LIBERTY BASSETT
Liberty Bassett is a senior double-majoring in Accounting and Art History with a concentration in Critical Curatorial Studies. She is primarily interested in non-profit management as well as in Post-Impressionist art. In the future, she hopes to work for the financial or managerial department of a museum, combining her love of her two majors. Outside of academics, Liberty has spent the past four years working in a variety of roles with Residence Life, The Boehly Center at the Mason School of Business, and currently at the Muscarelle Museum of Art. Upon graduation this spring, Liberty will return to W&M for a Masters in Accounting to pursue her passion in the field of art management.
FROM JAPAN TO FRANCE: REPRESENTATION AND NATURE IN ART BY OGATA KŌRIN AND VINCENT VAN GOGH
Flowering Plum Orchard (After Hiroshige), Vincent Van Gogh, 1887, oil on canvas.
Ogata Kōrin (1658-1716) and Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) have come to be known as prominent artists who embody the values of their respective time and cultures. Even so, Van Gogh was known to have had an astounding appreciation for Japanese woodblock prints, recreating works and incorporating their elements into his own works. For Japanese artists like Kōrin, visual representation was typically mediated through literature and calligraphy, whereas for Van Gogh and his European counterparts, the foundation of visual representation resided in perception and recreation, capturing scenes as they existed. But what such distinctions often conceal is the artists’ striking similarities within their works and their parallel life trajectories, albeit nearly two centuries apart. Moreover, although both artists worked within the established visual principles of their respective contexts, they also challenged them, especially in giving power to the use of nature in both their personal lives and their means of expression.
Focusing on Kōrin's Irises at Yatsuhashi (1709) and Van Gogh’s Field of Irises (1888), this study explores the role and power of nature in the work of both artists. It shows how both Kōrin and Van Gogh maintained yet challenged established visual principles, creating their unique idioms and legacies. Additionally, by considering examples of Van Gogh’s recreations of Japanese works, this research also draws attention to the flow in artistic style, interpretation, and imagery across time and geographies. Despite visual differences, Kōrin's and Van Gogh’s works aim to convey similar meanings, particularly with respect to nature and its presence and place within one’s life and the world at large. Nature, I argue, was more than a subject; it was a way of expressing emotions and had significant impact on the life of both artists as well as on their creations.