Contaminazioni giapponesi : arti figurative, teatro e poesia fra 19. e 20. secolo

At the end of the nineteenth century many Western artists were fascinated and influenced by Oriental and, in particular, by Japanese art. That tendency, called Japonisme, began with the Universal Exposition of London in 1851, where Chinese and Japanese art was introduced with great success. Japonisme spread easily across West, charming it. It extended soon to literature, poetry and theatre. American and European artists found in Oriental art, culture and tradition a suitable means for the renewal of their artistic expression. Why Western art was not suitable to outline its expressions anymore? Why artists felt the need to find their renewal of the forms in Japan’s traditions? This is what my research is about. Through the literary, poetic and theatrical productions of Ernest Fenollosa, Ezra Pound and William Butler Yeats, I intend to draw a critical path paying attention to the cultural, theoretical and textual reasons. They devoted their artistic life to the search for a renewal of the contemporary poetic form by means of the discovery of Oriental and mainly Japanese culture