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When cheap Japanese woodblock prints reached 19th-century Europe, artists such as Van Gogh and Monet were struck by their flat colour, bold cropping and everyday subjects, and their own work changed.

Art history (Japonisme)

ArtHistory

The story behind the card

The French critic Philippe Burty coined the word 'Japonisme' for the craze in 1872. It had been building since the 1850s, when Japan opened its ports to foreign trade after two centuries of near-isolation and its prints, fans and ceramics began reaching Paris and London. Monet collected more than two hundred Japanese prints for his house at Giverny. Van Gogh, who also collected them, made close oil copies of two prints by Hiroshige in 1887 and painted Japanese characters around their borders. Ideas that had looked like fixed rules of Western painting, such as a single vanishing point, turned out to be one tradition among others.

Türkçe oku
Ucuz Japon ağaç baskıları 19. yüzyılda Avrupa'ya ulaştığında, Van Gogh ve Monet gibi ressamlar bu resimlerin düz renklerine, cesur kadrajlarına ve gündelik konularına hayran kaldı; kendi resimleri de değişti.

Fransız eleştirmen Philippe Burty, bu merakı anlatmak için “Japonizm” sözcüğünü 1872'de ortaya attı. İlgi, 1850'lerden beri büyüyordu: Japonya iki yüzyıla yakın süren kapalılığın ardından limanlarını dış ticarete açmış, baskıları, yelpazeleri ve seramikleri Paris'e ve Londra'ya ulaşmaya başlamıştı. Monet, Giverny'deki evi için iki yüzü aşkın Japon baskısı topladı. Onları biriktiren Van Gogh ise 1887'de Hiroshige'nin iki baskısını yağlıboyayla aslına çok yakın biçimde kopyaladı ve kenarlarına Japonca yazılar ekledi. Batı resminin değişmez kuralları sanılan tek kaçış noktalı perspektif gibi şeyler, pek çok gelenekten yalnızca biri çıktı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Japonisme
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