Japonisme: Stag and Monkey

Buhot was one of the first Westerners to be actively interested in Japanese art, particularly in the ukiyo-e woodcuts that were arriving in Paris in the mid-1850s. During the next three decades, Japonisme took Paris by storm and in 1883 the first major retrospective on Japanese art was held at the Galerie Georges Petit. The art critic, collector, and writer Philip Burty is widely considered to be the first to use the phrase “japonisme.” He hired Buhot to make a series of etchings of some of the works in his collection, which was published as Japonisme—Dix Eaux Fortes (1883), timed to appear when the retrospective opened. Though Stag and Monkey is not a drawing for one of these ten etchings, the way it has been conceived and drawn, with its carefully articulated lines and cross-hatching, it may have been considered for inclusion. The image itself was most certainly a bronze sculpture, a medium Japanese craftsmen excelled in and highly valued by connoisseurs in the West. (“Drawing the Line: 150 Years of European Artists on Paper,” curated by Nancy E. Green and presented at the Johnson Museum January 20–June 10, 2018)