Ateneumin Publications, v. 75. Brussels: Mercatorfonds; New Haven; London: Yale University Press [distributor], 2016. 296 pp. (240 color + 66 B&W Illustrations.) US$65.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-300-22011-7.
The term Japonisme was coined by the French art critic Philippe Burty in a series of articles published in 1872 to describe the impact of Japanese art and objects in a variety of media and forms throughout Europe from the mid-1850s on. Academic literature on Japonisme as inspiration and (mis)appropriation has accumulated in volume and range since the inception of the term, but this work has been largely fixated on France, England, the Netherlands, and the United States, in large part due to the prominence of artists who were influenced by Japanese woodblock prints in these countries, such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh, James McNeill Whistler, and B.J.O. Nordfelt. The beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated Japanomania in the Nordic Countries aims to fill a lacuna by a close look at the less-studied transmissions, manifestations, and interpretations of Japanese art in Scandinavia during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.
Based on an exhibit that was initially held at the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki, where I saw it in February 2016 (it moved to the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo later in the same year, and then to the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen in 2017), the chief curator and lead editor Gabriel Weisberg, who has published extensively since the 1960s on Burty, Impressionism, Naturalism, Realism, and Japonisme in France, has organized the book into seven sections. As might be expected of a work positioned in art history and based on an exhibition, there are close analyses of individual works and artists, with notable Norwegians, famed Finns, and decorated Danes making significant appearances. But it moves beyond fine-grained studies of specific artworks to explore a wider range of collectors, curators, exhibitions, and media involved in the dissemination and reinterpretation of Japanese art and objects throughout Scandinavia.
Section 1 establishes the international context via an overview chapter by Weisberg, and a summary of Japonisme in English artists, including the famous wallpapers of William Morris, by Widar Halén. Section 2 describes the ways in which Japanese art and objects were transmitted and collected, with Weisberg providing an account of the progression from travel books, photographs, and commercial activity, to artists’ networks, exhibitions, and eventually to wider mass consumption of Japonisme. Halén describes the early collections of Japanese art in Nordic countries in museums in his chapter, and Leila Koivunen focuses on Finland’s Museum of Applied Arts holdings of the same period.
Section 3 overviews the early history of Nordic discovery and dissemination of Japanese objects. Anna Kortelainen analyzes the Finnish artist Albert Edelfelt’s exposure to Japonisme in Paris, in particular the orientalist tropes of geisha and women in general in kimono. Susanna Pettersson examines the activities of Herman Frithiof Antell, the first Finnish collecter of Japanese fine and applied art, who had also commissioned work from Edelfelt. Malene Wagner looks at the influences of Japanese art on Danish depictions of nature in the illustrations and the porcelains of Karl Madsen and Arnold Krog, respectively. Ellen Lerberg explains the role of Jens Thiis, the curator of the Norwegian Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (Kunstindustrimuseet) in the expansion of Japonisme, and Koivunen’s chapter provides a close-up of the woodcuts displayed in the first exhibition of Japanese art in Helsinki, held in 1897.
Section 4 shows how the widespread interest in Japanese aesthetics vivified the visual vocabulary among Nordic artists. In his chapter Halén argues that in Norway, Japan filtered through English and Continental Japonisme became a proxy for the medieval art that was admired at the time. Anna-Maria Von Bonsdorff depicts the ideal of simplification in Japanese art as manifested in the work of the Finnish artist Helene Schjerfbeck, and Nils Ohlsen explains the influences of Japanese woodblock prints on Nordic interior paintings. Hanne Selkokari introduces the activities of Gustaf Strengell, a Finnish architect and museum curator in organizing a “second wave” of exhibitions on Japanese art.
Section 5 features three chapters. Leena Svinhufvud parses Japonisme’s intertwining with Finnish textile art to conclude that there was conscious and selective adaptation rather than wholesale applications, meaning that the art produced was as much Finnish as it was Japanese (204–205). Trine Nordkvelle probes the prints of Norwegians Nikolai Astrup and Edvard Munch to show the influences of Japanese woodblocks via the direct documentation of Astrup’s studies of Japanese art, circumstantial evidence of Munch’s exposure to things Japanese, and readings of specific paintings (208–210). Nils Ohlsen’s analysis of Japan’s influence on Nordic photography shows the overlooked importance of photography relative to woodblock prints as a medium through which Japan was presented and received.
Section 6 focuses on nature as genre and motif: Von Bonsdorff traces the ways in which Nordic depictions of nature were influenced by Japonisme, while Vibeke Waallann Hansen deals with two Norwegian painters—Thorolf Holmboe and Theodor Kittelsen—who were closely associated with the Art Nouveau of the 1890s. Finally, section 7 features two chapters that deal with the popular consumption of Japan. Halén, in his fourth contribution to the volume, traces the diffusion of “Japan Mania” via the popular press, operettas, and fashion, and Harri Kalha provides a fascinating overview of late-nineteenth-century Japonisme postcards as simulacra, copies without originals, arguing that the “fantasy of Japan found its most compelling expressions in the postcard” (262).
Despite its comprehensive coverage, some areas of elision provide suggestions for possible avenues of future research. First, Sweden seems curiously under-represented, with artists such as Anders Zorn receiving little attention despite their relative prominence. Second, sculpture appears rather sporadically. Given the renown of August Rodin’s series of sculptures of Japanese actress “Hanako,” it would have been useful to have provided further explanation of why some forms, themes, and genres were less emphasized. Third, while the selected bibliography is replete with books, articles, and exhibition catalogues in English, French, Finnish, Danish, and German, there are only two exhibition catalogues in Japanese/English despite the existence of a much larger body of published academic work in Japanese on Japonisme around the world. Fourth, Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige, and other famous Japanese artists are referenced in reverent tones, but Japanese traders, dealers, artists, and writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are notable in the book largely by their near absence. There are salient yet brief discussions of self-Japonisme in postcards (268–269), and “fruitful misunderstandings” in interior paintings (187), but further investigations of the imbrications of power, orientalism, and commerce would have provided additional cross-disciplinary bridges. However, the aim of the book is explicitly and squarely on outlining receptions and influences of Japonisme in Nordic countries, and it emphatically succeeds in that important task by providing a plethora of rich and useful details.
Hyung-Gu Lynn
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada