Description

After the opening-up of Japan and the expansion of trade routes in the mid-nineteenth century, Japonisme immediately spread across Europe and America. Just as the paintings of the Paris Impressionists adopted certain compositional features of Japanese engravings and elements of Oriental styles, William Merritt Chase felt similarly attracted by everything Oriental. In the 1880s the American painter produced a series of “kimono portraits” of a few relatives and friends including A Girl in Japanese Gown in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza collection.

The artist’s enthusiasm for Oriental styles is closely linked to the influence of the Japanese-inspired paintings of James Whistler, as seen in Whistler’s Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen. Furthermore, the ascending perspective and the asymmetry of the composition display the same influence but can also be related to another essential influence in Chase’s oeuvre, photography. In other respects, the concern Chase shows here for creating a mysterious, contemplative atmosphere and for modulating light, together with the loose brushwork, deserve him the title of pioneer of American Impressionism.