| Transcript |
- trend known as "Japonisme" in various art forms. The Europeans were fascinated with the tremendous skill of the Japanese artists and craftsmen and their motifs. They were influenced by compositional devices such as the truncation of the major part of the subject, the use of solid areas of colour and large empty spaces, the division of the composition into simple geomet�ric areas, the vertical format and the use of high or low viewpoint to bring the foreground and background towards the same plane. Late 19th century Western artists like Manet, Monet, Degas, Gauguin, van Gogh, Toulouse- Lautrec, Whistler and Mary Cassatt were greatly influenced by Japanese art.
The most progressive ideas in Western art developed in Paris during the late 19th century, and ukiyo-e prints played a role in this new movement. Manet was the first to adopt some aspects of the ukiyo-e print, particularly the portrayal of everyday activities and ordinary experiences. Monet's scenes of everyday life and his brilliant colours also show the influence of the ukiyo-e prints. Degas absorbed the unusual angles and points of view from the ukiyo-e prints.
From Japanese prints, Gauguin learned to use unusual shapes, like the fan-shape, for his paintings. The prints also inspired Gauguin to revive the colour print which Europeans had discarded centuries earlier. He was convinced that the Oriental tradition could revitalize the art of colour printing in the West. In Hiroshige's prints, van Gogh saw the decorative potential of brighter colours and the expressive power of large single-colour areas. Van Gogh even painted direct copies of some Hiroshige prints. Toulouse-Lautrec was strongly influenced by ukiyo-e themes, and he, too, began to paint risque scenes from the Parisian world of theatres, circuses, cabarets and prostitutes. The influence was noticeable in his lithographs as well as his paintings. More than any other Western artist of the time, Toulouse-Lautrec embodied the true spirit of ukiyo-e.
For James McNeill Whistler, ukiyo-e represented an ideal of inner calm and beauty. Japanese derivations are obvious in his paintings such as "Old Battersea Bridge in London," which is similar to scenes of bridges and fireworks in some ukiyo-e prints.
In 1891, Mary Cassatt made ten etchings in direct imitation of ukiyo-e prints. Cassatt's etchings are excellent examples of the late 19th century synthesis of Eastern and Western art.
While Japanese art was injecting new energy into Western art, the traditional arts in Japan were rapidly deteriorating due to over-emphasis on Western realism, with its perspective, shading and anatomical accuracy, which the Japanese considered more "modern" than their own traditional depictions and therefore, more appealing.
6 AGGV COLLECTS/SHIN HANGA
|
|---|
