Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 8/6/2019)

In a letter to his brother, Theo, Vincent van Gogh claimed to envy the Japanese because their brushstrokes had a clarity and simplicity that was as natural as breathing. Yet, as Nienke Bakker, the co-curator of the Van Gogh Museum, explains, the Dutchman never visited Japan and based his judgements on books and his own collection of woodblock prints. Colleague Louis van Tilborgh notes that the shift in his style occurred around 1888 and Tsukasa Kodera, Professor of Art History at Osaka University, concurs that Van Gogh began borrowing ideas from works like Taiyensai Yoshimaru's `Scene From a Genji Parody' (c.1870-80). In all, he bought 660 prints in Paris and the Van Gogh Museum owns the bulk of them to show exactly which works fed his imagination. 

He was not the first to be seduced by Japanese art, however, and the influence can be felt in items like James McNeill Whistler's `Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen' (1864), Éduard Manet's `The Monet Family in Their Garden in Argenteuil' and `Boating' (both 1874), Claude Monet's `Banks of the Seine, Vétheuil' (1880) and Edgar Degas's `Dancers, Pink and Green' (c.1890). The latter's `The Collector of Prints' (1866) appears as Bakker explains how imported images gave continental artists a fresh perspective on line, composition and colour. Historian Louis Gonse's `L'Art Japonais' also had a profound influence on Van Gogh, along with Pierre Loti's novel, Madame Crysanthème. 

Art historian Cornelia Homburg suggests that Van Gogh would have been less surprised by the new images than his contemporaries, as his naval uncle had visited Japan. Moreover, artists he admired had already started incorporating techniques and motifs into works like Whistler's `The Princess From the Land of Porcelain' (1864) and Monet's `Argenteuil' (c.1872), Degas's `Woman Viewed From Behind (Visit to a Museum)' (c.1879-85) and Émile Bernard's `Bernard's Grandmother' (1887). Typical of the man, however, he threw himself into his enthusiasm and Homburg and Kodera agree that he was more open to embracing the draughtsmanship and the culture that inspired it than others. 

As we see shots of Mount Fuji, narrator Jaye Griffiths reveals that Japan was ruled by a militarist regime known as the Tokugawa Shogunate from 1603-1868. During the Edo Period, the country was closed off to outside influence (particularly Roman Catholicism) and a rich merchant class emerged to enjoy a hedonistic lifestyle known as `ukiyo' or `the floating world'. But the Dutch traded through the port of Dejima in Nagasaki and, in the year Van Gogh was born (1853), Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived to open lines of communication with the United States, resulting in the Convention of Kanagawa. However, as Shigeru Oikawa, Professor of Comparative Literature and Culture at Tokyo University, points out, while the government of the newly installed Emperor Meiji was keen to reform, the public was more resistant to certain Western ideas and fashions.  

Nevertheless, as Chris Uhlenbeck, curator at the Nihon no hanga Gallery in Amsterdam, states, the Meiji Period (which lasted until 1912) was characterised by an exchange of ideas, as the emperor sought to modernise his realm on his own terms. Conversely, the lifestyle concepts that reached Europe spawned a cultural primitivism that appealed to Van Gogh, as he sought an alternative to what he considered the decadent ethos of Amsterdam and Paris.

As the camera roves around the church in the village of Zundert, where Vincent and Theo's father was the Protestant pastor, the narrator touches upon the biographical details that Grabsky and Bickerstaff examined in more detail in Vincent Van Gogh: A New Way of Seeing (2015). His experiences in England, Belgium and France brought about a despair that led to him deciding to become an artist at the age of 27. He was very much influenced by the Barbizon School of French realists and we see Charles-François Daubigny's `October' (1850-78) and Jean-François Millet's `Girl Carrying Water' (1855-60) before hearing how Van Gogh was inspired by his move to Antwerp in November 1885, as the felt the city had much in common with the Japanese prints on the wall of his studio. 

As we see an unnamed craftsman creating a woodblock, Oikawa explains how ukiyo-e images of geishas and Kabuki actors were popular with the Japanese public. However, as Uhlenbeck highlights, while famous works like Katsushika Hokusai's `Under the Great Wave Off Kanagawa' (c.1830-32) owed much to the artist's vision, the woodcarver and the printer could impose their own personalities on the reproduced image. Oikawa considers it strange that these pictures became so popular in France, but Bakker reveals that the term `Japonisme' was coined by critic Philippe Burty in 1872 and caught the public imagination through exhibitions curated by collectors like Siegfried Bing and Tadamasa Hayashi. Such was the vogue that shops began selling fans for the less affluent to buy, while Homburg notes that the Goncourt brothers incorporated Japanese elements into the novels that Van Gogh devoured. 

He had moved in with Theo in Montmartre in 1886 and had started producing pieces like `View From Theo's Apartment' (1887), while immersing himself in new techniques like pointillism. When he bought a job lot of Japanese prints from Bing, however, Van Gogh's initial plan was to sell them for a profit. He exhibited them on the wall of lover Agostina Segatori's café, but they failed to sell and he decided to keep them and share them with his fellow artists. As Homburg relates, he was producing items like `Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin' and `Garden With Courting Couples: Square Saint-Pierre' (both 1887). But a dramatic change occurred after `Courtesan (After Eisen)' (1887), whose central image was borrowed from the cover of Paris Illustré, while the side panels were decorated with what could be seen as clichéd Japanese motifs. However, he opted for an impasto technique and bright colours that set it apart from the original illustration and the smooth textures of Japanese prints. 

While some millennial critics might accuse Van Gogh of cultural appropriation, Bakker insists he was following the tradition of students copying the works of the Old Masters by choosing new inspirations. Thus, Utagawa Hiroshige's `Sudden Evening Shower on the Great Bridge Near Atake' (1857) fed into `Bridge in the Rain (After Hiroshige)' and the decision to include a Japanese figure in the background of `Portrait of Père Tanguy' (both 1887). Tanguy was happy to show works like `Montmartre: Behind the Moulin de la Galette' and `Montmartre: Windmills and Allotments' (both 1887) and Paul Cézanne's `Still Life With Jar, Cup and Apples' (c.1877) in his gallery window. But, while Van Gogh valued their friendship and learnt much from the artistic community in Paris, he was disheartened by a series of setbacks and, in February 1888, he relocated to Provence. 

Bakker and Van Tilborgh comment on how Van Gogh saw something of the landscapes he had seen in the Japanese prints and channelled it into such items as `Snowy Landscape With Arles in the Background', `The Pink Peach Tree' (both 1888) and `La Crau With Peach Trees in Blossom' (1889). His contentment is also evident in his letters to Theo, which frequently make reference to the fact that he feels he is in Japan because the countryside so reminds him of the print vistas he cherished. Even drawings like `The Rock of Montmajour With Pine Trees' and `La Crau Seen From Montmajour' (both 1888) felt Japanistic and Homburg notes how he depicted scenes from a bird's eye view and captured Nature in minute detail in homage to the print artists who had inspired him. 

The sun also appears outsize in pictures like `The Sower' (1888), although its scorching heat prevented the kind of colourful flowers he sought. Van Tilborgh reveals, however, that he often visited the gardens of wealthy townsfolk to produce paintings like `Corner of a Garden With Butterflies' (1887). Countering notions of appropriation, Kodera suggests items like `Field With Irises Near Arles' (1888) were a crystalisation of influence and style. While acknowledging that the still life studies of Nature owed much to the wood prints, Van Tilborgh urges caution, as Van Gogh was aware that other artists were already achieving similar effects in such pieces as Auguste Rodin's `Woman Rocking the Cradle' (1889) without being so deeply influenced by the Japanese. Nevertheless, Bakker compares the flatness of the image and the use of blocks of colour in `The Arlésienne' (Marie Ginoux)' (1888) to highlight Van Gogh's stylistic evolution. 

The letters to Theo also convey Van Gogh's own conviction that he was seeing things with `a Japanese eye' and working much more quickly in producing drawings like `Beach at Les Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer' and such paintings as `Fishing Boats at Les Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer' (both 1888). According to Homburg, even his portraiture was affected, as he used expanses of bold colour in the backgrounds of `The Zoave', `Portrait of Camille Roulin' and `La Mousmé' (all 1888). These figures clearly moved him and Homburg notes the Japanese influence on his 1888 self-portrait, which he mentioned in a letter to Paul Gauguin, who was in Brittany with Bernard - where they produced `Self-Portrait With Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les Misérables) and `Self-Portrait With Portrait of Gauguin' (both 1888) - and claimed he resembled `a simple worshipper of the eternal Buddha'. 

Hoping to establish an artistic colony, Van Gogh invited Gauguin to Arles and he painted `Sunflowers' and `Bedroom in Arles' to have something to put on the wall of `The Yellow House (The Street)' (all 1888). For two months, they worked side by side - `Vincent Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers' (1888) - but Gauguin struggled to cope with Van Gogh's intensity. Following a blazing row, Van Gogh cut off his left ear in a drunken rage (`Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear', 1889) and he checked himself into the asylum at St Rémy. Van Tiborgh claims that he drew on the inspiration of his beloved Japanese prints to cheer himself up, as he wrestled with his demons and the result was Nature studies like `The Garden of St Paul's Hospital (`Leaf-Fall')' (1889) and `Almond Blossom' (1890), which were inspired by Siegfried Bing article, in which he had discussed the respect that Japanese artists show to a single blade of grass. 

Feeling restored, Van Gogh moved north to be closer to the newly married Theo, who arranged for him to live in Auvers-sur-Oise under the watchful eye of Dr Paul Gachet. He went to Paris to see the exhibition of Japanese art in the spring of 1890 and we see `Wheatfield With Crows' (1890), which Kondera considers a summation of the lessons he had learned. He notes that Gachet's son welcomes Japanese tourists to see the last works after Van Gogh died and Homburg and Uhlenbeck remark on the boom of interest in his work in the ensuing decades. 

A match shot takes us from `A Crab on Its Back' (1887) to a mechanical sign outside a seafood restaurant in Osaka, where artist Tatsumi Orimoto explains that the Japanese love Van Gogh because he got ukiyo-e. Shoda artist Tomoko Kawao recalls being moved by the bandaged ear self-portrait and `Flowering Plum Orchard' (1887), which was copied from Hiroshige's `The Residence With Plum Trees at Kameido'. Kondera considers the sibling aspect of the story to be very touching and thinks the rapport in the letters appealed to Japanese readers. As we see `The Potato Eaters' (1885), `Evening (After Millet)' and `Thresher (After Millet)' (both 1889), Orimoto agrees that there is something irresistible about the sadness of a hard worker whose passion was not recognised during his lifetime. 

While Kondera concedes that Japanese Van Gogh mania has died down to a degree, he sees a parallel in the European obsession with Hokusai. Yet, as Homburg concludes over `Undergrowth With Two Figures' (1890), Van Gogh never wanted to visit Japan. He loved the ideas and ideals of its art and connected with them on a deeply personal level and, in the process, he brought life to something that only existed in his view of the world around him and in his imagination. This makes his work so approachable and enduringly human. 

While it's slightly frustrating that so few of the ukiyo-e are attributed, this is another masterclass in scholarly accessibility from the Exhibition on Screen team. The script by Bickerstaff and Grabsky provides sufficient background information to contextualise Van Gogh's Japanese journey, while the assembled experts make the case without forcing the issue. Indeed, the cautious scepticism of Kondera and Oikawa adds to the fascination of the discussion. However, the contributions of Orimoto and Kawao are less telling and feel a touch tokenistic in their efforts to convey the Dutchman's reciprocal influence on modern Japanese art. 

Some of the pillow shots are a little coy, while the Oriental inflections in Asa Bennett's score run the risk of seeming parodic. But the comparisons between the Japanese and Provençal landscapes are deftly done, while the close-ups of the picture are typically exemplary, as they allow the viewer to appreciate Van Gogh's overall composition, as well as his intricate application of the paint. It's never quite established why he became so obsessed with Japanese art rather than its wider culture or whether he appropriated the ukiyo-e style as a form of intellectual justification for his own avant-gardism. But, after this intriguing and illuminating film, few will be able to look at Van Gogh's work in quite the same way again.