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The Japanese impact on Western art was as immediate and almost as cataclysmic as the influence of the West on Japanese life. After Commodore Perry opened Japan's door to the outside world in 1858—ending 200 years of total isolation—a wealth of visual information from the superb Japanese tradition of printmaking and painting reached the West. It brought with it electrifying new ideas of composition, color, and design.

This book details the substantial impact Japanese woodblock prints had on European visual culture, particularly as it related to French prints. This reference provides an overview of over one hundred European prints that were directly affected by Japanese aesthetics. Work by Manet, Degas, Cassatt, Bonnard, Vuillard, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Gauguin are discussed at length.