I hate the “art hoe” community for many, many reasons. But one of the major ones is that the community is so white and the artists they adore are so white, and everyone is just fake deep and pretends they don’t succumb to this unspoken whiteness. There is a pretense that if you just wear a yellow kanken, doodle succulents in your moleskine, use quirky peach emojis and know the name of one famous Monet painting, you’re immediately part of the collective. There is no real discourse surrounding the artists or the artworks, aside from romanticization of Van Gogh’s mental illness… which is a different issue altogether. But even worse than the fake deep, perks of being a wallflower-esque vibes is that none of you care about the contributions people of color have made to art. I never hear anyone mentioning how Van Gogh was a huge orientalist.
In 1887, fan favorite Van Gogh copied two Japanese prints (originally painted by Utagawa Hiroshige), by literally slapping a frame on top of them, changing the palettes and painting calligraphic figures around the border. There’s some disagreement on whether the characters are completely imaginary, or if the characters were copied from other Japanese prints… all I can discern is that regardless, he definitely had no idea what any of the characters meant or if they even made sense in ‘his’ art?
This is just context. Obviously, he’s composed original works. But, his most famous works, recognized for their vibrant colors, black contour, composition, perspective, strokes, etc. were a product of what the art community likes to call… Japonaiserie (Japonisme to describe the general movement), which is really just a fancy word for orientalism with focus on Japan.
Japonisme, by the way, is infatuation with Japan post-Meiji restoration, when the country opened up to Western trade. Which, by the way, was a result of American imperial expansion when Commodore Matthew Perry threatened to burn Edo (now Tokyo) to the ground. So no, trading with the West was not consensual.
The print above is by Suzuki Harunobu. Like many ukiyo-e (Japanese woodblocks) of the time, the composition is asymmetrical. Notice the diagonal lines and how we’re supposed to look down on what’s happening. The colors are flat with prominent outlines. Impressionism was influenced by these prints by also focusing less on ‘detailed realism’ through these kinds of asymmetrical, off-centered positions, and by focusing more on vivid colors and bold lines. I’m honestly no good at interpreting art, so you can read more in-depth analyses via this Japonism article, which also lists other examples, including this one:
“Like Hokusai’s print [this first picture], this Van Gogh painting features a rolling asymmetry of hills and vegetation, executed in a simple, bright colour scheme. The angled rows of haystacks lend the scene a vigorous bottom-left to top-right momentum. Outlines are thick, and there is little in the way of shading or shadows.“
But not only did Japanese artists influence European art style, they also influenced the subjects. Traditionally, Western art subjects focused on biblical or classical figures, but ukiyo-e helped fuel the transition towards art that reflected everyday life. Mary Cassatt, famous for painting women, particularly mother and children, collected many of Kitagawa Utamoro’s works, who painted the same subjects.
However, Van Gogh’s, as problematic as ever, infatuation and fetishization with/of Japan expanded beyond just his art style. At one point, Van Gogh even shaved his head to look like a Japanese monk. He also for some reason thought the south of France was the equivalent of Japan and decided to place the future of art in France… so in other words, figuratively stripping away Japan’s creative ingenuity and placing it in France. On his way there, he wrote to a friend that he was looking through the train window to see if it was starting to feel like Japan????
And in 1888, he wrote to his brother Theo: “After some time your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel color differently.”
Monet, another favorite on here, painted La Japonaise in 1876, the subject being his wife dressed in a kimono holding a Japanese fan. This painting also spurred protests at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in 2015, when the museum encouraged visitors to dress up in a kimono and pose in front of the painting. Like his fellow racist Van Gogh, Monet incorporated Japanese culture into his everyday life… for instance, his wife really did wear a kimono around the house and his garden at Giverny was identically modeled after a Japanese print.
Anyways, my main point is not to demonize Impressionists (though I support demonizing them), because it’s just a fact that white people of that time were unabashedly racist, culturally appropriative and guilty of orientalism. Well, they still are. But my point is that people in the so-called art hoe community, and even professionals/elitists in the industry, tend to overlook the contributions that people of color, and in this example, the Japanese, have made to the art they cherish.
I literally get an aneurysm every time I see some weirdo talk up Van Gogh and other Impressionists like they are the definitions of ART themselves. And I find it really funny how you guys can claim to love art when the history behind it is virtually ignored. Starry Night, Water Lilies, Dance Class at the Opera, Moulin Rouge: La Goulue… these artworks would not EXIST. SIMPLY. without the Japanese. Yet, I rarely see anyone giving Japanese art equal respect aside from one of Hokusai’s works: The Great Wave off Kanugawa, even though he literally published a manga containing 4,000 sketches among so many other prints.
Of course, ignorance on art origins extends beyond just ignoring Japanese contributions. I focused on Japan because of the popularity of Impressionism on this website. But after 1905, when Japan established itself as a world power and not some heavenly, exotic paradise, French artists turned to Africa instead to continue on with their disgusting, primitivist fantasies. So, the cultural appropriation cycle continues.
I understand you cannot change the way that these artists treated other cultures, but you can change the way you respond to their work and you can at least recognize where their work comes from. You can choose to celebrate the original artists whose unique art styles were co-opted and rebranded under whiteness. That is all.
This is a really good and informative post, but it feels a little strange that there’s not a single mention of blackness when referencing specifically how the art ho movement has become almost nothing but white girls fawning over white artists… when the art ho movement was created by black girls, for black girls, who are given way less freedom to be quirky and corny and are often told that being into art means they’re not black enough or whatever.
I don’t think the exclusion was deliberate or anything, and I definitely don’t want to take away from what you’re saying here because you’re 100% right! But I feel like it would be remiss to reblog without at least adding that on.
thank you for the addition, angel! i wasn’t aware that the term “art hoe” was co-opted from black girls (though it doesn’t surprise me at all :/), but if i had known before, i would’ve made a clarification in the intro! this post was targeted towards the white art community and i hope it became clear through context as i was definitely not trying to disrespect the original movement.
So, I never posted this before, but this here’s the Asuka Langley poster I won at Anime Expo’s Evangelion conference. I can’t seem to find any other copies of it online, so I’m guessing it’s unique. And I’m happy to sell.
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