The French term for the Western fashion for Japanese art influenced by ukiyo-e is Japonisme.
Japonisme describes the strong popularity and influence of Japanese art and design in nineteenth-century Western Europe, especially France. Ukiyo-e woodblock prints attracted artists with their vivid color, cropped compositions, flattened perspective, expressive outlines, and views of ordinary life that differed from academic European painting.
The movement gathered force after Japan’s overseas trade expanded in the mid-nineteenth century. Japanese prints and decorative objects appeared in shops, exhibitions, and private collections, while artists such as Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin responded to Japanese visual ideas in different ways.
French art critic and collector Philippe Burty helped popularize the term *Japonisme* in 1872. The word is broader than “Orientalism,” which generally refers to Western depictions of Asian and Middle Eastern subjects, and it is not synonymous with Impressionism, an artistic movement that absorbed some Japanese influence. Cloisonnism, meanwhile, refers to a specific painting style associated with bold outlined areas of color.