The Japanese Parisian by Alfred Stevens, 1872
Following isolationist Japan’s resumption of wider trade and diplomatic relations with the West in the 1850s, international expositions alerted Western artists and collectors to what they perceived as both the sophistication and the naiveté of all things Japanese. The exquisite craftsmanship of Japanese porcelains, bronzes, silks, embroideries, and lacquerware was deeply admired by Europeans and Americans, inspiring a cult of emulation in the West and, in Japan, an important industry creating objects to appeal to Western tastes. The era of the “Japan craze” lasted from the late 1870s to the early 1910s.
Nancy Green, a former curator at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, discusses the influence of Japanese aesthetics on avant-garde painting and printmaking, in fashionable ceramics and metalwork, and on graphic design, advertising, bookbinding, and illustration. She considers the Victorian fascination with the exotic, in which elements connoting the East were absorbed into compositions and decorative schemes. Japanese aesthetics remained popular over a number of years, incorporated into the Arts and Crafts and Aesthetic movements as well as Art Nouveau and Art Deco and 20th-century industrial design.
World Art History Certificate elective: Earn 1/2 credit*
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*Enrolled participants in the World Art History Certificate Program receive 1/2 elective credit. Not yet enrolled? Learn about the program, its benefits, and how to register here.
