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Japonisme

• 
  The Old Plum, Edo period (1615–1868), ca. 1645
  Kano Sansetsu (Japanese, ca. 1589–1651)
  Four sliding door panels (fusuma); ink, color, gold leaf on paper

  H. 68 3/4 in. (174.6 cm)
  The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975 (1975.268.48a-d)

• 
  Kyoyu and Sofu, Edo period (1615–1868), 18th century
  Okumura Masanobu (Japanese, 1686–1764)
  "Stone rubbing" style woodblock print; ink on paper; H. 11 7/16 in. (29.1 cm), W. 5 1/2 in. (14 cm)
  H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 (JP1589)

• 
  Midnight: The Hours of the Rat; Mother and Sleepy Child, Edo period (1615–1868), ca. 1790
  Kitagawa Utamaro (Japanese, 1753–1806)
  Polychrome woodblock print

  H. 14 3/8 in. (36.5 cm), W. 9 5/8 in. (24.4 cm)
  Rogers Fund, 1922 (JP1278)

• 
  Otani Oniji II, dated 1794
  Toshusai Sharaku (Japanese, active 1794–95)
  Polychrome woodcut print on paper

  15 x 9 7/8 in. (38.1 x 22.9 cm)
  Henry L. Phillips Collection, Bequest of Henry L. Phillips, 1939 (JP2822)

• 
  Station of Otsu: From the Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (The "Reisho Tokaido"), Edo period (1615–1868), ca. 1848–49
  Ando Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858)
  Polychrome woodblock print

  H. 8 23/32 in. (22.2 cm), W. 13 23/32 in. (34.9 cm)
  Frederick Charles Hewitt Bequest Income, 1912 (JP804)

• 
  Kinryusan Temple at Asakusa: From the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, Edo period (1615–1868), 1856
  Ando Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858)
  Oban format, woodblock print; ink and color on paper

  H. 14 1/16 in. (35.7 cm), W. 9 1/2 in. (24.1 cm)
  The Howard Mansfield Collection, Purchase, Rogers Fund, 1936 (JP2519)

• 
  Dancers in the Rehearsal Room with a Double Bass, ca. 1882–85
  Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)
  Oil on canvas

  15 3/8 x 35 1/4 in. (39.1 x 89.5 cm)
  Signed (lower left): Degas
  H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 (29.100.127)

• 
  Maternal Caress, 1891
  Mary Cassatt (American, 1844–1926)
  Drypoint and soft-ground etching, third state, printed in color

  14 3/8 x 10 9/16 in. (36.5 x 27 cm)
  Gift of Paul J. Sachs, 1916 (16.2.5)

• 
  At the Moulin Rouge: La Goulue and Her Sister, 1892
  Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901)
  Lithograph printed in six colors

  Image: 17 1/2 x 13 1/2 in. (44.5 x 34.3 cm); sheet: 24 1/2 x 19 in. (62.2 x 48.3 cm); frame: 28 x 22 in. (71.1 x 55.9 cm)
  Gift of Mrs. Bessie Potter Vonnoh, 1941 (41.12.18)

• 
  Nave Nave Fenua (Delightful Land): From Noa Noa (Fragrance), 1893–94
  Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903)
  Woodcut printed in color on wove paper, lined in silk

  Block: 13 3/4 x 8 in. (34.9 x 20.3 cm); paper: 18 3/4 x 10 11/16 in. (47.6 x 27.2 cm)
  Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1936 (36.6.4)

• 
  Street Corner, ca. 1897
  Pierre Bonnard (French, 1867–1947)
  From the series Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris, 1899
  Lithograph in four colors

  10 5/8 x 14 in. (27 x 35.5 cm)
  Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1928 (28.50.4.3)
  © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

• 
  Interior with a Hanging Lamp, 1899
  Édouard Vuillard (French, 1868–1940)
  Color lithograph

  14 x 11 1/8 in. (35.7 x 28.4 cm)
  Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1925 (25.70.23)

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After Japanese ports reopened to trade with the West in 1853, a tidal wave of foreign imports flooded European shores. On the crest of that wave were woodcut prints by masters of the ukiyo-e school which transformed Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art by demonstrating that simple, transitory, everyday subjects from "the floating world" could be presented in appealingly decorative ways.

Parisians saw their first formal exhibition of Japanese arts and crafts when Japan took a pavilion at the World's Fair of 1867. But already, shiploads of oriental bric-a-brac—including fans, kimonos, lacquers, bronzes, and silks—had begun pouring into England and France.

Experimentation with a wide range of pictorial modes, coincided with the growing popularity of Japanese woodcuts during the 1890s.

Related

Timelines (5)

• France, 1800–1900 A.D.
• Great Britain and Ireland, 1800–1900 A.D.
• Japan, 1600–1800 A.D.
• Japan, 1800–1900 A.D.
• The United States, 1600–1800 A.D.

Primary Thematic Essays (2)

• Impressionism: Art and Modernity
• Woodblock Prints in the Ukiyo–e Style

Other Thematic Essays (40)

• American Impressionism
• American Revival Styles, 1840–1876
• Art Nouveau
• Art of the Edo Period (1615–1868 a.d.)
• Art of the Pleasure Quarters and the Ukiyo–e Style
• The Arts and Crafts Movement in America
• Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)
• Candace Wheeler (1827–1923)
• Christopher Dresser (1834–1904)
• Claude Monet (1840–1926)
• Design Reform
• Design, 1900–25
• East and West: Chinese Export Porcelain
• Edgar Degas (1834–1917): Paintings and Drawings
• Édouard Manet (1832–1883)
• Exoticism in the Decorative Arts
• Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959)
• Interiors Imagined: Folding Screens, Garments, and Clothing Stands
• Japanese Incense
• Japanese Weddings in the Edo Period (1615–1868)
• John Singer Sargent (1856–1925)
• The Kano School of Painting
• Lacquerware of East Asia
• Lithography in the Nineteenth Century
• Mary Stevenson Cassatt (1844–1926)
• The Nabis and Decorative Painting
• Nineteenth–Century American Drawings
• Orientalism in Nineteenth–Century Art
• Orientalism: Visions of the East in Western Dress
• Painting Formats in East Asian Art
• Paul Poiret (1879–1944)
• Post–Impressionism
• The Pre–Raphaelites
• The Print in the Nineteenth Century
• Rinpa Painting Style
• Seasonal Imagery in Japanese Art
• Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)
• Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890): The Drawings
• Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
• Women China Decorators

Maps (4)

• East Asia, 1600–1800 a.d.
• East Asia, 1800–1900 a.d.
• Europe, 1800–1900 a.d.
• World, 1800–1900 a.d.

Index Terms (36)

Art Movement/Style

• Japonisme in Nineteenth–Century European Art
• Les Nabis in Nineteenth–Century European Art
• Orientalism in Twentieth–Century European Art
• The Kano School of Japanese Art
• Ukiyo–e in Japanese Art

Artist

• Ando Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858)
• Bonnard, Pierre (French, 1867–1947)
• Cassatt, Mary (American, 1844–1926)
• Degas, Edgar (French, 1834–1917)
• Gauguin, Paul (French, 1848–1903)
• Kano Sansetsu (Japanese, ca. 1589–1651)
• Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849)
• Kitagawa Utamaro (Japanese, 1753–1806)
• Monet, Claude (French, 1840–1926)
• Okumura Masanobu (Japanese, 1686–1764)
• Tissot, James (French, 1836–1902)
• Toshusai Sharaku (Japanese, active 1794–95)
• Toulouse–Lautrec, Henri de (French, 1864–1901)
• Vuillard, Édouard (French, 1868–1940)
• Whistler, James McNeill (American, 1834–1903)

Geography/Place

• France
• Japan
• Nineteenth–Century European Art

Material and Technique

• Gold Leaf
• Woodcut
• Woodcut Print from East Asia
• Woodcut Print from Europe

Object

• Doorway/portal
• Lamp

Subject Matter/Theme

• Interior
• Motherhood
• Screen with Seasonal Imagery
• Spring
• Theater
• Trade (1800–1900 A.D.)
• Women Artists from North America

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It is said that James Whistler discovered Japanese prints in a Chinese tearoom near London Bridge and that Claude Monet first came upon them used as wrapping paper in a spice shop in Holland. James Tissot and his friend Edgar Degas (29.100.127) were among the earliest collectors of Japanese art in France, but their own art was affected by exotic things in very different ways. Unlike Tissot, and others who came under the spell of Japan, Degas avoided staging japoneries that featured models dressed in kimonos and the conspicuous display of oriental props. Instead, he absorbed qualities of the Japanese aesthetic that he found most sympathetic (1975.268.48): elongated pictorial formats, asymmetrical compositions, aerial perspective, spaces emptied of all but abstract elements of color and line, and a focus on singularly decorative motifs. In the process, he redoubled his originality.

Degas' American friend Mary Cassatt (16.2.5), who declared that she "hated conventional art," found in Japanese woodcuts like those of Utamaro (JP1278) a fresh approach to the depiction of common events in women's lives. After visiting a large exhibition of ukiyo-e prints at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris during the spring of 1890, she produced a set of ten color etchings in open admiration of their subjects, compositions, and technical innovations.

Experimentation with a wide range of pictorial modes, and with printmaking techniques as well, coincided with the growing popularity of Japanese woodcuts during the 1890s. Toulouse-Lautrec (41.12.18) adopted the exaggerated colors, contours, and facial expressions found in Kabuki theater prints (JP2822) in order to create his eye-catching posters. Meanwhile, Pierre Bonnard (28.50.4.3) and Édouard Vuillard (25.70.23), who called themselves "Nabis" or "prophets" of a new style of art, relied upon the piquant, unusual viewpoints of ukiyo-e printmakers (JP804; JP2519) for inspiration. Only Paul Gauguin (36.6.4), who was attracted to the native arts of many cultures, sidestepped the then-current practice of lithography and adapted Japanese woodcut techniques (JP1589) to the abstract expression of his forward-looking art.

Colta Ives Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Citation Ives, Colta. "Japonisme". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jpon/hd_jpon.htm (October 2004) Further Reading Ives, Colta. The Great Wave: The Influence of Japanese Woodcuts on French Prints. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974. Related exhibitions and online features Special Exhibitions (including upcoming, current, and past exhibitions) Gauguin in New York Collections: The Lure of the Exotic Pierre Bonnard: The Late Interiors Rembrandt and Degas: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

These related Museum Bulletin or Journal articles may or may not represent the most current scholarship. Mayor, A. Hyatt, with an essay by Yasuko Betchaku. "Hokusai." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 43, no. 1 (Summer, 1985). JSTOR | PDF | Supplemental PDFs "Director's Note" PDF Meech, Julia. "Early Collections of Japanese Prints and The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 17 (1982). JSTOR | PDF "A Bicentennial Treasury: American Masterpieces from the Metropolitan." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 33, no. 4 (Winter, 1975–76). JSTOR | PDF | Supplemental PDFs "Curator's Note" PDF "Director's Note" PDF Karpinski, Caroline. "Munch and Lautrec." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 23, no. 3 (November, 1964). JSTOR | PDF Priest, Alan. "Autumn Millet." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New ser., v. 17, no. 4 (December, 1958) JSTOR | PDF