From high–end furniture to animation, to minimalist design and interior aesthetics, Japanese influence can be found all over the West. But that wasn’t always the case.
For over two centuries, Japan was closed off to the world. Throughout this time, the Edo Period, lower–class Japanese merchants and artisans created everything from woodblock prints to screen paintings and textiles. But why is there a Japanese print in the background of Edgar Degas’ portrait of James Tissot—a painting made nearly 6,000 miles away? And why on earth did Mary Cassatt use Japanese printing for her iconic Set of Ten?
Such questions were answered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recently completed Manet/Degas exhibition, which put the work of two of the most iconic impressionists in conversation with each other. At the same time, the Philadelphia Museum of Art added its own spin on the conversation with the freshly finished Mary Cassatt at Work exhibition, showcasing Philadelphia’s finest impressionist and the steps she took to build her massive portfolio of work.
So where does Japan come in? In 1853, Japan opened their borders to the world after pressures from the West. From this, a tsunami of Japanese work burst through the doors of the growing impressionist scene in France, catching the sights of impressionists at the Parisian World Fair of 1867, leading to the coinage of the term “Japonisme” by Philippe Burty in 1872.
The fair showcased countless Edo Period works—in particular, ones that represented the "ukiyo–e," or the floating world. The Japanese concept of ukiyo–e refers to the urban culture of the Edo Period, especially the gratification industry, and encourages living in the moment and viewing the world from new perspectives.
Edgar Degas soon became one of the first major French collectors of Japanese art. Some like James Tissot made "japoneries," or works that used models of various Japanese props and clothing to recreate the scenes Japanese artists showed in ukiyo–e works. Degas, however, chose to incorporate ukiyo–e techniques into his work, with an emphasis on aerial perspectives and elongated formats.
For instance, in his 1867–1868 portrait of Tissot, shown in the Manet/Degas exhibition, he pictures the artist from a fly on the wall perspective. Through this, he imitates the aerial view technique used by ukiyo–e artists to provide a more personal frame of the subject matter. The piece even includes a canvas with a Japanese scene on the wall behind Tissot next to Western pieces the two artists liked, indicating that Japanese art was now of equal value to them.
Manet had a similar piece in the exhibition—a portrait of Émile Zola, ca. 1868, seemingly interrupted in his reading with several art pieces around him, including a Japanese screen and woodblock print. Rather than assuming the aerial perspective like Degas does in his portrait of Tissot, University of Kansas professor of Art History Dr. Marni Kessler describes Manet as depicting a sense of immediacy in the piece through the interruption of Zola’s reading. This provides the viewer with a feeling of being in the present moment with Zola, something many ukiyo–e artists sought to create for their own audiences.
Such a change was immense for the European art scene, as throughout European history art from other continents was seen as less advanced than Western styles. But, Japan completely changed this: now a couple of the most talented white men in France were altering their perspectives on art because a nation halfway across the world opened its borders.
In the visiting guide to the Manet/Degas exhibition, Dr. Kessler explains that in ukiyo–e, “ …space was not constructed in a way that was necessarily logical, but rather there was an emphasis on seeing things in new ways. And that’s of course what [the impressionists] were trying to do.” The impressionists sought out to depict the world through their own eyes, showing stills of life based on feeling, not just realism. The advent of Japanese art in France was bound to act as a turning point for the group because the ukiyo–e artists had the same goal—and so, a new era of Western art was born.
The Japanese inspiration in the Manet/Degas exhibition is clear in many other pieces. It can be found especially in Degas’ intimate series of women bathing or grooming themselves. Woman Combing Her Hair, ca. 1888–1890, employs the same technique of an aerial perspective as in his portrait of Tissot, but the intimate and almost sexual scene of the model can be easily connected to countless ukiyo–e pieces of nude women like Utagawa Hiroshige’s Yamauba Combing Her Hair with Kintarō, ca. 1801. Nudity was incredibly common in ukiyo–e pieces which frequently illustrated the pleasure quarters of Edo–era Japan. Eight similar pieces of Degas’ were present in the gallery showcasing that the Japanese wave was in full–swing.
Degas wasn’t the only one consumed by the ukiyo–e women—Mary Cassatt, the only woman and only American among the impressionists, nearly drowned in the Japanese art flood. She found herself inspired by Japanese printing in the spring of 1890 when Degas took her to an exhibition of Japanese prints at the École Nationale des Beaux–Arts in Paris. The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Mary Cassatt at Work exhibition, now in San Francisco, took visitors on a journey through the various art–making processes Cassatt explored throughout her life. The exhibition showcases her interest in Japanese color printing by displaying her iconic Set of Ten, ca. 1891. Each piece in the Set was made using the Japanese printing techniques she saw at the École.
The Set of Ten—given its own room in the exhibition—depicts various personal scenes of women and children going through the daily motions of life, similar to that of Degas’ nude series. Her scenes are immediately eye–catching and deeply emotional, inviting viewers to appreciate the beauty of the female body, their activities, and the connection between woman and child through a sympathetic female gaze. The set was the outcome of the copious amount of time Cassatt spent learning Japanese printing—explained in a 13 minute video in the exhibit room.
Among the pieces is The Letter, ca. 1890–1891, Cassatt's most famous print, which depicts an Asian woman closing an envelope surrounded by and clothed in Japanese–inspired patterns at her desk. The scene is incredibly trivial, but this was what Cassatt was looking to do. She wanted to explore the private realm of women through their most trivial acts, including the frequent correspondence done between them. The Letter is the most obviously Japanese-influenced of Cassatt’s pieces, despite all the prints using Japanese print–making techniques. Cassatt purposefully flattens the scene—a common choice among ukiyo–e artists, creating a uniquely Japanese–looking setting. The print has also been likened to pieces like Kitagawa Utamaro’s Hinazuru of the Keizetsuro, ca. 1794–1795, and similar depictions of geishas with towels in their mouths. Other pieces in the set like The Fitting, ca. 1890–1891, can be compared to Utamaro’s vertical geisha scenes like The Hour of the Snake, ca. 1794–1795, and Cassatt’s The Coiffure, ca. 1890–1891, which shows the back of a woman’s neck, a potential reference to an Edo–period sign of beauty, to Utamaro’s Powdering the Neck, ca. 1790.
Manet/Degas and Mary Cassatt at Work show countless pieces with little to no Japanese inspiration. But still, the ukiyo–e artists of the Edo period, be it Hiroshige, Utamaro, or an unnamed Japanese merchant, played an integral role in the impressionist era. The inclusion of Japanese–inspired pieces in the exhibitions tells a greater story than what meets the eye about globalization, cultural exchange, and how going to a singular exhibition like the Parisian World Fair or the Japanese print show at the École Nationale des Beaux–Arts can completely alter how one sees the world.
Today, many museums are shining a much brighter spotlight on artists outside of Europe. But, at the Met and the PMA, where the stories of the most famous white artists are still being told, the incorporation of their Japanese-inspired pieces shows that not only are non–European artists equally talented—they even inspired your favorite artists.
