Is my Body of Work Orientalist? I posed this question at the end of Part 3 of the course when I was writing about the influence of Japanese art on the three artists. Now that I have completed the course (and produced my full body of work) I can, perhaps, give a more reasoned answer to the question.

Is my work Orientalist in the way that paintings of the Orientalist School are, then the answer is no. Is my work of a “Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (Said, 1978:11) – I certainly hope not.

Does cultural appropriation classify as Orientalism? If yes, then some of my Body of Work can be seen as Orientalist. As I write in my final essay, cultural appropriation has been happening for centuries and can have positive as well as negative connotations; Millington (2018) notes “many of the world’s most celebrated art movements and objects are the result of it”. Young (2008) sets out five distinct types of cultural appropriation: object, content, style, motif, and subject appropriation.

In my body of work, I have taken the Japanese form of Surimono and adapted it, I have also appropriated the style of Japanese art in my Pesticide series and in some of my Cyanotypes. In terms of cultural appropriation then they are Orientalist. But as I have learned over the course of this module and in researching my essay, this isn’t necessarily problematic. Appropriation can be an appropriate response! To take two examples:

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Guerrilla Girls

Few would quarrel with the classification of Ingres’ Odalisque as an Orientalist painting. “In the mind of an early 19th century French male viewer, the sort of person for whom this image was made, the odalisque would have conjured up not just a harem slave—itself a misconception—but a set of fears and desires linked to the long history of aggression between Christian Europe and Islamic Asia”( Zucker & Harris s.d.). It is a portrayal of another culture painted from the imagination of an artist that had never left Europe. In contrast the appropriation of his work by the Guerrilla Girls makes a strong political statement about the representation of women artists in American museums and galleries. In this case the appropriation of the original work would by regarded as a positive aspect by most people.

So to return to my original question, is my body of work Orientalist? Yes in the same way that Van Gogh, Redon and Boies Hopkins appropriated style and motif from Japanese art. I also share the same respect for Japanese art and culture that was exhibited by those artists.

References

Millington, R. (2018) Art History | Cultural appropriation & the art of the steal. At: https://ruthmillington.co.uk/the-art-of-the-steal-cultural-appropriation-art-history/ (Accessed 18/11/2020).

Said, E. (1978) Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Young, J. O. (2008) Cultural Appropriation and the Arts. Oxford: Blackwell.

Zucker, S. and Harris, B. (s.d.) Painting colonial culture: Ingres’s La Grand Odalisque. At: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-and-americas/enlightenment-revolution/a/ingres-la-grand-odalisque (Accessed 30/05/2021).

Initially I had a vague idea of what I wanted to study, but it was clear from the first assignments that my research proposal needed significant refinement. I learned that I needed to avoid assuming that influences would be present without supporting evidence. I also needed to find my own voice in the essay rather than relying on quotes from others.

I undertook an extensive literature review over the first three assignments, to undertake this fully I became a member of the National Art Library and obtained a Reader Pass for the British Library. I also discovered the Lisa Sainsbury Library, part of The Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, which was an invaluable resource.

I researched Orientalism as well as Japanese art, which I had heard of but did not understand in any detail. I investigated a theoretical framework for the analysis of the work I would be studying. By the end of Assignment three I appreciated that it needed more than just a formal analysis of the different artworks, that contextual influences of the time were equally important.

For my first draft of the essay in Assignment four I had narrowed the topic down substantially. I concentrated on three artists (having initially considered writing about four) and selected Van Gogh, Redon and Boies Hopkins who had each produced significant floral images. I chose these three artists as I wanted to consider a range of style, technique and medium. I was also keen to not to have three male artists. Edna Boies Hopkins was an interesting choice, an artist I had not come across before I started my research. The one area I found difficult in the essay was the lack of literature concerning Boies Hopkins compared to Redon and Van Gogh. This made comparison between the three artists more challenging, particularly when considering contextual influences.

From feedback on Assignment four I learned that I was using too many direct quotes, that I needed to paraphrase or use my own words more, and not to leave “dangling quotes” at the ends of paragraphs. Relying less on direct quotes enabled me to write more in my own style and use my creativity more. From the feedback I also learned the importance of introducing sections with a summary of what I will be writing about, of improving the linkages between sections and the need to refer to the theoretical framework throughout.

I am pleased with how my essay has developed over the five assignments. It is much more focused than the original proposal and I have been able to research an area I was particularly interested in. I have learned so much from the research -about Japanese art, I have discovered an artist I had not come across before, and I now know much more about the work of Van Gogh and Redon. With something of a struggle, I have begun to get my head around Orientalism together with cultural appropriation and how they may interact.

The theoretical framework – formal and contextual analysis – also provided a big learning curve. I had undertaken formal analysis on previous Art History courses but using it to the extent that I did in this essay gave a richer understanding of how contextual influences affect an artist’s work – including my own!

The feedback on the last draft of my essay was mainly good but with one or two aspects still needing further work. This relates to the structure of the essay where the section and numerous subsections on Japonisme, Japanese art and Orientalism strikes as being quite disparate and would benefit from being collapsed into a single coherent section. In addition I need to improve the Introduction and Conclusion of the essay to incorporate more of the findings I have discovered and the complexities involved.

The essay is almost there now, so with a few more adjustments it should be ready for submission for assessment.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this course and have learned so much, not just about Japanese art and Orientalism but the influences playing on the work of well known artists. I had read of contextual analysis in Art History text books, but undertaking it in the depth I have done so in this essay has been a revelation.

It is also fascinating to think that, without this Research essay, my Body of Work would never have developed in the way that it has (indeed would it have developed at all!!)

I was pleased with the feedback on my fourth assignment, on the positive side the first draft of the essay was good with wide research. I had also picked up cross-cultural points and explored style appropriation.

To improve the essay I need better framing, to keep the theoretical framework in focus throughout the essay, to improve the introduction to each section and the linkages between sections. I also need to work on the conclusion section to emphasise what has been discovered.

These are all valid points that will improve the final essay and ones that I will work on for Assignment 5.

In my research for the final essay I came across Surimono (literally ‘printed thing’), which were high quality woodblock prints containing an image and a poem. Often they were produced by poetry groups in the Edo period who commissioned an artist to create an image in response to a poem that had been written (Kazuhiro 2005:181). The poetry was sometimes in Haiku form but more usually in Kyoka (consisting of 5 lines containing 5-7-5-7-7 syllables)  (Yamaguchi s.d.). Poetry is an integral part of Japanese culture and according to Hanaoka (2019) the combination of image and poem is part of a tradition in Japan that combines literature and art.

I was taken with this concept and adopted (appropriated) the idea to collaborate with a published poet on producing a combined image and poem. We have produced 20 so far and are both keen to continue – but it has helped me to understand how the artist were influenced by Japanese art. Once you see something that you would like to use in your own work, it becomes a very powerful driver.

© Poem Anne Osbourn and Photograph Bob Coe

References

Hanaoka, K. (2019) Surimono and Poetry. At: https://blogs.ashmolean.org/easternart/2019/03/14/surimono-and-poetry/ (Accessed 18/01/2021).

Kazuhiro, K. (2005) ‘The ‘Surimono Artist’ Hokusai in the Societyof Edo Kyoka Poets’ In: Carpenter, J. (ed.) Hokusai and His Age: Ukiyo-e Painting, Printmaking and Book Illustration in Late Edo Japan. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing. pp.180–215.

Yamaguchi, M. (s.d.) Hokusai’s Printed Illustrated Books. At: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-asia/art-japan/edo-period/a/hokusais-printed-illustrated-books (Accessed 16/01/2021).

I feel as though I am starting to make progress with the essay now, taking on board my tutors comments from last time I have tried to tighten up on the essay title and reduced the amount of space devoted to the Is Japonisme a form of Orientalism debate. As suggested I have also widened the scope to look at more than a single artwork from each artist – I think this has allowed me to consider how the influence of Japanese art changed over time with each artist.

I think what I have learned most from this part assignment is the importance of the contextual aspects when considering an artist’s work. Many people have analysed Van Gogh’s Sunflowers whether looking at Japanese or Impressionist influences on the composition, brushwork, use of colour etc. What I found most interesting though is that if Van Gogh had not had an idealised vision of Japan and the lives of  Japanese artists, then Sunflowers may never have been painted, certainly not in the way we view it today.

I did struggle at times to complete the work, due to the lockdown the two libraries I used the most (National Art Library and Sainsbury Library of Japanese Art and Culture) have been closed throughout. Access to the British Library and Tate Library was restricted and I was unable to visit. Although many works are now available online in the UCA Library it is very frustrating to find a book you want, only to discover that only a physical copy is available in the UCA Library.

The Tate Library has been helpful offering to scan pages or chapters from books that they hold, and I did use their services for some pages of Wildentein’s Catalogue Raisonee of Odilon Redon’s work. But the problem is you need to know exactly which pages you would like copied, and you don’t always know that if you haven’t been able to quickly scan through the work or look at the index.

Still, with the research I was able to do before lockdown, I believe that I have been able to introduce a good number of references and produce a significant Bibliography.

I have thoroughly enjoyed all I am learning about Japanese Art together with its influence on Van Gogh, Redon and Boies Hopkins. In some ways I think that is an argument for the essay to look at the influence on just one of these artists, there is plenty to write about, but I think my essay benefits from looking at the three artists as you can then compare and contrast the different ways in which they reacted to the influences.

Talking about the influence of Japanese art, in my research I came across Surimono, which were high quality woodblock prints which contained an image and a poem. Often they were produced by poetry groups in the Edo period who commissioned an artist to create an image in response to a poem that had been written. I was taken with this concept and adopted (appropriated) the idea to work with a published poet on combined work of image and poem.

We have produced 14 so far and are both keen to continue – but it has helped me to understand how the artist were influenced by Japanese art. Once you see something that you would like to use in your own work, it becomes a very powerful driver.

© Poem Anne Osbourn and Photograph Bob Coe

I had good feedback on my 3rd Assignment, I need to finalise the research question as I am probably going too deep at the moment into the concepts of Japonisme and Orientalism. Although these are both intrinsic to the work I am doing I shouldn’t spend too much time discussing whether Japonisme is a form of Orientalism – it is – and although there is more to discuss on it, I shouldn’t get too bogged down on that aspect of the essay.

My existing data collection was good but I probably needed to build on it and I could well benefit from looking at several floral images from each artist rather than selecting just one.

It was suggested that  in future I avoid using terms like ‘Orient’ or ‘East’ or ‘West’ which are all constructs and it would be much better to be more specific e.g. ‘Japanese art’ or Dutch art’. I will bear this in mind as I write more and will go through what I have written so far to use more appropriate (and accurate) terms. I did raise the question about using quotes that contain such terms, as a number of the texts were written when such terms were in widespread use. It seems that it is OK to use such quotes, but to be aware of their appropriateness.