‘Japonism’ exhibition, Caixa Forum, Barcelona

In high school painting class, I used to make art that was was all about the influence of the west on traditional Japanese art and culture. Having lived in Japan for a couple of years this topic felt very important to me. In Europe in 2013 however I became interested in what happened a few decades before  the rapid americanisation of Japanese culture, when Japanese and oriental art, decoration, + printmaking techniques had a huge influence on art and fashion in Europe in the 19-20th centuries. A key part of the Art Nouveau era, this style can also be summed up nicely by the word Japonism, the name used for an exhibition in the Caixa Forum, with the caption ‘The Fascination with Japanese Art.’
The press release and information: PDF file.
Needless to say this exhibition was right up my alley. It was also the first time I saw the originals of the Toulouse-Lautrec posters adorning my walls… I was slightly star struck.

[Note: above images are from my gap year in 2013, which I spent trawling the art galleries of Europe and taking lots of photos of artworks that I liked. Over the past summer I have organised+compiled all of these. By doing so and uploading them here I’m hoping to find connections and identify common elements, creating a record of the things I felt drawn to and inspired by.]