THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS, ASIAN ART, AND THE AMELIORATION OF TRAVEL ANXIETY

摘要

This paper suggests that the historic appropriation of aesthetic and design elements from Asia into Western art functions as a mediating device. Those inculcated elements present a kind of familiarity for visitors to Asia, a familiarity which ameliorates anxiety associated with presentation of the exotic. The paper expressly focuses on the French Impressionists who borrowed Japanese block print designs and philosophy and integrated this vision into their paintings. These paintings devolve into popular culture and the design elements became familiar to Western consumers. The Japanese woodblock approach (which incorporates a good deal of design method based on Chinese illustration) is vastly different from what might be called the "Western" or Renaissance arts approach to creating a 3-D draftsmanship-like space. The touristic experience may still be defined by a well-modulated balance between the "pull" of the familiar and the "push" of the exotic. What constitutes the exotic is mediated by the consumer's sense of the familiar. This paper will provide a short history of the block printing exchange in the mid-1800s and descriptions of styles associated with the relevant period. It will reference a handful of notable Western artists who were strongly influenced by the prints that came into their hands—including Impressionists and Post-Impressionists such as Degas, Mary Cassatt, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, andvanGough. Finally, the paper suggests methods to survey consumer awareness of this aesthetic if necessary.