Whilst Japanese trade with
England had first commenced in 1613–1623, under the policy of
Sakoku the import and export market of Japan had been limited to smuggled contraband and was only available once again 150 years later when the
Ansei Treaties opened Japan to British trade once more, after the
opening of Japan in
1853.
1850–1859: Early exchange The Museum of Ornamental Art, later the
Victoria and Albert Museum, bought
Japanese lacquer and
porcelain in 1852, and again in 1854 with the purchase of 37 items from the exhibition at the
Old Water-Colour Society, London. Japanese art was exhibited in London in 1851,
Dublin in 1853; Edinburgh 1856 and 1857; Manchester in 1857, and Bristol in 1861. In 1858, a 'series of roller printed cottons' with direct Japanese influence were made by Daniel Lee of Manchester.
1860–1869: Import influx With
Rutherford Alcock also organising the unofficial Japan Booth, the
1862 International Exhibition in London displayed a number of everyday objects; the impact of which has been considered 'one of the most influential events in the history of Japanese art in the West', introducing people such as Christopher Dresser to
Japanese Art. Early examples of Japanese influence and inspiration in ceramics were noted by Dresser in his reviews of the International Exhibition, London 1862, where he remarked on Minton's 'vases enriched with Chinese or Japanese ornament', and in his purchasing and sketching of the goods at the exhibition. Alcock noted that of the 1862 exhibition: "I occupied myself in collecting, for the gratification of the cultured and the instruction of the working and industrial classes of England, evidence of what Art had done for the Japanese and their industries". When the exhibit closed, interest began around Japanese objects and Japan itself, and collectors, artists and merchants such as
Arthur Lasenby Liberty and Farmers and Rogers Oriental Warehouse began to collect Japanese art and objects. With the opening of the
treaty ports in Japan, four Japanese cities began exporting goods to the United Kingdom. Most of these items eventually began to influence the art of British artisans and enter the home of British elites. A number of artists from the
Pre-Raphaelite circle such as
Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
Ford Madox Brown (Rossetti's friend),
Edward Burne-Jones and
Simeon Solomon also was beginning to use
Oriental influences in their works;
Albert Joseph Moore and
James McNeill Whistler also began to frequent the warehouse importing these goods in London. Architect
Edward William Godwin also designed his home and bought
ukiyo-e in 1862 to decorate his home;
William Eden Nesfield also designed early pieces in the style. In 1863
John Leighton (artist) gave a lecture on 'Japanese art' to the
Royal Society and Alcock gave another at the
Leeds Philosophical Society in the same year. The rise of Yokohama Shashin (Yokohama photography) from early photographers such as
Felice Beato also introduced the
pictorial arts to Britain, and alongside the imports of new woodblock prints, became fashionable objects to own and discuss in artistic and academic circles. Glassware was also influenced by Japanese art and the 'Frog decanter' exhibited by Thomas Webb at the International Exhibition in Paris 1867 is in its subject, simplicity and asymmetry the earliest example of Japanese influence on English glass identified to date. Certainly by 1867, Edward William Godwin and Christopher Dresser had become aware of Japanese art objects, particularly Japanese woodblock printing styles, forms and colour schemes. Further interest was taken by the British government on the collection of
Washi paper for the
V&A when the like was collected on masse for exhibition in London, collected by
Harry Parkes between 1867 and 1868. Influenced by Whistler and a love of historical painting styles, Moore blended the aesthetical vernacular of Greek and Japanese using the Art for Art's sake Japanese decorative and aesthetical style, seen in Moore's 1868 painting
Azaleas, which 'reconciled the arts of Japan and Greece, and the aesthetic and classical, in a new Victorian combination'. Whilst Whistler certainly influenced the popularity of Japanese art, he often butted heads with other collectors on
Japanese art, frequently butting heads with the
Rosetti Brothers on the collection of
Ukiyo-e and Japanese woodblock prints. Dante saw the refinement of line in Japanese arts as having "nothing to ask of European attainment or models; it is an integral organism ... [being in its accuracy and finesse] more instinctive than the artists of other races." Whereas Whistler drew on the French ideal of
''l'art pour l'art, and that Japanese art d'object'' where simply there with 'no social message, no commitment,
no reason to exist except to be beautiful'. In 1873,
George Ashdown Audsley gave a lecture on Japanese Ceramic artworks at
Liverpool.
Thomas Jeckyll designed a number of his 'mon' fireplaces, used by architects like Dresser and
Norman Shaw, becoming extremely popular in 1873. Jeckyll also designed the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition's 1876 Japanese Pavilion in
wrought iron, the decorative motif here of the sunflower was heavily employed in the structures ornament, which although used before as a motif by Jeckyll, popularised the association of the sunflower as a floral motif in the Anglo-Japanese style. Japan took part in the 1874 International Exhibition. In 1874–1876,
Warner & Sons produced a number of successful wallpapers, designed by
Edward William Godwin, heavily featuring circular 'mons', and chrysanthemum motifs, the mons being directly taken from Japanese design, found in a book; owned by Godwin's wife; Beatrice Godwin. As well by 1874, Japanese imports had also picked up and
Arthur Lasenby Liberty became well known as a Japanese goods importer at his store Liberty's (or for example 'small silver hinged boxes cloisonne-enamelled in an Anglo-Japanese style'), particularly for ladies fan in 1875. In the same year,
Thomas Edward Collcutt began designing a number of Japanese inspired ebonized sideboards, cabinets and chairs for
Collinson & Lock.
Augustus Wollaston Franks set up an exhibition of ceramics, mainly porcelain, at the
Bethnal Green Museum in 1876; having collected netsuke and tsuba from Japan. Godwin in the British Architect reported that Liberty's
[has] Japanese papers for the walls; curtain stuffs for windows and doors; folding screens, chairs, stools [etc. ... Sometimes] one stumbles across a rug that is irritating in its sheer violence of colour. Such coarseness, however, is rarely or ever to be found even in the modern
products of Japan. ... Either the European market is ruining Japanese art, or the Japanese have taken our artistic measure and found it wanting; perhaps there is a little of both. Godwin was commenting on the increase in Japanese goods both original and made for the European market at the time. Stencilled mulberry wallpapers, fabrics made and imported with
tussore silk on a wider
loom by Liberty and
Thomas Wardle alongside other Japanese imports were also said to be being sold by this time in London at William Whiteley's, Debenham and Freebody and Swan & Edgar. The imported silks were incredibly popular with painters like Moore who preferred their use in drapery on artists-models. In 1877, Godwin designed the white house for Whistler in Chelsea. He also made his William Watt Anglo Japanese Style furniture, and his Japanese Mon inspired wallpapers. Thomas Jeckyll also then designed the
Peacock Room for the shipping magnate
Frederick Richards Leyland; and these types of Japanese ornamentation can also be found in the design of his fireplaces. The
Grosvenor Gallery opens; showcasing
Whistler's Black Nocturne leading to the infamous dispute with Ruskin over the worth of an artwork. In 1878,
Daniel Cottier finished a series of
stained glass window panels
Morning Glories which detail 'a lattice fence ... which adapt from a variety of Japanese ... screens, textile stencils, manga and ukiyo-e prints'. Indeed, Cottier (a Glaswegian who worked in London and
New York City) had his Studio and shop full of Aesthetic and Anglo-Japanese ebonised-wood furniture, his Studio producing through his apprentice Stephen Adam until the 1880s a number of Japanese decorative carpentry pieces, frequently using dark woods and gold floral Chrysanthemum accents, all popular Japanese motifs amongst westerners produced for the Western markets. Alcock also published his
Art and Art Industries in Japan in 1878. In 1879, Dresser was in partnership with Charles Holme (1848–1923) as Dresser & Holme, wholesale importers of Oriental goods, with a warehouse at 7 Farringdon Road, London. Collectors such as the Liverpool magnate
James Lord Bowes began collecting Japanese goods.
James Lamb (cabinetmaker) and Henry Ogden & Sons also began making Anglo-Japanese furniture for the western market such as hanging cabinets and tables and chairs. With some pottery produced at the
Linthorpe Pottery, founded in 1879, closely followed Japanese examples in simple forms and especially in rich
ceramic glaze effects quite revolutionary in the English market. In commercial mass-produced tablewares, the style was most represented by
transfer prints depicting Japanese botanical or animal motifs such as bamboos, and birds; scenes of Japan or Japanese objects such as fans. Often these were placed in a novel asymmetrical fashion in defiance of
Western tradition. Other potters who designed in the style included
Martin Brothers from 1879 until 1904, with many of their works mostly decorative stoneware, heavily reliant on the principle of fish and floral motifs and some glazes in their later works. Another popular fabric employed in the Aesthetics were the tussore silks of 'Liberty Colours'. As aestheticism began to grow more popular, designers found the 'cult of personality, particularly when it involved creators of art, fundamentally conflicted with Ruskin's and Morris's emphasis upon the importance of traditional craftsman and artisans.' Liberty in particular, who sided with the ideals of
William Morris; rejected early aestheticism, reflected later in what became the
Liberty style.
Frederick William Sutton, an early Collodion photographer who had travelled to Japan in 1868 with the
Royal Navy, gave eight lectures (between 1879 and 1883) on the new art form of photography in Japan. These lectures showcased early photographs and travel in Japan and in his sixth lecture, identified the concepts of 'Old and New Japan', a Victorian Ideal which divided the Meiji period into the time before Western contact and afterwards; Old Japan denoting an idealized, rural notion of the country from a time before the
Meiji Restoration and
New Japan being the industrial,
westerner-tolerant Japan.
Stevens & Williams then in 1884 began to make their 'Matsu-no-Kee' decorative glass and fairy bowls, which took on the simplified nature so prominent amongst the Anglo-Japanese style and from the bright colour schemes seen in contemporary woodblock prints.
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo also began designing furniture inspired by
Ikebana, as was noted further by many periodicals in the time on the subject of Japanese flower arrangement. In 1887,
Charles Holmes founder of The Studio Magazine, travels to Japan with Arthur Liberty. In the same year, Mortimer Menpes also presents his first Japanese inspired exhibition in London; rousing the ire of Whistler.
Alfred East is commissioned by the
Fine Art Society to paint in Japan for six months in 1888, and
Frank Morley Fletcher becomes introduced to Japanese woodcuts, helping through the next 22 years to teach about them in London and Reading,
Yorkshire. In 1889,
Oscar Wilde noted on
The Decay of Lying how "In fact the whole of Japan is pure invention. ... The Japanese people are ... simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art." Also see Whistler's paintings and designs (principally in
The Peacock Room and his
nocturnes series).
Arthur Morrison begins his 'collecting' of Japanese paintings (culminating in his 1911 publication) and woodblock prints, buying wares in
Wapping and
Limehouse and bought through his friend
Harold George Parlett (1869–1945), a British Japanese diplomat and writer on
Buddhism; this eventually became the Arthur Morrison collection in the British Museum. File:Sidewall, ca. 1880 (CH 85010155-2).jpg|Anonymous, Aesthetic Wallpaper (1880) Sidewall, ca. 1880 (CH 85010181-2).jpg|Aesthetic Wallpaper (c1880) Wave bowl MET LC-2001 549-001.jpg|Dresser, 'Wave bowl' (c. 1880) Daniel Cottier cabinet from 1880.jpg|
Cottier, Ebonised Cabinet (1880) Nagasaki fabric 1880.jpg|
Talbert,
Nagasaki design (1880) Thomas Jeckyll01.jpg|
Jeckyll, Butterfly motif (c. 1880–1881) Matsu-no-Kee Art Glass.jpg|
Steven & Williams, 'Matsu-no-Kee' Style Art-Glass (c. 1884) Theodor Roussel Reading Girl 1886.jpg|
Roussel,
The Reading Girl (1886) Late 19th century interior design, Museum of the Home.jpg|Museum of the Home, Aesthetical Interior (1882–1888) Steps to Maruyama by Alfred East.jpg|
East,
Steps to Maruyama (1888)
1890–1899: Class consciousness During the 1890s, the Anglo-Japanese was at the height of its popularity, with the middle classes in Victorian Britain also began to begin collecting and buying Japanese imports and Anglo-Japanese style designs and pieces. in
The Magazine of Art under
Marion Harry Spielmann a number of articles were also published regarding Japanese art in the decade. Two years prior, the painter
Mortimer Menpes had travelled to Japan. Whilst there, Menpes developed a fascination with the architectural and decorative arts and upon return to London in 1889, had his home 'decorated in the Japanese style' by the architect
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo at 25
Cadogan Gardens, London by 1890. Menpes issued an Osaka-based Japanese company to furnish his home with stained curved wood panelling, traditionally seen in
Shiro interiors or
cornicing with gold detailing; based on
Japanese lacquer, installed Kunmiko Ramma (decorative latticed ventilation screens), double-sided Anglo-Japanese window frames and employed typical minimal decoration. Furniture was also imported from Europe and Japan, with European chairs, sofa's and woven tapestries, simplistic 'Japanese character' drawers and cabinets, bronze and paper lanterns and lighting fixtures and porcelain jars which Menpes collaborated with Japanese potters on whilst in Japan. :"Mr. Menpes, by his free application of gold and colours and by his display in European fashion of numerous ornaments, has rather gone beyond Japanese custom in domestic interiors, ... as he has wished to adapt from rather than slavishly imitate the prototype. ... there is a growing feeling in the minds of many, and especially among those to whom the question of expense is not of paramount importance, that a house, to be in the highest sense an artistic house, should contain no decorations but those made by the hands of man, and especially adapted to their surroundings. Let ornament be used as sparingly as may be desired, but whatever there is of it, let it be of the best. Plain structural forms and plain surfaces add to rather than detract from the beauty of a house, provided their proportions are duly considered and that they are so placed that they relieve in effect some object of consummate decorative value."
The Studio #17 (1899) Contemporary Japanese art critics also published with the society such as
Yone Noguchi and
Okakura Kakuzō.
Arthur Silver at
Rottman, Strome, and Co began using the
Ise katagami technique to make
wallpaper.
Andrew White Tuer also publishes information on katagami stencilling, promoted in England as sanitary 'leather paper' in his
Book of Delightful and Strange Designs, Being One Hundred Facsimile Illustrations of the Art of the Japanese Stencil Cutter (1892). Furniture in the Anglo Japanese style was also reported by this time to have begun to use Mother-of-Pearl-inlay, a traditionally Japanese material made in Japan and imported for the British market. As well as the 'asymmetrical distribution of masses, ... absence of compactness, space, or light and shadow' amongst the 'curved lines' of the Peacock skirt. The forms of waves in House of Pomegranates is also heavily reminiscent of Hokusai's woodblock prints. The Japanese House in London.jpg|
Menpes, London 'Japanese-House' Interior (c. 1890) Charles Ricketts Pomegranate book binding design 1891.jpg|
Ricketts Pomegranate frontispiece design (1891) Beardsley-peacockskirt.PNG|
Beardsley, Peacock-skirt Illustration (1892) British 1893 Katagami wallpaper stencil.jpg|
Tuer, Katagami wallpaper stencil (1893) Wilde 1894.jpg|Ricketts, Sphinx design (1894) Charles Francis Annesley Voysey - Tulip - Google Art Project.jpg|
Voysey, Liberty Wallpaper (1893–95)
1900–1925: Modernism and bilateral exchange In 1902, with the signing of the
Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Japan gained
great power status in the eyes of British foreign policy-makers and along with 'progressive'
industrialisation, Japanese influence became more pronounced, particularly with regard to the ship building industry in Glasgow. As such, British society began to exchange further with this fellow industrialised nation, exchanging ideas on Art, Aesthetics (particularly compositional) and academic bilateral exchange so that by the end of the 1910s, with this industrial, educational and academically driven shift, bilateral cultural exchange replaced the one-way Anglo-Japanese Style by way of greater cultural understanding of Japanese Art and its history, certainly among academics and publicly available national museums, and notable Japanese art figures, scholars and critics.
Liberty's and the Modern Style; 1900–1915 By 1901, Liberty Style began to flourish in
Italy. This derived from a number of Japanese, Greek, Celtic and Renaissance themes, 'with those Japanese elements appealing to English sensibilities: asymmetry, simplicity, sensitivity to medium, and ... modest materials', which 'attained international popularity and came to epitomize British
Art Nouveau' (also known as the modern style in England). First in England, with Liberty's rejection of the Aestheticism movements art principles of Art for Arts sake as poor design, favouring good design in mass manufacturing formats. With the influence of Mackintosh, and the design department's simplicity or vacui of design seen in the works of
Archibald Knox, Arthur Silver, C F A Voysey and the popularity of the blend of Japanese and Celtic motif Mackintosh introduced in Europe, Japanese art aesthetic continued to influence and instill itself into the British design schools. Japanese influence was accepted among influences into the modern style from the time Liberty first began importing Japanese goods in the 1860s as 'England not only preceded other countries by several decades in accepting the example offered by Japan, but also underwent its influence over a much longer period' culminating for Liberty in eventually what became the modern style in England, taking from Japanese design the refined elegance inherent in the sparsity of Japanese design.
Otto Eckmann noted in the period that 'only England knew how to assimilate and transform this wealth of new ideas and to adapt them to its innate national character, thus deriving real profit from the Japanese style' in his preface to a series on
Jugendstil; these decorative Japanese influenced Liberty textiles had thus become extremely popular in Germany; in Italy the style was known as Stile Liberty after the fabric designs of Liberty's, and seen in the
Turin 1902 Exhibition and work of
Carlo Bugatti. So in England, the Modern Style thus emerged in this melding of cultural motif, and also emerged in the works Ricketts for Wilde and of Beardsley in the last years of his life, inspired by Utamaro prints. Japanese interior design is also heavily prominent in the works of Charles Voysey, and shared with Mackintosh for their 'abastraction ... of new and individual approaches to the design of interior space'. Seen most heavily in his wallpaper designs which reduced ornamental and decorative elements, Voysey declared he wished in his design to start by 'getting rid of useless ornament and burning the modish finery which disfigures our furniture and our household utensils ... [and] to cut down the number of patterns and [colours] in one room.' The influence on his interiors can be seen in
Horniman House from 1906 to 1907.
Garden design; 1901–1910 ) With this appreciation of Japan came an influx of interest also in the appreciation of Japanese garden design. The first acclaimed Japanese garden is often cited as having popularised the style was
Leopold de Rothschild Japanese bamboo garden opened at Gunnersby Estate in West London in 1901. In 1903
Reginald Farrer popularised the rock gardening style affiliated by English gardeners with
Zen gardens further in his writings. In 1908 this was furthered by the Scottish design proffered by
Taki Handa. The Japanese garden at
Tatton Park is an example of Anglo-Japanese gardening style. Common elements include 'stone lanterns, the use of large rocks and pebbles, stone bowls of water, and decorative shrubs and flowers like acers, azaleas and lilies' and 'red painted bridges'. The 1910 Floating Isle Garden particularly reinforced these elements in the style. Although elements of traditional
Japanese garden design was incorporated, many
English garden elements flowed into the overall appearance as well. By 1910 the Japanese garden had become a popular fixture such as at
Hascombe Court by
Percy Cane and
Christopher Tunnard.
Bilateral artisanal exchange; 1901–1923 The 1902 Japanese Whitechapel Exhibition was favourably reviewed by Charles Lewis Hind, however
Laurence Binyon noted the exhibition was lacking and that 'some day a loan exhibition may be formed which shall at least adumbrate the range and history of that [Japanese] art'.
Charles Ricketts and
Charles Haslewood Shannon donate their Japanese collection of Harunobu, Utagawa and Hokusai woodblock prints to the British Museum in this period. The
Burlington Magazine was established in 1903 and with Charles Holmes editing the magazine, a number of articles on Japanese art were being published in the periodical, as well as in
English Illustrated Magazine in 1904. In 1905,
Kokka began to be published in English. In 1906,
Sidney Sime produced a number of illustrated works for
Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany the
Time and the Gods (1906). Dunsany was familiar with Japanese theatre and introduced Sime to a number of the conventions, which can be seen evident particularly in these illustrations, such as the stooping postures and placement of figures, and fore and backgrounds application of
stippling combined with wave forms commonly seen in 19th century Japanese kimono for example.
Roger Fry also noted how European artists had begun to forget
Chiaroscuro in favour of the Eastern style of what Binyon termed
sensuosness; or the 'rejection of light and shade'. Fry noted in 1910 how Chinese and Japanese art "rejected light and shade as belonging primarily to the sculptor's art" concluding "certain broad effects of lighted and shaded atmosphere, effects of mist, of night, and of twilight, they have for six centuries shown the way which only quite modern European art has begun to follow." The
Japan–British Exhibition occurred in 1910, where Japan loaned a number of its art and industrial objects to the UK. During this decade though, the style would come to a close as academics and public museums had begun to fully appreciate and exchange more fully with living artisans and the Japanese community in the UK (between 500 and 1000 people at this time) who had arrived for the 1910 exhibition.
Harry Allen (fl. 1910–1925) also designed a number of blue Titianian Vases decorated in Anglo-Japanese motifs such as the
Red-crowned crane or Peacock and Matsu pine leaves for Royal Doulton. In 1913, when Binyon took over the Japanese section of the Oriental Department at the British Museum, he along with Rothenstein, Morrison, Ricketts and Sazlewood had formed a literary and arts based circle of collectors of Japanese prints. Binyon radically helped to improve the quality of the department, and thus helped the general understanding of the depth and variety of Japanese painting styles known by the general public. Ricketts particularly enjoyed the
Korin or Rinpa style of painting. Binyon's published works also helped to showcase a new Oriental based worldview, rather than espousing a
eurocentric one; for example Binyon explains how the 'Japanese look to China as we look to Italy and Greece : [that] for them it is the classic land, the source from which their art has drawn not only methods, materials, and principles of design, but an endless variety of theme and motive.' My chief concern has been, not to discuss questions of authorship or archaeology, but to inquire what aesthetic value and significance these Eastern paintings possess for us in the West – Binyon (1913) With the advent of the further academic understanding of Japanese aesthetics, the Anglo-Japanese style ended, morphing into Modernism with the death of the 'Japan Craze' and Japanese art objects having become permanent parts of European and American Museum collections. Particularly this is noticeable in the sparsity or plain backgrounds in the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the stage and costume design of
Edward Gordon Craig.
Bernard Leach also helped to inspire a return to more traditional craftsmanship in Japan with the
Mingei movement in Japan and on pottery in England for
William Staite Murray in his choice of materials. Christopher Dresser - Sidewall - Google Art Project.jpg|
Dresser; Side-wallpaper Design (c. 1880–1904) The Dirge of Shimono Kani.jpg|
Sime,
The Dirge of Shimono Kani (1906) Tatton Park gardens 2009-1.jpg|
Tatton's Tatton Park, built in the Anglo-Japanese style (c. 1910–1911) A Japanese Girl Jacob Kramer (1892–1962).jpg|
Kramer, A Japanese Girl (1918) Square bottles by Hamada Shoji 1950-1960 Mashiko Japan stoneware with iron glaze (364587418).jpg|
Hamada Shoji Mashiko stoneware with iron glaze bottles (1950-1960)
The Japanese enclave Part of the new bilateral cultural exchange which replaced the one-way Anglo-Japanese style by way of greater cultural understanding of Japanese art and its history, came from the
Japanese community itself in
London. For example, in 1900,
Sadajirō Yamanaka open his London Branch of Yamanaka and Co. By 1902, a Japanese exhibition opened in
Whitechapel, London, in which
Charles Lewis Hind reviewed the
watercolours of the Japanese artist working in London
Yoshio Markino. Markino would go on to become a successful illustrator in Edwardian Britain, publishing illustrated works such as
The Colour of London(1907) and
A Japanese Artist in London(1910). The writer
Douglas Sladen also frequently collaborated with Markino in his publications. Between 1907 and 1910, Wakana Utagawa visits London to train in watercolour painting and showcase her traditional Japanese brush paintings. In 1911,
Frank Brangwyn had begun to collaborate with various Japanese artists such as
Ryuson Chuzo Matsuyama working in Edwardian England on woodblock printing techniques. Then in 1915, the Yamanaka gallery in London hosted the British Red Cross Loan Exhibition. These businessmen, taking advantage of improved international relations, set up shop in Europe and America. Dealers such as Tonying, C. T. Loo (q.v.) and Yamanaka all began to sell East Asian objects directly to Western collectors. ==Scotland==