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Japon mon amour
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How France discovered Japan
How France discovered Japan
and spread Japonisme through the world
«These simple Japanese people live in nature as they were flowers themselves ». We read these words in a touched letter by Van Gogh to his brother Théo. It was in 1888 and the coloured palette of the artist was lighted up by the sun of Provence so much 
far from Japanese sun, the Rising Sun which at that time was beginning to set in open and “conquered” Japan where trade and traders from the West ran about. Van Gogh didn’t ever go to Japan. Also, Bracquemond, Manet, Monet, Degas didn’t go to Japan even if they were the first people in the mid-19th century to be suffering from that illness with no recovery now called Japonisme in art. Nevertheless distance is a mutual condition of man not of artist and above all for Impressionists.
Since some years before the end of sakoku (鎖国, "locked country") – the isolationism of Japan during Edo-Tokugawa period (1603 - 1867) – the first Japanese ukiyo-e (浮世絵, “pictures of the floating world") woodblock prints began to circulate in Paris. These prints were some of the most important detonators of coloured explosion of Impressionism both for portraits and for landscape paintings. Japanese art was immediate and refined in the eyes of Impressionists and it was profoundly and
totally suitable for their painting style. Artists and patrons of Impressionism were the first collectors of Japanese prints and crafts objects. Japanese prints which Monet began to collect since 1871 in his house of Giverny constitute nowadays one of the most significant collections of Japan art. In works by Monet there are so many references to Japan. He had been above all enchanted by marvellous and dreamlike red humpback Japanese bridges called in Japanese taikobashi (太鼓橋, “drum bridge”) or poetically tsukibashi (月橋, “moon bridge”). In the garden of Giverny there is a green Japanese bridge which is not red as Japanese bridges are. This bridge is like an apparition which develops and changes in half-light in Monet’s last paintings.
Anyway France’s love for Japan is not only concerning art and Japanese prints but it’s also about literature, music and cinema and it originated many profound
and reciprocal influences among Japanese and French artists. This mutual love between France and Japan concerns even food, fashion, language.
France loves Japan a lot. One of the biggest manga café in the world is placed in Paris. French people are in fact the main readers of manga comics after Japanese people. Japonisme is still alive and it turns to new models with the same old emotion.
Japan loves France as well. A perfect copy of Monet’s garden in his house in Giverny was built at Kitagawa, a small village of Shikoku Island…and to think that French artist got inspired just by traditional Japanese gardens to make his own garden! Tokyo Tower (東京タワー) in Japan’s capital is modeled after Eiffel Tower and it is almost a coloured copy made in Japan six meters higher than the French model.
Musical Impressionism by Claude Debussy partially took its cue from Japanese pentatonic music
. On the cover of the 1905 edition of La Mer there is in fact the image of The Great Wave off Kanagawa (神奈川沖浪裏, Kanagawa Oki Nami Ura, 1829–32) by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎, 1760 - 1849), a copy of which is also in Monet’s house in Giverny. Recently in Japan renowned singer and actor Miwa Akihiro (美輪明宏) performed many chansons in Japanese like for example "Non, je ne regrette rien" by immortal Edith Piaf.
Takada Kenzō (高田賢三) – the most important Japanese fashion designer and author of perfumes –moved to Paris when he was very young and opened his first boutique Jungle Jap there in 1970. After all Paris and Provence are among the main dream places of romantic Japanese people. Just the same Japanese tourists who don’t know at all to look a little at themselves while they gape at Impressionist paintings.
far from Japanese sun, the Rising Sun which at that time was beginning to set in open and “conquered” Japan where trade and traders from the West ran about. Van Gogh didn’t ever go to Japan. Also, Bracquemond, Manet, Monet, Degas didn’t go to Japan even if they were the first people in the mid-19th century to be suffering from that illness with no recovery now called Japonisme in art. Nevertheless distance is a mutual condition of man not of artist and above all for Impressionists.Since some years before the end of sakoku (鎖国, "locked country") – the isolationism of Japan during Edo-Tokugawa period (1603 - 1867) – the first Japanese ukiyo-e (浮世絵, “pictures of the floating world") woodblock prints began to circulate in Paris. These prints were some of the most important detonators of coloured explosion of Impressionism both for portraits and for landscape paintings. Japanese art was immediate and refined in the eyes of Impressionists and it was profoundly and
totally suitable for their painting style. Artists and patrons of Impressionism were the first collectors of Japanese prints and crafts objects. Japanese prints which Monet began to collect since 1871 in his house of Giverny constitute nowadays one of the most significant collections of Japan art. In works by Monet there are so many references to Japan. He had been above all enchanted by marvellous and dreamlike red humpback Japanese bridges called in Japanese taikobashi (太鼓橋, “drum bridge”) or poetically tsukibashi (月橋, “moon bridge”). In the garden of Giverny there is a green Japanese bridge which is not red as Japanese bridges are. This bridge is like an apparition which develops and changes in half-light in Monet’s last paintings.Anyway France’s love for Japan is not only concerning art and Japanese prints but it’s also about literature, music and cinema and it originated many profound
and reciprocal influences among Japanese and French artists. This mutual love between France and Japan concerns even food, fashion, language.France loves Japan a lot. One of the biggest manga café in the world is placed in Paris. French people are in fact the main readers of manga comics after Japanese people. Japonisme is still alive and it turns to new models with the same old emotion.
Japan loves France as well. A perfect copy of Monet’s garden in his house in Giverny was built at Kitagawa, a small village of Shikoku Island…and to think that French artist got inspired just by traditional Japanese gardens to make his own garden! Tokyo Tower (東京タワー) in Japan’s capital is modeled after Eiffel Tower and it is almost a coloured copy made in Japan six meters higher than the French model.
Musical Impressionism by Claude Debussy partially took its cue from Japanese pentatonic music
. On the cover of the 1905 edition of La Mer there is in fact the image of The Great Wave off Kanagawa (神奈川沖浪裏, Kanagawa Oki Nami Ura, 1829–32) by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎, 1760 - 1849), a copy of which is also in Monet’s house in Giverny. Recently in Japan renowned singer and actor Miwa Akihiro (美輪明宏) performed many chansons in Japanese like for example "Non, je ne regrette rien" by immortal Edith Piaf.Takada Kenzō (高田賢三) – the most important Japanese fashion designer and author of perfumes –moved to Paris when he was very young and opened his first boutique Jungle Jap there in 1970. After all Paris and Provence are among the main dream places of romantic Japanese people. Just the same Japanese tourists who don’t know at all to look a little at themselves while they gape at Impressionist paintings.
Floriano Terrano
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(Me Que Me Que performed by Miwa Akihiro www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsqqXmx4qLQ)