Research project Can Art Be National? Japonisme and Transculturation in Turn-of-the-Century Europe
The project Can Art Be National? Japonisme and Transculturation in Turn-of-the-Century Europe investigates how concepts of “national art” were constructed in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe through global transcultural exchange, advancing an understanding of the role of Japonisme in shaping modern national cultures.
Stanisław Wyspiański, View of Kościuszko Mound from the artist’s study, pastel on paper, 1904, Silesian Museum. Carl Larsson, Mor och dotter, 1903, Thielska Galleriet, Stockholm.
Purpose & aims
This project examines how “national art” was made in late-19th-century Europe by tracing the role of Japonisme and transculturation in two “small nations,” Sweden and Poland.
Japonisme has often been framed primarily as an aesthetic phenomenon mediated through major artistic centers such as Paris or London. This project challenges such narratives by focusing on Sweden and Poland as “small nations” occupying semi-peripheral positions within European modernity. In these contexts, the project approaches Japonisme not merely as stylistic influence, but as an epistemic and political process through which European nations imagined their cultural identity, modernity, and national self-definition within the colonial world order. These processes are encapsulated in Carl Larsson’s declaration that “as an artist, Japan is my motherland” and Feliks Jasieński’s call to “learn from the Japanese to be Polish.” At the same time, this framework raises the question of Japan’s own agency within these processes and examines how Japan shaped its modern self-representation through international cultural diplomacy and internal processes of modernization.
The project combines perspectives from transcultural art history, museum studies, nationalism studies, and postcolonial theory to examine how Japanese art participated in the shaping of European modernity. Central case studies include the Ernest Thiel Collection in Stockholm later transformed into the Thielska Galleriet, and the Feliks Jasieński Collection in Kraków, donated to the National Museum in Kraków and today associated with the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology. These collections reveal how collecting and exhibiting practices accompanied by art criticism became sites where national identity, modernity, and transcultural exchange intersected.
By foregrounding the political agency of art and the transcultural foundations of supposedly “national” traditions, the project seeks to expose the ideological limitations of contemporary nationalist discourses surrounding cultural heritage and artistic canon formation, while contributing to broader debates in art history, postcolonial studies, and transcultural heritage research.
Case Study: Ernest Thiel Collection (Stockholm)
A private collection turned public museum (1924), combining Swedish/Nordic modern art, French modernism, and Japanese woodblock prints. Works by Carl Larsson and Bruno Liljefors demonstrate mediation by Japonisme (format, composition, color, cropping, perspective), with archives (e.g., Richard Bergh) illuminating discursive contexts.
Ill. Bruno Liljefors, Evening Wild Ducks, oil on canvas, 1901, Thielska Gallery
Ill. Gustaf Fjæstad, Fresh Water, tapestry, 1905, Thielska Gallery
Ill. Anna Boberg, Peacock vase, earthenware, 1897, Rörstrand museum
Ill. Richard Berg, Nordic Summer night, oil on canvas, 1899, Gothenburg Museum
Case Study: Feliks Jasieński Collection (Kraków)
A 15,000-object collection (gifted 1920) intertwining modern Polish/European art with Japanese pre-modern art. Exhibitions in Warsaw and Kraków catalysed debate on art, style and Polish national art; Jasieński’s criticism (e.g., Manggha: Promenade…, 1901, ‘Miesięcznik Literacki i Artystyczny’ and ‘Chimera’, 1901-1902) framed Japanese art as a resource for Polish national modernism.
Ill. Stanisław Wyspiański, View of Kościuszko Mound from the artist’s study, pastel on paper, 1904, Silesian Museum.
Ill. Józef Pankiewicz, Japanese woman, oil on canvas, 1908, National Museum in Krakow.
Ill. Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz, Japanese woman with a parasol, oil on canvas, 1888, Private collection.
Ill. Jan Stanisławski, Thistles under the sun, oil on canvas, 1895, National Museum in Warsaw.
Ill. Olga Boznańska, Woman with a Japanese Parasol, oil on cardboard, 1892, National Museum in Wroclaw.
Case Study: Japan at the World’s Fairs, 1890–1910
This case study focuses on Japan’s participation in international exhibitions during the peak of Japonisme (c. 1890–1910) as a transcultural arena in which modern Japan articulated its artistic self-definition in dialogue with Western expectations, Japonisme, and the global demand for a legible “national art.” Focusing on curatorial narratives, official catalogues, and selected exhibited artworks, it explores how Japanese state and cultural actors negotiated the authority to define “what is Japanese,” and how these processes continue to shape our understanding of Japanese art history today.
Ill. Hashimoto Gahō, Fusuma for the Ho-o-den, 1893. The Art Institute of Chicago.
Ill. „Japanese Teahouse (left) and Exhibition Hall of Japanese traditional art (right) in Tockadero”, Photo from the Official Report of the Special Exposition, the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, 1902. https://www.tobunken.go.jp/joho/japanese/collection/paris/paris-e.html
Ill. Mataichi Fukuchi et al., Commission Impériale du Japon, Histoire de l’art du Japon, trans, Emmanuel Tronquois, Paris, M. de Brunoff, 1900.
Ill. Kawai Gyokudo, Landscape under the new moon, 1910, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.
Ill. Kawade Shibatarō, Cloisonné vase, 1910, The Khalili Collection.
Team & Network
Ewa Machotka (PI), University of Zurich
Katarina Wadstein MacLeod (Collaborator), Stockholm University
Research Team:
Mirjam Dénes, Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts, Hungary
Aleksandra Görlich, Polish Institute of World Art Studies, Poland
Activities:
Participation in international conferences, invited lectures and academic courses in 2025.
Katarina Wadstein MacLeod presented “Linjer, stränder och hav i Nordisk sekelskifteskonst” at the conference Strandlinjer at Åbo Akademi (27–28 November 2025).
Mirjam Dénes delivered four papers:
- “When the Japan–British Exhibition came to Budapest” at the International Congress of the European Association of Asian Art and Archaeology, University of Lisbon (8 September 2025);
- “Pattern and Patriotism: Orientalism, Japonisme, and National Identity in Hungarian Ceramics” at Between West and East. Multicultural Phenomena in the Czech Art Industry 1800–1930 at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague (9 October 2025);
- “Kelet és Nyugat között: a Herendi Porcelánmanufaktúra helye a japonizmus keretrendszerében” at the Látkép 2025 conference, ELTE Budapest (27 September 2025);
- “Az egzotikumtól a modernitásig: A Meidzsi-korszak iparművészetének változásai a nyugati ízlés tükrében” at the Japan Foundation Budapest (26 February 2025).
Aleksandra Görlich presented “Japanese textiles as an inspiration for modern fashion in Europe – an introduction to the other aspect of Japonisme” at the International Scientific Conference Cultural Studies and Social Communications: Innovation Strategies of Development at the Kharkiv State Academy of Culture (20 November 2025).
Ewa Machotka taught the course “Theft or Artistic Prerogative? Transcultural Appropriation in Art” at the University of Zurich.
Workshops:
"National Art in Transcultural Perspective: Progress and Pathways", Stockholm University 26-27.08.2025. It resulted in presenting the current status of individual research projects and in discussion on progress, next steps and the project methodology. Part of the workshop were also study visits at the Thielska Gallery, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde and the Marcus Dimdal collection of modern Swedish ceramics
Workshop with invited reviewer: Prof. Noriko Murai, Sophia University: “Japonisme and National Art: Critical Review Colloquium” (15.01.2026). During the session a discussion over four papers prepared by the researchers was held. The papers will be presented at the conference “Transnational Japanisms: Art, Craft, Design” (15–16 May 2026), co-organized with the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in London. They will also be published in the project edited volume.
Events and calls
Contact
Feel invited to join the research network.
E-mail: japonisme.and.transculturation@gmail.com