In 1889, Alfred East was sent by his London-based gallery to Japan for about six months. At the time, interest in Japanese art and culture was growing in the English capital, and it was expected that East would record Japanese landscapes and customs just as he saw them. After arriving in Nagasaki, he visited famous locations such as Kobe, Nara, Yokohama, Tokyo and Nikko, producing several oil paintings and many watercolors. This work is one of the latter. East has made good use of watercolor’s characteristics to create gradations and to softly depict the Japanese landscape. Different to the stereotypical images of Japan at the time, it captures the country’s unique light and atmosphere, along with a traveler’s sense of thrill and a deep empathy for the subject matter.
(KATADA Yuko)
In 1889, Alfred East was sent by his London-based gallery to Japan for about six months. At the time, interest in Japanese art and culture was growing in the English capital, and it was expected that East would record Japanese landscapes and customs just as he saw them. After arriving in Nagasaki, he visited famous locations such as Kobe, Nara, Yokohama, Tokyo and Nikko, producing several oil paintings and many watercolors. This work is one of the latter. East has made good use of watercolor’s characteristics to create gradations and to softly depict the Japanese landscape. Different to the stereotypical images of Japan at the time, it captures the country’s unique light and atmosphere, along with a traveler’s sense of thrill and a deep empathy for the subject matter.
(KATADA Yuko)