During this time of seeming
Western cultural dominance, European artists took note of the artistic styles of both Africa and Asia. They admired the dramatic, spare style of traditional West African sculpture, wood, and metalwork, as well as the use of color and stylized forms of design found in Japan. Based on those Japanese influences, the Impressionists focused on simple themes in nature, feeling that this type of art liberated them from the rules of classical painting. A new movement of modern art was soon launched, free of traditional constraints.
As Japan was opening up to the industrialization of the West, it was also heavily influenced by the culture of the West. Japanese literature took inspiration from European literature, and writers experimented with Western verse. Architects and artists created large buildings of steel, with Greek columns like those seen in the West, although wooden buildings would continue to predominate throughout the country until their destruction in the Allied firebombings of Japan in World War II.
The industrial age brought higher wages and shorter work hours. These changes gave people new opportunities. The middle class increased, leading to a new focus on the concept of leisure. The field of advertising communicated to the people the sense of needing things. The bicycle, for instance, became the “must-have item” of the 1880s and a vehicle of women's emancipation. Newspapers, theaters, and professional sports all became popular in this new era of leisure and consumption.