Task 2

Japonisme

Japonisme is a French art term that was used to describe the large craze for Japanese artwork in the late nineteenth century.
We weren't allowed to trade with japan until the use of a gunboat diplomacy in the Perry expedition, 1853, This expedition forced Japan to open up its borders after 220 years of isolation. As you can imagine, 220 years is a very long time for cultures and art styles to develop.
The western world didn't recognise, nor understand japans previous cultures and artworks so it began a new craze that is still continued today.

Vincent van gogh.

The widely famous Vincent van Gogh was also inspired heavily by Japan in his later works. He never actually visited japan or experienced the culture for himself but as japonisme was such a big thing at the time, Vincent was constantly surrounded by the work and became heavily inspired. You can tell from his piece Brug te Arles (on the left) that he was inspired by Japanese woodcut prints.
​The composition and the way he illustrated people in this piece helps show this.
Comparing these two pieces side by side help show the similarities between the two. 

This type of Vincent's work show a huge difference in style to the work he created before the discovery of Japanese culture. as shown here :

His earlier work, as show here with the piece 'road in etten', contrasts rather nicely to the work above. This work is so early in fact that Van Gogh was still in the process of sketching and hadn't began to use oil paints and or explore colour yet.
​A big inspiration to him at this time was poverty and labourers, you can clearly tell the difference too as it looks very different to his Japanese inspired work.