All this love has now culminated in an exhibition, showing at the Hermitage, of members of a resurgent Utagawa Japanese artistic school.
Beautiful original Japanese prints, made on thin rice paper and oil works of a contemporary artistic school led by Mr Tadashi are linked together by Van Gogh's image.
It is believed that the world of Japanese prints was opened for Van Gogh by a Hague prostitute called Siyn, later his partner.
She wrote to Gaugin: "It was me who showed him Japanese prints. Vincent looked on the Ukiyo-e print with such an expression on his face, as if he had been bitten. There was a wooden bridge over the big river, along which several Japanese with umbrellas were walking."
Mr Tadashi believes that it was this picture which made Van Gogh finally realise his destiny as an artist. Van Gogh later painted his "Okhasi Bridge after the rain," surrounding the painting with Japanese characters.
Van Gogh never visited Japan, but is believed to have loved the country. He had nearly 400 Japanese prints in his collection. Four of his own paintings are considered to be influenced by the Japanese Ukiyo-es.
The Utagawa Japanese school of Ukiyo-e prints was one of the most powerful and influential in 19th century, and was popular not only in Japan, but around the world.
More traditional Japanese works, Ukiyo-e prints, are included alongside the modern interpretations.
To produce a Ukiyo-e, the artist carved a wooden model block, printed the image on rice paper, and painted over the print with bright colours.
Several rooms of the Hermitage exhibition are filled with magic prints of Utagawa school. Ukiyo-e means `pictures of quickly passing life' -- beautiful women and picturesque views, actors and city streets, highway bandits, boats, scenes from the lives of royalty and courtiers.
Some of the works consist of several prints -- from three to five. In fact a single Ukiyo-e scene can include 50 or more prints.
The Utagawa school lost its influence at the end of the last century. But about five years ago it was revitalised by Mr Tadashi, who became its head and the author of a new unique style.
About 20 oil works in the current exhibition by artists of the modern Utagawa school attempt to depict Van Gogh's thoughts about Japan, forming a `spiritual' journey by the artist to the country he loved so much.
On one two-dimensional Japanese print, a Van-Gogh-style Van Gogh is peeping through a window into a room, where his brother Theo and friend Gauguin are surrounded by dozens of Japanese woman. Another Van Gogh studies singing and dancing with a Japanese prince's court on the bank of a beautiful lake. In others Van Gogh rides in Japanese boats, disembarks from a Japanese coach, and draws beautiful Japanese woman.
In each case Van Gogh appears in the place of a Japanese figure in careful recreations of original Ukiyo-e prints, which are displayed along-side the new versions.
Also featured in the exhibition are `Japanized' versions of the most well known self-portraits of Van Gogh.