Bernard took key elements from Japanese prints like bold outlines and painting large areas with simple colors, a practice Vincent adopted. The artist Р“вЂ°mile Bernard, a friend of Vincent, was also an influential figure in VincentРІР‚в„ўs artistic development.

Similarly, the oil painting Portrait of PР“РЃre Tanguy (1887) features Japanese prints tacked on the wall behind a man, a direct inclusion by Vincent.

He made a large-scale oil painting titled Courtesan (After Eisen) (1887), based on an image from the cover of an issue of the magazine Paris IllustrР“В©, which featured works from Japan. Vincent copied and incorporated aspects of the work in his sketches and oil paintings. Works by Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi and Kunisada became pivotal sources of inspiration for Vincent. Vincent had a collection of over 660 prints, some of which he tacked onto the walls of his studio flat. The new and interesting world of Japan through the lens of Japanese art also influenced and grasped the imagination of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters like Mary Cassatt, Paul Gaugin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Claude Monet, and Edgar Degas. Shops sold kimonos, screens, parasols, fans, antiques, and reasonably priced ukiyo-e prints. In Paris, Japonisme was at itРІР‚в„ўs height in popularity and craze. A year later in 1887, the ParisР’В Exposition Universelle showed Japanese art objects to the amazed public. In 1886, Р’ВР’ВР’ВР’ВVincent moved to Paris and lived with his brother, Theo. His Dutch homeland had imported a great variety of prints and objects from Japan where Van Gogh had begun his collection in Antwerp. The Dutch-born, French painter Vincent Van Gogh had indulged the Japonisme bandwagon after moving to France and became a vehement collector of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, most of which he bought at a reasonable price from the German art dealer, Siegfried Bing. Photographs and woodblock prints from Japan became a desirable glimpse into a world that had previously been inaccessible to many. The Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854 between American Navy commander Matthew Calbraith Perry and the Japanese shogunate lifted a 216-year period of isolation between the East and West. Arts and crafts like porcelain and lacquer had already become a popular commodity in Europe, but a sudden influx of trade between Japan and Europe brought new insight of the unknown and exotic East. VincentРІР‚в„ўs interest was like many other 19 th century Westerners during the Japonisme movement, which became a tour de force in Western art and culture. Additionally, the book titled Japanese Prints: The Collection of Vincent van GoghР’В displays VincentРІР‚в„ўs renowned collection of some 500 Japanese prints. In 2016, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam recently held an exhibition titled Van Gogh and Japan, which showed JapanРІР‚в„ўs influence over Vincent and his artwork. Some of the WestРІР‚в„ўs greatest modern painters like Vincent Van Gogh looked toward like Japan, the Empire of the Rising Sun, as a utopian plethora of the magical and mystical. The East and WestР’В may have myriadР’В differencesР’В based on culture and education, but in modern and contemporary times, globalization and vast networks of communication have spawned interwoven societies as a result. In recent times, the art world has brought to bear discourse regarding the artistic synergy of the Eastern and Western worlds.

'All my work is based to some extent on Japanese art.' - Vincent van Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother Theo in 1888 while living in Arles, France.

Japanese art by vincent van gogh