not only to organize the flat shapes of figures but also to direct the
viewer’s attention into the picture space. The Impressionists, ac-
quainted with these prints as early as the 1860s, greatly admired
their spatial organization, familiar and intimate themes, and flat un-
modeled color areas, and drew much instruction from them.THE TUBAlthough color and light were major components of the
Impressionist quest to capture fleeting sensations, these artists con-
sidered other formal elements as well. Degas, for example, became asuperb master of line, so much so that his works often differ signifi-
cantly from those of Monet and Renoir. Degas specialized in studies
of figures in rapid and informal action, recording the quick impres-
sion of arrested motion, as is evident in The Rehearsal (FIG. 31-10).
He often employed lines to convey this sense of movement. In The
Tub (FIG. 31-11,left), inspired by a Japanese print similar to the one
illustrated here (FIG. 31-11,right), a young woman crouches in a
washing tub. The artist outlined the major objects in the painting—
the woman, tub, and pitchers—and covered all surfaces with linearImpressionism 829D
espite Europe’s and America’s extensive colonization during
the 19th century, Japan avoided Western intrusion until
1853–1854, when Commodore Matthew Perry (1794–1858) and
American naval forces exacted trading and diplomatic privileges from
Japan. From the increased contact, Westerners became familiar with
Japanese culture. So intrigued were the French with Japanese art and
culture that they introduced a specific label—Japonisme—to describe
the Japanese aesthetic, which, because of both its beauty and exoti-
cism, greatly appealed to the fashionable segment of Parisian society.
In 1867 at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, the Japanese pavilion
garnered more attention than any other. Soon, Japanese kimonos,
fans, lacquer cabinets, tea caddies, folding screens, tea services, and
jewelry flooded Paris. Japanese-themed novels and travel books were
immensely popular as well. As demand for Japanese merchandise
grew in the West, the Japanese began to develop import-export busi-
nesses, and the foreign currency that flowed into Japan helped to fi-
nance much of its industrialization.
Artists in particular were great admirers of Japanese art. Among
those the Japanese aesthetic influenced were the Impressionists and
Post-Impressionists, especially Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Mary
Cassatt, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,
Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin. For the most part, the Japanese
presentation of space in woodblock prints (FIGS. 28-12and 28-13),which were more readily available in the West than any other art
form, intrigued these artists. Because of the simplicity of the wood-
block printing process (see “Japanese Woodblock Prints,” Chapter 28,
page 744), these prints feature broad areas of flat color with a limited
amount of modulation or gradation. This flatness interested mod-
ernist painters, who sought ways to call attention to the picture sur-
face. The right side of Degas’s The Tub (FIG. 31-11,left), for example,
has this two-dimensional quality. Degas, in fact, owned a print by
Japanese artist Torii Kiyonaga(1752–1815) depicting eight women
at a bath in various poses and states of undress. That print inspired
Degas’s painting. A comparison between Degas’s bather and a detail
(FIG. 31-11,right) of a bather from another of Kiyonaga’s prints is
striking, although Degas did not closely copy any of the Japanese
artist’s figures. Instead, he absorbed the essence of Japanese composi-
tional style and the distinctive angles employed in representing hu-
man figures, and he translated them into the Impressionist mode.
The decorative quality of Japanese images also appealed to the
artists associated with the Arts and Crafts movement in England.
Artists such as William Morris (FIG. 31-34) and Charles Rennie
Mackintosh (FIG. 31-35) found Japanese prints attractive because
those artworks intersected nicely with two fundamental Arts and
Crafts principles: Art should be available to the masses, and func-
tional objects should be artistically designed.Japonisme
ART AND SOCIETY31-11Left: Edgar Degas,The Tub,1886. Pastel, 1 11 –^12 2 83 – 8 . Musée d’Orsay, Paris.Right:Torii Kiyonaga,detail of
Two Women at the Bath, ca. 1780. Color woodblock, full print 10– 21 7 –^12 , detail 3–^34 3 –^12 . Musée Guimet, Paris.
The Tubreveals the influence of Japanese prints, especially the distinctive angles artists such as Torii Kiyonaga used in repre-
senting figures. Degas translated his Japanese model into the Impressionist mode.1 in.1 ft.31-11AVAN
GOGH,Flowering
Plum Tree,1887.