Japonisme and Bonnard's Invention of the Modern Poster
David Gliem
Sign up for access to the world's latest research
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Abstract
Soon aft er Japan was opened to the West in the 1850s, large numbers of Japanese works of art were exported to Europe and America. Western artists, excited by the novelty of Japanese art, eagerly adopted and adapted Japanese aesthetics to their own creative eff orts. Th e fascination these artists held for Japan and its culture was but one small part of a much broader appreciation of Japan, a phenomenon dubbed Japonisme in 1872 by the art critic Philippe Burty. Japonisme reached the peak of its infl uence around 1890, the same time that Pierre Bonnard, a young French artist and member of the symbolist group, the Nabis, was formulating a new approach to poster design. A keen admirer and student of Japanese art, Bonnard applied what he learned of Japanese aesthetics to the style of his fi rst lithographed poster, France-Champagne. Innovative in its use of a fl at, reductive composition and synthesis between text and image-design elements borrowed fr om the Japanese-this work ushered in a new era of poster design.
Figures (5)
Related papers
How was the Japanese folding screen significant in the artistic practices of Pierre Bonnard and Jean-Édouard Vuillard in Fin-de-Siècle Paris?
This essay outlines the importance of the Japanese folding screen an Japanese aesthetics for the Nabis artists in Paris from 1890-1910.
Review of "Le Japonisme, un art français" by Pamela Genova, Journal of Japonisme 9 (Brill), 2024
Winner of the 2023 Prix Paul Marmottan, this densely written tome presents an in-depth examination of the dynamics of French Japonisme, enhanced by a rich collection of 246 illustrations, many in color, as well as a substantial bibliography of primary and secondary sources. These elements support a thoughtful analysis of an undeniably important and unique cultural phenomenon characteristic of the French nineteenth century. In fact, the very title of the study insists on Japonisme as it manifested in France, even as the author acknowledges the universal nature of the movement. "Ce livre ne parle pas du Japon mais de la France," she explains in the introduction ("This book does not speak of Japan, but of France") (6). The Japonisme of other countries is therefore not the book's subject, nor is the evolution of Japanese art from 1800 to the present day. This emphasis on a specifically French artistic perspective also comes through forcefully in an assessment of critical studies and exhibition catalogues dedicated to Japonisme. Sophie Basch presents a robust critique of many analyses written in English in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, particularly with regard to what the author sees as ambiguous readings of notions such as influence, prefiguration, and communication between cultures-notions that, she argues, need to be rethought in a more inclusive context. The author emphasizes the visual arts, exploring the ways in which Japanese masters of ukiyo-e, such as Hokusai and Utamaro, interact with the work of a host of French artists (especially those born between 1820 and 1850). Accordingly, she traces an eccentric tradition perceptible as early as the work of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) and moving through other, more canonical figures for Japonisme, such as Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903).
True or False: Japonisme and the Historiography of Modern Design
Journal of Japonisme, 2017
While most of the artistic trends of the late nineteenth century were indebted to the arts of Japan, their influence on western decorative arts – unlike painting – has only been acknowledged in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Early design historians, such as Nikolaus Pevsner (1936), hardly mentioned Japan in their works, although they recognized the importance of Christopher Dresser and the Arts & Crafts movement. Though this absence has been most commonly attributed to this authors’ involvement in contemporary design, this paper argues that their studies relied on many of their predecessors’ biased view on the artistic phenomenon. By drawing a distinction between a “good” vs. “bad” interpretation of Japanese art, their writings participated in the formation of a certain history of modern design.
Japonisme in Print: Japanese Style / Western Culture
Exhibition at the Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri 7 November 2017 - 1 April 2018
Introduction to The Poster: Art, Advertising, Design and Collecting, 1860s-1900s
The Poster: Art, Advertising, Design, and Collecting, 1850s-1900s, 2014
A landmark study of posters as art, design, advertising and an object of collecting in the nineteenth century. This is a cultural history that situates the poster at the crossroads of art, design, advertising, and collecting. Ruth E. Iskin argues that the avant-garde poster was instrumental in the development of a modern language of art in the 1890s, and in the adaptation of art to an era of mass media. She shows how posters played an important role in the emerging fields of advertising and design. She articulates the strategies that made posters function well in the hectic environment of the urban street and explains why they soon came to be coveted by collectors. This insightful study proposes that the poster played a constitutive role in the modern culture of spectacle.
A New Departure: Toulouse-Lautrec's Posters
Paris, Fin-de-Siècle: Signac, Redon, Toulouse-Lautrec, and their Contemporaries, Vivien Green, ed. , 2017
the poster actually stimulated artists to invent a new and forceful visual language. Since potential viewers usually encountered posters on the streets rather than a dedicated art space, artists had to make formal innovations in design and color that would instantaneously attract the eyes of passersby. 4 All of these factors contributed to Lautrec's aesthetic innovations in postershis great simplification of form, emphasis on surface, flattened masses of color, elimination of shadows and modulation, use of brilliant colors, prominent outlines and lines, bold compositions, and striking points of view. Lautrec invented his modernist language as a hybrid of low culture and fine art: the poster had to be artistic, but also to respond to a new function (advertising), a new site of display (the street), and a new audience (a mobile general public).
Promoting Japonism: Establishment of a cultural image
Edited abstract from doctoral Thesis “Appropriate Japan: How Western Art prepared a Nation for War”, 2020
ジャポニズムの推進 - 文化的イメージの確立 The research paper starts in Nagasaki after the import restriction on foreign content was loosened in 1720. All illustrative material was handed at first to the goyo-eshi (painters in official service) and karae mekiki (inspector of Chinese paintings), who worked as official art appraiser in Nagasaki, to censor foreign paintings and books. Soon the presentation of Western paintings and realistic drawings from the body became a spectacle of its own for the masses. Its presentation influenced medics and artists alike and soon the first theoretical writings on Western style painting by Japanese were printed. It is explained how Japanese ukiyo-e artists began to implement Western perspective during the mid-eighteenth century. As the horizontal picture plane, the 'Berlin Blue' pigment into Japanese compositional technique were incorporated, and as the most pervasive contribution the novel perspectival techniques were introduced. Furthermore, the rise of the shogakai gatherings, which began in Kyoto but spread rapidly to Edo and various provincial towns is told. Charles Wirgman and Philipp Franz von Siebold are presented as the were crucial in promoting the first photographies and woodblock prints in Europe. The time is described when famous artists in Paris discovered the first Japanese prints as inspiration for their own paintings. The trade in Japanese art in Europe and the USA that quickly followed is exemplified. The article ends with information about the relevant persons and institutions.
Always New: The Posters of Jules Chéret
Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide
The 1880s and 1890s are often referred to as a Golden Age for the poster in France. Color lithograph posters flourished due to changes in the press laws that liberalized poster distribution, new technological advances in printing that made it easier and cheaper to print posters, and the emergence of a consumer culture that demanded images to help market goods to the public. In these decades, critics described the advertising poster as ubiquitous and claimed it represented a uniquely modern, urban form of culture that captured the very essence of the Belle Époque in its representations of the entertainments and spectacles that were on offer throughout the city. The poster designer who received the most critical attention at this time was the Frenchman Jules Chéret; most of it was overwhelmingly positive. After apprenticing at a young age in a printing company in Paris and then working in England to perfect his skills at color lithography, Chéret moved back to Paris in the 1860s and was soon recognized for his skill in poster design. He gained recognition because of his stylistic flair and his prominent signatures on his posters. The year 1889 marked a breakthrough year for Chéret when he was inducted into the Legion of Honor, won a gold medal at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, and garnered his own solo exhibition that resulted in wide-ranging critical acclaim.
INFLUENCES OF JAPANESE PRINTS ON EUROPEAN PRINTMAKING (IN THE CASE OF DEGAS-MANZI PARTNERSHIP
10th GRID 2020 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON GRAPHIC ENGINEERING AND DESIGN, 2020
Contemporary artists have included classical methods together with innovative digital printing technologies to their artistic manufactures and thus their technological production interactions have been reflected on current art as well. Today’s artists have also been in collaboration with each other by involving the digital printing technologies which kept advancing during the recent 20 years in their works of art just like Degas and Manzi did in their relationships of production partnerships in the 19th Century. Besides, those opinions which originated from modernism ideas and movements consist of the core of this cooperation post-Industrial Revolution era. Therefore, the concept of nationalism, the devastating consequences of world wars, and the latest industrial and technological advancements have all transformed human life irreversibly. Consequently, during this transformation era, various significant movements of art such as Impressionism and Expressionism emerged in the 20th century and representatives of those art movements substituted such a lot of printmaking practices in their works of art. None of those mentioned above took place in other previous movements of art. They reflected their points of view that they display social movements and none of the other artists who represent other senses of art have ever exhibited such a lot of printmaking practices. Thus, various printing technologies which present a new laboratory environment for the artists. As a result of this, printing technologies have been preferred as a sort of new artistic media value and it started to take its prominent place in collections of art as well as in museums during artistic presentations. Within this context, this article aims at studying the phenomenon of art by considering how it has changed during the historical process by examining those works of art which reveal these variations. Common production and working techniques in traditional printmaking, contributions of the technological advantages to the artistic manufacture. Besides, periodical innovations will be examined and presented by introducing an updated point of view to the topic within the content of this article that contains some citations from the second part of the thesis titled “Effects of fine art printmaking on the phenomenon of contemporary art”.
Impressionism in Japan (DRAFT ONLY: NOT FOR CITATION WITHOUT PRIOR CONSENT)
2004
[Note Japanese names are given surname first] It might seem appropriate here just to look at the reception of Monet's oeuvre in Japanese art, but as Japanese authorities such as Takumi and Miyasaki indicate, this reception has to be placed in the context of the Japanese reception of European oil painting in the late 19th century. Indeed, for reasons which will become clear, the general impact of Monet on works of art produced by Japanese, or on Japanese artviewing audiences, was very limited and indirect until the Japanese mass exhibitions for Impressionist painting of the 1970s and 1980s.
Related papers
Reinventing Conventions: An Interpretation of the Prints of Paul Jacoulet and their Utilization of Traditions
With the study of modern Japanese prints slowly getting more attention in the field of Japanese art history, several artists who were previously unheard of from the era are now inciting interests among many scholars due to their unconventional approaches to art that challenges preconceived ideas of artistic exchanges between Japanese and Western art. Among these newly discovered artist, perhaps none of them incites more conversation than a French woodblock print artist living in Japan named Paul Jacoulet. Born in France but grew up in Japan, Paul Jacoulet was regarded as one of the most peculiar woodblock print artists of the 19th to 20th century, not only for his identity as a French man in the field, but also his precarious position straddling between Western and Japanese art traditions.
THE EFFECT OF COMPUTER-BASED GRAPHIC DESIGN ON ILLUSTRATION IN POSTER DESIGN IN THE 20TH CENTURY
Alaa A. A. Eleyan, 2022
This study will detail the effects of computer-based graphic design on illustration in poster works. The understanding of art has evolved from ancient times to the present, giving rise to design works. With the development of the internet and computer technologies in the 20th century, the understanding of design has also changed. The impact of computer technology on the drawings in poster works will be highlighted in this study as how they began in the 1950s and 1960s and developed throughout the century. Especially in the 1990s, technological developments offered new technical possibilities to art and artists. The production of computeraided unique designs and illustrations began. The study's evaluation portion will cover the technical aspects of the illustrations seen in the posters created by well-known historical designers. The examples presented throughout the study cover the effects of computer-based graphic design in the 20th century on the illustration in poster works.
The use of Japanese print in Monet's and Van Gogh's work
The middle class of the 19 th century, after experiencing the deepest level of the expansive capitalist reformation, reasserted its dominant role in the ongoing social, political and cultural evolution. During the same century, the reformation of capitalism meant the spring of socialism, the immigration, the formation of new nations and national identities and, more importantly, the formation of an all-powerful middle class, due to the expansive phenomenon of urbanization. The advantages of this will mean the development of Parliamentarianism in the larger part of Europe, the redefinition of human liberties and rights, the free market, the decline of religion and the rise of science and technology. At the same time, the European nations and the countries of the New World will engage in a bitter competition and rivalry in spreading their influence around the world, by taking advantage of their scientific and technological advances. At the same time, the disadvantages will be many. The new unbalances in the political and social field will not keep pace with the ongoing changes and not everybody will benefit from capitalism. As a result, social injustice, poverty, prostitution and social struggle will become the main sources of an artistic and intellectual movement in Europe with no antecedent.
“When the Japanese Print Became Avant-garde: Yorozu Tetsugorô and Taishô-period Creative Prints”
Impressions, 2004
Reminiscence of Theatrical Engraving in the Japanese Eco-posters
ARTISTIC CULTURE. TOPICAL ISSUES, 2018
The high rise of the Japanese theatrical engraving as a self-sufficient and independent art is observed in the 17th–19th centuries and has no analogies not only in the culture of other Eastern countries, but in the whole world culture in general. Extremely strong influence on the modern ecological poster had the work of Tusyushai Syaraku. The peculiarity of the artistic manner of Syaraku is that in his work he embraced almost the full spectrum of the theater performing staff, and not just the popular “stars”. The circle of characters in Syaraku is more complete and “democratic”, in comparison with other masters. Among the modern masters who were influenced by the work of Tosyushaya Syaraku, we note Takanokuro Yoshinori, Norizako Kita, Shuzo, Sato Koichi and many others. In their posters, masters use o-kubi-e techniques.
Iskin, Introduction, Part II: Collecting Posters and Other Ephemera: From Modernity to the Digital Era
Iskin, Collecting Prints, Posters and Ephemera: Perspectives in a Global World, edited by Ruth E. Iskin and Britany Salsbury, 2019
The Influence of Japanese art on Claude Monet
The popularity for Japanese art has emerged in Paris in the early 1860s among French Impressionist artists. The Impressionist group in the 19th century had many influences, Japanese art was one of them. Japanese woodblock prints were popular in France and these prints had an impact on many impressionist artists at the time. Claude Monet was one of them who was very interested with Japanese prints in many aspects and composition of these prints were one of his aspect why he was interested with the Japanese art so much. Monet had a big collection of Japanese art at his house in Giverny. The compositional format of the Japanese art was asymmetrical and this was another aspect that was against the Academy of the time.
Invention of 'Modern' Japonisme: national representation through ‘Sangyo Kogei’
Japonisme in the Twentieth Century National representation in design has always been important in modern Japanese design. In the first half of the last century, when the Western modernism shared Japan's taste for simplicity and monotone rigidity, Japan recognized its heritage as an advantage, and tried to stimulate the Japanese export industry.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.