Art of Japan Japanisms

Art of Japan, Japanism and Polish-Japanese Art Relations consists of 48 studies prepared in conjunction with the international conference organized by the Polish Society of Oriental Art (now Polish Institute of World Art Studies) at the Museum of Japanese Art and Technology “Manggha” in Krakow in 2010. These include analyses of the aesthetic concepts and interpretations of Japanese art history from the Middle Ages to the present. The art of Japan was known in Europe since the 16th century, however, the result of opening of the Empire to the world in 1854 was that the works of art imported to Europe, especially graphics and porcelain, had a decisive influence on the evolution of European art and artistic taste. Thanks to distinct stylistic features, rules of composition in landscape scenes, genre scenes and portraits – in ukiyo-e graphic, as well as other techniques and principles of decoration – in ceramics and applied arts, European artists gained a new source of artistic and technological inspirations to the major trends – Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Art Nouveau, Expressionism and Functionalism, forming the basis of art of the 20th century. At the same time, the Japanese artists adapted the “new art” from Europe, changing the canons of their own work in the search for new means of expression – in painting, posters, architecture or film.