Henry Somm, Woman with Fan, 1880
All things Japan
In 1854, Japan opened its borders to foreign trade for the first time in two hundred years.
Japanese prints and other artworks, household goods and ornaments flooded the Western market — a craze that the artist Henry Somm depicted in prints showing Parisiennes surrounded by Japanese objects.
All manner of publications were devoted to Japanese art and culture and as a result, artists began to collect Japanese prints.
Decorative style
The style and subject matter of Japanese art were an inexhaustible source for the development of modern, decorative printmaking.
Artists followed the example of their Japanese colleagues and began to use large expanses of colour, patterns, undulating lines, dark contours, diagonals, abrupt cropping and unusual compositions in their prints.
They were inspired by the everyday subjects found in ukiyo-e, such as close-ups of nature, street scenes and domestic interiors, as well as the way that Japanese printmakers produced series on a particular theme.
Charles-Louis-M. Houdard, Frogs (Grenouilles), 1894
Pierre Bonnard, Family Scene (Scène de famille), 1892
Further reading
- Colta Feller Ives, The Great Wave: The Influence of Japanese Woodcuts on French Prints, exhib. cat., New York (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) 1974
- Gabriel P. Weisberg et al., Japonisme: Japanese Influence on French art, 1854—1910, exhib. cat., Cleveland (Cleveland Museum of Art) 1975
- Yamada Chisaburō, Tatsuji Ōmori, Japonisme in Art: An International Symposium, Tokyo 1980