To offer you even more information about the museum and Vincent van Gogh, and serve you better, we use cookies. By clicking ‘Accept’, you are giving us permission to use these cookies. Cookies help us to ensure that the website works properly. We also analyse how the website is used, so that we can make any necessary improvements. Advertisements can also be displayed tailored to your interests. And finally, we use cookies to display forms, Google Maps and other embedded content.
Find out more about our cookies.

Meet
Vincent

Inspiration from Japan

Japanese printmaking was one of Vincent’s main sources of inspiration and he became an enthusiastic collector. The prints acted as a catalyst: they taught him a new way of looking at the world.

But did his own work really change as a result?

And we wouldn’t be able to study Japanese art, it seems to me, without becoming much happier and more cheerful, and it makes us return to nature, despite our education and our work in a world of convention.


Vincent to his brother Theo, 23 or 24 September 1888

Discovering Oriental art

There was huge admiration for all things Japanese in the second half of the nineteenth century. Vincent did not pay much attention to this japonisme at first.

Very few artists in the Netherlands studied Japanese art. In Paris, by contrast, it was all the rage. So it was there that Vincent discovered the impact Oriental art was having on the West, when he decided to modernise his own art.

New way of looking

Utagawa Kunisada, The Fourth Month: The First Cuckoo, from the triptych series ‘The Twelve Months’, 1884

New way of looking

Japanese art was hidden from Westerners for many years. Overseas trade only got underway when Japan was opened up to the world in 1859. Oriental art and household goods flooded into Europe.

Prints were an instant hit among Western artists. They differed significantly from what was usual in the West. The bright, exotic colours were especially appealing, while the Japanese conception of space also opened their eyes. Examples from Japan gave a new direction to Western artists’ own work.

Vincent bought his first stack of Japanese woodcuts in Antwerp and pinned them to the wall of his room. He described the city to his brother with these exotic images in mind.

Hype

The Japanese stand at the London World Fair, 1862

Hype

The real breakthrough for Oriental art came when Japan showed its virtually unknown goods at the World Fair in London in 1862 and Paris in 1867. Japanese art and household goods like kimonos, fans, parasols, lacquerware and screens became a craze among the European public.

Magazine

Cover of the magazine Le Japon artistique

Magazine

Oriental curiosities were sold by art dealers like the legendary Siegfried Bing in Paris. Bing actually published a magazine between May 1888 and April 1891 devoted to Oriental art and other products: Le Japon artistique. Vincent was one of its readers.

My studio’s quite tolerable, mainly because I’ve pinned a set of Japanese prints on the walls that I find very diverting. You know, those little female figures in gardens or on the shore, horsemen, flowers, gnarled thorn branches.


Vincent to his brother Theo from Antwerp, 28 November 1885

Japan in Paris

Vincent moved into his brother’s Paris flat in early 1886. Together, they built up a sizeable collection of Japanese prints. Vincent soon began to view them as more than a pleasant curiosity. He saw the prints as an artistic example and thought they were equal to the great masterpieces of Western art history.

Exhibition

Vincent van Gogh, In the Café: Agostina Segatori in Le Tambourin, 1887

Exhibition

During his second year in Paris, Vincent organised an exhibition of his Japanese prints at Le Tambourin. The owner of this café-restaurant was his then mistress, Agostina Segatori.

He painted her there with his own prints in the background. Vincent hoped to sell them, but as far as we know there were no takers.

Sale address

Back of the painting Three Novels, 1887

Sale address

Vincent painted Three Novels on the back of the lid of a wooden crate from the Kiryu Kosho Kaisha trading company. The firm sold Japanese artworks and other goods on the European market. We know for certain that Vincent bought prints from the art dealer Bing, but the lid suggests that he visited this supplier too.

Vincent van Gogh, Three Novels, 1887

Like a Japanese

Maurice Guibert, photograph of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in Japanese costume, c. 1890 The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence

Like a Japanese

Although Vincent bought Japanese prints before moving to Paris, it was only there that he began to collect them fervently. Japan had, after all, become the height of fashion. He might have been encouraged by artist friends like the French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who was an avid collector of japonaiseries.

We don’t know exactly how big Vincent’s collection was at the time. He refers to ‘hundreds’ of prints in his letters.

Collection

Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Julien Tanguy, 1887, Musée Rodin, Paris

Collection

Vincent painted this portrait of the paint supplier and art dealer Père Tanguy against a background of Japanese prints. They probably belonged to his own collection. Most of the woodcuts in the painting can be readily identified.

Utagawa Kunisada, Actor Iwai Kumesaburō (III) in the Role of the Courtesan Takao of the Miura House, from an untitled series of actors with a poem, 1861

Utagawa Hiroshige, The Sagami River, from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, 1858

Utagawa Hiroshige, Ishiyakushi: The Yoshitsune Cherry Tree near the Noriyori Shrine, no. 45 from the series Collection of Illustrations of Famous Places near the Fifty-Three Stations [Along the Tōkaidō], 1855

Japanese art is something like the primitives, like the Greeks, like our old Dutchmen, Rembrandt, Potter, Hals, Vermeer, Ostade, Ruisdael. It doesn’t end.


To Theo from Arles, 15 July 1888

Spatial effect and colour

Japanese artists often left the middle ground of their compositions empty, while objects in the foreground were sometimes enlarged. They regularly excluded the horizon too, or abruptly cropped the elements of the picture at the edge.

Western artists learned from all this that they did not always have to arrange their artworks in the traditional way, from close up to far away as if in a peep show.

Copies

Vincent painted several copies of Japanese prints. In this example, he gave the image of the plum tree orchard an orange frame on which he placed Japanese characters. He borrowed them from another woodcut to make his work even more exotic.

Vincent van GoghFlowering Plum Orchard (after Hiroshige), 1887)
Utagawa HiroshigeThe Residence with Plum Trees at Kameido, from the series One Hundred Views of Famous Places in Edo, 1857)

Vincent van Gogh, Tracing of 'The Plum Tree Teahouse at Kameido' of Hiroshige, 1887

He transferred Utagawa Hiroshige’s print onto his canvas using a tracing.

Japonaiserie

Vincent and his contemporaries called artworks in the Japanese style japonaiseries. This painting of a bridge in the rain is a good example. Vincent based it on a print by the famous Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige.

Vincent van GoghBridge in the Rain (after Hiroshige), 1887)
Utagawa HiroshigeSudden Evening Shower on the Great Bridge near Atake, from the series One Hundred Views of Famous Places in Edo, 1925 - 1935)
Own touches

Vincent borrowed this Japanese lady from the cover of the May 1886 issue of Paris illustré, which was specially devoted to Japan. She is identifiable as a courtesan from her obi (sash), which is fastened at the front rather than the back.

Vincent van GoghCourtesan (after Eisen), 1887)
Cover of Paris Illustré, 4 (May, 1886)

Detail from a print by Satō Torakiyo, Geishas in a Landscape, 1870–80

Vincent painted a pond with bamboo stalks, water lilies, frogs and cranes around her. In so doing, he was hinting at the woman’s profession: the French word for crane (grue) also meant ‘prostitute’.

Satō Torakiyo, Geishas in a Landscape, 1870–80

Detail from a print by Utagawa Yoshimaru, New Print of Insects and Small Creatures, 1883

The French word for frog (grenouille) was used to describe a woman with a dubious reputation.

Utagawa Yoshimaru, New Print of Insects and Small Creatures, 1883

Vincent adopted these Japanese visual inventions in his own work. He liked the unusual spatial effects, the expanses of strong colour, the everyday objects and the attention to details from nature. And, of course, the exotic and joyful atmosphere.

Picture plane

Vincent van Gogh, Kingfisher by the Waterside, 1887

Picture plane

Vincent took the composition of this little painting from an illustration in a Japanese book of prints. The horizon has been left out, and the reeds bisect the picture plane from top to bottom.

Utagawa Hiroshige III, Water Hyacinth, Sandpiper and Kingfisher, from the album New Selection of Birds and Flowers, 1871 - 1873

New style

Vincent did more than simply copy Japanese prints. He was influenced in part by his artist friend Émile Bernard, who developed new ideas about the direction of modern art. Taking Japanese prints as his example, Bernard stylised his own paintings. He used large areas of simple colours and bold outlines.

Inspired by Bernard, Vincent began to suppress the illusion of depth in favour of a flat surface. He combined this pursuit of flatness, however, with his characteristic swirling brushwork.

Black expanses

Émile Bernard, The Artist’s Grandmother, 1887

Black expanses

Vincent exchanged one of his self-portraits for this painting by Émile Bernard. The prominent expanses of black are striking; Vincent’s generation did not customarily use the colour. Vincent told Bernard he thought the portrait was one of his best works.

Bold composition

Vincent van Gogh, La Berceuse (Portrait of Madame Roulin), 1889, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection)

Bold composition

Vincent painted this still life with loose strokes of his brush, which he combined with Japanese features such as large expanses of bright colour delineated by bold contours.

Look, we love Japanese painting, we’ve experienced its influence — all the Impressionists have that in common — and we wouldn’t go to Japan, in other words, to what is the equivalent of Japan, the south [of France]? So I believe that the future of the new art still lies in the south after all.


Vincent to his brother Theo from Arles, on or around 5 June 1888

Japan in the South of France

After two years, Vincent left the bustle of Paris behind. He set off for Arles in the South of France in February 1888. In addition to peace, he hoped to find the ‘clearness of the atmosphere and the gay colour effects’ of Oriental prints.

He wrote to his friend Gauguin, who was also very taken with Japanese examples, that he had looked through the train window to see ‘if it was like Japan yet! Childish, isn’t it?’

‘A more Japanese eye’

Vincent van Gogh, Butterflies and Poppies, 1889

‘A more Japanese eye’

Vincent left his print collection in Paris with his brother Theo. In the meantime, however, he had learned to ‘see with a more Japanese eye’, and so no longer needed the prints.

He opted for compositions with a low horizon or none at all, just like in Japanese prints. Or he took everyday, seemingly insignificant details from nature as his subject matter, such as flowers and insects.

onbekend, Autumn Flowers, Yellow Bird, and Insects, 1875

‘I’m always saying to myself that I’m in Japan here. That as a result I only have to open my eyes and paint right in front of me what makes an impression on me.’

Vincent to his sister Willemien, from Arles, 9-14 September 1888

Vincent, like Gauguin, believed that artists should move to more southern, primitive regions, in search of vibrant colours. This would help them take art to a new stage. It was with that idea in mind that he moved to Arles.

Brotherhood

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1888, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge (MA), Fogg Art Museum

Brotherhood

Vincent believed that Japanese artists exchanged work with each other. He suggested to Gauguin and Bernard that they do the same, and asked them to paint portraits of one another for him. They sent him self-portraits instead.

In exchange, Vincent offered a self-portrait in which he painted himself as a Japanese monk with Asian eyes and cropped hair.

Emile Bernard, Self-Portrait with Portrait of Gauguin, 1888

Vincent wrote to Bernard:

‘I’ve been touched by the fact that Japanese artists very often made exchanges among themselves. It clearly proves that they liked one another and stuck together, and that there was a certain harmony among them and that they did indeed live a kind of brotherly life […] The more we resemble them in that respect, the better it will be for us.’

Paul Gauguin, Self-Portrait with Portrait of Emile Bernard (Les misérables), 1888

After some time your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel colour differently. I’m also convinced that it’s precisely through a long stay here that I’ll bring out my personality.


Vincent to his brother Theo from Arles, 5 June 1888

Shattered ideals

Vincent hoped to found an artists’ community in Arles along the lines of Japanese Buddhist monks, who lived in similar groups.

In the end, only Gauguin came. He painted from the imagination and encouraged Vincent to work in a more stylised way too. A painting wasn’t supposed to be a photograph.

Bold composition

Vincent van Gogh, Les Alyscamps, 1888, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo

Bold composition

Vincent showed Gauguin with this painting what he had learned from him and from Japanese woodcuts. His technique is even more stylised than before. He painted the scene from a bird’s eye view, excluding the horizon.

A strong diagonal in the composition is bisected by the trees, which split the painting up into zones of colour.

Deft drawing

Vincent van Gogh, Farmhouse in a Wheatfield, 1888

Deft drawing

‘The Japanese draws quickly, very quickly, like a flash of lightning, because his nerves are finer, his feeling simpler’, Vincent wrote to Theo.

He also tried to work as spontaneously and deftly in his own drawings. And he succeeded. His drawings are fresh and spectacular in style, with a wide variation of undulating lines, dots and dashes.

Sadly, Vincent and Gauguin disagreed too often and Gauguin returned to Paris after a few months. Vincent was beginning to show the first signs of mental illness. He was admitted to hospital and later to a psychological clinic, and he lost faith in his own ability.

Helping develop the art of the future was too ambitious a goal. Vincent referred less and less frequently in his letters to Japanese printmaking.

Close-up

Vincent van Gogh, Almond Blossom, 1890

Close-up

Vincent painted these spring blossoms for his newly born nephew. He drew inspiration for the theme from Japanese printmaking, as we seen in the position of the large branch in the middle of the picture plane. He looked up and zoomed in at the same time.

Bumpō, Study of Carnations in: Le Japon artistique. Documents d’Art et d’industrie, 1 (1888) May

Expanses of colour

Vincent van Gogh, The Bedroom, 1888

Expanses of colour

Vincent used deliberately flat and bright tones in the painting he made of his own bedroom. He also excluded all the shadows. Just like in Japanese prints, as he wrote to Theo.

Innovation after the Japanese model

Nature was the point of departure for Vincent’s art throughout his life. It was the same for Japanese artists, and he recognised that. At the same time, Japanese prints gave him the example he needed to modernise.

Vincent was keen to respond to the call for a modern, more primitive kind of painting. Japanese prints, with their expanses of colour and their stylisation, showed him the way, without requiring him to give up nature as his starting point. It was ideal.

All my work is based to some extent on Japanese art...


Vincent to his brother Theo from Arles, 15 July 1888

This story has been made possible thanks to the support of the Japan World Exposition 1970 Commemorative Fund.

Stories