Japanese and African Art

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that as explorers and empire builders brought back tales of exotic places, they also carried back with them artifacts and works of art from these "newly discovered" cultures and civilizations. The writer notes that as Western artists began to examine the artistic productions of different peoples - in particular the Japanese and the Africans - they discovered that strict realism and classical design were not the only possibilities. The flood of Japanese prints and African carvings and bronzes that reached Europe and America were to herald the beginning of a whole new era in Western art.

From the Paper:

"Japanese prints inspired Western artists, such as Gaugin and Monet, to adopt the angular perspective of the Japanese masters. The picture plane became a set of intersecting planes positioned at different heights along the painting. This was a clear rejection of the traditional "scientific" methods of perspective representations that had been in use in Europe for hundreds of years. As well, European artists began to experiment with the bold color palettes of ukiyo-e. In the works of Toulouse-Kautrec, too, the influence of the Japanese woodblock artists can be powerfully scene. Toulouse-Lautrec's colors, perspective, and even subject matter owe a profound debt to these new influences. In fact, it could be said that Toulouse-Lautrec's lithographs represented a European interpretation of long-established Japanese genre. Much as the great ukiyo-e artists portrayed the "demimonde" of Tokugawa Japan, so too were these same actresses, prostitutes, and assorted habitues of the Paris underworld portrayed by Toulouse-Lautrec."

More papers on Japanese and African Art:

• Essay # 70647 : " African Art"
• Research Paper # 117015 : "Ancient African Art of the Sub-Saharan World"
• Essay # 71847 : "African Art"

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