Hokusai and Impressionists

In the late nineteenth century, Japanese prints came to Europe and several Impressionists, such as Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Marry Cassatt, Edgar Degas, and Whistler admired these works. Because of the “two-dimensional treatment of the composition, playing actively against the strongly suggested three-dimensional implications of the subject,” the work of Katsushika Hokusai, “The Great Wave”, became the most inspiring work for Impressionists. When we view this Hokusai’s print, we feel that we are also experiencing what the men in the boats are experiencing. Because of the “huge roller-coaster ride our eyes take as they slide downward from the right side of the print and up through the minor crest to leap into space with the foam at the crest of the great wave,” (D. La Plante, 259) we as viewers seem to be involved in the print.

"The Great Wave" by Hokusai

While many Impressionists were influenced by Japanese art, Hokusai himself was influenced by Western artists, Claes Jansz Visscher and Willem Buytewech, in producing his artworks. In Holland in the late1500s, landscape art was developed by Visscher and Buytewech. Since then, Hokusai greatly admired the perspective, shading, and realistic shadows that Dutch’s and French’s landscapes possessed. He observed the Western landscapes painting and turned the landscapes into Japanese landscapes. Also, he introduced the aspect of the unity of man in the paintings; in “The Great Wave”, “tiny humans are tossed around under giant waves.” (Andreas, 7)

From this example, we could have a conclusion that Eastern and Western arts played the same roles in affecting the modernity. Both Western and Eastern arts had their own uniqueness, originality, and greatness in art; they then learned from each other and applied them to their own arts. Therefore, it is not true to think of modernity only as “Westernization”.