Medievalism and Japonisme in Victorian England and Japan in the Meiji Period: The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites

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The 1862 International Exhibition in London triggered the cult for things Japanese, Japonisme. Architects and designers, who advocated medievalism, found the affinity between European medieval art and Japanese artefacts. D. G. Rossetti, who had founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with six artists in 1848, began to collect Japanese ukiyoe and things. The cult for things Japanese reached its climax in the 1890s. Japanese literati and artists were fascinated by the Pre-Raphaelite medievalism under "Japan for the Japanese" movement in the 1890s and a trend of art for art's sake in the 1900s. Artists such as Takeji Fujishima and Shigeru Aoki were much influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite decorativeness in their own medievalism and aestheticism to produce modern Japanese decorative painting. The decorativeness is a quality which bridged between Victorian cult for something Japanese e and Japanese cult for the Pre-Raphaelites.