Product Description

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 1858--ending a 200-year period of total isolation--a wealth of visual information from the superb Japanese traditions of ceramics, metalwork, and architecture, as well as print-making and painting, reached the West and brought electrifying new ideas on composition, color, and design. One has only to see a celebrated painting by Monet, Degas, Whistler, or van Gogh, an Art Nouveau glass vase, or a lacquered hair comb side by side with its Japanese source to see how those ideas have inspired artists. Nor is the influence a superficial one: 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. Siegfried Wichmann, the acknowledged expert on Japonisme, surrounds his breathtaking illustrations with a text that, in marshaling a wealth of detail, encapsulates the present state of research and opens up new lines of enquiry.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #383115 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

From Library Journal
German historian and art curator Wichmann chronicles Japan's tremendous influence on the greats of 19th- and 20th-century art. His text is buttressed by more than 1100 illustrations, including 243 in color.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
An outstanding publication...may be viewed, read, and valued on many levels. -- School Arts

Monumental, encyclopaedic, and copiously illustrated. -- Art in America

Monumental, encyclopedic, and copiously illustrated. -- Art in America

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

Customer Reviews

My holy grail
For anyone interested in both Japanese Art and European Art at the turn of the last century, this book will become the most satisfying reference book in your collection.

"Japonisme" is the term used to describe the Victorian fascination with all things Japanese. Wichmann's book successfully demonstrates the influence of this fascination on the fine art of the era. Lavishly illustrated with over a thousand images, Wichmann's essays are informed both historically and artistically on the detailed ins and outs of the sharing of the two cultures of East and West. Topics include the Asian influence in composition, pictoral space, design, choice of material, and subject matter in the visual art and architechture of turn of the century fin de siecle Europe and America. Visual examples are given from a wealth of artists including Van Gogh, Manet, Cassatt, Whistler, Degas, Mucha, Klimt, the architechs Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra, and Japanese artists such as Hiroshige and Hokusai, just to name a few.

Being a visual artist from the west trained in the Western tradition and yet fascinated with Japanese fine art and in particular the tradition of ukiyo-e, discovering this book for me was like finding the holy grail, a book filled to the brim with stunning visual compromises between the traditions of East and West from which to take my own influences. Fantastic.

About Japonisme
This is probably the best and most beautiful art-book I have ever read. I traces the roots of different western artforms like impressionism and abstract expressionism from the japanese traditions of brushpainting an calligraphy.. -I want it!

Learning to See
I ordered this book mainly because of my fascination with a blog by the same name. Here is a link to the blog "Japonisme" http://lotusgreenfotos.blogspot.com/ . I ordered my book "used, but in excellent condition". Its appearance is like any book that I have had for a few weeks. With 1105 illustrations and 432 large (10" x 12") pages I still haven't read it all.
The layout of the book really helps a novice like me to understand the influence of Japanese art on the West. Wonderful western images that capture the spirit of the Japonisme but don't copy them are abundantly reproduced in black and white and in color. Japanese images from gardens to tea bowls place no one technique over any other as long as the result is beautiful. Each wood block print is carefully calculated to achieve the most impact within a confined area. In all designs are based on nature, but don't replicate it.
I will be looking at this book for years, reading, looking at the illustrations and just enjoying it.