Girl in white kimono (Geesje Kwak) 1894
Peculiar in Breitner's oeuvre are his paintings of girls in kimono. His kimono paintings are often considered as an example of Dutch Japonism.
In his Hague period Breitner became acquainted with Japanese culture through exhibitions of japanese art, sales of Japanese artefacts and translated Japanese literature.
During the eighties he must have bought several japanese kimonos, a few painted folding screens and some Japanese woodblockprints. As a child of his time he was interested in exotic cultures and made several "exotic" paintings, most of them waterpaintings depicting african people. Only a few small drawings in his sketchbook show Japanese motifs.
In 1893 after a year of serious illness- probably caused by complications of a venereal disase - Breitner started painting girls in kimono. Most of the paintings were based on photographic studies of his model Geesje Kwak (see left) . The kimono paintings contrast sharply with his impressionist views on bustling city life of Amsterdam. They are executed with much eye for detail and refined colours. The paintings are decorative with much attention for colour contrasts and the distribution of planes. Some critics compare these paintings with the work of Johannes Vermeer because of their secluded, intimate and sometimes stilled mood.
It is questionable wether Breitner had a strong fascination with Japan like Vincent van Gogh did. Breitner's correspondence only shows a superficial interest in Japan. With the girls in kimono he did grasp the traditional Japanese male erotic preoccupation with young innocent girls, but most probably unconscious of it. Breitner himself qualified the kimono girls as women in Japanese clothes and not as japanese women. It is more likely that the kimono paintings are related to the series of nudes he painted during the previous years. One could even argue that the nudes to a certain extent are studies for the kimono paintings. In any case conservative Dutch critics censured the 'indecent poses' of the girls in kimono just like they did with the nudes some years before.