Vittorio Pica japoniste: critica militante e collezionismo fra letteratura e arte

This contribution reconsiders Vittorio Pica’s criticism on Japanese art and its consequences in fin-de-siècle artistic taste and cultural debate in Italy. Pica was among the first critics to show a relevant interest in Japanese culture, under the influence of French criticism and especially of the Goncourt brothers. Thanks to primary unpublished sources and a new approach to his writings of literary tradition, this paper intends to recast the trans-medial and inter-medial fortune of Japonisme in Italy, too, and its legacy between the on-going artistic production and contemporary collecting taste, with a special concern for modern painting, decoration and industrial arts.