Original subtitles

My dear Theo, I envy the Japanese, the extreme clarity that everything in their work

has, it's never done, and never appears to be done too hastily.

Their work is as simple as breathing, and they do with figure with a few confidence strokes,

with the same ease as if it was as simple as busting your waistcoat.

I must manage to do with figure with a few strokes.

That will keep me busy all winter.

Once I have that, I will be able to do people's

rolling along the boulevard, the street, a host of new subjects, ever yours, Vincent.

From Gok, never traveled to Japan, yet he had a profound admiration for the art from

this country, and he thought a lot about Japan, about Japanese art, about Japanese artists,

but it was, of course, all based on the print, the colored woodblock print that he collected

and that he owned, and he, in a way, he constructed his own image of Japan, and that

also shaped his way of looking, of making art inspired by Japanese print.

This exhibition for many people is a revelation, because, of course, not everybody knows

that he was so much influenced by this art, but also he was able to somehow change his

style in a very fundamental way.

It's so natural to make an exhibition about the Fingo and Japan, because he himself says

that it is because the inspiration source in the year of 88, and that's, of course, the greatest

period of his artistic life.

Langok started to copy Japanese prints, and he imitated the Japanese motifs in the beginning,

and suddenly he went to assimilate Japanese styles and Japanese devices, and he tried to

borrow some Japanese compositional devices, very flat colors and high horizons and like that.

Not only at Fanghoch's time, which was the 1880s, but already, from the 1860s, artists

have been fascinated by Japanese art. Art is like Whistler, Monne, Manne, Roda, Duga, they all had looked

at Japanese art as a kind of completely new way of looking at the world.

Fanghoch was also reading about Japan and Japanese art. For example, the book by Louis

Lachrapone, this was a very important publication on Japanese art. It was the first French

book on Japanese art, which described extensively different art forms from Japan,

also decorative arts, painting, drawing, and there was a whole chapter on Hawksai, for example,

was already at the time the most famous Japanese artist. Another important book for Fanghoch was

by Pierre Lotti, a French novelist who had been traveling in Japan and describes the customs

and the landscape in Japan and for Hawks. He was very enthusiastic about this book.

He would have been one of the few artists, who would have not been surprised by Japanese art.

As the Netherlands had had a long relationship with Japan, he would have known about Japanese

culture to a certain extent. He would have seen objects very fascinated by this vocabulary

as well as the subject matter of Japanese art that allowed him to associate in a new way.

I think Fanghoch was the most influenced by Japanese art, not only in the style and not only

subject and devices, but also in his own ideals, and that's quite an extraordinary phenomenon.

And Fanghoch, ideal at Japan, idealized Japanese people and Japanese painters,

that Japanese dream played a very crucial role for Fanghoch's art of security.

That's quite different from our artist. From around 1600 to 1868, Japan was ruled by

feudal military government, the Tokugawa Shogunate. This era is also known as the Edo period,

and it was a time of relative stability maintained firstly by suppressing social unrest

and secondly, by keeping the country closed to foreigners. Japan did not want to be influenced

by the West, especially not by Catholicism. A wealthy Japanese merchant class emerged,

enjoying a hedonistic lifestyle known as Ukyo, translated into English as the floating world.

They patronized the arts and indulged in the services of high-class courtesans

called Oiran and female entertainers known as Gacia. Some limited trading did occur with countries

like China, Korea and the Netherlands, through the trading post of Tajima in Nagasaki, but others

like America, Russia and most of Western Europe remained firmly excluded from this lucrative market.

But by the middle of the 19th century, change was in the air.

1853, when Bangkok was born, exact the same year, Komodo, Perry from America,

he came to Japan and forced Japan to open the doors to foreign countries. That's a very

symbol of the year for the Japanese history and also for Bangkok himself.

The Edo period ended in the summer of 1868, shortly after the accession of Emperor Magi.

He had seized power from the Shogun and started a process of modernization.

This became known as the Magi period, which lasted until 1912.

The young Emperor Magi, outward-looking and enlightened, urged Japanese people to learn from the

West and to adopt Western practices. They had the double agenda. They were keen on collecting

information from the Western world. They wanted to know about family life. They wanted to know about

military organization, social organization, about issues like marriage and also infrastructure.

But they always had a complicated attitude towards the foreigner and his potential influence.

This opening of the borders allowed not only for trade, but in particular also for objects,

art objects to come out of the country and into the Western world.

And it was a way of establishing really serious collections. There was never a journal,

there was never a newspaper, which didn't have at least an ad about something Japanese in it.

It was part of the cultural landscape that you could not avoid.

Japanese art, of course, influenced many artists in the second half of the Magi Shantry.

For Jorge was believing that he was part of a decadent society. He was longing for a simpler

society. He believed that Japan stood for that kind of society and that it was also linked to

the kind of art that they made. It was simple. Vincent Van Gogh was born in 1853 in the rural Dutch

of Zendant, where his father was the local Protestant pastor. He was the eldest of six children

and from the age of 16, worked in his uncle's art business, Google and company, in the Hague,

London, and ultimately Paris. Every day, he was exposed to a diverse range of artwork.

But by his early 20s, Van Gogh had become increasingly disillusioned with this life

and sought solace in reading intellectual literature and writing religious texts.

He took up lay preaching in England and the Boranard region in Belgium.

His orsteer ways and stoic evangelism led to his dismissal and that provoked a deep despair.

My dear Theo, when you say in your last letter what a riddle there is in nature,

I echo your words. Life in the abstract is already a riddle, reality turns it into a riddle

within a riddle. And who are we to solve it? All the same, we yourselves form a particle of it,

of the society of which we ask, where is it going, to the devil or to God?

Vincent Van Gogh always had a close relationship with his younger brother, Theo,

to whom he wrote constantly. In these detailed and revealing letters,

they shared opinions on life, art and literature. Theo was constantly concerned about his brother's

poor finances and failing health. He encouraged him to find a new purpose in life.

At the age of 27, Vincent decided to pursue a career as an artist.

We have to remember that he only worked as an artist for 10 years. He had been working in the

Netherlands for five years, drawing for several years before even starting to paint.

And when he painted, he painted mainly in dark colors and he was very much influenced by, for

example, the Barbie's on school, the French realistic landscape painters, peasant painters,

such as Jean-François Mille. And then, because he realized that he needed to find a new way

for his art that he wouldn't be able to sell his works and to have the necessary contact with

other artists. And he moved to end work, to be in a big city again, and to be able to look at other

art being contact with other artists. My dear Theo, these dogs are one huge Japanese

area, fantastic, singular, strange, at least one can see them like that. I would like to walk with

you there to find out whether we look at things the same way, one could do anything there,

townscapes, figures of the most diverse character, the ships as the central subject with water

and sky in delicate grey, but above all, Japanese trees. I mean, the figures there are always in motion.

Once sees them in the most peculiar settings, everything, fantastic, and interesting contrasts

appearing out of their own accord. My studio is quite tolerable, mainly because I've pinned

a set of Japanese prints on the walls that I find very diverting. You know, there's little

female figures in gardens, or on the shore, horsemen, flowers, now, thorn branches.

The word Ukyo is consists of two parts Ukyo, which translates as the floating world,

or the fleeting moment, and air is an extension, which means image of. We often describe Ukyo as

being the product of the Ukyo A quartet, which means the involvement of the publisher, the artist,

the blockcatcher, and the printer.

One of the points is that the work of the Ukyo Wage has been accepted as a learner,

and the other could see the process of creating a large water wreck.

Pika-san will be a member of the Ukyo-wage department at the Ukyo Province.

The whole interest in Japanese main Japan was in a way almost like a fashion that grew

pretty suddenly because these objects came on the market, were promoted, were collected,

were hardly sought after. Japanese could be found in many, many different levels. There was

of course the collecting classes, the rich people who could afford to buy and adorn their houses,

but you could also go to the department store and find Japanese fans.

Siegfried Bing, for example, was an art dealer who specialised in Asian objects, in particular

also Japanese, but not only, but he also wrote about Japanese art with his journal Luzha Pung,

Tistik, which became really important. Talked about Japan, described the landscapes,

suddenly people could put an image to it that was not only a picture or a reproduction

in a journal. Another art dealer was Hirashi, who also dealt with Japanese objects,

and there were enough wealthy collectors of Japanese art in Paris at the time.

Hirashi wrote about the spring of Japan, and he compared that to Italy and very bright color and bright

sunlight, and when cherry blossoms blossoming then, the whole mountain looks like

pink cloud or something like that, and I think that was enough for European people to dream about

the paradise of the five years. In 1886, Van Gogh decided that he needed to be at the center of the

artistic world. Paris. He arrived in a mart, and moved in with his brother Theo, who was now building

a reputation as an influential dealer, working with young artists. Van Gogh immersed himself

in current artistic developments, looking at impressionism and experimenting with near-impressionist

techniques, such as pointillism, which was considered avant-garde. But another rich source of inspiration

for these artists, and a constant talking point, was Japanesema. Always looking for ways to

generate income, and recognizing the popularity of Japanese art, Van Gogh decided on a plan to buy

a large quantity of Japanese prints from the dealer secret being, in order to sell them as a profit.

We know that from his letters that he buys 660 prints, and he pays 100 in francs for them,

or actually he doesn't pay 100 francs because he pays only 10, and then later on he says to his

brother, you should go back to secretly being in pay the rest of it, because we should keep this

collection. He has then realized that it's important, material for artists, not just for himself,

but also for other artists to work with. And after this decision to buy this whole lot of

Japanese prints, he then exhibits them in the cafe that he frequents, which is the cafe of his

then love or Agostina Saga Tori. He puts them on the wall there, and he hopes to sell them, but that

doesn't work out, so then he keeps them, and he also gives some away to artists, to friends,

and he's saying they are also learning from it, so it's a very valuable thing at role.

He then realized that there had to be something else, that in order to be a part of that you

couldn't just use breaststroke and color and paint outside, but there was so much more going on

that if you had to distinguish yourself somehow, you needed to create a special way of connecting

to something that was utterly mod. And one of the things that was perfect for that was actually

Japanese art. From the sum of 1887, you can really see something new happening, and that had to

do also with the new friends. He was hanging out with more often, like Emile Bernard, or also Paul Gugang,

also where he starts to think about new ways of creating imagery. And it starts with a

spectacular painting, and that is the courtism. He takes different images, different details,

from various Japanese friends, and puts them together. So he sees a magazine cover with the woman on

he takes it, squares it, like the most traditional way of making a copy, and then puts it on canvas

enlarging it. And then around it, he uses various imagery of landscapes very typically,

cliche like Japanese motifs. What he does and what makes it, I think, such a strong and imposing

picture is not only size, which is very ambitious for him at that time, but also the fact that he

uses these intense colors, which were not in the originals. He really brightens up, in particular,

the courtism is just an explosion of color almost. And he uses a very strong and distinct

brushstroke in there. Very graphic, a lot of impasto, you have a sense of paint, which is all

very different from the flatness of the Japanese friends. And it is sort of a tour de force almost

of trying out what you can do when you use direct sources in your work. As if you're making a

statement about, okay, here I am, and now I'm going to try to be a Japanese.

Making copies after, for example, the old masters, was a very common way of learning for artists,

also at the art academies. So when he's looking at Japanese prints and he's trying to unravel

their way of working, doing copies helps him, get acquainted with his new style, and you could

look at them as imitations, of course, they're much more than that, because he's also adding

his own colors, his own brushstroke, his adding elements from other prints, so he's making

the kind of new thing from these copies. It's really about making it his own.

I saw Peyton G. yesterday, and he put a canvas I had just done in his window. I've done

four since you left, and I have a big one on the go. I'm well aware that these big long

canvases are hard to sell, but in time people will see that there's open air and good cheer

on them. Now the whole lot will make a decoration for a dining room or a house in the country.

While in Paris Vincent refined his technique and absorbed the many artistic influences the

city had to offer, he actively involved himself with other artists and experimented with materials,

color, perspective, and composition. His passion and intensity sometimes overwhelmed him.

After a series of failed adventures, rejections, and disappointments,

he became embedded with life in the city.

Hangoff sort of changed, and acquired her existence.

So he decided to leave Paris in such of new subjects and new inspiration.

In February 1888, he pinned some Japanese prints to the wall of theatre's apartment

as a gift, and headed to provosts in the south of France.

My dear fear, all doesn't seem any bigger than bread art or more to me.

Before reaching the Rascorn, I noticed some magnificent scenery, huge yellow rocks,

oddly jumbled together with the most imposing shapes. In the small valleys between these rocks,

there were rows of little round trees with all of green or grey green foliage,

which could well be lemon trees. But here in all the land seems flat.

I noticed some magnificent plots of red earth planted with finds,

with mountains in the background of the most delicate lilac, and the landscape under the snow,

with the white peaks against a sky as bright as the snow,

was just like the winter landscapes the Japanese did.

The south of France is very different from Japan, but when you look at all the images that he had in

mind, and you look at the landscape around Arle, which is also quite flat landscapes with hills

in the background, and mountains in the background. And of course, the intensity of the colors,

which is very different than in the north, with more warmer colors. And this is something

that he liked in the prince, so he's very happy to find himself in this country,

and in nature, which reminds him so much of nature in the Japanese prince.

What he did do is to search for colorful motives in the south, and then he was imitating it.

So you see in the beginning, only that he took the motive of the orchards,

but they do not have much in common with this search for a flat kind of effect,

because the motives itself are difficult to combine with flat motives, trees, blossoming.

So it's not there yet, he had to conquer it, you could say.

My dear Baner, having promised to write you, I want to begin by telling you that this part of

the world seems to me as beautiful as Japan, for the cleanest of the atmosphere and the gay color effects.

The stretches of water make patches of a beautiful emerald and a rich blue in the landscapes,

as we see it in the Japanese prince. Peel orange sunsets, making the fields look blue,

glorious yellow suns. He's making paintings in which you can really see the Japanese influence

reflected, but he's incorporated into his own style. He's applying much stronger colors,

that's also, of course, because of the light in the south, but also because these

prince have helped him to look at reality in another way. He's still always,

basis his work on reality, he puts his easel in front of his subject, and he's painting that

landscape or the portrait, but the way the Japanese prince are made in very large planes of colors,

with very strong lines. In a way it's about simplifying your compositions and making them

stronger, and it's about choosing very strong, even garish colors that are not necessarily

realistic, and that adds to the strength of the painting, and this is something that he very much

learns from these examples. Of course there's many influences on his work, but this was one

that really fitted with what he wanted, what he was striving for. Portraiture became

very important subject matter for when go in awe, very different from earlier, and now it was

the modern portrait that he was doing. Modern portrait, of course, had to be at least in

Japanese, because that was the modernity. So what does one do? A one has maybe an exotic subject

matter, which was perfect in this war, a soldier, from a regiment which had very colorful.

Outfits was very dashing, and very intense, using flat areas of color that recall in a way

the Japanese prince that he had been studying from his memory now, because he had very

few Japanese objects with him. They were sent to him later, only by his brother. But the Swav was

from a regiment where they had really dashing and colorful costumes as well, so what he saw was

translated in this way. But more interesting are those portraits where he brings the story of Japan

into the painting he makes of someone from Kovons, and the grand example of this is of course La Musme.

My dear Theo, now, if you know what a Musme is, you'll know when you've read Lottis Madam Kizontem.

I've just painted one. It took me my whole week. I wasn't able to do anything else,

having been not too well again. That's what annoys me. If I've been well, I'd have knocked

off some more landscapes in between times, but in order to finish off my Musme, I had to save my

mental powers. The Musme is a Japanese girl, Bravon Sal in this case, aged between 12 and 14.

That makes two figures. The Swav and her that I have.

When he describes it, he really describes sort of the Japanese story that he wants to evoke

in that work. And another example of this bringing together a Japanese or Japanese story with

portraits is of course the famous self-portrait as bonds. My dear goga, I have a portrait of myself,

all ash-coloured. The ash-coloured that comes from mixing journeys with orange lad on a pale

background of uniform journeys with a red-brown garment. But exaggerating my personality also,

I look more for the character of a bonds, a simple worshiper of the eternal Buddha.

While in Arl, Vincent started dream about an artist colony, hoping other artists would join

him so they could work and discuss art together. After some persuasion by Theo,

Paul Gogan made the journey to Arl to stay with Van Gogh in his yellow house.

In preparation for his arrival, an excited Van Gogh made several paintings to decorate the walls,

such as the sunflowers and the bedroom. For two months, they drank and ate together

and painted the same model side by side. Unfortunately it didn't end well.

Vincent Van Gogh's regime was too intense for Gogan and they had a huge argument,

ending with Van Gogh cutting off his left ear in a drunken rage.

Gogan left Arl, an after-repearied in hospital, Vincent Van Gogh decided to check himself

into an asylum in Sermereme to recover. In Sermereme, Japan continues to be a very important force

as an inspiration for the work he does when we think of the close-up views of nature

that he does, which relate directly to his reading of Bing's Lujapong artistic

where Bing writes elaborately and very beautifully about the respect of the Japanese artist

for a single blade of grass, something that Van Gogh picks up. He takes these ideas with him and

draws them in the garden of the asylum in motifs very importantly of cut off trees where you see

only the tree trunk being focused on the ground looking at the small detail of nature.

He emerges from these periods of illness and creates these amazing works of art.

After a year in the asylum, Van Gogh felt strong enough to discharge himself and move back closer

to the Earth. Paris was considered too risky for Van Gogh's fragile state of mind, but the nearby

rural village of Overseo was seems suitable. The area was popular with artists like Bizarro and Sissan.

Theo knew of a homeopathic doctor and artist there called Paul Geshe, who agreed to keep an eye on Vincent.

After the breakdown in Aro, his Japanese dream was over, but still he was interested in Japanese art.

And Overseo was, he went to see the Japanese prince exceptions in Paris and called the Bozaling Paris.

So he wanted to know real Japan that's different from the Japanese dreams, but he was still trying

to keep contact with Japan even his last months.

Overseo was, of course, the place where Van Gogh passed away, where he's buried and after he passed away

and after Geshe passed away, the heritage of Van Gogh was kept by the Geshe Jr.

The Japanese became fascinated by Van Gogh in the early 20th century when first

the partial translation of the letters appeared in the print in Japan and soon afterwards

images of his work arrived often reproduced in journals, black and white, that is how the first

images of Van Gogh's paintings were introduced to the Japanese audience.

At the time, right after Van Gogh's death, his fame began to rise.

Meturically, it's extraordinary. Of course, very convenient at this time's terrible, but

it's suicide, the madness that gave grand background for the 19th century idea of genius.

Then Emil Van Gogh published the letters and so there was, you know, the machine, so to speak,

the marketing machine got going. Anyone looking for new art, looking for contemporary developments,

could not avoid Van Gogh.

Van Gogh was the first time in the 20th century in the 20th century.

But due to the fact that Van Gogh was the first time in the 20th century,

he was the first time in the 20th century.

It was very meaningful and because of the fact that he was a genius,

I think it was amazing to see him as a genius.

It was a great experience.

I was trying to make a small difference

and I was going to see my first impression.

But as soon as I turned on my phone,

I was able to find out about how the atmosphere was showing and how young people have experienced it.

How to get into this position,

and how I get into this position.

But for example, when I did a live live live album,

the album was released a few years ago.

I think that's true.

But it's the one we had on the live live live live live live live live live live live live live.

that I was looking for when I met you.

You knew when I was six months older,

but I wasn't really interested in it.

I'm a goodger, little after some decades

that Japanese is idealized.

That kind of mutual idealization of meacelets

tending that can happen in certain phases of the cultural,

contacts. Today, the reaction of the Japanese public is not the same as the 50 years ago,

but a still-vango is a kind of icon and also idealized person. The most popular artist in Japan,

Europe is still admiring, I hope, save. So it's a kind of a spiral. It's not the same way,

but still going around around and they're just creating what they want to see in other cultures.

I don't think that he would have necessarily known Japanese artists in the same way as he never

wanted to go to Japan. It was a concept and an idea. He never wanted to go. He didn't need to,

because what he needed was just a construct with which he could work to develop his own

however and the meaning of it. He then brought to life something which didn't exist, but which I think

then allows one to relate with one's own emotions or with one's own imagination. And I think that's

a great part of the attraction, how Feng goes work. My dear brother, you know that I came to the

south and threw myself into work for a thousand reasons. To want to see another light,

to believe that looking at nature, under a bright sky can give us a more accurate idea

of the Japanese way of feeling and drawing. One team, finally, to see this stronger sun,

because one feels that without knowing it, one couldn't understand the paintings of Delacroix,

from the point of view of execution, technique, and because one feels the colors of the