Modern Japanese Art. The idea of modern art and modernity are premised on metaphors of space and tim

Modern Japanese Art. The idea of modern art and modernity are premised on metaphors of space and time.  Art history as a product of modernity carved up the world in the same way Imperial nation-states did.  Japanese art was seen as “primitive” and its nearest equivalents were near Near-Eastern and African art.  While Japanese art was a “pale pastiche” of European art, Japanese art and artifacts had been making their way to Europe as “decorative” objects and “primitive” Japanese art was very influential to European “masters”.   -Oscar Wilde observed in 1891, that Japan, for the west was merely an invention, a purely aesthetic fancy. - Maurice Denis argued that painting oscillates perpetually between invention and imitation. Japonisme is an oversimplified term for the influence of the arts of Japan on west.  From the 1860s, ukiyo-e, Japanese wood-block prints, became a source of inspiration for many European impressionist painters in France and elsewhere, and eventually for Art Nouveau and Cubism. Artists were especially affected by the lack of perspective and shadow, the flat areas of strong color, the compositional freedom in placing the subject off-centre, with mostly a low diagonal axis to the background. Unlike other varieties of Orientalism, Japonisme mostly involved Western artists using elements of Eastern styles in works showing their own culture; if only because of the difficulty of travel, there were relatively few artists attempting Eastern scenes in a Western style. Painting #1&2 Claude Monet Haystack, snow effect, (1891) & Haystacks Giverny, the evening sun, (1888).  Compare to paintings  #3&4, From the series Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji, Woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai (1830’s).  Also compare #5 Takahashi Yuichi’ Courtesan (1872) and #6 Vincent van Gogh The Courtesan (1887). From the 1870’ to the mid-1900’s the structure of Japanese modern art and its institutions were shaped largely in response to Japonisme’s compulsion towards national and ethnic essentialism.  Around 1910-1920 a younger generation of artists saw Japan’s influence on the work of western painters such as Monet and Van Gough.   They saw this as an opportunity for their art to transcend national boarders.  During this time the the Meiji government was pushing to modernize by modelling herself on the West.  Nihonga (Neo-traditional Japanese painting -both aesthetic and technique) and Yoga (Western style painting, specifically oil painting) became the two parallel streams of Japanese painting the originated and crystallized in the Meiji period.  These two schools fought to control the direction modern painting would take in the future.  It wasn’t really until the shift from the Meiji to Taisho period that Yoga became a naturalized art along side Nihonga.  Modernism in Taisho-period Japanese art ways in many ways a response to the “cultural boomerang” of European Japonisme returning to Japan.  For Japanese artists and critics, European Japonisme was proof that after many centuries, in the modern period of the arts the East and West had begun to converge. Painting #7 Japan’s “pale pastiche” of western art. #7 Yorozu Tetsugorō’s Nude Beauty (1912)  Oil on canvas. Paintings #8 & #9 Nihonga and Yoga respectively.  #8 Takahashi Yuichi’s Tofu (1888) & #9 Okada Saburosuke’s Kimono with Iris Patterns )1927) Oil on canvas. -- source link

More pics about