A Fantasy in Ink

How Japanese Export Art Reflects the West's Obsession with the Exotic

Abstract

Japonisme is an oft-studied subject in European art history. Papers and books abound describing how various artists in the second half of the nineteenth century were inspired by a pan-Western obsession with a recently opened Japan and its art. What is discussed less often is the impact this obsession had on the art coming out of Japan. As local customer bases dried up, Japanese artisans increasingly had to adapt their art to suit the tastes of a West that was enamored with the idea of their country, but the idea did not always match the reality. Through a mixed study of primary source documents, historical analysis, studies of Orientalism, and the art itself as its colors, compositions, and subjects transformed over the course of the Japonisme period, this paper seeks to demonstrate that many of the works sold by Japanese artists in international exhibitions and the art export trade were designed specifically to appeal to a Western fantasy of the exotic Orient, and that the Japan presented in those works is an invention. There are clear implications herein of the power behind art viewership and the West’s hegemony of knowledge.