Hokusai's 'The Great Wave'

For centuries, Western art lovers have been fascinated by Japanese woodcuts of landscapes made by noted Ukiyo-e “floating world” artists such as Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige, and of scenes from daily life by master artists Kitagawa Utamaro and Suzuki Harunobu. These woodcuts have directly inspired the work of Westerns artists, but perhaps never more so than when they were introduced to Europe in the 19^th century. Karin Breuer’s Japanesque: The Japanese Print in the Era of Impressionism (2010, ISBN 978-3-7913-5082-0) details the history of Japanese woodcuts, and offers examples of how these prints directly influenced the work of Impressionsist artists such as Pierre Bonnard, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Henri Riviere, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. 

The book was developed to accompany an exhibition of the same name held at San Francisco’s Palace of the Legion of Honor in 2010-2011, and most of the images in the book come from its own collection. The essays in this 156 page book make for compelling reading for enthusiasts of the woodcut and Impressionist art alike, and the elements of theme, color, and design are interwoven into its four chapters: Evolution, Essence, Influence, and Inspiration. The Legion’s collection of Japanese woodcuts is strong, and its catalogue of Impressionist lithographs and woodcuts decent enough to provide rich material to form the basis of the book. The exhibition itself was astounding, and this book extends itself, through its scholarship and examples, to being far more than a simple guide to the event. Buy it now at the WoWasis estore, powered by Amazon.