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”.

Form of Japanese art (Ukiyo-e woodblock prints)

There are many forms of Japanese art, ranging from Kabuki and bunraku (puppet theater), ancient pottery, ink paintings on silk and paper to sculpture in wood and bronze. In this blog, I would not talk about every single art form instead I will discuss a form of Japanese art that influenced the European Impressionist the most, the ukiyo-e woodblock prints, in more depth.

In Japan, during the Edo period (1600-1868), Ukiyo-e appeared as hanging scrolls, folding screens, book illustrations, hand-coloured albums, calendars, and woodblock prints. This style of woodblock prints later became the most dominant art form in Japan. Ukiyo-e, meaning “pictures of the floating world” focused upon contemporary life and fashion. It possessed three major themes, which were bijin (beautiful women), famous actors, and landscapes. In 1670s, Hishikawa Moronobu and other Edo artists produced a single-color works or black and white prints, hand-coloured in orange-red; their styles were like the imitations of the calligraphic characters of the ink-brushed lines. Around 1769, the first truly technique of polychrome printing, “the device enabled printers to register several colour-blocks accurately,” (T. Webb & Vollmer, 144) was developed by Suzuki Harunobu. Ukiyo-e prints were originally single-sheet prints and later on they were used for book illustrations; they also were used as posters for the kabuki theater. To produce these prints, artist, wood-block carver, printer, and publisher collaborated with each other. Artist was the one who designed, drew, and chose the color, wood-block carver engraved the wood, the printer applied colors on the wood-block, and the publisher was the one who planned and financed all the prints. Ukiyo-e prints were mass-produced; therefore, they were affordable even to people who were not able to afford original paintings. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, thousands of Ukiyo-e prints done by four-part process, involving artist, wood-block carver, printer, and publisher, were produced in Japan and were sold all over the world.

Ukiyo-e images were very different compared to the Western arts in the idea of perspective, colors, and compositions. While in Western art the idea of perspective was used very successfully, in Japanese prints there was not such a thing as illusion of perspective; the prints possessed flat space on a flat piece of paper. The colors used in ukiyo-e prints were flat, opaque, and two-dimensional; however, the colors used in the Western arts could enhance the characteristic of realism and could make the artworks to be treated in three-dimensional manner. Japanese arts also had unique compositional devices for creating diagonal planes in order to suggest the perspective; “the bottom of a picture must represent the point nearest the spectator; the higher up positions in a picture denote space further away from the viewer. Secondly, lines must converge as they approach the foreground. Lines grow wider as they recede into the flat background.” (Flynn, 13)

As Berman said in his book that “modernity equals freedom; there are no loose ends” (Berman, 25) and as Ukiyo-e pictures referred to “transient pleasures and freedom from the cares and concerns of the world” (Tokugawa gallery, 2), Ukiyo-e could be defined as part of modernity; they both share the aspect of freedom. While freedom in modernity means that we do not need to obey the rules that have already existed because we are creating and changing the world and make it our own, freedom in the images of the floating world depicts “the pleasures of life that [help] to relieve the restraints of urban Japanese life.” (Flynn, 11) Thus, the condition of Japanese life had been changed; it became a vibrant and sophisticated urban life centering the world of teashops, wine, songs, cherry blossoms, Kabuki theatre, courtesans, and brothels. (T. Webb & Vollmer, 143) Society, including artists got freedom and began to be able to depict and insert the idealized version to the prints.

These are some of the examples of the Ukiyo-e images that depict bijin (beautiful women):

Modernity as a “Western” concept

Modernity is an idea about the present that is discontinuous with the past because of the process of social and cultural change. Marshall Berman in his book, “All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity”, talks about how to be modern is the same as having fights to change the world and make it our own. (Berman, 13) He also continues by dividing modernity as three phases. The first phase occurred from sixteenth century to the end of eighteenth century, the second phase in 1790s, and the final phase began in the twentieth century. (17) Were there aspects that had changed from 18^th century to 19^th or 29^th century? There were wide range of aspects, such as painting, sculpture, architecture, and electronic media, that did not exist century ago but since 19^th century they have existed. As well as broken into phases, modernity could also be divided into two sections; “modernization” in economics and politics and “modernism” in art, culture, and sensibility. (87)

Usually people tend to think of modernity as the Western property (it is connected to United States, Britain, and Europe) and they think that the Eastern only imitates what Western has or had done. They believe that every single modern aspect was developed by the West world rather than the East world. Here, in this blog I would like to argue that this kind of thought is not true; the truth is that Eastern and Western play equal roles in the modern life.

More department stores were established in Western major cities rather than in Eastern major cities. It is also correct that the first true department store was founded by Aristide Boucicaut in Paris, Western side. Boucicaut founded Le Bon Marche in 1838 and by 1852, every boutique was organized and variety of goods could be found inside one building for easier shopping experience. From that day, the process of modernity has deeply affected the society’s massive participation, especially women in the exploding culture of consumption; people from different classes and different cultures mingle together inside the department stores. Speaking about department store means that we are speaking about the development of everyday life in the modern city or we could call it as modernity. According to Emile Zola, a researched novelist, department stores are symbols of the “forward momentum of the age: the bold new forms of capitalism” and they are “modern machine which devours the small outdated commercial enterprises surrounding it.” (Nava, 65) The first department store, one among signs of modernity, was established in Western world but it does not mean that the innovation in modernization could not come from anywhere else but the West.

In the East, for example, Quanzhou, a city in Fujian Province south of Shanghai, was also considered as a city of modernity. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, Quanzhou was considered as having the biggest sea port in the East, “marking the golden age of ocean transportation and foreign trades, tied its dealing with about a hundred nations.” (Ancient city Quanzhou, 4) It was the starting point of the "Silk Road on the Sea". Through the Silk Road which stretched its way through Asia, Europe, and Africa, gunpowder, papermaking, printing, compass, Chinese tea, porcelain, and silk production were traveled around the world. Also, the activity of exporting and importing goods between China and Europe went through the Silk Road; “providing links with ancient overland routes to Africa and Europe, the Silk Road paved the way for extensive political, economic, and cultural exchanges among widely separated regions and ethnic groups.” (Silk Road – China Style, 2) Asides from the Silk Road, China was also considered to be the first country in the world that produced silks and nowadays, “silk remains one of China's greatest offerings to the peoples of the world, surpassing every other Chinese product in the scope of its distribution.” (3)

I hope this writing could convince all of you that modernity is not only started by the West; the East also plays an equal role in affecting the world’s modernity.