Author:

Abstract:

This essay explores the fascination for Japanese art in Belgium in the interwar period. It explores how Japanese woodblock prints and modern paintings shared several similarities. More precisely it centres on a print series by the artist Tsukioka Yoshitoshi 月岡芳年 (1839-1892) preserved in the Royal Museums of Art and History, and on two paintings by the artist Fujita Tsuguharu 藤田嗣治 (1866-1968), well known in Europe as Léonard Foujita, in the Royal Museums of Fine Art of Belgium. In this essay, the print series is interpreted in the context of its acquisition, whereas the paintings are framed in the context of a series of events leading up to an exhibition at the Kodak gallery in Brussels (14 June-13 July 1929), set up by the French Japanese Artists Association (Furansu Nihon Bijutsuka Kyōkai 仏蘭西日本美術家協会).