Japonisme

Japonisme is the French term for the craze for Japanese art and design that swept Europe and America after Japan reopened to the West in the 1850s. The critic Philippe Burty coined the word in 1872, but the passion began earlier, as ukiyo-e woodblock prints, lacquer, ceramics, and textiles reached Paris through shops, world's fairs, and dealers such as Siegfried Bing. For artists weary of academic tradition, Japanese prints offered a startling alternative: flat areas of color, radical cropping, asymmetry, empty space, and everyday subjects. Whistler, Monet, Cassatt, and Van Gogh absorbed these lessons - some painting kimono-clad models, others copying Hiroshige outright - and by the 1890s Japanese design motifs had flowed into Art Nouveau. Japonisme was less a style than a way of seeing, and its compositional devices permanently altered Western painting, printmaking, and the decorative arts.

Defining characteristics

• Flat areas of unshaded color bound by strong, decisive outlines
• Radical cropping, close-up views, and off-center, asymmetrical compositions
• Large areas of empty space treated as active design
• Elevated viewpoints and tilted ground planes that flatten depth
• Everyday subjects, seasonal motifs, birds, flowers, fans, and kimonos
• Decorative patterning and Japanese lettering spilling from fine art into furniture, ceramics, and graphics

Key figures

• Siegfried Bing (1838-1905) — Dealer whose shop and journal promoted Japanese art; his gallery L'Art Nouveau (1895) spread the influence into design
• James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) — Painted 1860s 'caprices' of screens, fans, and kimonos in London
• Claude Monet (1840-1926) — Collector of Japanese prints who staged a kimono-clad model in La Japonaise (1876)
• Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) — Made Japanese-style aquatints and drypoints after an 1890 ukiyo-e exhibition in Paris
• Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) — Copied Hiroshige in his 'Japonaiserie' paintings and collected prints avidly

Example works

• La Japonaise — Claude Monet (1876)
• Japonaiserie: Flowering Plum Tree (after Hiroshige) — Vincent van Gogh (1887)
• The Coiffure — Mary Cassatt (1890-1891)

Sources

• Japonisme - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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