Yokoyama Taikan, the Painter of Modern Japan is 150 Years Old
"Gunjo Fuji", around 1917, Taikan Yokoyama, Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art
The current retrospective at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto is celebrating the one hundred and fifty years anniversary of the birth of the prolific painter Taikan Yokoyama, one of the key figures of modern Japanese art, recognised during his lifetime as an artist who subverted the norm and changed opinion.
Having graduated from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, Yokoyama began working under his mentor, the critic Tenshin Okakura at the Academy of Fine Arts with Okakura encouraging his pupils to find ways of representing a general atmosphere. Together the two contributed to the emergence of nihonga, which litteraly means Japanese drawing, a movement which aided the subtle modernisation of traditional painting. Working principally with ink, Yokoyama accorded a particular significance to pigmentation. Lines and forms fade away to allow a harmony of colours and a spirituality within his compositions, giving way to the subtlety of a modern Japan which was emerging.
Important Cultural Property "Metempsychosis" (part), 1923, Taikan Yokoyama, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
"Yozakura", 1929, Taikan Yokoyama, Okura Museum of Art
"Koyo", 1931, Taikan Yokoyama, Adachi Museum of Art
TRENDING
-
The Sources and Secrets of Japanese Tattooing
During their journey through tattooing across the world, the French authors met one of the last tebori masters in Japan.
-
The Portrait of an Island: BULL SUMO
Among the Amami Islands of Kagoshima Prefecture is an island with a long history of bullfighting that’s expected to become a world heritage site.
3:12 -
Les larmes du Levant, the New French Sake Produced as it Should Be
After a trip to Japan, Grégoire Bœuf set himself the challenge of creating a company dedicated to sake in France.
-
Love, Loss, Rebellion, and Solitude
Now Japan-based, French filmmaker and photographer Julien Levy worked previously in New York and Paris for luxury brands such as Chanel, Miu Miu, and Harper’s Bazaar.
-
Paris, Tokyo: Nobuyuki Nakajima
In the last episode in the series Paris, Tokyo, we meet pianist, arranger and composer Nobuyuki Nakajima, who now works in Paris with singer Jane Birkin.
