Vincent van Gogh loved Japanese prints. He started collecting prints for fun, but they ultimately taught him a new way of looking at the world. Discover how Japanese prints changed Vincent’s art for good.
Vincent van Gogh was very fond of Japanese prints, and he wasn’t alone. In the second half of the 19th century, there was huge admiration for all things Japanese. Vincent did not pay much attention to this
Utagawa Kunisada, The Fourth Month: The First Cuckoo, from the series The Twelve Months triptych, 1884
Breakthrough
Japanese art was hidden from Europe for many years. Overseas trade only got underway when Japan was opened up to the world in 1859. Japanese art and household goods flooded into Europe.
The Japanese prints that entered the Western-European market in the second half of the 19th century were an instant hit with European artists. They were significantly different to what Europe was used to. Especially 'the exotic' and the bright colours were appealing, while the Japanese conception of space opened their eyes. Examples from Japan gave a new direction to the Western artists’ own work.
Collecting prints
Vincent bought his first stack of Japanese woodcuts in Antwerp and pinned them to the wall of his room. Vincent moved into his brother’s Paris flat in early 1886. Together, they built up a sizeable collection of Japanese prints. Japan had, after all, become the height of fashion. He might have also been encouraged by artist friends like the French painter
Vincent soon began to view the prints as more than a pleasant curiosity. He saw them as an artistic example and thought they were equal to the classical masterpieces of European art history. They taught him a new way of looking at the world.
Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Julien Tanguy, 1887, Musée Rodin, Parijs
Japanese style
Japanese artists often left the middle ground of their compositions empty, while objects in the foreground were sometimes enlarged. They regularly excluded the horizon too, or abruptly cropped the elements of the picture at the edge.
This all helped European artists learn that they did not always have to arrange their artworks in the traditional way – from close up to far away, like in a peep show.
Vincent's Flowering Plum Orchard (1887) and the print by Hiroshige on which it was inspired.
Copying
Vincent painted several copies of Japanese prints. In this painting, he gave the image of the plum tree an orange frame, on which he placed Japanese characters. He borrowed them from another woodcut to make his work even more like the Japanese examples. Thus, he made his work even more “exotic.”*
*Some stylistic elements from the Japanese prints were radically different from anything Van Gogh knew from the European art world. This unfamiliarity appealed to him and was called “exotic” at the time.
Vincent van Gogh, Courtisane (after Eisen), 1887
Japanese perspective
Vincent adopted these Japanese visual inventions in his own work. He liked the unusual spatial effects, the expanses of strong colour, the everyday subjects and the attention to details from nature. And, of course, the 'exotic' and joyful atmosphere.
New style
Vincent started out copying several Japanese prints, but went much further. He was influenced in part by his artist friend Émile Bernard, who developed new ideas about the direction of modern art. Taking Japanese prints as his example, Bernard stylised his own paintings. He used large areas of simple colours and bold outlines.
Inspired by Bernard, Vincent began to suppress the illusion of depth in favour of a flat surface. In his paintings he combined this pursuit of flatness, however, with his characteristic swirling brushwork.
Vincent van Gogh, La Berceuse (portrait of Madame Roulin), 1889, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection)
Flat areas and colour
Vincent painted the Berceuse with loose strokes of his brush, which he combined with Japanese features such as large expanses of bright colour delineated by bold contours.
Emile Bernard, Portrait of Bernard's Grandmother, 1887. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
'And we wouldn’t be able to study Japanese art, it seems to me, without becoming much happier and more cheerful, and it makes us return to nature, despite our education and our work in a world of convention’.
Vincent to Theo, 23 or 24 September 1888
Japan in the South of France
After two years, Vincent left the bustle of Paris behind. He set off for Arles in the South of France in February 1888. In addition to peace, he hoped to find the ‘clearness of the atmosphere and the gay colour effects’ of Japanese prints.
From the train window he had been looking at the landscape to see 'if it was like Japan yet!' 'Childish isn't it?' he wrote to his friend Gauguin who was also very taken with the Japanese examples.
Vincent, like Gauguin, believed that artists should move to more pristine regions in the South, in search of vibrant colours. This would help them take art to a new stage. It was with that idea in mind that he moved to Arles.
Vincent left his print collection in Paris with his brother Theo. In the meantime, however, he had learned to ‘see with a more Japanese eye’, and so no longer needed the prints.
Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1888, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge (MA), Fogg Art Museum
Artists exchanging art
Vincent believed that Japanese artists exchanged work with each other. He suggested to Gauguin and Bernard that they do the same, and asked them to paint portraits of one another for him. They sent him self-portraits instead. In exchange, Vincent offered a self-portrait in which he painted himself as a Japanese monk, with epicanthic folds and cropped hair.
Vincent van Gogh, Butterflies and Poppies, 1889. Unknown artist, Autumn Flowers, Yellow Bird, and Insects, c. 1875.
Vincent often opted for paintings with compositions with a low horizon or none at all, just like in Japanese prints. Or he chose everyday, seemingly insignificant details from nature as his subject matter, such as flowers and insects, and zoomed in on those. Just like Japanese artists.
'After some time your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel colour differently. I’m also convinced that it’s precisely through a long stay here that I’ll bring out my personality’.
Vincent to Theo from Arles, 5 June 1888.
Living like the Japanese
Vincent was not only interested in the style of Japanese art, but also in the Japanese way of life. He was inspired by Buddhist monks, who lived and worked together. Vincent wanted to establish a comparable artists’ community in Arles. He invited a number of artists, but in the end, only Gauguin came.
This is one of the paintings that Vincent made to show Gauguin what he had learned from the Japanese examples.
Vincent van Gogh, Falling Leaves (Les Alyscamps), 1888. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.
Show-off
In this painting, Vincent made daring choices inspired by the Japanese example: his technique is even more stylised than before. He painted the scene from a bird’s-eye view, excluding the horizon. A strong diagonal in the composition is bisected by the trees, which splits the painting up into zones of colour.
Japan moves to the background
Sadly, the collaboration with Gauguin didn’t go as Vincent had hoped. The two artists disagreed too often and Gauguin returned to Paris after just a few months. Before Gauguin left, the artists had a furious row. This was followed by Vincent’s first mental crisis, which resulted in him being admitted to hospital. Back then, people thought that creativity and mental health problems were linked. Fearing a new crisis, Vincent no longer dared to be so bold in his paintings.
Due to his mental health struggles, Vincent lost faith in his own ability. He continued painting, but helping to modernise art following the Japanese example was too ambitious a goal. Vincent referred less and less frequently to Japanese prints in his letters.
In short
Nature was the point of departure for Vincent’s art throughout his life. It was the same for Japanese artists, and he recognised that. Japanese prints also gave Vincent the example he needed to modernise.
Vincent was keen to respond to the call for a modern kind of painting. Japanese prints, with their expanses of colour and their stylisation, showed him the way, without requiring him to give up nature as his starting point. It was ideal.
All my work is based to some extent on Japanese art…
Vincent to Theo from Arles, 15 July 1888