Abstract

Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century; awash with fascination for Japanese art- experienced art movements heavily influenced by East Asia. Amidst Europe’s fascination with Ukiyo-e woodblocks and scrolls, expressive periods such as Impressionism and Art Nouveau emerged as a result. Alternatively, Japan’s Edo era art was born from the political unrest of civil war, two sides battling for the future of Westernization. This paper examines the spheres of influence between Art Nouveau and Ukiyo-e woodblocks and how this shaped perceptions of idyllic womanhood, commercialization, and traditional garmentry through the lens of decorative art. The dialogue between the Eastern and Western art worlds investigated by geopolitical and poetic history to illuminate what it means to be a woman “worthy” of depiction in art. The pictorial world of the originator of the Ukiyo-e movement, Hishikawa Moronubu, is explored by a visual analysis of his seventeenth century work “Beauty Looking Back”. On the other side of the world, the father of Art Nouveau; Czech artist Alphonse Mucha’s “Gismonda” (1894) is paralleled for its illustrational likeness and connection. The vividly animated quality in the organic lines of Art Nouveau could be seen decorating the wrists, furniture, and houses of in vogue Europeans; historically impacted by the intentful mass marketing of Chinese export paintings, geared to a Western demographic. The impact of feminine sentimentality and decoration is compounded by a study of Edo female poet Ema Saiko, for a look into driving mindsets of the time. This study contends the profound impact of ethereal art that belies harsh reality, as pictures from the floating world flowed into the new art of Europe.

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