Life's but a chain reaction

There is this theory “The butterfly effect”, an idea that small things can have non-linear impacts on a complex system. The concept is imagined with a butterfly flapping its wings in Asia and causing a typhoon in South America. Small events can serve as catalysts that act on starting conditions. The butterfly effect is sometimes referenced metaphorically to describe how seemingly small actions or events can have larger consequences on one’s life.

“It used to be thought that the events that changed the world were things like big bombs, maniac politicians, huge earthquakes, or vast population movements, but it has now been realized that this is a very old-fashioned view held by people totally out of touch with modern thought. The things that change the world, according to Chaos theory, are the tiny things. A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle, and subsequently a storm ravages half of Europe.” From Good Omens, an amazing book by Neil Gaiman that I still have to finish but I can tell you that it is super good.

A tiny almost insignificant detail can cause a whole chain of events to happen. The world is unpredictable like that, same with cultures I believe. A tiny detail can alter the whole way of life of some people. Just look at colonization and how decisions made by some nobility of Europe has changed the course of history for the rest of the world. Or a funny example would be the villain origin story of Hitler. “The Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna rejected Adolf Hitler’s application, twice. In the early 1900s, a young Hitler applied for art school and was rejected, possibly by a Jewish professor. By his own estimation and that of scholars, this rejection went on to shape his metamorphosis from an aspiring bohemian artist into the human manifestation of evil. We can only speculate as to how history would have been different. But it is safe to assume that a great deal of tragedy could have been avoided if Hitler had applied himself to watercolours, not to genocide.” If only he had not been rejected from art school.

In history it has been proven that people could never stay still, we have this curiosity that inspires us to find out what is beyond the horizon, what is on the other side of the ocean(am I indirectly quoting Moana?) and copying from each other. That is the reason why a lot of people in Rwanda enjoy a good cup of Chai(icyayi- its Rwandanized name) on a cold day, a drink that originates from China that in its time reached South Asia due to the silk road trade, making its way to Africa after due to the Indian Ocean trade on the Swahili coast, eventually finding its way to Rwanda and becoming one of those staples in Rwandan culture. Also, a lot of words we use in Kinyarwanda are borrowed from the Swahili language, a language that was born from the fusion of Bantu languages and Arabic.

Maybe it could be from my background where I kind of got used to having a culture that has been mixed with other cultures, and being plainly aware of it that I got to a conclusion that it is almost impossible for cultures to be isolated from others. There will always be a tiny thing borrowed from someone else, and that tiny detail could inspire a whole other subculture that eventually develops into a whole other culture or is integrated. A hybrid culture of some kind.

All this throwing around of words is because I LEARNED SOMETHING INTERESTING.

Let’s start with a backstory. At a certain point in history, Japan chose to close itself off from the world to limit Western influence, especially Christianity. Trade was cut off except for a few Dutch ships that were allowed in once in a while for trade. This isolation lasted 200 years from 1603 to 1867. This was to allow society to reform in a way as a lot of wars had been going on but it was also a great time for Japanese art to flourish as there was an economic boom in Japan. Ukiyo-e, literally meaning “Pictures of the Floating World," were Japanese wood prints that became super popular in Japan because from one woodblock printer you could obtain an endless amount of copies having almost the same quality as the first. But even though Japan was closed off, those few dutch ships left something from their world behind. Some of their prints somehow were introduced in Japan and they gained a lot of admirers, and one of the things admired in the prints was the linear perspective.

Linear perspective is a way of creating an illusion of depth on a flat surface, it kind of guides the eye of the viewer to the centre of the painting. It organizes the frame, making it seem like it’s happening in a real space, trying to create a 3D image on a 2D piece of paper. Linear perspective was born in Europe, the first recorded attempt to use linear perspective was made by Filippo Brunelleschi, father of Italian Renaissance architecture. Japanese art normally did not seek to create this depth, instead, they aimed to create a panoramic view of the scene without a single fixed perspective.

But with the introduction of the western perspective, new prints with a linear perspective started being produced all this lead to the creation of one of the most recognizable artworks of our times; “The great wave off Kanagawa” by Katsushika Hokusai. Hokusai’s print displays an influence of Dutch art. From the Dutch artworks, he became interested in linear perspective and in his way created a Japanese variant of the linear perspective. The influence of Dutch art can also be seen in the use of a low horizon line and the distinctive European colour, Prussian blue. At the 1867 International Exposition in Paris, Hokusai’s work was on view at the Japanese pavilion. This was the first introduction of Japanese culture to mass audiences in the West, and a craze for collecting art called Japonisme ensued.

The great wave off Kanagawa; Instead of deploying the traditional bird's eye perspective used in Japanese prints, as he had in earlier sketches of waves, uses mathematical perspective - in which objects that are further away are shown as smaller - to create a sense of depth in the image and puts the viewer "inside" the scene.

I promise I will start to make sense in a while, I got a bit off track but that is because this is kind of interesting. Anyways Japonisme is a term that refers to the influence of Japanese art in the West. From the 1860’s Japanese prints had become so popular in the West that they inspired whole new styles of art. Artists were infatuated with Japanese woodblock prints – in 1880, the French novelist Emile Zola observed that any artist worth his salt studied Japanese prints, “which everyone has nowadays”. Indeed, some artists, including Claude Monet and James McNeill Whistler, had been collecting so-called ‘ukiyo-e’ (pictures of the floating world) prints for years. Already by 1872, the French term ‘Japonisme’ had been coined, to describe the influence of Japanese art and design on Western culture, especially the visual arts. Then comes Vincent Van Gogh, a name that rings a bell to many, even those who are not interested in art. “Starry Night” is one of those paintings that you’ve probably seen somewhere at least once in your life, on a mug, on a T-shirt, in a movie idk but it is very recognisable as an image. “Starry Night” was actually born of Japanese influence(see I told you that I would start to make sense in a while).

Van Gogh was fascinated by Japan through the artworks that he had seen. He started seeing with what he called a "Japanese eye" and went to the South of France where he felt the vibrancy of the colours was the same as that of Japan. “After some time your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel colour differently. I’m also convinced that it’s precisely through a long stay here that I’ll bring out my personality.”

According to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, “It was the sun that Van Gogh sought in Provence, a brilliance and light that would wash out detail and simplify forms, reducing the world around him to the sort of pattern he admired in Japanese woodblocks. Arles, he said, was “the Japan of the South”. Here, he felt, the flattening effect of the sun would strengthen the outlines of compositions and reduce nuances of colour to a few vivid contrasts. It becomes clear that Japan held magical, mystical significance for him. In his imagination, the Land of the Rising Sun was a fountainhead of grace and well-being, a blessed utopia. Safe to say that if Van Gogh would have been alive now he would have been a weeb, just saying.

Almond Tree byVincent Van Gogh; one of his works presented to show how Japonisme was changing his work.

Van Gogh began experimenting with aspects of them in his own paintings, including the use of bright, flat colours and strong diagonals, close-up and bird’s-eye views, unconventional cropping, the omission of the horizon, and the isolation of prominent objects, such as large cut-off tree trunks, in the foreground. Inspired by the natural world, he painted flowers, including, on several memorable occasions, irises – comparing one of these springtime views to “a Japanese dream”.

Back to starry night, it has been argued that it was a direct inspiration of the “The great wave off Kanagawa”. I can not confirm this but what if though? But anyways whether he took inspiration from Hokusai or not that is not the point(even though he directly mentioned him), the point is how these two great artists interconnect in history. The isolation of Japan could not stop the exchange of ideas and cultures.

Starry night

I find that interesting.

It is all a chain reaction; linear perspective influenced Hokusai who then created a masterpiece that will be a source of inspiration for many western artists once exhibited in Paris in the 1800s. Van Gogh becomes fascinated by Japanese prints, directly mentioning Hokusai who then went on to incorporate this new acquired “Japanese eye” into his art. His art will go on to influence countless modern artists especially for his use of bright colours.

So is there a possible scenario in which culture; and by culture, I mean the way of living of people, their customs, traditions, art, food…, can develop without being inspired/borrowing/taking from other cultures? I was thinking about this because of all the gatekeeping(the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something) of culture that seems to be going on. Everyone is being cancelled on the internet for not sticking to their own culture, (I just remembered that one song from High school Musical: no, no, no, stick to the stuff you know, it’s very fitting) which to me is almost impossible. I do agree that some people are assholes about this cultural exchange thing and not giving the credit where it is due and that is another whole argument on being an asshole. Anyways as long as there are no bad intentions and credit is given I think we should not be gatekeeping culture.

Somehow I believe that it is almost impossible for cultures to develop in isolation without integrating something in their way of living that they have taken from other cultures. PERSONALLY, I think that it is somehow inevitable especially in today’s world, we just know a lot about each other that sometimes we can not help but find things from the other part of the world cool and interesting. Cultures develop randomly in an unpredictable way and interaction is inevitable. If only we could find a way to be respectful and participate in other cultures with no bad intentions life would be all rosy, wouldn’t it?

What do you think?

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://www.artsy.net/gene/ukiyo-e Japanese woodblock prints

https://www.invaluable.com/blog/understanding-linear-perspective-in-art/ Perspective in art

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180611-van-gogh-and-japan-the-prints-that-shaped-the-artist Van Gogh and the Japanese prints