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Different Japanese Arts : PAINTING A wide range of styles characterizes Japanese painting. The formats vary from horizontal and hanging scrolls to album leaves, fans, walls and freestanding and sliding screens. Japanese painting has been dominated by two components, continental and indigenous, in the development of style and technique. History : Until the 19th century China was the principal source of innovation and a major influence. The origins of Japanese paintings can be found in the simple stick figures that were found on the bells and murals of the Yayoi period and in the geometrical figures found in the inner walls of Kofun period. With the introduction of Buddhism and Buddhist culture from Korea and China in the 6th century, painting began to flourish as the production of Buddhist Arts.
After the 10th century, the influence of Pure Land Buddhism became increasingly apparent in painting. An important new genre was the 'raigozu', a depiction of the Buddha Amida arriving to welcome the dying to paradise. By the mid-Heian period, Chinese modes of painting (kara-e) had begun to give way to a distinctly indigenous style known as yamato-e which had paintings on sliding and folding screens, the album leaf (soshi) and the illuminated handscroll (emakimono). During the 14th century, scroll paintings and ink paintings took hold in the great Zen monasteries of Kamakura and Kyoto. The styles of the Chinese monk-painters Muqi (J: Mokkei; fl ca 1250) and Liang Kai (1140? -1210?) were particularly influential. By the end of the 14th century, a monochrome landscape-painting genre had emerged as the preferred medium among Zen painters and their Ashikaga family patrons in Kyoto. During the 15th century, Tensho Shubun (d ca 1460) and Sesshu Toyo (1420-1506) developed the Chinese-inspired monochrome landscape style into a fully Japanese format. In the last years of Ashikage rule, a new genre of ink painting was developed by artists of the Ami School and the Kano School, largely outside the Zen community. Although Chinese styles and themes remained their model, Kano school artists introduced a more decorative and plastic sensibility that would come to dominate the landscape painting of the succeeding centuries. The Kano school dominated painting in the 16th century too. They developed grandiose polychromed style for screen and wall painting. Painters of the Tosa School developed another genre, one belonging to the yamato-e tradition. The yamato-e tradition also gave rise to the decorative painters of the group called Rimpa. The principal artists of this school were Tawaraya Sotatsu and themes presenting them in a new, boldly decorative format, have come to symbolize the lavish tastes of Edo (now Tokyo) society in the 17th and 18th centuries. Fuzokuga, or genre paintings, became popular in the late 16th century and gave rise to ukiyo-e, "paintings of the floating world," which captured the transient experiences of the pleasure quarters of Edo and other urban centers. The woodblock print as a significant Edo-period medium emerged out of this tradition. The Edo period was one of eclecticism in painting. The influence of European painting was increasingly apparent. The works of these painters show a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, and Western element and often evidence a heightened concern with naturalistic depiction. Another major trend in late Edo period painting was that of bunjinga, "literati painting," whose artists took their inspiration from a tradition of Chinese scholar-amateur painters. Modern Painting During the Meiji period (1868-1912), political and social change was effected in the course of a modernization campaign by the new government. Though western style was promoted officially, the initial burst of enthusiasm for western art soon yielded to renewed appreciation for traditional Japanese art. Japanese-style painting (nihonga) rose to prominence as its conservative advocates gained control of art institutions. By the 1880s, Western-style painters were barred from exhibitions and widely criticized. Confronted by the resurgence of traditionalism, Western-style painters formed the Meiji Bijutsukai (Meiji Fine Arts Society) and began to hold their own exhibitions. Prominent among these painters was Kuroda Seiki (1866-1924), who introduced pleinairism and established the influential White Horse Society (Hakubakai). The Taisho period saw burgeoning Western influence in the arts. After long stays in Europe, the painters Yamashita Shintaro (1881-1966), Saito Yori (1885-1959), and Arishima Ikuma (1882-1974) introduced impressionism and early features of the post-impressionist movement to Japan. Yasui Sotaro (1888-1955) and Umehara Ryuzaburo (1888-1986), whose careers would span the modern period, returned to promote the styles of Camille Pissarro, Paul Cezanne, and Pierre Auguste Renoir. The eclecticism that informed Taisho period painting came as a direct result of the rapid infusion of the full range of contemporary European styles. Although on a limited scale, Japanese-style painting too was affected by European styles, especially neoclassicism and later, postimpressionism. Modernizing trends first appeared among second-generation nihonga members of the Japan Fine Arts Academy, who while emphasizing yamato-e traditions embraced certain features of post-impressionism. In the Showa Period (1926-1989), the painters Yasui Sotaro and Umehara Ryuzaburo stood at the forefront of pre-World War II Showa painting. In recognition of their importance, the period 1925-40 is termed the "Yasui-Umehara era." While incorporating notions of pure art and abstraction, both succeeded in surmounting the here-to-fore largely derivative character of Western-style painting in Japan. Umehara in particular brought aspects of the nihonga tradition to his work and launched Western-style painting on a more interpretative path. However, neither artist completely dominated Western-style painting of the 1930s. A far more international contemporary of Yasui and Umehara was Fujita Tsuguharu (also known as Fujita Tsuguji, Leonard Foujita; 1886-1968). The Nika Society widened its sphere of influence by absorbing surrealism and abstractionism, and the essentially fauvist Dokuritsu Bijutsu Kyokai (Independent Art Association) was formed in 1931. Prominent painters' circles formed during the late Taisho and early Showa periods, such as the Nika Society, weathered the war years to emerge as leading interests among painters today. Today Japanese artists are active members of a worldwide artistic community. By the 1960s, avant-garde notions of art had been embraced, and an internationalization of Japanese art followed. Postwar trends in the West have been taken up rapidly in Japan, from the abstract expressionism of the 1950s to later developments such as the antiart movement, assemblage, pop and op art, primary structure, minimal art, and kinetic art. After a largely derivative past, modern Japanese painters have emerged as significant contributors to international movements in art.
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