Japanese Export Screen: On the Transparency of Cultural Borders in the Second Half of the 19th — Early 20th Centuries

摘要

In Russian national art history, the evolution of art interrelation between East and West is often viewed through the prism of either the “East — West” or the “West — East” tradition, thus establishing a certain boundary between two artistic and, more generally, cultural paradigms. This border does not only limit the perception of the very specifics of such interactions to a certain extent, denoting only the format of borrowing, but also narrows the possibility of understanding the mutual influence of cultural and artistic traditions that are important for the art of the 19th century. Meanwhile, if we analyse individual artworks in the context of their creation, it will help reveal more complex mechanisms of artistic traditions relationship. In this article, the author examines a sample of Japanese decorative and applied art related to one of the most important stages in the history of the Land of the Rising Sun, i.e. the Meiji period (1868–1912). This item entered the collection of the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts in 2017. To attribute this item properly, it was necessary to examine its technological and stylistic features and identify its possible provenance. The research conducted makes it possible to review the peculiarities of interrelation between European and Far Eastern traditions in the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries, based on cross-interest and indirect mutual influence on the emergence of new ideas and the art trends formation.