| The Courtesan (after Eisen) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Vincent van Gogh |
| Year | 1887 |
| Catalogue | |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 105.5 cm× 60.5 cm(41½ in× 23¾ in) |
| Location | Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam |
Japonaiserie (English: Japanesery) was the term used by Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh to express the influence of Japanese art on his works. [1]
Before 1854, trade with Japan was limited to a Dutch monopoly, [2] and Japanese goods imported into Europe primarily comprised porcelain and lacquer ware. [3] The Convention of Kanagawa ended the 200-year Japanese foreign policy of Seclusion and opened up trade between Japan and the West. [4] From the 1860s, ukiyo-e, Japanese woodblock prints, became a source of inspiration for many Western artists. [5]
Van Gogh's interest in Japanese prints began when he discovered illustrations by Félix Régamey featured in The Illustrated London News and Le Monde Illustré. [6] Régamey created woodblock prints, followed Japanese techniques, and often depicted scenes of Japanese life. [6] Beginning in 1885, Van Gogh switched from collecting magazine illustrations, such as Régamey, to collecting ukiyo-e prints which could be bought in small Parisian shops. [6] Van Gogh bought Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts in the docklands of Antwerp, later incorporating elements of their style into the background of some of his paintings. [7] Vincent possessed twelve prints from Hiroshige's series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, and he also had bought Two Girls Bathing by Kunisada II, 1868. These prints were influential to his artistic development. [8]
He shared his collection with his contemporaries and organized a Japanese print exhibition in Paris in 1887. He and his brother Theo van Gogh dealt in these prints for some time, eventually amassing hundreds of them, which are now housed in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. [9]
A month later he wrote,
All my work is based to some extent on Japanese art... [10]
Van Gogh made three copies of ukiyo-e prints, The Courtesan and the two studies after Hiroshige.
Van Gogh's dealing in ukiyo-e prints brought him into contact with Siegfried Bing, who was prominent in the introduction of Japanese art to the West and later in the development of Art Nouveau. [11] Van Gogh developed an idealised conception of the Japanese artist which led him to the Yellow House at Arles and his attempt to form a utopian art colony there with Paul Gauguin.
Van Gogh admired the techniques of Japanese artists. [12]
Characteristic features of ukiyo-e prints include their ordinary subject matter, the distinctive cropping of their compositions, bold and assertive outlines, absent or unusual perspective, flat regions of uniform colour, uniform lighting, absence of chiaroscuro , and their emphasis on decorative patterns. One or more of these features can be found in numbers of Vincent's paintings from his Antwerp period onwards.
In a letter to Theo dated 5 June 1888, Vincent remarked,
About staying in the south, even if it’s more expensive—Look, we love Japanese painting, we’ve experienced its influence—all the Impressionists have that in common—[so why not go to Japan], in other words, to what is the equivalent of Japan, the south? So I believe that the future of the new art still lies in the south after all. [13]
In a letter of July 1888 he referred to the Impressionists as the "French Japanese". [14]
The May 1886 edition of Paris Illustré was devoted to Japan with text by Tadamasa Hayashi who may have inspired van Gogh's utopian notion of the Japanese artist:
Just think of that; isn't it almost a new religion that these Japanese teach us, who are so simple and live in nature as if they themselves were flowers? And we wouldn't be able to study Japanese art, it seems to me, without becoming much happier and more cheerful, and it makes us return to nature, despite our education and our work in a world of convention. [15]
The cover carried a reverse image of a colour woodblock by Keisai Eisen depicting a Japanese courtesan or Oiran . Vincent traced this and enlarged it to produce his painting.
Van Gogh made copies of two Hiroshige prints. He altered their colours and added borders filled with calligraphic characters he borrowed from other prints. [16]
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. His oeuvre includes landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, most of which are characterized by bold colors and dramatic brushwork that contributed to the rise of expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh's work was beginning to gain critical attention before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot at age 37. During his lifetime, only one of van Gogh's paintings, The Red Vineyard, was sold.
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; flora and fauna; and erotica. The term ukiyo-e translates as 'picture[s] of the floating world'.
Japonisme is a French term that refers to the popularity and influence of Japanese art and design among a number of Western European artists in the nineteenth century following the forced reopening of foreign trade with Japan in 1858. Japonisme was first described by French art critic and collector Philippe Burty in 1872.
Utagawa Hiroshige, born Andō Tokutarō, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition.
Vincent van Gogh lived during the Impressionist era. With the development of photography, painters and artists turned to conveying the feeling and ideas behind people, places, and things rather than trying to imitate their physical forms. Impressionist artists did this by emphasizing certain hues, using vigorous brushstrokes, and paying attention to highlighting. Vincent van Gogh implemented this ideology to pursue his goal of depicting his own feelings toward and involvement with his subjects. Van Gogh's portraiture focuses on color and brushstrokes to demonstrate their inner qualities and Van Gogh's own relationship with them.
The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō, in the Hōeidō edition (1833–1834), is a series of ukiyo-e woodcut prints created by Utagawa Hiroshige after his first travel along the Tōkaidō in 1832.
The fame of Vincent van Gogh began to spread in France and Belgium during the last year of his life, and in the years after his death in the Netherlands and Germany. His friendship with his younger brother Theo was documented in numerous letters they exchanged from August 1872 onwards. The letters were published in three volumes in 1914 by Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Theo's widow, who also generously supported most of the early Van Gogh exhibitions with loans from the artist's estate. Publication of the letters helped spread the compelling mystique of Vincent van Gogh, the intense and dedicated painter who died young, throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
Vincent van Gogh made many copies of other people's work between 1887 and early 1890, which can be considered appropriation art. While at Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, where Van Gogh admitted himself, he strived to have subjects during the cold winter months. Seeking to be reinvigorated artistically, Van Gogh did more than 30 copies of works by some of his favorite artists. About twenty-one of the works were copies after, or inspired by, Jean-François Millet. Rather than replicate, Van Gogh sought to translate the subjects and composition through his perspective, color, and technique. Spiritual meaning and emotional comfort were expressed through symbolism and color. His brother Theo van Gogh would call the pieces in the series some of his best work.
The Great Wave off Kanagawa is a woodblock print by Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai, created in late 1831 during the Edo period of Japanese history. The print depicts three boats moving through a storm-tossed sea, with a large, cresting wave forming a spiral in the centre over the boats and Mount Fuji visible in the background.
Vision after the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel) is an oil painting by French artist Paul Gauguin, completed in 1888. It is now in the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. It depicts a scene from the Bible in which Jacob wrestles an angel. It depicts this indirectly, through a vision that the women depicted see after a sermon in church. It was painted in Pont-Aven, Brittany, France.
Portrait of Père Tanguy, painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1887, is one of his three paintings of Julien Tanguy. The three works demonstrate a progression in van Gogh's artistic style after his arrival in Paris. The first is somber, and formed from a simple composition. The second introduces van Gogh's Japanese prints. The last and most advanced in style, skill and color integrates Japanese, Impressionist, and other influences on the Parisian artist community. This painting conveys a sense of serenity that van Gogh seeks for himself. This last painting of Tanguy is in the Musée Rodin, Paris.
Almond Blossoms is a group of several paintings made in 1888 and 1890 by Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Saint-Rémy, southern France of blossoming almond trees. Flowering trees were special to van Gogh. They represented awakening and hope. He enjoyed them aesthetically and found joy in painting flowering trees. The works reflect the influence of Impressionism, Divisionism, and Japanese woodcuts. Almond Blossom was made to celebrate the birth of his nephew and namesake, son of his brother Theo and sister-in-law Jo.
Seine (paintings) is the subject and location of paintings that Vincent van Gogh made in 1887. The Seine has been an integral part of Parisian life for centuries for commerce, travel and entertainment. Here van Gogh primarily captures the respite and relief from city life found in nature.
Still life paintings by Vincent van Gogh (Paris) is the subject of many drawings, sketches and paintings by Vincent van Gogh in 1886 and 1887 after he moved to Montmartre in Paris from the Netherlands. While in Paris, Van Gogh transformed the subjects, color and techniques that he used in creating still life paintings.
The Letters of Vincent van Gogh is a collection of 903 surviving letters written (820) or received (83) by Vincent van Gogh. More than 650 of these were from Vincent to his brother Theo. The collection also includes letters van Gogh wrote to his sister Wil and other relatives, as well as between artists such as Paul Gauguin, Anthon van Rappard, and Émile Bernard.
Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi bridge and Atake is a woodblock print in the ukiyo-e genre by the Japanese artist Hiroshige. It was published in 1857 as part of the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo and is one of his best known prints.
Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear is an 1889 self-portrait by Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. The painting is in the collection of the Courtauld Institute of Art and on display in the Gallery at Somerset House. The painting includes inspiration from Japanese Woodblock printing.
Plum Park in Kameido is a woodblock print in the ukiyo-e genre by the Japanese artist Hiroshige. It was published in 1857 as the thirtieth print in the One Hundred Famous Views of Edo series and depicts Prunus mume trees in bloom.
Landscape at Auvers in the Rain is an oil painting on canvas by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.
Rain is an oil-on-canvas painting by Vincent van Gogh, created in 1889, while he was a voluntary patient at an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. He repeatedly painted the view through the window of his room, depicting the colours and shades of the fields and hills around Saint-Rémy as they appeared at various times of day and in varying weather conditions. Rain measures 73.3 cm × 92.4 cm and is held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the United States.
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