Japanese Art and the West: from Namban to Japonaiserie with Arts Society accredited lecturer Marie Conte-Helm

This study day will chart the artistic relationship between Japan and the West beginning with the Namban or golden screen paintings of ‘southern barbarians’ that reflected the presence of Portuguese Jesuits in 16th century Nagasaki. Japan’s subsequent isolationism and limited contact with the outside world through the Dutch trade produced a small but significant window to the West in the 17th and 18th centuries, introducing new artistic conventions and ideas. But it was the reopening of Japan to trade in the 1850s that brought quantities of Japanese prints and other artefacts into Europe, creating an explosion of interest in Japanese art and design among artists in the West, including the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. In tracing these developments, from Namban to Japonaiserie, the collision of Japanese and Western visual traditions and techniques will be explored.

In venue (Winchester) and online via Zoom

Part of the 2025 Spring Study Course. Also booking:

• Monday 24 March 2025
  Lucia Gahlin - The Art of Ancient Egypt
• Monday 28 April 2025
  Prasannajit de Silva – British Landscape Views of India