Thinking about our interesting lecture about Japan opening under pressure applied by Commodore Perry, I though of a couple of cultural connections that followed. At the 1867 World's Fair in Paris, impressionist artists, such as Van Gogh, were exposed at the Japanese pavilion to Japanese wood block prints. Soon, "Japonism" trends started to appear in Western artists' works. Also, don't forget the Puccini opera "Madame Butterfly" which was based on a book (1898) and was first performed in 1904 in Milan. It tells the tragic story of a Western naval officer breaking the heart of a Japanese young woman, causing her suicide. In 1885, the British Gilbert and Sullivan produced the comic opera "The Mikado". In the United States, the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair found architects Frank Lloyd Wright and the Greene and Greene brothers absorbing Japanese design, which influenced their future styles.
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