Cultural Appreciation?
When I as fourteen years old, I visited Claude Monet’s countryside home in Normandy for the first time. Giverny is this beautiful menagerie of flowers, and beautifully curated scenes.
Wandering through his “Japanese Garden” viewers can see the original Japanese bridge, that was famously immortalized in one of his paintings of his water lillies.
Besides the naming of the garden, the influence of Japanese art becomes increasingly clear as you continue to wander the premises. Inside his home, the walls of his dining room are covered with Japanese prints, and ceramics.
I thought it was interesting that Monet was interested in Japanese art, but thought very little of it until I reached the gift shop. There I found that they were selling Japanese prints on postcards and posters and bookmarks, and the only credit they gave the original artists was in tiny print on the back of these pieces. It made me think about what a massive influence Japanese art had on impressionism, a style of art that we now think of as quintessentially European. It also made me question whether or not there is fair recognition being given to this transfer of ideas, because even today, the influence of Japanese art, while understood and appreciated, seems to have been absorbed by European Culture. Appropriated, if you will. “It’s what inspired Monet!” they say, as if it has no other artistic merit. As if Monet is the one who made it art in the first place.
