What the Word Means
Japonisme is a term coined in France in the later nineteenth century for the fashion for Japanese art and design in the West. It covers both direct influence on artists and a broader taste for Japanese-style objects among collectors and the public. The word describes a European and American phenomenon; it says as much about Western interests and misunderstandings as about Japan itself.
How Japanese Objects Reached the West
For much of the Edo period, Japan’s contact with Europe was restricted and channeled mainly through limited trade. Some Japanese porcelain and lacquer did reach European collections in earlier centuries, which gave Europeans an idea of Japanese craft, but the large flow came after trade and diplomatic relations widened in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Several routes carried objects abroad. Dealers and travelers brought back ceramics, textiles, fans, lacquer and prints. International exhibitions, often called world fairs, included Japanese displays, which attracted large audiences. Shops in major cities began to specialize in Japanese goods. Printed books and individual sheets reached Paris, London and elsewhere, and they were often inexpensive compared with European paintings.
A common story says that Japanese prints first drew attention as wrapping material around ceramics. That anecdote is repeated widely, but it is hard to verify, and it should be treated cautiously. What is clear is that ukiyo-e prints were collected and discussed in artistic circles.
What Artists Noticed
European painters admired several features in Japanese prints, though they responded in different ways:
- Flat areas of color and bold outlines, in contrast to the modeled shading of academic painting.
- Unusual viewpoints, such as high angles, and compositions where figures or objects are cropped by the edge of the picture.
- Asymmetry, with empty space balancing the subject in place of a centered arrangement. This resembles the Japanese idea of the concept of ma, meaningful emptiness.
- Everyday subjects, including city life, travelers and the natural scene, treated as worthy of art.
- Decorative pattern, in cloth, screens and ceramics.
Painters such as Manet, Degas, Whistler, Monet and Van Gogh are commonly cited as having been influenced to different degrees. Van Gogh is known to have copied several prints in oil, and Monet collected prints and filled his home with them. Mary Cassatt in the United States produced color prints inspired by Japanese examples. These are well-documented cases, but it is simplistic to say these artists “became Japanese”; they borrowed selectively and fused what they saw with their own aims.
Beyond Painting
The influence extended to design and decoration. Furniture, silverware, glass, ceramics and book illustration absorbed motifs such as bamboo, cranes, waves and chrysanthemums. Art Nouveau designers drew on the flowing lines of plants seen in Japanese designs, among other sources. Interior designers sometimes built “Japanese rooms” with fans, screens and lacquer, and the fashion also appeared in theatre costumes and in popular works set in an imagined Japan. Interest in Japanese garden styles also appeared in Western parks and private estates, often with a limited understanding of the originals.
Misunderstanding and Exoticism
Because most Western viewers knew little about Japan’s history, they often read objects through their own assumptions. Prints that were everyday commercial products in Japan were praised as timeless fine art; mass-produced export goods were sometimes mistaken for traditional ones. Some Western works present Japan as a dreamlike place of delicate women and quaint customs, which reduces a complex society to a stereotype. Reading these pictures today, it is useful to ask what they show about the artist’s view rather than about Japan.
Influence in Both Directions
The exchange did not run only one way. Japanese artists and officials were aware of Western interest, and the government actively used exhibitions to present Japan and promote exports. This was tied to the changes of the Meiji modernization, when decisions about which crafts to showcase were made partly with foreign buyers in mind. Japanese painters also studied Western techniques, and later debates in nihonga painting were partly about how to relate to that influence. Export wares, such as elaborately decorated ceramics and metalwork, were designed to suit overseas tastes, which sometimes differed from domestic ones.
Later Echoes
Interest in Japanese art continued into the twentieth century, with attention shifting to architecture, gardens, ceramics and, later, folk craft. The arrival of Japanese cinema and, eventually, manga history and anime in the West created new rounds of fascination. Some art historians use the word “Japonisme” only for the nineteenth-century wave, and others see it as the first of several cycles. Either way, it showed how objects crossing borders can change the people who receive them, sometimes in ways the makers never imagined.