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Monet and Japanese art

'To everything that the Impressionists retained from their predecessors was added the influence of Japanese art', the critic Théodore Duret explained in 1878, implying that this was one of the prime reasons for their originality.

It appears that Monet began collecting Japanese woodblock prints as early as 1864–65. Their impact on his art soon became apparent. 'In the West what we admired most of all was this bold way of cropping images; these people taught us to compose differently', Monet told the Duc de Trévise.

The Impressionists' preference for a light tonality, for treating forms in bold masses, for abruptly juxtaposing patches of colour, and for suppressing unnecessary detail had an echo, or found its justification, in these Japanese prints. So did the screen-like, 'open' character of Monet's compositions.

In Japan, the genre of woodblock prints that so affected the Impressionists was called Ukiyo-e – 'pictures of the floating world'. When Monet laid out his water garden at Giverny, his entire concept was Japanese-inspired – it too was a 'floating world'. The green, humpbacked bridge over the waterlily pond (The waterlily pond 1900) seems to have had a Japanese prototype, possibly suggested by Utagawa Hiroshige's woodblock print (Inside Kameido Tenjin shrine Japan, Edo period 1856). Hiroshige (1797–1858), an excellent landscapist, was also attracted to novel, fleeting effects.

Despite this 'japonism', Monet remained a fundamentally western painter. He was a thorough-going materialist, responding in the most positive, sensuous way to the density and the mass of opaque oil paint. His goal was to endow it with lightness, to irradiate it with the energy of his vision, and to reveal the latent energy of the materials.

Source: Maloon, Terence. Monet and the Impressionists exhibition brochure.
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2008

Works in this section

Kanbara: night snow Japan, Edo period c1833–34, Utagawa Hiroshige, second state, from the series Fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō road, also known as the First Tōkaidō or Great Tōkaidō.
Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: William Sturgis Bigelow Collection

Boulevard Saint-Denis, Argenteuil, in winter 1875, Claude Monet.
Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: gift of Richard Saltonstall

Yokkaichi: Mie River Japan, Edo period c1833–34, Utagawa Hiroshige,
from the series Fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō road, also known as the First Tōkaidō or Great Tōkaidō.
Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: William Sturgis Bigelow Collection

Seacoast at Trouville 1881, Claude Monet.
Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: John Pickering Lyman Collection, gift of Miss Theodora Lyman

Kai Province: Monkey Bridge Japan, Edo period 1853, Utagawa Hiroshige, from the series Famous places in the sixty-odd provinces [of Japan].
Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: William Sturgis Bigelow Collection

Hakone: view of the lake Japan, Edo period c1833–34, Utagawa Hiroshige, from the series Fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō road, also known as the First Tōkaidō or Great Tōkaidō.
Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: William Sturgis Bigelow Collection

Port-Goulphar, Belle-Ile 1887, Claude Monet.
Oil on canvas. Art Gallery of New South Wales: purchased 1949.

Inside Kameido Tenjin shrine Japan, Edo period 1856, Utagawa Hiroshige, from the series One hundred famous views of Edo.
Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: gift of Dr G S Amsden

The waterlily pond 1900, Claude Monet.
Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: given in memory of Governor Alvan T Fuller by the Fuller Foundation