Japonisme Essay

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Japonisme and 19th Century Artists Japonisme is a cultural tendency of admiration and fascination with all things Japanese, which was developed in Western Europe society. It started to form in 1867 when Japanese ceramics and many other crafts and art works were presented in the Paris Exposition Universelle. Among those, Ukiyo-e was also included, and in Japan at that time, Ukiyo-e was not rated high since it was colored wood block printings about genre of low class people. When Japan started to trade with Erope, Ukiyo-e was used to wrap other goods and it was easily obtainable at the tea shops. However, there were some artists recognize Ukiyo-e ahead of time and they were Impressionist artists like Manet and Monet. They could find a tradition that was not damaged by rules and stereotyped measures of academic, which the French artists tried to remove. Ukiyo-e was a popular form of printed art in Japan during the Edo period which was usually depicting scenes from everyday lives such as life of the common people, the background of a stage, beautiful women on streets or prostitutes, landscapes and more. Ukiyo-e is especially known for its exceptional woodblock prints. Ukiyo-e woodblock prints were not black and white, but it was very colorful and bright colored woodblock prints. Ukiyo-e’s special features are first, the use of line and the flatness. Ukiyo-e was formed by line, which they outlined all the figures and the objects in the print, and the blank space and the designed part were divided very clearly, so it did not give three dimensional effect. Second, Ukiyo-e showed bright and unrestricted color. Bright and intense color made the print very flat and gave enrich of expression. So it especially affected impressionist artists. Third, there was composition of irregularity and asymmetry. Ukiyo-e was drawn the part that was very impressed in the

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