1890s Japonism in Western Arts and Culture
William Moo
Ryerson University
2290
On April 15, 1894, American Henry Harland and
British artist Aubrey Beardsley released the first volume of an innovative
anthology of stories and artwork to bookstores in London. Known for its
scandalous reputation, The Yellow Book forwarded a unique mantra of modern
art during a transitioning period from the Victorian to the new modern age (Weintraub 136). Courtesy of the Bodley Head publishing house, The Yellow Book was a quarterly hit, with some praising its challenging content while others criticized its sexually suggestive art.
The Balcony, Yokohama
Edward Atkins Hornel. Yale Center for British Art
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It is in subsequent time that Beardsley gained recognition for his
artwork featured in The Yellow Book and on the first four front covers of
the magazine. Inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblocks and the Grotesque, Beardsley and the rest
of Europe praised these works of art as something unique and inspirational for
the modern artist. This movement was called Japonism and it involved the
borrowing of Japanese aesthetics and incorporating them into European art. Incorporating intricate Japanese designs and settings into paintings or pottery are prime examples of this.
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As
a result of this phenomenon, another illustrator named Edward Hornel
used Japanese elements and dynamic coloring to create the oil painting Geisha,
originally
titled The Balcony, Yokohama. Meanwhile, a female writer named Ella
D’Arcy managed to work in a brief cameo of a Japanese fan into her short
story At
Twickenham. My digital exhibit will explore Japonism and its influence on
these two artists, The Yellow Book, and Western arts and culture during the late nineteenth century.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 United States License.