From Exoticism to the Modern World

After European art spread to Asia, it went through a period of cultural baptism, beginning to take root and grow in the minds of local artists. In many works, artists assumed an exotic sentiment different from that produced previously. Many applied Western visual vocabulary or blended Chinese and Western motifs in their works, which was not to please foreign audiences but to satiate the joy of collecting on the domestic market. It resulted in the beauty of Eurasian interaction in art taking form as “localization.” From another perspective, the Japanese view of the outside world was not limited to the pursuit of exoticism, but also extended to conflicts in the West. Stimulating Japanese artists to use their imagination in depicting war, it added a new genre to the art world of the Bakumatsu shogunate in Japan.

Japan as a member of the world community could not merely look at what was going on in terms of global trends through a window and remain unchanged. In 1854, Matthew Perry led an expedition of US warships and eventually landed at Yokosuka, officially bringing to an end of Japan’s policy of isolationism and marking the beginning of a new age. Japan and East Asia as a whole would proceed further onto another stage of westernization in its history.