Looking East: Western Artists and the Allure of Japan

Helen Burnham

Hardcover | 22.1 x 1.52 x 25.91 cm | 128 pp

MFA Publications | 2014 | 9780878468102 

The craze for all things Japanese in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought a correspondingly radical shift in Western art, dubbed Japonisme. Leading artists, including Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, were inspired by Japanese art and culture to create works of singular beauty. 

Looking East explores this important moment of cross-cultural exchange by presenting a selection of major paintings, prints, drawings, and decorative artn. Masterpieces by European and American artists are shown along with rare objects, paintings, and prints from the Japanese collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which is one of the finest in the world.

With its two introductory essays, emphasising first Western and then Eastern perspectives, and its four thematically organised chapters, Looking East imparts the sense of discovery and excitement that characterised the development of Japonisme in Europe and North America.