[Joseonggwan's Global Humanities Journey] Ukiyo-e Painters Loved by Van Gogh

In Amsterdam, Netherlands, there is the world's largest Van Gogh Museum. It is a hot spot that visitors to Amsterdam, whether on business or leisure, pilgrimage to like a sacred place. Professor L from the Department of Psychiatry at a university hospital recently attended a conference in Amsterdam and visited the Van Gogh Museum.

From last fall until January 7, 2024, the Van Gogh Museum held the "Pok?mon X Van Gogh" exhibition. It was the world's first exhibition combining game characters with masterpieces.

A self-portrait wearing a gray felt hat.
[Photo by Van Gogh Museum]

Japan is the world's largest character empire. One of Japan's representative characters is "Pok?mon." The MZ generation, in other words, is the Pok?mon generation. They grew up crying and laughing with characters like Pikachu, Charmander, Squirtle, and Snorlax from a young age.

The "Pok?mon X Van Gogh" exhibition successfully attracted great interest from the MZ generation, as intended by the organizers. A promotional video featuring Pikachu as a painter received over 300,000 likes on the museum's Instagram account. The piece that stopped MZ generation visitors in their tracks was the representative work "Pikachu Self-Portrait," a parody of Van Gogh's 1887 "Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat."

One notable aspect of this exhibition was that the museum held an online lecture explaining the connection between Van Gogh and Japanese art.

"Pok?mon is an icon of Japanese popular culture, and Japanese prints were an important source of inspiration for Van Gogh."

Exterior view of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Photo by Dongyoung Lee

The 221st episode of "World Humanities Travel" explains the sentence, "Japanese prints were an important source of inspiration for Van Gogh." Those without basic knowledge of Japanese art might find this statement puzzling.

Japanese prints refer to ukiyo-e (浮世繪), colored woodblock prints that were very popular during the Edo period. To put it simply, it is impossible to discuss Western art history without mentioning ukiyo-e. Yet, when we learn about Impressionism in school, the influence of Japanese art is completely omitted.

In 1854, the Edo shogunate chose to open the country under pressure from the black ships (kurofune) fleet led by American Commodore Perry. Japan sent delegations to Europe and America to learn from advanced nations and received various reports. The Japanese government decided to participate in the 1867 Paris Universal Exposition. The Japanese pavilion mainly exhibited crafts and ceramics. At that time, the sea route from Japan to Paris (before the opening of the Suez Canal) went around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa. To prevent damage to ceramics and crafts during sea transport, the boxes were filled with bundles of paper.

An unexpected event occurred at the Japanese pavilion at the Paris Universal Exposition. When French artists unpacked the paper bundles wrapping the ceramics and crafts, they were surprised to find they were ukiyo-e colored woodblock prints. The French artists admired ukiyo-e, which had been regarded as a declining art genre at the end of the Edo shogunate. That ukiyo-e captivated the Paris art world! This was the official first rendezvous between Western and Japanese art.

There is also a claim that Japanese art was first introduced to the West through the Netherlands. Despite the Edo shogunate's isolation policy, the western port of Nagasaki was open to the Dutch, and ukiyo-e flowed into the Netherlands through Dutch merchants.

In any case, at the 1878 Paris Universal Exposition, ukiyo-e was the star of the Japanese pavilion. This exhibition shocked French and British artists. The shockwave even influenced the daily lives of the upper class. The Japan craze, Japonism, swept through. Impressionist painters competitively collected ukiyo-e and imitated colored woodblock prints. In 1888, a magazine called "Japanese Art" was launched and published in English, French, and German editions, indicating the Japonism craze.

Hiroshige's 1857 work 'Sudden Shower over Shin-?hashi Bridge'

Van Gogh's Imitation of Hiroshige's 'Sudden Shower over Shin-?hashi Bridge'

Antwerp, Belgium, was where Van Gogh first encountered ukiyo-e. In 1885, during his journey to Paris, Van Gogh briefly stayed in Antwerp and happened upon colored woodblock prints. Although a poor aspiring painter, he became fascinated with ukiyo-e. He bought several pieces with his limited money, hung them in his room, and looked at them repeatedly. Van Gogh was captivated by the simple lines and expression style. The flat pictures that ignored perspective emitted a powerful image unlike anything he had experienced in Western art.

Van Gogh came to Paris with his brother Theo in the spring of 1886. The world art capital Paris was overflowing with ukiyo-e. There was even a specialty ukiyo-e shop in Paris. Theo also liked ukiyo-e like his brother. The brothers competed in collecting colored woodblock prints. As they bought more and more pieces, they desired to exhibit them. Van Gogh obtained the consent of the owner of the Tambourin Caf?, which he frequented, to hold a ukiyo-e exhibition.

In a letter to Theo in 1886, Van Gogh candidly expressed his feelings about Japanese art.

"Japanese art is pure and clear. Yet it is never monotonous or frivolous. I want to paint like that too."

Among ukiyo-e artists, the ones who fascinated him were Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北?) and Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川 ?重).

Look at Katsushika Hokusai's representative work "The Great Wave off Kanagawa." Van Gogh was mesmerized by the grand energy created by simple lines and composition that destroyed perspective.

When people like something, it is human nature to want to imitate it. The ukiyo-e artist Van Gogh decided to try to paint was Hiroshige. Hiroshige was known for over 100 landscape paintings of Edo, called "One Hundred Views of Edo." His representative works include "Sudden Shower over Shin-?hashi Bridge," "Plum Garden at Kameido," and "Night Snow at Kanbara."

Van Gogh copied several of Hiroshige's colored prints directly into oil paintings. He did not just adapt or borrow parts of the originals but blatantly and perfectly copied them. He must have been deeply obsessed.

Hiroshige's 1857 work 'Kameido Plum Garden'

A painting copied by Van Gogh during his Paris period in 1887.
[Photo by Van Gogh Museum]

In "Plum Garden at Kameido," he even copied the kanji characters exactly. For people from non-Chinese character cultures, such as Christian civilizations, kanji characters themselves are like pictures. Since kanji originated from pictographs, it is not strange to perceive them as images. Van Gogh's painstaking imitation of the crooked kanji is clearly felt.

If I had to choose one masterpiece of Hiroshige, I would not hesitate to pick "Sudden Shower over Shin-?hashi Bridge." Hiroshige left several works on the theme of rain, including "Travelers Caught in a Sudden Shower."

Imagine crossing a long bridge in summer when suddenly a heavy rain pours down. There is nowhere to shelter even for a moment. It is extremely distressing. Without an umbrella, one might have to wrap themselves in a straw cape. If even that is not available... Van Gogh must have heard the sound of the heavy rain and read the travelers' startled expressions in the painting. He was probably seized by the urge to translate that into an oil painting.

Being a painter is an expensive profession. Paints, brushes, canvases, model fees... If paintings sell, at least the material costs can be recovered, but who would buy paintings from an unknown artist? When Van Gogh was painting unsold works in Montmartre, the art supplier Monsieur Julien Tanguy took a liking to the poor painter. Monsieur Tanguy showed various kindnesses, including selling paints at a low price. Van Gogh never forgot Monsieur Tanguy, who treated him well during his lonely and hungry Paris days. The fact that Van Gogh painted Monsieur Tanguy's portrait twice allows us to infer their relationship.

Portrait of Tangyi Yeonggam painted by Van Gogh.
[Photo by Rodin Museum]

But look closely at the background of Monsieur Tanguy's portrait. It is full of ukiyo-e. He painted this portrait in his own studio. As widely known, Van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime. After Van Gogh's death, most of his works were inherited by Theo. The Van Gogh Museum was established thanks to the efforts of Theo's wife, Johanna Bonger. Professor L, who visited the Van Gogh Museum, said, "I was quite surprised that Van Gogh's early works were very dark and dull in color, but as I learned that the brighter and stronger colors in his middle and late periods were influenced by ukiyo-e, I understood."

Van Gogh confessed in a letter to Theo during his lifetime:

"All my works were created on the foundation of Japanese painting."