I sat down with a painting and explored the it in depth and discovered a scene that I’d not quite understood until then. I was provided a look into a artists vision and a commerce which fueled some of their curiosity.
Plum Orchard Analysis
Flowering Plum Orchard (After Hiroshige) by Vincent van Gogh, is an oil on canvas reproduction after The Residence with Plum Trees at Kameido, by Japanese printmaker, Utagawa Hiroshige. Hiroshige’s piece is a woodblock print, one of the thousands produced in the process of ukiyo-e ( “pictures of the floating world”) printmaking. Van Gogh attempts to recapture the subtle, naturalistic beauty that the ukiyo-e printmaker exhibits in his famous landscapes of Japan. We have a trunk of a tree right up in the foreground and seems to be the main focus of the piece. This tree has a few branches that have many white flowers, or blossoms, as these “Sleeping Dragon Plum” trees grow in the spring. The color choice contrasts heavily with the rest of the picture. Compared to the original by Hiroshige, the saturation and color contrast is much more prevalent in van Gogh’s painting. The trunk of the tree is toned in a brownish red and dark blue, which is much more saturated than that of Hiroshige’s grey and black. Four limbs of this foreground tree are thin and protrude vertically as the edge of the canvas cuts them off. One branch is thicker than the others and contains most of the blossoms depicted. Behind this tree, in the middle ground, we can see green grass in a deep emerald hue as opposed to Hiroshige’s smooth teal-green. More trees of the same structural appearance push the depth of the painting back and have a bluish-grey tone, giving the illusion of atmospheric perspective. Hiroshige’s trees all have the same grey and black tones and values. Several branches seem to be laying on the ground, though still have their white blossoms. This may simply be the overlapping of perspective layers.
With this painting being of a plum orchard, we can see the expanse of white blossoms into the background, lighting the painting softly, yet dramatically. The background exhibits a perfect example of perspective elements in the tiny figures behind the blossoming trees. One may notice the short black fence separating these figures from the rest of the orchard. The corner of what looks like a straw or grass hut building is seen to the left of the figures at the edge of the painting. A feeling of spring in the blossom white cloud is contrasted with a red sky. Possibly symbolizing the coming summer heat. There are five colored rectangles with Japanese characters. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands claims that van Gogh painted these for decorative and aesthetic purposes only because they have no coherent meaning. Traditionally, and used on Hiroshige’s piece, these colored squares and rectangles are simply known as ukiyo-e signatures. They would contain the names of both the printmaker and their main assistants and collaborators in the printmaking process(Johansson). Van Gogh’s orange borders with the Japanese characters were a unique addition to his expressionist painting.
Vincent van Gogh was part of a movement within European artists that were heavily inspired by Japanese art. Beginning in the early 1870s was an art movement in Europe and America known by the French term, Japonisme, or Japonism, where many well-known artists became influenced by Japanese art. An exhibition held in Paris, France in 1867, called the Exposition Universelle was the first in a series that allowed European artists more access to the art of Japan. Many people had come back from visiting Japan with loads of Japanese art. The ukiyo-e prints were originally used as packing materials for larger and more fragile objects. The cheap price of them encouraged people to collect them. With hundreds of these prints being imported into Europe, it was only natural that large collections started to accumulate. A shop very near to where van Gogh lived was one of these places. Piles of wooden ukiyo-e prints, many by Hiroshige, were the object of attention for many of Gogh’s days. Van Gogh’s incredible and fantastic interest and apparent obsession with Japanese art had a profound effect on the way he looked at nature. He wrote that the prints by ukiyo-e artists made him feel “happy and cheerful”. Three of his works were reproductions of Japanese art. Van Gogh studied these Japanese art pieces and the printmaker’s use of color and style. Seeing a landscape through the eyes of an artist such as Hiroshige allowed him to notice the forms and detail in a different way to someone who hadn’t seen Japanese styles. In her academic journal, Van Gogh, Collector of “Japan”, Janet A. Walker describes the cultural experience of van Gogh:
for the artist, Japan represented a land whose religious sense was firmly grounded in nature and whose people had a stable moral and spiritual relationship with nature. Such a land, he sensed, would provide a refuge from the over-civilized Europe of the nineteenth century, which was rapidly losing its religious moorings and its connection to nature in the wake of industrialization and urbanization. As he painted the series of flowering trees in Arles in spring 1888, van Gogh looked to “Japan” as a place possessing a religion of nature—an imagined space that would inspire him to create an art oriented around nature that had some of the characteristics of a “true religion” (Walker 89).
While van Gogh did have a heavily fantasized view of Japan and its culture, many things were not as he imagined them to be at all. Japan was isolated from the rest of the world since 1633, but not entirely in the best of ways for its people.
Japan had pretty recently opened up after a period known as Sakoku-jidai, or “Seclusion Period”. The Japanese Shogun, similar to a king or dictator, had issued many edicts which heavily limited its citizens, as well as other foreign countries. The Closed Country Edict of 1633 closed Japan to all foreigners and prevented Japanese people from leaving. Many of the consequences of disobedience were execution, including any Japanese who had come back to Japan from living abroad(Watts). These policies were the result of the rejection and fear of the Christian teachings, which the Portuguese had brought to Japan since their arrival in 1543. The Dutch, who first arrived in 1600, were the only western country permitted contact with the Japanese government due to some kind of good intentions and understanding. The Dutch were also at war with the Portuguese and supported Japan in a Portuguese-supported Christian rebellion in 1639. With the Portuguese being banned from Japan, the Dutch took up any trade opportunities that were left by Portugal. These were still very limited at the time and were confined to a manmade island that was built for the Portuguese traders. This fan-shaped island, in the Bay of Nagasaki, was called Deshima, and stood as the only window into the western world for 200 years, through contact with the Dutch(Zaken).
Yoshimune, the eighth shogun, in 1720, lifted the ban on all western books, except those of the Christian teachings. This led the way to Japanese people learning subjects such as the sciences, astronomy, mathematics, botany, physics, chemistry, geography, and military sciences. This was all through the Dutch language, which was called “Rangaku”(Zaken). The Dutch had quite an impact on Japanese artists up to that point, in the way that painters depicted Dutch people as well as landscapes they had never seen before. The mountains of the Netherlands are much different from those of Japan. Many Nagasaki prints or Nagasaki-e were brought to the tourists as souvenirs. It wasn’t until after the Americans arrived in 1853 and forced Japan to open its borders to trade that much of this art was exported to Europe and elsewhere. 1854 ushered in the opening of Japan to the rest of the world. The Convention of Kanagawa, a contract between Japan and America, written in Dutch, compelled Japan into world trade and modernization to catch up with the rest of the world. As America and England had risen in power, Japan was going through a huge time of learning and bringing the technologies of the rest of the world into their knowledge. It was during this time that the ukiyo-e prints were being mass produced and exported to give the rest of the world a better sense of the culture and land of Japan.
With this level of exchange of art between the cultures of Japan and western society, there was an increase of interest in arts in general. The number of famous painters in Europe and America who were directly inspired by ukiyo-e alone is staggering. Many Japanese artists went on to become some of the most well-known artists in the world. It’s safe to say, without Japanese prints, we would not be a witness to the likes of van Gogh, Monet, Bonnard, Whistler, Manet, or even M.C Escher.
Author’s Note: In my journey as an artist, I have noticed the impact of the Japanese influence on my paintings and drawings. Especially in seeing Japan through the eyes of van Gogh, arguably the world’s most well-known painter, I have felt the improvement in my work. Noticing the finer detail and complexity of nature in its simplest form is a valuable skill. Someday I’d like to discover what drove the Japanese and expressionists to such meditative type themes (Butcher).
Flowering Plum Orchard (After Hiroshige)
Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890), Paris, October-November 1887
oil on canvas, 55.6 cm x 46.8 cm Credits (obliged to state): Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
The Residence with Plum Trees at Kameido, from the series One Hundred Views of Famous Places in Edo
Edo, eleventh month 1857, Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 – 1858)
color woodcut on Japan paper, 25.4 cm x 37 cm
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Tracing of ‘The Plum Tree Teahouse at Kameido’ of Hiroshige
Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890), Paris, July-December 1887
pencil, pen, and ink, on paper, 38.3 cm x 26.2 cm
Credits (obliged to state): Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Works Cited
Johansson, Hans Olof. “Kanji Characters with Examples.” Signatures of Ukiyo-e Artists, Artelino, 4 Oct. 2003, http://www.ukiyo-e.se/signatur.html. Accessed 5 March 2021.
The Residence with Plum Trees at Kameido, from the Series One Hundred Views of Famous Places in Edo – Van Gogh Museum. https://vangoghmuseum-prod.azurewebsites.net/en/japanese-prints/collection/n0077V1962. Accessed 28 Feb. 2021.
Seiferle, Rebecca. “Japonism Movement Overview and Analysis.” Edited by Sara Archino, The Art Story, 14 Dec. 2017, 2021, http://www.theartstory.org/movement/japonism/history-and-concepts/#nav. Accessed 7 March 2021.
“Tracing of ‘The Plum Tree Teahouse at Kameido’ of Hiroshige Vincent van Gogh, 1887.” Van Gogh Museum, https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/d0772V1962. Accessed 28 Feb. 2021.
“Vincent van Gogh – Flowering Plum Orchard (After Hiroshige) – Van Gogh Museum.” Van Gogh Museum, https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0115V1962. Accessed 28 Feb. 2021.
Walker, Janet A. “Van Gogh, Collector of ‘Japan.’” The Comparatist, vol. 32, May 2008, p. 82. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsglr.A178676319&authtype=shib&site=eds-live&scope=site. Accessed 28 Feb. 2021.
Watts, Sarah Lyons. “The Seclusion of Japan.” Wake Forest University, HST 104: The World Since 1500, Fall 2001 http://users.wfu.edu/watts/w03_Japancl.html. Accessed 8 March 2021.
Zaken, Ministerie van Buitenlandse. “Dutch-Japanese Relations.” Netherlands and You, Kingdom of Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 3 May 2017, http://www.netherlandsandyou.nl/your-country-and-the-netherlands/japan/and-the-netherlands/dutch-japanese-relations. Accessed 9 March 2021.
Dakota Butcher
ART130
March 10th, 2021