the japonisme timeline

AN EVOLVING, SUBJECTIVE TIMELINE of JAPONISME

1788
utamaro produces his series on insects in the garden;

1803
issa writes haiku about plovers

1831

hokusai paints 'the great wave' as part of '36 views of mt fuji';

1853
U.S. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry sails into Tokyo Bay, opening Japan to the West.;

1855
walt whitman's 'leaves of grass' is published;

1856
felix bracquemond discovers hokusai's manga at his printer's shop.;

1857
hiroshige produces plum tree print.;

1859
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, published.;

1863
whistler discovers japanese prints in london and becomes an emissary for japonisme in europe;

1864
whistler paints a friend in a kimono looking at japanese prints

1867
paris universal exposition introduces japanese art more widely to the west

1868
manet paints zola with japanese prints on his wall

1870
monet discovers japanese prints in holland;

1874
first impressionist exhibition in paris

1875
Morris & Co. established, promoting arts and crafts movement.

1876 monet paints his wife in a red kimono

1877 morse goes to japan and discovers japanese pottery

1878 whistler sues ruskin

1879 Thomas Edison demonstrates the electric light.;

1883monet moves to giverny and begins to create the japanese garden he will paint for the rest of his life.

1885
gilbert and sullivan produce the mikado;
yoshitoshi begins moon series;

1886 sargent paints 'carnation, lily, lily, rose';
john la farge visits japan;
van gogh first sees japanese prints.

1887 van gogh paints hiroshige's plum tree print;
pierre loti writes 'madame chrysantheme'

1888 s. bing starts magazine 'artistic japan' to foster interest in japanese arts and crafts.;Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society founded in London.
1890 van gogh dies;
lafcadio hearn moves to japan.

1891arthur wesley dow establishes his art school; first lautrec music-hall posters;
mary cassatt completes her mother & child prints, inspired by those of utamaro;

1892 Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company established.;

1893 munch paints 'the scream';
Aubrey Beardsley design published in the first issue of the magazine The Studio.;

1894
mucha's first art nouveau poster, gismonda with sarah bernhardt;

1895
S. Bing opens his gallery/shop L'Art Nouveau.

1898 john luther long writes short story 'madam butterfly' based on loti's 1887 novel;

mackintosh begins his school in glasgow;

1899 René Lalique designs Dragonfly woman corsage ornament;

1900 Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, published.;

1901 lautrec dies; gauguin dies;
Queen Victoria dies;
stickley starts the craftsman magazine.
1902riviere produces set of prints '36 views of the eiffel tower' based on hokusai's '36 views' series; note that the tower is almost always shown with no top, so it resembles fuji.
1903 whistler dies;
the wiener werkstatte is founded.

(i'll continue to work on this, only re-publishing after significant changes. it seems, i'm noticing how the year 1900 really did seem an important marking point. i'm going to start part II of this timeline when i feel satisfied enough -- for the moment -- with part I. I'll reproduce the items from 1900 on in that topic.

in the beginning .1

as we've discussed, "The Japanese government let Perry come ashore to avoid a naval bombardment. Perry landed at Kurihama (in modern-day Yokosuka) on July 14, 1853 presented the letter to delegates present, and left for the Chinese coast, promising to return for a reply.

Perry returned in February 1854 with twice as many ships, finding that the delegates had prepared a treaty embodying virtually all the demands in Fill- more's letter. Perry signed the Convention of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854." 1

by at least 1861, the flood of western visitors seemed unavoidable (great website about all of this). japanese artists portrayed what they saw through the filters of their own culture and art.

a few of the western visitors, painters, were powerfully drawn to what they saw not only as beautiful but also as as a counteractive to the industrial revolution; they decided to stay. these western artists portrayed what they saw through the filters of their own culture and art.

these were the early 1860s, the years of the very beginning, in france, of impressionism (a part of japonisme). the impressionists had to show independently because the academy felt they did not quality to be shown as fine art. their work just wasn't as classic, even as photo- graphic, as it had been during the victorian age, even the pre-raphaelite period, and as they felt it must be to be "fine art."

so it was still this academic style that these painters were bringing with them when they landed in japan, and with which they continued to display their new loves: the land and the people of japan. had they stayed in the west, they might still have continued to paint this way as did whistler and tissot, and others, many of whom began featuring japanese items in their work.

the painters in japan included robert blum, frank dillon, armand lachaise, charles wirgman, and more. in the victorian academic style of painting their contemporaries who'd stayed in the west, painted the shops, and the people, and the daily lives in japan.

next: we'll begin to watch as the intermingling really began. we've already looked some at how the west began to incorporate much of the style of the japanese artwork up to this time. now we'll also look at what started happening with the japanese artists, and learn a little more about the westerners who stayed.

as in