Japonisme or the Invention of a New Vision
- Art d'Histoire
- Feb 20
- 4 min read
History is often viewed as a linear progression, but in both science and art, it moves through ruptures. According to the epistemologist Thomas Kuhn, knowledge is structured by a "paradigm"—a set of rules known as "normal science." Eventually, anomalies accumulate, the model enters a crisis, and a revolution occurs. Between 1860 and 1880, Western art underwent such a paradigm shift. The classical conception of art imploded, and the catalyst for this revolution was a radical change in how the West viewed the world—a change fuelled by the sudden discovery of Japanese prints and artefacts.
The Temple of Japonisme, 220 Rue de Rivoli
The headquarters of this revolution was not a museum, but shops known as Curiosities shops." The most famous of them was run by Louise Desoye, a businesswoman who, unlike most women of the era, was respected for her firm hand on business and deep knowledge of the Far East. Having lived in Japan—possibly as part of a Catholic mission distributing quinine—she returned to Paris in 1862 with her husband, Émile, and a "fine collection" of objects.
For the intellectuals of Paris, Madame Desoye was an "almost historic figure." The Goncourt brothers described her shop as a place "always basking in sunlight," where the "plump Mme Desoye" reigned like a "Japanese idol." It became one of the key places where the Japanese movement developed. Literary figures such as Baudelaire and the Rossetti brothers, as well as artists including Tissot, Whistler and the Impressionists, flocked there to handle fabrics and albums amidst the "mad chuckles of the jovial creature". She was nicknamed "La Japonaise" for her fairness of complexion, and she ruthlessly managed the business, even showing the door to British tourists who tried to flirt with her.
The Battle for Authorship and Primacy
As the trend exploded, a fierce debate arose over who had discovered these "Japonaiseries" first. The critic Philippe Burty proudly claimed to have coined the term Japonisme in 1872, stating, "if I did not give the first impulse to the study, I at least originated the word for it."
However, others fought for the title of "first discoverer." The Goncourt brothers, desperate to assert their primacy, went so far as to falsify the record. Edmond de Goncourt claimed that their 1851 novel En 18... contained a description of a salon furnished with "Japonerie." In reality, the original text described "Chinoiserie"; the proof was falsified in the 1884 reprint to steal the credit.
Meanwhile, a more humble origin story suggests the painter Félix Bracquemond discovered the aesthetic by chance in 1856. He reportedly found a volume of Hokusai’s Manga at a packer’s shop, where the precious woodblock prints were being used as mere wrapping paper to protect porcelain during shipping. Bracquemond, "dumbstruck," made the crumpled book his breviary, carrying it in his pocket to show everyone.
The Unexpected Cultural Boomerang
What these artists were unknowingly admiring was not 'pure' Japanese art, but a hybrid form. Despite the strict isolationist Sakoku policy, Japanese artists had been exposed to Western 'Dutch science', including linear perspective, for centuries — a fact that was not widely known at the time. However, because Japanese visual culture traditionally favoured bird's-eye views and 'simultaneity', they adapted the Western perspective in a unique way, as their mindset was miles from European preoccupations.
Artists from the Akita school or Utagawa Toyoharu mixed the two systems. They combined a detailed, close-up foreground (typical of Japanese aesthetics) with a distant background constructed with Western perspective. This resulted in a "loss of the middle ground." To the Western eye, that looked like a radical new style: a truncated foreground where, for instance, a massive pine tree or a hanging turtle would dominate the image, blocking the view of a distant landscape.
This was a "cultural boomerang." Rather than failing to understand and copy Western realism, as some might argue — a position that is European-centred and unable to understand cultural relativism — the Japanese created a 'heterogeneous image' that was adapted to their own visual culture. When this hybrid style returned to Europe in the 1860s, the Avant-Garde—unaware that it was a mutation of their own art—hailed it as a brilliant innovation.
The Inverted Lenses
The Impressionists and their successors viewed the world through the lens of Japonisme, as if looking at it "through the wide end of a spyglass".They abandoned the "normal science" of the Academy to embrace the "anomalies" of the Japanese print: the high horizons, the lack of shadows, the violent juxtaposition of near and far and many others. As Philippe Burty wrote, this art became a "drop of blood" mingled with their own, forever transforming the vision of the West. The "revolutionary transformation of vision" was complete. The classical paradigm was in danger of becoming obsolete, overwhelmed by a 'cultural boomerang' sold by merchants that were initially dismissed as mere trinckets and tea shops.
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