“Japonisme” and After: “Impressionism” and After

Eiichi Tosaki

In 1873, Nicholas Chevalier (1828-1902)i produced a meticulously painted work

titled “Blind Musicians of Japan”[fig. 1]ii, depicting three kneeling musicians. On

inspection, there is an oddness about this image: it portrays elements of ‘Asianness’,

through the filter of Nineteenth century European experiences and expectations. The

clothes do not convey the sense that they, or their wearers, are Japanese. The silky

fabric, for example, is luxuriously crumpled and too soft around the sleeves and

cuffs. It lacks the more severe lines characteristic of the Japanese kimono. There is

another detail noticable to those who are familiar with musical instruments: the

stringed instrument (the kokyu, a Japanese modification of the Chinese erhu) played

by the woman on the right, is held in the position of the kokyu, but appears too large,

and looks more like the Japanese shamisen. The Shamisen is never played in the

upright position nor with a bow, but with a plectrum as it is being played by the

blind singer (the central figure), who holds it diagonally.iii And a close inspection of

the faces of these so-called “Japanese musicians” will reveal sharp facial features,

more Caucasian than Asian: the woman playing the shamisen would not be out of
place in a painting by Rubens. The Westernisation of this vignette has the effect of

completely silencing any “alternative voice” - the 'sound' of any genuine “oriental”

presence - which might otherwise have been found, given the effect probably

intended by Chevalier, in having chosen to depict Japanese cultural life. They were

professional performers. As blind musicians they would have a heightened

relationship to sound and thus to their own musical output. The auditory capacity of

these particular musicians should, in being pictured, convey to the viewer a sense of

the intensity of their performance. But instead we are prevented from 'hearing' any

authentic sound from their depicted playing: Chevalier, perhaps through an

unwitting mishandling of his 'oriental' subject, has blinded our eyes to hearing the

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indigenous sound.

This concoction of indigenous Asian cultures is especially curious, since,

according to his biography, Chevalier did his preliminary sketch for the painting

while he was in Japan in 1869 (having joined a voyage round the world with H. R. H.

Duke of Edinburgh) and finished it 1873 in England. iv Chevalier may have employed

models, and procured musical instruments and clothes, and prepared them himself

to complete the painting.v In the interest of satisfying both his own and his European

peers' taste for the exotic, Chevalier may have relied on impressions, inspired by his

own sense of Japanese aesthetics.

In 1873, the year Chevalier painted The Blind Musicians, the newly

established Meiji Japanese government sent old and new Japanese goods, including
Ukiyo-e, to the Vienna Exposition. The following year Kiritsu-Kosho Gaisha (起立工商

会社) was established by the Japanese government, first in Vienna and later in Paris

as well. Wakai Kenzaburo was appointed as director, and the company's principal

aim was to sell unsold goods left over from the Expo at maximum profit. Several

years later, with Wakai, Hayashi Tadamasa started an import company in Paris,

dealing in Japanese goods (mainly Ukiyo-e). Thereafter, Ukiyo-e flowed into Europe

by way of this conduit set in place by Hayashi. vi It was largely through this company

that Japanese Ukiyo-e were brought into Europe: these remaindered prints became
gold for European traders. Aside from, for example, Suzuki Harunobu's Nishiki-e

coloured prints, which were collected by the establishment (Japan's Samurai class),

these Ukiyo-e were ubiquitous in Japanese society. Most were of the quality and

value of cheap newspaper in our time.vii One cannot blame Chevalier, the Japanese

Government, or the traders for exploiting the exotic tastes of their clients for

business purposes.

Despite the burgeoning taste for the exotic, some European painters eagerly

appropriated the ‘unusual’ formal configuration characteristic of Ukiyo-e, purely out

of artistic interest. These elements were imported into the construction of painting as

pictorial devices. Toulouse Lautrec, famous for his bold poster design, cut off his

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figures with the edges of the frame in a style which accords with that of Ukiyo-e.viii It

is pertinent to note here, however, that many individual Ukiyo-e prints were

originally one part of a triptych, in which a ‘cut off’ figure is completed when two

parts are put back together: this ‘happy’ accident no doubt contributed to the

refreshing constructions which emerged in European pictorial configuration. Despite

the low quality of most imported Ukiyo-e, as well as misunderstandings about the

nature of its construction, it is significant that European artists adopted the

i Russian born, studied art and architecture in Lausanne, Munich, London, and Rome. Arrived Melbourne 1955. He
was a cartoonist for Melbourne Punch and introduced chromolithography to Victoria. After he returned to London in
1869, he worked for the Royal Family.

ii Chevalier’s painting has been widely known as Blind Musicians of Japan (see note below), although the Art
Gallery of Western Australia uses the official title of Japanese Musicians.

iii Also the finger picks (tsume) of the Koto, or Japanese harp, are worn on five rather than the normal three fingers
in this painting. Thanks to Mr Takabumi Tanaka, editor of Hogaku Journal, a monthly traditional Japanese music
magazine, Tokyo for this observation. Mr Tanaka also commented that only the central figure is ‘blind’ (called kengyo),
which may explain why Chevalier originally titled his painting “Japanese Blind Musician” instead of ‘musicians’. My
observation regarding the oddness of the depiction is also shared by Dr Alison Tokita, a musicologist of Japanese
traditional music, and Director of the Japanese Studies Centre, Monash University.

iv The Japanese blind musician’s concert was held in the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, on the 4th of September 1869.
H. R. H. Duke of Edinburgh and Chevalier were honoured to be invited to the concert. See Mary Laurenson, Nicholas
Chevalier: Catalogue Raisonné (unpublished MA theisis, 1995, Monash University), p. 371

v Thanks to Ms Mary Laurenson for this observation.

vi Prior to the Vienna Expo, the Paris Universal Exposition of 1867_ was the first occasion for the (de facto)
Japanese government at that time — the Edo Tokugawa Shogunate — to exhibit Japanese artifacts to a wider European
public. Following the first trade treaty established between France and Japan in 1867, and knowing that the Expo had
gained much popularity among Europeans since the London Universal Expo, the Edo Shogunate made it a policy to
gather specific Japanese goods to exhibit, for principally commercial reasons. With serious financial problems afoot, the
government ordered woodblock makers to produce Ukiyo-e prints depicting typical Japanese scenes — at that
Exposition there were 50 prints depicting ‘Beauty’, and 50 prints of scenery of everyday life. These Ukiyo-e prints,
however, were not of the best quality: “The Ukiyo-es which were sent at that time were not made by the hand of first
rank Ukiyo-e painters. Rather, they were _made_ by third rank Ukiyo-e makers. They were _cheap_ and of low quality
which nobody would now take notice of.” Ichitaro Kondo “Ukiyoe 浮世絵” Nihon Rekishi Shinsho 日本歴史新書 ,
Shibunndo至文堂, Japan, 1966, p. 171

vii See Higuchi Hiroshi, Ukiyo-e no Ryuutsuu, Kishu, Kenkyu, Happyo no Rekishi (The History of Circulation,
Collection, Research, and Presentation of Ukiyo-e), Mito Sho-ya, Tokyo, 1972, p. 1-6

viii Cézanne, is reported to have despised Ukiyo-e, muttering ‘Japanesque’ after severing with scissors the bottom
part of the human figure he had just depicted. This anecdote reveals that even Cézanne was influenced by the impact of
Ukiyo-e pictorial construction, despite his views toward it. See Kondo, 1966, p. 177

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particular methods of pictorial construction employed by Ukiyo-e artists (although

Cézanne was a notable exception.ix)

The radical composition of Ukiyo-e, which instigated anti-conventional

pictorial construction, underwrites Monet's severed-edge pictorial space,

exemplified in his water lily series. Clement Greenberg later admired these as even

more progressive than Mondrian’s completely non-referential (and thus

'unconventional') canvases: “Mondrian’s art proves … almost too disciplined, almost

too tradition- and convention-bound in certain respects; once we have gotten used to

its utter abstractness, we realize that it is more conservative in its color, for instance,

as well as in its subservience to the frame, than the last paintings of Monet.”x

The similarity of subject matter and composition between Monet’s canvases

and Ukiyo-e has on occasion been pointed out. xi Van Gogh’s indebtedness to Ukiyo-e,

however, seems to be greater, evident in his realization of ‘shallow’ pictorial space

with the use of clear contour lines and brilliant colour. In the work of van Gogh, [fig.

2], colour acquires a modified, or 'quasi-' three-dimensionality. Compared to other

paintings within the Western tradition — in which objects are rendered to show

volume in an implied three-dimensional space through devices such as chiaroscuro

modelling, linear and aerial perspective, — the flatter quality of van Gogh’s painting

is so pronounced that the viewer’s gaze is held within the shallow pictorial space of
the surface. What produces this effect? Van Gogh himself could have investigated

Ukiyo-e as studiously as he did Rembrandt’s Jewish Bride, for hours and hours in the

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.xii

ix Ibid.

x Clement Greenberg, The Collected Essays and Criticism: Modernism with a Vengeance, 1957-1969, ed. John
O’Brien, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1993, p. 90

xi For example, see Virginia Spate and David Bromfield, “A New and Strange Beauty. Monet and Japanese Art”, in
Monet and Japan, National Gallery of Australia, Thomas and Hudson, Port Melbourne, 2001, especially see pp. 9-25

xii See Anton Kerssemakers, “Reminiscences of Vincent van Gogh”, 14 and 21 April 1912, in Van Gogh: A
Retrospective, ed. Susan Alyson Stein, Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc., New York, 1986, p. 52

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 As Mondrian summarizes in his essay “The New Plastic in Painting” of 1917,

the Impressionists (particularly the Post-Impressionists) attempted to annihilate

illusionistic three-dimensional pictorial space through the use of these compositional

devices. Mondrian's reference to Van Gogh is notable here:

Throughout modern painting we see a trend to the

straight line and planar, primary color. Shortly before
Cubism we see the broad contours emphasized as
strongly as possible and the colours within them flat and
intense (Van Gogh and others).xiii

In Japanese prints, for example [Fig. 3] the brilliantly coloured fields are

flat, and yet a sense of pictorial depth is expressed. The flat planes and

pictorial depth coexist — a source of astonishment for many Western

painters.xiv In the context of an analysis of pictorial construction, Ukiyo-e,

through Impressionism, can be said to have influenced the post-1910

Abstract movement in Europe.

However, there remains a simple question concerning the

appreciation of Ukiyo-e, in particular, the work of Hokusai (1760-1849) and

Hiroshige (1797 - 1858). How was it that Western painters were able

without difficulty to accept the pictorial space and construction of an

Ukiyo-e print as a “picture” (that is, rather than merely an aspect of design)?

Considering that oriental imagery (for example Harunobu’s axiometric

structure) was so alien to western sensibilities, including that of painters,

it is notable that Ukiyo-e was recognized, and appreciated as “art” by

xiii Mondrian, “A New Realism”, in The New Art — The New Life, Holtzman, p.63 Mondrian himself confessed to
liking Asian (especially Chinese) thought. Van den Briel, who was a lifetime friend of Mondrian, also reports that
“Mondrian was strongly attracted by eastern cultures, particularly Chinese culture.” (J. M. Harthoorn, Mondrian’s Creative
Realism, Tableau, Mijdrecht, 1980, p. 14) The degree to which Mondrian was affiliated with Japanese culture and Ukiyo-e is
unknown.

xiv The direct influence of the Japanese woodblock print on 19th century Western painting can be easily seen in the
Nabi school paintings. For example, Gauguin’s colouration is achieved through the use of heavily contoured colour fields.
See Elisa Evett, The Critical Reception of Japanese Art in Late Nineteenth Centry Europe, UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor,
Michigan, 1982, especially pp. 67-73

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European artists.

One reason is that Ukiyo-e already contained elements of Western

perspective. It is well documented that the principle of so-called

“Western” perspective had been known and discussed, for at least a

hundred years in Japan, and that elements of it were arbitrarily utilized or

rejected by later Ukiyo-e painters, notably Hokusai and Hiroshige.xv It was

therefore no novelty to Japanese painters by the time Europe discovered

the novelty of “Japonisme”: more to the point, Western perspective was so

well integrated into the pictorial construction of later Ukiyo-e that its

presence was not consciously picked up by Europeans.

The consequence of this was that the pictorial rules of later Ukiyo-e

— which used characteristics common to both western and Japanese

paintings — were familiar enough to the western painter’s eye to be

received with relative ease in the appreciation of Ukiyo-e. To the

unconditioned eye, the unfamiliar construction of a picture is

accompanied by a sense of physical disorder, and is thereby ‘distanced’.

To many earlier Japanese painters, Western perspective was seen as

‘erratic’ and for this reason they did not take an interest in incorporating it

into their paintings. In the works which impressed and inspired western
painters, a variation of perspectives created a sense of order which was

acceptable.xvi

Another element in the pictorial construction of Ukiyo-e (and

Japanese painting in general) is the higher placement of the horizon.

xv Thomas Reiner says: “Unfortunately, the inovativeness of Japanese painters in the Edo period remains unsaid in
the West” (Raimer, Thomas, “Yoga And Nihonga With Western Eyes” The Western Arts and Japanese Arts —
Contemporary Arts 2, Koudansha, Japan, 1992 , p. 180)

Takashina, Shuji “The Return of Japonisme”, The Western Arts and Japanese Arts — Contemporary Arts 2,
Koudansha, Japan, 1992 , p. 148

Also see, Miwa, Hideo, “Realism and transition in Western Style Expression”, The Western Arts and Japanese
Arts — Contemporary Arts 1, Koudansha, Japan, 1992 , p. 161

Most recently, in the catalogue for Monet and Japan, Gary Hickey elucidates with strong scholarship the
constructive relationship between Ukiyo-e and Impressionists (especially Monet). Gary Hickey, “Waves of Influence”,
in Monet and Japan, National Gallery of Australia, Thomas and Hudson, Port Melbourne, 2001, pp. 173-185

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According to Alberti’s principle of geometrical perspective, the horizontal

line should be located roughly in the middle of the pictorial field. xvii This

principle had been the foundation of European pictorial configuration

since the Renaissance (seen, for example, in Claude Lorrain’s The Forum in

Rome, and John Constable’s Hampstead Heath). In Manet, however, the

horizon is lifted higher, and the sky becomes a narrow belt. While the use

of the raised horizon line was favoured by some Salon painters, Manet xviii

intentionally broke with the canon in a more radical way. In “Boating ”

the background is an expanse of sea, providing an almost bird’s-eye view

of the background. In contrast, the human figures are depicted from a

horizontal point of view. This results in the incorporation of two

viewpoints in the single picture, and indicates the revolutionary nature of

Manet’s approach compared to the conventional Western picture.

Japanese woodblock prints can therefore be considered to have functioned

very effectively as a motivation for this radical reinterpretation of pictorial

construction. The influence of Japanese pictorial construction on Manet is

not well-documented, but the impetus behind Manet’s unconventional

construction of painting was arguably largely due to the accessibility of

Japanese Ukiyo-e prints in Europe.

It is evident, then, that Nineteenth century movements such as

Impressionism, Neo-impressionism, the Nabis and even the Salon

xvi In the end, it was the perceived failure of the Japanese to perfect the rigid geometric system of perspective which
brought about the conviction that Japanese artists were so bound by convention that they were unable to see and depict
in a “naturalistic” way. The fact that certain pictorial devices - such as the arbitrary use of the diagonal to indicate
pictorial depth - were adequate from the point of view of the Japanese painter, was not appreciated. Rather than being
recognized as evidence of considerable skill in representing the recession of depth with an optimum minimum of lines,
as in the work of Hokusai for example, some critics of the time regarded it as merely manual dexterity. Comparisons
were made with the commercial artist’s ability to “turn out drawing after drawing, day after day, thanks to a set range of
subjects and an established formula for depicting them.” (Evett, p 86)

xvii Leon Battista Alberti 1404-1472 “The Theory of Paintings”, Chuokoron Bijutsu Shuppan , Japan, 1960, p. 62

xviii Shuji Takashina, “The Return of Japonisme”, The Western Arts and Japanese Arts — Contemporary Arts 2,
Kodansha, Japan, 1992 p. 170-171

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painters, were influenced by Japanese woodblock prints, absorbing

whether consciously or unconsciously elements of Ukiyo-e into their

works. In the West, these influences were incorporated into mainstream

modern painting. In Japan however, after the introduction of western-

style oil painting, “Japanese” painting split into two parallel schools —

Yoga, (Western style painting) and Nihonga, (Japanese traditional

painting). Here it should be noted that the distinction between Yoga and

Nihonga also marks the identity of individual painters in Japan, even

today. For example, when Japanese painters introduce themselves they

will identify themselves as either a Yogaka (Western-style painter) or a

Nihongaka (Japanese-style painter). The situation is quite different for

European painters who unproblematically describe themselves simply as

“painters”.

Many of this century’s early avant-garde artists, such as Matisse,

Manet, Degas, Cézanne, and Denis, sought to identify themselves as the

rightful successors of “French painting”. Though conscious of their debt

to “Japonisme”, these European painters did not think to divide

themselves into separate schools on the basis of such influences, as did

their Japanese counterparts.

Consider paintings by Japanese artists, who had been influenced by

their teachers in European countries, who in turn were influenced by

Japanese Ukiyo-e : The notion of there being such things as ‘authentic’

Japanese or Western Art, is complicated by the question of whether

Japanese style is in fact “the return of Japanesque” xix or is grounded in

authentic Japanese tradition.

There is a further dimension to the appropriation of Ukiyo-e by the

Impressionists. The unseen spiritual connection that manifests in, for example, Van

Gogh's depiction of himself as a Japanese monk [fig. 4]. xx While he did actually

xix This term was first suggested by Takashina. Ibid.

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confess the desire to go to Japan and become a Buddhist monk, what is more

interesting here is that, unlike Chevalier, Van Gogh did not 'set up' the scene with

costumes and the like. Instead, Van Gogh depicted, by way of a self-portrait, his

internalised image of a Japanese Buddhist monk. In a sense, this picture is a spiritual

portrait of becoming Japanese. We can, as it were, see/hear Van Gogh’s own voice,

addressing us as to what he understood at a personal level to be 'Japanese

spirituality'. In this picture, the painter's eyes convey the sense of blindness towards

his own Europeaness, as he attempts to open them towards Japaneseness, or even

Asianess itself.

The Japanese Impressionist painter, Nakamura Tsune (1887-1924), who was

influenced by van Gogh and other Impressionists, depicted a blind friend, the

Russian poet Vasily Yaroshenko (1920) [fig. 5]. With Renoir-like sensuality of paint,

and Van Gogh's passion and insight, Nakamura painted this portrait as a sign of

their friendship. Thus, in this picture, we do hear a voice, the dialogue between

Japanese painter and his Caucasian model/friend. This painting evokes sensibilities

beyond those of nationality. Here, the dialogue between East and West can be

encountered, free from simplistic cultural Orientalism. Nakamura, of course, is

categorized as Yogaka in Japan. However, the message the painting carries in this

analysis is that Nakamura is 'a' painter.

Chevalier cannot be blamed for his clumsy Orientalism. He was merely a

conventional European painter who, confronted by unaccustomed pictorial

construction, did not 'unlearn' his skill as a painter. Chevalier's conventionalism as

an established painter hindered his ability to assimilate his own painterly sensitivity

with the unfamiliar one of Japanese culture. In this way, he failed to accommodate

the 'sound' of the Japanese musicians.

Beyond the complexity of the relations of influence between Europe and

Japan — beyond the Impressionist movement and its after effects, beyond

xx After finishing this portrait, Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo from Arles “. . . here I am in Japan.” Vincent's
letter to Theo, 17 January 1889 <http://www.vangoghgallery.com/letters/674 V-T 545.pdf>

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Chevalier’s Orientalism and Hayashi’s (and the Japanese government’s)

commercialism —, a spiritual relationship can be gleaned between the two. The

voices of Chevalier’s blind musicians, and Nakamura’s blind Russian poet fail to

transcend cultural difference. But a dialogue (albeit indirect) can be heard between

Nakamura's Yaroshenko and van Gogh's Bonze. For the sake of argument, we might

envisage this dialogue as occurring between Monet's water lilies and the Japanese

garden.xxi

xxi The “Monet and Japan” exhibition was held at the National Gallery Australia in 2001. This essay conveys a
distant echo of the exhibition. The author thanks Dr Chiaki Ajioka, a curator of Japanese art at the Art Gallery of New
South Wales, for her feedback on this essay.

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