FASCINATION WITH THE MODERNIZATION OF JAPAN – REACTIONS OF THE WEST-EUROPEAN PART OF THE SILK ROAD TROUGH THE PRISM OF REVERSIBLE EXOTISME

Abstract

The interruption of Japan's foreign relations, which has lasted since the beginning of the 7th century, was interrupted by the signing of the treaty of Kanagawa and the seizure of power by the emperor Mutsuhito, who called his reign the Meiji period, or „Enlightened rule.” It was during this period that the foundations for modernization of today's sophisticated Japan were laid. Japan begins to open up to the world, but it retains its independence, combining tradition and modernism in all segments. The journey and the exchange of ideas that have inspired many literary works, not only by the French writer Pierre Loti, on whose work this paper is partially based, then artistic ideas and artefacts, aim to explore the author of this paper, which focuses on the presentation of elements of Japanese art and culture at the Exibition Universelle in Paris, 1867.The analytical-comparative method used in this paper shows the remarkable place of Japan in the cross-section that transported silk from the Mediterranean to East Asia, which has become a symbol of the connection between East and West and metaphors for various myths and legends from previous periods, and today the link between western and eastern cultural development models, whose proximity and distance are constantly changing, leaving a strong mark on all societies.