Converging Culture: Vincent Van Gogh And Edgar Degas

Influx of Japanese design, cultural exchange, and ukiyo-e prints influenced artists of the 18th and 19th century such as Vincent van Gogh and Edgar Degas. According to the video, Converging Culture, ukiyo-e was a pictorial tradition in Japan by which artists were depicting modern, everyday life as well as well-known landmarks. Ukiyo-e was first produced in the seventeenth century and showed scenes and characters from the entertainment districts of modern Tokyo, Edo. The thought that each moment in life should be enjoyed helped influenced these works of art.
Ando Hiroshige, one of the leading ukiyo-e landscapes artists of the late Edo period created a woodblock print called Evening Shower at Atake which Vincent van Gogh later imitated. Hiroshige’s
Evening Shower at Atake is a woodblock print made in Japan in 1857. It has the dimensions of 13 ¼ in by 8 ¾ in while Van Gogh Bridge in the Rain was an oil on canvas painting with the dimensions of 28 in by 21 in. Van Gogh’s painting was created in Paris in November of 1887 and represents Japonisme because he was influenced by the woodblock prints created by Hiroshige.

Hiroshige created his woodblock print as part of the series, “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo,” where he depicted summer rain falling over the Atake Bridge.
In Van Gogh’s painting, he chose brighter colors than those in Hiroshige’s print as well as restructured the water with visible touches. Vincent van Gogh collected Japanese prints because he was fascinated by their composition and style. To copy the size of the print, Van Gogh created a border on his canvas and filled it with Japanese characters. He also imitated how the print lacked the distinctions of shadowing. Through researching the image online, I found out that the scene represents an “evening descent” of the thunder god, yudachi. The painting was created Hiroshige wanted to capture the beauty of a popular atmosphere one may encounter in Japan. Japanese art consists of off-centered arrangements, light with no shadow, and vibrant colors on plain surfaces, which Van Gogh mimicked onto his
painting.
The convergences of culture led to the creation of hybrid art, which is art that can have characteristics that belong to multiple cultures.
The contemporary work I picked was an offset lithograph by Takashi Murakami called Kansei Gold created in 2008 in New York. It has the dimensions of 30.04 in by 28.35 in and is a figurative work of art that has a neo-pop art style. It is figurative because is portrays items in the visible world such as trees and flowers. This work is a form of hybrid art because of the cultural combinations Murakami incorporated. The pop art style represents the culture of the United States while the Japanese characters in the lithograph represent Japanese culture. Murakami also used a superflat style which is a postmodern art movement influenced by manga and anime. Among his most famous recurring details are superflat, smiling flowers as seen in the lithograph. Takashi Murakami is an internationally productive contemporary Japanese artist who created artwork based on anime and manga where his signature artistic style represented western women with blonde, long hair and big eyes. He adopted pop art strategies, and included a very Japanese
approach. I believe through hybridity, cultural individuality is lost. However, cultural exchange has positive aspects because it allows for alternate means of expression. I believe alternate means of expression is more important than cultural individuality because art should be expressed in many different ways to represent a variety of meanings and interpretations. Alternate means of expression gives artists a larger variety of options when creating art. Furthermore, it creates a sense of individuality to the artist based on what cultures they combine in their art. For example, Miguel Luciano combined the cultures of Puerto Rico and Japan when creating the Manga-Mancha series. He took manga, the Japanese anime style, and created a superhero whose hair was created from the image of the platano, a vital part of Puerto Rico culture. This was a unique way to combine cultures to create hybrid art. Luciano’s painting of Pelea de Gallos combines Puerto Rico’s major chicken brand and the rooster from the United State’s Corn Flakes brand.
Guillermo Gomez Pena created hybrid art by combining English, Spanish, Spanglish, indigenous dialects, and made-up languages to address important topics as well as to call attention to stereotypes and how ridiculous they are. Furthermore, Gentile Bellini painted sultan’s portrait combining cultural traditions creating the turban and the Venetian arch. The parapet and European crowns also represent a hybrid form. Likewise, artists in Muranco soon copied the glass artwork, metalwork and carpets created in Venice. Hybrid art expands the possibilities for innovation in contemporary art. This creates new opportunities to express ideas and concepts. It also creates an increase of challenges, choices, and decisions for artists. Like Melissa Chiu in the video said, we are creating a balanced universal language, but based on local cultures and histories.