At the end of the 19th century Danish artists were among the first in the Western world to engage with Japanese art and adopt elements of it in their work, creating an independent Danish form of expression.
And that tradition has been maintained ever since. Mirjam Gelfer-Jørgensen’s book about Japanese influences in Danish art, design and architecture analyses and traces this development over nearly one and a half centuries, from 1870 to 2010. Inspiration from Japanese art became a catalyst with wide-ranging and lasting effects. The impact of Japonisme was so extensive that it became an essential element in the preconditions for Danish Modernism in the 20th century and for the status as a &rDesign Nation&r that Denmark can be proud of right up to the present day. Who knew, for example, that Danish national treasures such as the Seagull service and Bindesbøll’s ceramics sprang in part from Japanese inspiration?
The book’s 450 illustrations provide a splendid basis for a thoroughly documented account of how this style development took place: At first it was the motifs, the subjects, that were fascinating. Later on it was the treatment of materials and the artistic processes that enticed Danish artists, craftsmen and designers to travel to Japan, often for lengthy periods of study.
The book is based on a research project which centred on the question: why is it that Danish architecture and applied art have drawn lessons and inspiration from the art of a country that lies on the other side of the globe, with a social context which in many ways is fundamentally different from that of Denmark?
