sandr020

When trade with Japan resumed in 1854 after cent­uries of isol­ation­ism and cul­t­ur­al blockade, a craze for its culture swept across France. But the French concept of Japon­is­me was not invented until the early 1870s. Art galleries in Paris were showing Oriental work, shops sold porcelain, lacquer ware, screens, fans and prints for homes, and 1878 World’s Fair showed many Far Eastern treasures to visitors. Van Gogh, Oiran, 105 x 61 cm, 1887.  French artists and designers studied Japanese woodcut prints; the development of modern painting was affect­ed by the woodcuts’ stylis­at­ion, flattened perspectives and brilliant colours. Thanks to Art Eyewitness we can see that French artists like Manet, Monet, Degas and Cassatt were influenced by the relaxed placement of figures and striking coloration in these depictions of Japan’s floating world. Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)’s contact with Japonisme can be seen in his 1884 still-life in which he painted brother Theo’s cloisonné vas...

Once Hitler came to power in 1933, Germany’s 572,000 Jews faced catastrophe as was made perfectly clear in Peter Nash's book Es­cape From Berlin (Impact Press, 2017). So how did some European Jews receive visas to the Far East? Just as the German industrialist Oskar Schindler saved the lives of 1200 Jews in Poland, three less-known diplomats helped Jews to get to Shanghai. In 1940  Chiune Sugihara was the Japanese consul general in Lithuania. He issued visas to 6000 Jews, against his Tokyo sup­eriors’ instructions, allowing Jews to transit through Japan. When he ran out of authentic visas, Sugihara threw signed sheets of paper stamped with his consular seal to the Jews as the train left Lithuania to take him back to Japan. Ho Feng-Shan was Chinese consul general in Vienna. After the Ansch­luss in 1938, the only way for the 200,000 Austrian Jews to escape was to get an entry visa from a foreign nation. Against the orders of his superior in Berlin, Ho issued thousands of visas for...