How did Japanese Art influenced the Western world ?
What defines Japanese art ?
Japanese art includes calligraphy, painting, sculpture, architecture, ceramics, and other visual arts created in Japan between 10,000 BCE and the present.
In 1854, due to the Convention of Kanagawa Japan was opened to the West. The trade between nations allowed artists to develop recognizition about each others cultures. Artists such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Vincent van Gogh started amassing woodblock prints, or ukiyo-e prints. While Japanese art primarily emphasizes stark contours and flat sections of color, Western art frequently uses the illusion of having three-dimensional space. Asian art typically uses woodblocks or thin rice paper as its medium, whereas Western art typically uses oil on canvas. Japanese art had a big influence on Impressionism around the end of the 19th century. Extensive patterns, shared subject matter, odd angles, and the absence of chiaroscuro or depth are characteristics of Japanese prints. Western philosophies and techniques were acquired by Japanese painters, like Koide Narashige, Hazama Inosuke, and Hayashi Shizue, during their time in Paris.
The Printmaking:
Printmaking makes it possible to make multiple copies of a single design. It was the exclusive means of duplicating two-dimensional artwork for centuries, enabling the spread of images in a method similar to that of written texts. Printmaking has emerged with fresh and unique aesthetic possibilities of its own in the digital age.
The evolution of printmaking in Japan was associated with advances in papermaking technology, and it was initially related to the dissemination of holy scriptures rather than pictures. For apparel and ornamentation, fabrics were printed with colors and designs; printing was often not an elite medium but rather an ordinary, transient art form.
The significance of images in social and cultural life increased in fifteenth-century Europe. In addition to serving as book illustrations, prints were also used as propaganda tools in the intense religious and political disputes that raged in many parts of the world from the early sixteenth century for nearly 200 years. A moral tale told through graphic techniques, Albrecht Dürer’s large print Knight, Death and the Devil, 1513, is meant to inspire.
Examples from different artist’s that have Japanese influence:
Paul GAUGUIN
Gauguin’s this painting provides an optical naturalism, work on subjects and ideas that he has taken from a specific area and mixing with his own sensation. Massive use of red color not only illustrates the unrealistic side of the painting, but it’s an expression in a way of sensation. The feeling of sensation of expressing something not visible which directly combines with the experience of life. Gauguin’s way of showing his technique and style is a synthesis from Japanese art.
Henri MATISSE
Matisse’s very well known artwork Joy of Life is a psychological and philosophical representation. Pastoral color scheme provides an attachment to reality and gives an almost dreamy-surreal sense of painting. Wide area is depicted not crowded enough neither empty, unnaturalistic. The colors are pure, clash of warm & cold tones. Pink, green, and yellow are the most striking colors. Thick black contour line is another aspect that defines the distorted human body form. Naturalistic and primitive approach to human bodies creates a merge between human figure and landscape which can also be seen on the right hand side of the painting. The synthetic images can be considered as an influence of Japanese art.
Vincent VAN GOGH
Violent gesture & brush strokes is similar to Under the Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai. Not so defined by colors, Visions tecnique used. Sensation of the sky provided through artist to viewer. The passion & disease transformed into art.
