Meiji and Japonisme

When Japan opened up, Japanese art and design became one of the most important sources of Europe's new styles.

After 1854 Japan was opened to trade, and in 1868 the Meiji period began. Japan took part in the world's fairs in Paris in 1867 and Vienna in 1873. Prints, porcelain, lacquer and textiles reached Europe and the United States and gave artists and designers new ideas: asymmetry, flat areas of colour, empty space and motifs from nature.

Siegfried Bing published the magazine Le Japon artistique in 1888–1891, and Christopher Dresser travelled in Japan in 1876–1877. Japonisme influenced Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau and later modernism.