CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/16/2015

Monet, Gauguin, Van Gogh … Japanese Inspirations

In Steidl's wonderful catalog to the recent blockbuster show at Museum Folkwang Essen, Mae Michiko writes, "In the mid-nineteenth century, many artists began to sense that—owing to the constraints of academic classicism, historicism, naturalism and what could be referred to 'illusionism'—art in Europe had reached an impasse. These artists sought a new beginning beyond an artistic tradition characterized by such compositional principles as central perspective. In this crisis, Japanese color woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e presented Western artists with a way of seeing free of the restrictions posed by the hierarchical ranking of pictorial subjects and genres as adhered to by the European art tradition. Artists realized that this liberation from the conventions of the European tradition represented an opportunity for creating new art." Featured image is Gauguin's "Still Life with Three Puppies" (1888).