Japan's impact on Western art was as immediate and almost as cataclysmic as the influence of the West on Japanese life. After Commodore Perry opened Japan's door to the outside world in 1958, a wealth of visual information from the Japanese traditions of ceramics, metalwork and architecture, as well as printmaking and painting, reached the West and brought electrifying new ideas on composition, colour and design. This is a study of how Japanese ideas have inspired artists such as Monet, Degas, Whistler and Van Gogh. Japanese conventions of symbolism underlie the use of decorative motifs in European symbolism and art nouveau, and the Zen idea of spontaneity is the ultimate source of both the apparently capricious shapes of art nouveau ware and the development of an abstract "calligraphy" in abstract expressionism.

Table of Contents

Introduction Japan and Western Art; Historical Survey; The Study of Japonisme; A Case-Study: The Kimono Representative Artists Manet; Degas; Van Gogh; Gauguin and the White Line Technique; Line and Dot in Van Gogh's Drawings; Gesture and Grimace in Lautrec; Vallotton's Woodcuts and the Orient Birds, Beasts and Flowers Living Creatures in Art; Trees; Bamboo; The Art Nouveau Iris; Gourds and Autumn Leaves; Butterfly and Peony; The Tiger; The Cat; Waterfowl; Birds of Prey; Cranes and Herons; Cock and Hen; The Raven; The Wild Carp; Insects Objects from Eastern Life The Wave The Bridge; Rocks in the Sea; The Folding Screen; The Fan; Pillar Pictures and Vertical Formats; The Sword Guard; Decorative Combs and Hairpins; The Dyer's Stencil Artistic Devices Ornamental Patterns; Diagonal Composition Composite Formats; Trellis and Grille; Truncated Objects and Oblique Angles Posts as Spatial Dividers; The Silhouette Symbols, Themes and Abstractions The Spirit World; Stylization and Abstraction; Signs and Emblems Ceramics and Glass Semi-Precious Stones and Glassware; Vessels on Stands; The Bottle-Gourd Form; The Black-and-White Effect; The Dragon Motif; Chinese Ceramic Forms; Celadon and White Porcelain; Japanese Tea Ware and Modern Pottery House and Garden The Influence of the Japanese House; Gardens; Interiors and Modules Calligraphy From Zen to Tachism.

About the Author

Siegfried Wichmann has been Professor of Art History at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, since 1968.