the ballet 1888
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Hokusai Page 7 from Vol. III of the Manga
There are resemblances between Degas’ works and Hokusai’s prints. Typical resemblance can be found in Degas’ Before the ballet and Hokusai’s figures from the Manga. Degas has captured the scene with a sharp, direct and intimate observation.
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Degas At the Louvre: the painter Mary Cassat 1879
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Hokusai Page 5 from Vol. IX of the Manga
There is a similarity between Cassatt’s black silhouette, and that of the woman with rearing horse from the Manga.
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Harunobu JurŌjin 1769
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Degas’ The pedicure and Harunobu’s print show the direct resemblance. They both show the intimate scene of a woman and a man in an everyday life. It is shown with a sense of humour and imagination as well as with great honesty.
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Degas The pedicurre 1873
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V I N C E N T VA N G O G H
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Van Gogh had a great enthusiasm for Japan and for ukiyo-e prints. He was most attracted to Japanese prints because of their exotic associations and their strangeness. Then he started getting influenced by the aesthetic qualities of nishiki-e.
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“I’ve put some Japanese prints up on the wall, which give me enormous pleasure. You know, those figures of little women in gardens, or on the beach, horsemen, flowers, knotty thorn branches...�
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Hiroshige The Ohashi bridge in the rain
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Van Gogh started to explore using large areas of a single color to make the image visually flat. He also brightened his color in his work and started exploring the unconventional use of composition, which helped his works to become more expressive. His use of unbroken contours, variety of lines drawn in a variety of colors for the contrast were influenced by the Japanese prints.
Van Gogh Copy of Hiroshige’s ‘Ohashi Bridge’ 1888
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Van Gogh Sailing boats coming ashore 1888
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Van Gogh developed a graphic, rhythmical system of brushmarks which is a crucial part of his expressive language.
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Hokusai Double-page spread from One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji
The sky is rendered with stippling, the sea towards the horizon in wavy lines and the surf in the foreground in curves and squiggles that strongly recall Hokusai.
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REFERENCES
Harris, Frederick. Ukiyo-e: The Art of the Japanese Print = Ukiyoe. “Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.” Japonisme. Accessed April 19, 2015. “How Japan’s Art Inspired the West | The Japan Times.” Japan Times RSS. August 14, 2014. Accessed April 19, 2015. “Looking East: Western Artists and the Allure of Japan.” - Frist Center for the Visual Arts. Accessed April 19, 2015. “Theme: Foreign Inspiration: Western Influence on Japanese Ukiyo-e.” Japanese Landscapes. December 4, 2009. Accessed April 19, 2015. Whitford, Frank. Japanese Prints and Western Painters. New York: Macmillan, 1977.
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