We cordially invite you to the next lecture as part of the seminar “Art and Artistic Traditions of Asia and Africa,” organized by the Asian and African Art and Culture Workshop conducted by the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Warsaw and the Polish Institute of World Art Studies. On April 8 (Tuesday) at 5:00 PM, a lecture by Dr. Agnieszka Kluczewska-Wójcik titled “Japonism and the Formation of Modern Japanese Art” will take place.

The meeting is organized on the Google Meet platform (meet.google.com/trk-kfwm-gni) and is open to the public. Below is a brief description of the lecture topic and the presenter.

Japonism and the Formation of Modern Japanese Art

Within the international discourse of Japonism, Japanese art—both traditional and contemporary—has acquired specific meanings through its integration into the European narrative of modern art. Shifting our perspective, during the seminar, we will explore the reverse phenomenon: the reception of Japonism in Japan. We will seek to understand how foreign ideas about Japanese art were assimilated and employed by Japanese artists.

After a period of intense occidentalization at the beginning of the Meiji era, the 1890s in Japan saw a revival of national values. The emerging new art in the style of yoga (“Western painting”), in response to the country’s modernization, sought to reconcile Western influences with indigenous traditions, represented by the nihonga style (“Japanese painting”). In a short time, alongside the reorganization of the art field—from the establishment of the National Museum (1872) and the Academy of Fine Arts (1887) to the inauguration of the Bunten Salon (1907)—yoga was transformed under the influence of European aesthetics into a means of expressing the ideal of Japaneseness. At the same time, Japanese artists such as Seiki Kuroda, Ryûzaburô Umehara, Tetsugorô Yorozu, Tarô Okamoto, and Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita traveled to France and the United States, inspired by the convergence of Eastern and Western art currents, actively contributed to the creation of international modernism.

Dr. Agnieszka Kluczewska-Wójcik

An art historian and museologist, a graduate of Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and Ecole du Louvre in Paris, Vice President of the Polish Institute of World Art Studies, specialist in the history of museums and collections, modern art, transfers and intercultural relations, with particular emphasis on japonism, orientalism, and Polish-French relations. Member of the editorial committee for the Corpus of Works of Henryk Siemiradzki / Henryk Siemiradzki. Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Polish Institute of World Art Studies, Tako Publishing, Warsaw 2020-2024, author of, among others: “Feliks ‘Manggha’ Jasieński and his Collection at the National Museum in Krakow,” “Corpus of Feliks Jasieński’s Donation,” National Museum Krakow 2014; “Japan in Polish Culture and Art at the End of the 19th and Early 20th Century,” Polish Institute of World Art Studies, Tako Publishing, Warsaw-Toruń 2016.