From Edouard Manet's portrait of science writer Emile Zola sitting among his Japanese art finds, to Van Gogh's meticulous copies of the Hiroshige prints he devotedly collected, the 19th-century pioneers of European modernism made no secret of their love of Japanese art . In all its sensuality, freedom, and exuberance, the woodblock print is single-handedly credited with the wave that first excited France and later all of Europe—but often remains misunderstood as an "exotic" artifact that helped inspire Western creativity. The fact is that the Japanese woodblock print is a phenomenon for which there is no Western equivalent.

Edition: 40.
Written by Andreas Marks.