A to Z of Landscapes: Japan

In my alphabet of landscape painting, J must stand for Japan and its landscape painting, which evolved separately from European art until the late nineteenth century. Prior to that, painting in Japan had changed only slowly over the four centuries from the Kanō school of the late Muromachi period in the 1400s.

Kanō Masanobu (狩野 正信), Zhou Maoshu Appreciating Lotuses (周茂叔愛蓮図 (しゅうもしゅくあいれんず)) (Muromachi, 1400s), ink and light colour on paper, 84.5 × 33 cm, Kyushu National Museum, Dazaifu, Japan. Wikimedia Commons.

By that time, painting had moved out of the monasteries, and Kanō Masanobu (c 1434-1530) founded his school, which was to remain dominant until the Meiji period. His Zhou Maoshu Appreciating Lotuses is typical of what many people would consider to be classical Japanese painting.

From 1543 until 1638, when European traders were active and spread elements of Western art and culture in Japan, oil paints were introduced and European styles were adopted by some Japanese painters. But following the unsuccessful Christian-led rebellion against the Tokugawa shogunate in 1638, the country was largely isolated, apart from a single point of contact in Nagasaki where Dutch traders were still tolerated.

Then in 1853, a fleet of American ships appeared in Tokyo Bay, and within a few years Japan was opening up to Western influence. The Tokugawa dynasty gave way to the Meiji period in 1868, and with it the Japanese government drove increasing Westernisation in trade, sciences, culture, and arts. The Italian painter Antonio Fontanesi (1818-82) was appointed to bring Western drawing and painting to Japan. These artists are termed yōga, and contrasted with those who maintained more traditional techniques, the nihonga.

Paradoxically, nihonga art also enjoyed government sponsorship, and the active support of the American art historian Ernest F Fenollosa (1853-1908), who helped found the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. An enthusiast for traditional Japanese art, Fenollosa was a major influence on Western appreciation of Japanese art, and was at least partly responsible for the suppression of yōga painting in the West and the enduring popularity of Ukiyo-e prints, so popular among the French Impressionists.

Hidaka Tetsuō, Snowy Landscape (Meiji, 1869), ink on silk, dimensions not known, Honolulu Museum of Art. Wikimedia Commons.

Although the Meiji marked great change, traditional painting didn’t disappear: more conservative painters such as Hidaka Tetsuō retained much older style in works such as Snowy Landscape (Meiji, 1869).

Hagura Katei, Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden (Meji, 1882), ink and light color on silk, dimensions not known, Honolulu Museum of Art. Wikimedia Commons.

Hagura Katei’s Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden (Meji, 1882) is another example of this late flowering of what remains in essence the Kanō school from the late 1400s. At this time in Europe, Impressionism was at its height.

Takahashi Yuichi (高橋由一) (1828-1894), Shinobazu Pond (不忍池) (c 1880), other details not known, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan. Wikimeda Commons.

This painting of Shinobazu Pond from about 1880, already an established motif in ranga, shows the meticulous realism of Takahashi Yuichi at its best.

Asai Chū (浅井 忠) (1856-1907), Vegetable Garden in Spring (1889), oil on canvas, 84 x 102.5 cm, Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo. Wikimedia Commons.

Asai Chū’s early work, such as Vegetable Garden in Spring (1889), shows Fontanesi’s influence in being in Barbizon (or Macchiaioli) style; this became known as the ‘Northern School’ or yani, meaning resin, from the darker glazing used. He founded the first group of yōga painters, and was appointed professor at the forerunner of the Tokyo University of the Arts. Then in 1900 he went to Paris for two years to study Impressionist techniques.

Asai Chū (浅井 忠) (1856-1907), Washing Place in Grez-sur-Loing (1901), oil on canvas, 33.3 x 45.5 cm, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo. Wikimedia Commons.

When in France, he lived in the artists’ colony at Grez-sur-Loing, south of Paris, as had Kuroda Seiki ten years earlier. When there he painted Washing Place in Grez-sur-Loing (1901) above, and Bridge in Grez-sur-Loing (1902), below.

Asai Chū (浅井 忠) (1856-1907), Bridge in Grez-sur-Loing (1902), watercolour on paper, 28.4 x 43.5 cm, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo. Wikimedia Commons.
Kuroda Seiki (黒田 清輝) (1866–1924), Sunny Day (1897), oil on canvas, 50.2 x 61 cm, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya. Wikimedia Commons.

Viscount Kuroda Seiki was the son of a samurai in Kagoshima (in the far south-west of Japan), moved to Tokyo, where he first learned English, then switched to French. He went to Paris in 1884 to study law, being supported by his brother-in-law, a member of the Japanese diplomatic mission in France. However, after two years there he changed to study painting in the atelier of Raphael Collin, where he met Kume Keiichirō, also a student of Collin’s; together they explored plein air painting. In 1890 he moved to the artists’ colony at Grez-sur-Loing, south of Paris.

Kume Keiichirō (久米 桂一郎) (1866-1934), An Island, Bréhat (1891), oil, 41 x 62 cm, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. By Daderot, via Wikimedia Commons.

Kume Keiichirō was born in Saga (then known as Hizen) in the far west of Japan, and went to Paris, where he studied in the atelier of Raphael Collin alongside Kuroda Seiki, and in the Académie Colarossi. He spent periods painting in Barcelona and Île-de-Bréhat before returning to Japan in 1893. There he worked with Kuroda and the Hakubakai to modernise Japanese painting, and was appointed a professor in Kuroda’s new department in Tokyo.

More traditional painting, or nihonga, didn’t die out.

Gyoshu Hayami (速水 御舟) (1894-1935), Village in Shugakuin (1918), ink and color on silk, 132 x 97 cm, Shiga Museum of Modern Art. Wikimedia Commons.

Gyoshu Hayami was apprenticed in traditional painting techniques at the age of 15, and his talent was quickly recognised. He became a founding member of the Japan Fine Arts Academy, which was restricted to nihonga style. Village in Shugakuin (1918) shows his skills working in traditional ink and colour on silk.

Hirafuku Hyakusui (1877-1933), Haruyama (1933), other details not known, Akita Museum of Modern Art, Yokote, Akita, Japan. Wikimedia Commons.

Hirafuku Hyakusui, the son of a nihonga painter, trained at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, where he retained that style, even to the end of his career in Haruyama (1933).

Tragically, while you’ll find an abundance of European paintings in collections in Japan, precious few Japanese landscapes have made it into Western galleries.