Japonism in France

I am taking the extension lectures at Musashi University on Saturdays with my mother. “ The Japanese culture seen from abroad” is the big theme, and we can take part in five lectures about each small theme through five weeks.
The lecture of last Saturday was about “ The influence of Japan culture upon France; Japonism.“ The teacher was a French woman, Ms. Bridget Koyama. She came to Japan right after she finished the graduate school in Paris, and became a teacher at Musashi. Of course she can speak Japanese fluently.

The teacher showed many pictures of arts, like drawing, sculpture, dish, and so on to us. She always compared those to the Japanese original ones. I could see the influence of Japan in those French Arts clearly. The diagonal composition and the pose of models in drawing, the description of birds, the combination of colors, the technique of japan ware…

The most surprising thing was that many nobles and famous artists collected Japanese stuffs, and they wore Kimono as a gown! There are lots of pictures that show people are in Kimonos. I didn’t know Kimonos had already gone over to France about two hundred years ago. But no one could tie their Obi well in those pics…

At the beginning of the lecture, she played music on the CD that is very familiar to us. It was “Orpheus in the under worldーoverture (J.OFFENBACH).” “Tengoku to Jigoku” in Japanese. What do you image when you listen to this music? I think most Japanese people bring the school sports to mind. Actually I did at that time. BUT according to the teacher, for French people, it is the music of French cancan, and typifies the times that the Japonism started in France. Though this is not related to Japanese culture directly, I had an interest in it because the symbol in Japan and that in France is different, even the same music. According to my sister, who graduated from the University of music, this music is originally from German opera. So if German people listen to it, they must feel different from us. Isn’t this interesting??