This article sounds unnecessarily biased. All art has stylistic and thematic influences. Nothing in Van Gogh's experimentation with or usage of Japanese elements looks egregious to me.
> Ultimately, however, the Japan-as-inspiration-narrative collapses under the weight of van Gogh’s staggering range. While many of the portraits from this period incorporate the cropped perspectives and jagged linearity in Japanese woodcuts of aristocrats and courtesans, they just as often borrow heavily from the hyper-individualized, introspective examples of the Dutch Golden Age portraiture of Rembrandt and Vermeer, painters van Gogh had long admired.
Can't read the article at work. But they hosted a exhibit on this subject at Tokyo where I saw some work of his. And this was my impression. It is closer to a "experimentation".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_works_of_Vincent_van_Gog...
https://www.wikiart.org/en/jean-francois-millet/the-sower-18...