日本画

Painting

The evolution of artistic style

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D This Kano school painting, Amusements at Higashiyama in Kyoto (c 1620), shows people enjoying cherry blossom season.

Encompassing a wide range of genres, styles, and techniques, Japanese painting has evolved as a masterful blend of native aesthetics and outside artistic influences.

epic illustrations

Having largely taken its artistic cues from China, Japanese painting began developing its own unique style with the start of the Heian era in 794. The movement of Japan’s capital from Nara to present-day Kyoto unleashed a flourishing of creativity, out of which emerged a new type of painting known as emaki—narrative picture scrolls depicting legends, historical tales, and romances. One of the richest styles of emaki was yamato-e, characterized by its stylized figures, floating clouds of color, and innovative aerial interior views.

monochromatic simplicity

The 14th century saw the popularization of a more pared-back style in the form of monochromatic ink and wash paintings. Imported from China, the technique was initially used to decorate Zen Buddhist temples—its simplicity and fluid, imperfect nature chimed perfectly with the concept of wabi-sabi. Masters of this style include Sesshu, whose most famous work is the 49-ft- (15-m-) long Sansui Chokan scroll painting of the four seasons, held at the Mori Museum in Hofu (Yamaguchi Prefecture) and Shubun, whose Reading in a Bamboo Grove is on display at the Tokyo National Museum.

kano’s glittering grandeur

From the 15th to 19th centuries, the Kano school of painting was dominant. Brightly colored and stylistically lavish, often incorporating areas of gold or silver leaf, this style blossomed with the rise of the shoguns and their demand for art that was big and grand. The paintings were often on byobu (folding screens) and fusuma (sliding doors)—a beautiful example is the dreamlike Red and White Plum Blossoms by Ogata Korin (1658–1716), held in the collection of the MOA Museum of Art in Atami (Shizuoka Prefecture).

Western Influences

In the late 19th century, traditional styles of Japanese painting were pushed aside in favor of Yoga (Western-style painting). In reaction to these imported styles came the Nihonga movement, which combined traditional painting techniques with more modern subject matter. You can see examples of these distinctive works at the Yamatane Museum of Art in Tokyo.

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D Chogonka Emaki by Kano Sansetsu is in the yamato-e style of scroll painting.

Be More Japan Painting

scroll through art history

The oldest surviving yamato-e are four 12th-century handscrolls of The Tale of Genji. One of the world’s earliest novels, its exquisite illustrations beautifully convey the ambience of court culture of the time. Three of the scrolls are part of the collection of the Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya (Aichi Prefecture), and one is held by Tokyo’s Gotoh Museum.

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