Seduced by a courtesan
QUESTION
Did Vincent van Gogh visit Japan? Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent Willem van Gogh is one of the most influential figures in Western art. though he called the Netherlands, Belgium, England and France home at times, he never ventured out of Europe because he couldn’t afford to.
however, he was profoundly inspired by Japanese art. the Impressionist art movement coincided with the increased flow of goods, including art, from Japan, which had ended its 220-year-old policy of national seclusion in 1855 with the Kanagawa treaty.
In the 1880s, van Gogh bought a stack of Japanese woodcuts in Antwerp. he wrote to his brother theo on November 28, 1885: ‘My studio’s quite tolerable, mainly because I’ve pinned a set of Japanese prints on the walls that I find very diverting.
‘You know, those little female figures in gardens or on the shore, horsemen, flowers, gnarled thorn branches.’
Van Gogh moved into his brother’s Paris flat in early 1886 and bought more than 600 Japanese prints from an art dealer.
In 1888, in search of the vibrant landscapes he saw in Japanese art, van Gogh travelled to Arles in Provence to perfect his technique.
‘Look, we love Japanese painting, we’ve experienced its influence — all the Impressionists have that in common — and we wouldn’t go to Japan, in other words, to what is the equivalent of Japan, the south [of France]? So I believe that the future of the new art still lies in the south after all,’ he wrote to theo.
he described the influence of Japanese art on his work as Japonaiserie. Many of his works are directly inspired by Japanese prints. courtesan (After Eisen) in 1887 bears a close resemblance to utagawa Kunisada’s Seated courtesan, from the 1830s series Fashionable Women Of Edo.
Almond Blossoms is a direct homage to Japanese printmaking. Van Gogh once went as far as to say: ‘All my work is based to some extent on Japanese art.’ Many of his Japanese prints can be seen in the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.
Dorian Young, Malvern, Worcs.
QUESTION
When did cufflinks come into use? ShIrtS were originally an item of men’s underwear and did not become an outer garment until the 16th century. Strings or ribbons were used to hold cuffs together.
the earliest cufflinks date from the 17th century. Described as sleeve buttons, they were expensive baubles.
After the execution of charles I in 1649, to clandestinely show support for the deposed Stuart monarchy, royalist supporters wore rock crystal jewels referred to as Stuart crystals. One pair featured red faceted rock crystal quartz with gold wire ciphers.
Following the restoration, a silver set was made to celebrate the marriage of charles II to catherine of Braganza in May 1662. they featured a crown and two hearts, and were an early example of commemorative royal marketing.
the earliest reference to cufflinks is more than 100 years later in the Birmingham Gazette in 1788, referring to link buttons. In the late 18th century, mass-produced men’s jewellery became available.
the earliest use of the term cufflink cited in the Oxford English Dictionary comes from the 1897 Sears, roebuck & co catalogue. the shift in terminology seems to have coincided with the invention of new styles such as asymmetrical links connected by a rigid bar or flip hinge, which were easier to insert through the fashionable starched cuffs.
Helen Wilson, London N13.
QUESTION
Did Neville Chamberlain ever regret signing the Munich Agreement? APPEASEMENt was Neville chamberlain’s policy in the thirties, letting hitler expand German territory in return for peace. Now widely discredited as a policy of weakness, at the time it was popular and seen as pragmatic.
hitler’s expansionist aims had become clear in 1936 when his forces entered the rhineland. two years later, in March 1938, he annexed Austria. At the Munich conference in September that year, chamberlain seemed to have averted war by agreeing that Germany could occupy the Sudetenland, the Germanspeaking part of czechoslovakia.
chamberlain notoriously returned home waving the Munich Agreement and declaring: ‘Peace for our time!’
In Britain, the agreement was greeted with jubilation and chamberlain was viewed as a hero of the Empire. the folly of this policy became evident with the invasion of Poland in September 1939.
‘We have done all that any country could do to establish peace. the situation in which no word given by Germany’s ruler could be trusted and no people or country could feel itself safe has become intolerable,’ he said.
Later he explained: ‘So far as my personal reputation is concerned, I am not in the least disturbed about it. the letters which I am still receiving in such vast quantities so unanimously dwell on the same point, namely without Munich the war would have been lost and the Empire destroyed in 1938.
‘I do not feel the opposite view...has a chance of survival. Even if nothing further were to be published giving the true inside story of the past two years I should not fear the historians’ verdict.’
however, this proved far less favourable than he hoped, not least because one of the pre-eminent historians of the era was Winston churchill. he was one of the few to vocally oppose appeasement, which he considered ‘an unmitigated disaster’.
Fourteen months after war was declared, chamberlain died on November 9, 1940, aged 71.