Paintings of Japanese art

History by the early modern period

In the history of Japanes painting, it was around the time of the Heian period when its own features came out. Until then, most of the paintings showed the people at the time or the dogma of Buddhism. 

The colored wall paintings of Takamatudzuka Kofun tell us the figure of the noble women in Asuka Period.

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The culture of Asuka Period and Hakuho Period in Japan

What's Asuka Period? The term of ancient Asuka Period began in 592 and ended in 710. "Asuka" is the southern area of Nara Prefecture. In this period, Buddhism was the most essencial things of the culture. With Buddha statue, the religion had  already came to Japan in the middle of 6th. And two powerful family, Soga clan（蘇我氏） and Mononobe clan（物部氏） fought with each other whether accepting it or not.  Shotoku Taishi   Shotoku Taishi（聖徳太...

And “Kako Genzai Einga-kyo” painted in Nara Period cut the history of the scroll paintings and dipcted the ancient Buddhism.

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Japanese culture of Nara Period. The Tenpyo Culture

Nara Period and the ancient capital, Heijo-kyo What is Nara PeriodIn 710, the capital in Asuka Period was moved to Nara. It was the end of Asuka Period and the start of the completely different time. The new capital was named as Heijo-kyo(平城京). And the leaders at that time planned to imitate the regime of China. So they made Heijo-kyo resembled Chang'an.  The scene of the suburbs of Nara City In 630, the Japanese Imperial Court sent an envoy to Tang Dynasty China before...

After that the paintings in Japan started on a a full scale, the birth of “Yamato-e（大和絵）”. Yamato means Japan in ancient time.  One of the technique of “Yamato-e” is drawn by stacking to top up distant things in the same size. So it has been said that the Japanese hanging scrolls are vertical.

Heian and Kamakura Period

But in late 10th century, a horizontal world also appeared in Japanese painting.  “picture scroll/Emaki-mono（絵巻物）”, which composes Yamato-e and document, unfolds from the right to the left on a long screen.

Due to the rise of Zen, introduced from China,” ink painting/suiboku-ga（水墨画）” became popular in Muromachi Period. Ink painting often has been thought of as painters depicted a scene actually they seen. But Japanese artist hadn’t practiced sketching as basic of painting until modern time.

In Azuchi-Momoyama period, popular painters, including Kano Eitoku（狩野永徳） and Hasegawa Tohaku（長谷川等伯）, drew “sliding door paintings/Husuma-e（襖絵）” and “folding screen picture/Byoubu-e（屏風絵）” for daimyos.

The castle tower is a symbol of the castle, representing the character of the owner. Kano Eitoku was entrusted with  paintings to use for the castle tower by Nobunaga Oda and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. They were the most powerful in Japan at that time. 

Kano school also had succeeded in early Edo-Perido. And Rinpa school had showed up as their rivals. Tawaraya Soutatsu was founder of Rimpa school. After his death, Ogata Korin widen his apeal from paintings to art crafts.

And people could became enjoy paintings for the first time in Edo-Period. Paintings had been always intended for those in power.

But the marchants introduced a woodprint and started a publishing business. “Woodblock print/ukiyo-e（浮世絵）” was widely familiar to people and had an impact on Western art. Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Hiroshige and Kitagawa Utawamaro are very famous around the world.

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"Ukiyo-e" - Japanese woodblock printing: famous artists, history and genre

What is a "ukiyo-e"? An introduction to Japanese woodblock prints"Ukiyo-e"（浮世絵）  is essential field in Japanese art . It is said that the beginning of the ukiyo-e, the Japanese art of woodblock printings, is the pictures of Kyoto people's living in late 16th century. After that, the themes of ukiyoe expanded to popular kabuki actors, beautiful women and landscapes. "ukiyo"（浮世） means contemporary with hedonisitic and fleeting idea, so ukiyo-e transl...