Japonaiserie

Japonaiserie. Until the mid-C19 Japan was largely a closed book to the West. After 1858, when the USA signed a trade agreement with that country (followed by European nations), Japanese artefacts became more familiar, and greatly influenced Western designers of furniture and buildings, especially those of the Aesthetic and Arts-and-Crafts movements. Among architects to draw inspiration from Japanese design were E. W. Godwin. Art Nouveau also was influenced by aspects of Japanese art. Fashionable taste appreciated the simplicity of Japanese objects after various exhibitions (e.g. London (1862) and Paris (1867) ), and by the 1870s Japonaiserie, or design influenced by the arts of Japan, permeated art and architecture, especially in Britain, France, and the USA. Various publications helped to make the style familiar, including Sir Rutherford Alcock's (1809–97) Art and Art Industries of Japan (1878), T. W. Cutler's (1841/2–1909) Grammar of Japanese Ornament and Design (1880), Louis Gonse's (1846–1921) L'Art Japonais (1883), and Siegfried (not Samuel) Bing's (1838–1905) Artistic Japan (1888–91—with French and German editions). Bing's shops in Paris popularized Japonaiserie, while his connections with the firm of Tiffany in NYC contributed to the spread of the style to the USA. A further catalyst was provided by Dresser, who not only knew Japan and supplied Tiffany & Co. with Japanese objets d'art, but married a Japanese woman, and published Japan, its Architecture, Art, and Manufactures (1882).

Bibliography

Greenhalgh (ed.) (2000);
Jervis (1984);
Lampugnani (ed.) & Dinsmoor (1986)
Sores (2000);