The influence of the Japanese in Portugal during the last third of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century: social and artistic contexts

Abstract

With the aim of enriching the study of the discovery of Japan and Japanese art in the Iberian Peninsula, this article presents a first analysis of what happened in Portugal. In it, we have examined the influence that the Japanese country exerted in this territory during the last third of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, an event that took place thanks to a series of milestones and personalities who treasured several collections and works from the Land of the Rising Sun or who, at least, demonstrated its influence. In the awakening of this first rediscovery of the exotic, and specifically of the Japanese, we must appreciate the figures of intellectuals, artists, collectors, politicians or writers, such as Manuel Teixeira Gomes, Camilo Pessanha, João Marcelino Arroyo, Pedro Eugénio Dupiás, Wenceslau de Moraes or Raphael Bordalo Pinheiro, among others. All of them showed, to a greater or lesser extent, a predilection for Japan and its aesthetic traditions.