A couple weeks ago, I visited an art exhibition, Młoda Polska , which features art pieces painted by Polish artists, in Kyoto. The show was quite interesting, and I learned a bit about the history of Poland. I love attending art shows because I can learn history or culture background through the art pieces. It always amazes me.
The exhibition focused on the art connection between Japan and Poland.
I'm a huge fan of fairy tales, so I loved this painting in the picture below, even though I have no idea about the story behind it.
Artists in Poland were influenced by Hokusai and his ukiyo-e. Bach then, lots of Polish painters studies abroad in Paris and they saw Japanese art for the first time. Since ukiyo-e was totally different from Western art, they all were inspired.
The portrait in the picture below shows Feliks Jasieński, who was an artist, collector, and passionate admirer of Japanese art. Some of his portraits were also displayed. When he was young, he studies art in Paris, where he saw ukiyo-e and immediately felt in love with it. Since then, he tried to introduce Japanese art to Poland. He bought lots of Japanese art, and he especially loved manga which was drown by Hokusai. He hoped that young Polish artists would find inspiration through ukiyo-e.
He even published an art book about manga! He definitely helped Japanese art spread to Poland. After he published the book, he was called Feliks Manga Jasienski.
His efforts about introducing Japanese art fruited. You can see some paintings in the pictures below. Young artists created art pieces related Japan or Japanese culture.
Some Olga Boznańska's paintings were also on display. She was one of the artists who received influence Japanese art.
The exhibition also included folklore-themed paintings. I guess Polish artists were inspired by Japanese art and created their own styles to concern about what was Folklore.
The last picture shows Polish table ware, which is very popular in Japan. I absolutely love those and have some of them. My favorite mug is one of them.
Through this art exhibition, I learned about Feliks Manga Jasienski. I didn't know about Olga Boznańska before but I came to like her style. I even didn't know that there were some artists who deeply loved Japan, Japanese culture and its art. At that time, Poland was struggling against Russia and Germany, and I’m grateful to those artists who embraced and promoted Japanese art. Thanks to them, we can now enjoy seeing wonderful pieces by artists like Olga Boznańska.
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What wonderful artwork. I can't imagine what it would have been like travelling all the way to Japan from Poland. It must have felt like a different planet.
First, before attending the exhibition, I didn't expect it was such interesting. I'm glad to learn about the history between Japan and Poland. Yes, the artwork are excellent.
Beautiful exhibition! I can see the Japanese influence in some of the paintings. The one with the naked children in the garden is captivating yet haunting. It makes me wonder what causes such anguish.
Thank you as always for the corrections, @SEQ77. They were suffering from the war between, Russia, Germany and Poland, so maybe that's why you might receive such feelings from the painting. I also think the painting in the below ( the kids were running like fairies) looks creepy.