 Japanese art decisively influenced the art of France, and the art of the West in general during the 19th century.From the 1860s, ukiyo-e, a genre of Japanese wood-block prints and paintings, became a source of inspiration for many European impressionist painters in France and the rest of the West, and eventually for Art Nouveau and Cubism.Artists were especially affected by the lack of perspective and shadow, the flat areas of strong colour, the compositional freedom in placing the subject off-centre, with mostly low diagonal axes to the background.