The Japan Art Institute [Nihon Bijutsuin 日本美術院]
The Japan Art Institute was a Japanese art institute focused on the teaching, research, and exhibition of Nihonga-style art, established by Okakura Tenshin in 1898.…
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Nikakai [Society of Progressive Japanese Artists] [二科会] (1914--)
The Nikakai, or Second Section Association, was established in 1914 as a reaction to the Japanese government-sponsored exhibition known as the Bunten. The motivation behind…
Japanese-Korean Artistic Exchange (20th Century)
Japan was the most active among the East Asian countries in embracing Western civilization during the late 19th century. At the same time, the 500-year-old…
Japonisme
The term Japonisme refers to the reception of Japanese art products and stylistic forms in Europe and the United States beginning in the second half…
Yōga [洋画]
The term Yōga is used in Japan to refer to Western-style art. It is often used to specifically denote oil paintings but more widely can…
Yokoyama, Taikan [横山大観] (1868–1958)
The name Yokoyama Taikan is synonymous with Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) and the Japan Art Institute [Nihon Bijutsuin, 日本美術院]. Taikan was among the first batch of…
Takamura, Kôtarô (高村光太郎) (1883–1956)
Takamura Kôtarô was a sculptor, poet, and essayist associated with several important modern Japanese art and literature movements, including the Folk Art (Mingei) and White…
War Art in Japan
Under Japan’s totalitarian state during World War II, most Japanese artists participated in the war effort. Their activities included producing works commissioned by the state,…
Murayama, Tomoyoshi (1901–1977)
Tomoyoshi Murayama was a multi-disciplinary Japanese artist associated with the interwar avant-garde and leftwing theater movements. After briefly attending Tokyo Imperial University, Murayama moved to…
Matsumoto, Shunsuke (松本竣介, 1912–1949)
Matsumoto Shunsuke was an oil painter and essayist active in the years up to and through the Pacific War. His best-known paintings, most of which…
Impressionism (Painting)
Impressionism is an artistic movement that flourished in France between 1860 and 1890. The term has been widely adopted around the world to describe artistic…
Cubism
Cubism is an influential modernist art movement that emerged in Paris during the first decade of the twentieth century. The term was established by Parisian…
Surrealism Overview
Soupault’s publication of Manifeste du Surréalism in 1924. Rising in the wake of the First World War, Surrealism revolted against a world that had become…
Abstract Expressionism
Abstract Expressionism was a movement initiated by a group of loosely affiliated artists that came together during the early 1940s, primarily in New York City.…
Atsuko, Tanaka (1932–2005)
Born on the February 10, 1932 in Osaka, Japan, Atsuko Tanaka was a leading figure in Gutai, an avante-garde artists’ movement which counted more women…
Kawabata, Ryûshi (川端龍子) (1885–1966)
Kawabata Ryûshi was one of few artists who were adept at both Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) and Yôga (Western-style painting). Originally trained in the latter, Ryûshi’s…
Hasegawa, Saburô (長谷川三郎) (1906–1957)
Hasegawa Saburô was a Japanese writer, art historian, and abstract painter. Born in Yamaguchi prefecture, as a youth he trained under the oil painter Koide…
Pan no Kai (active 1908–1912)
Pan no Kai, or Pan Society, was a group of writers, poets, artists, and actors active in Tokyo from 1908 to around 1912. It was…
Nihonga
Nihonga refers to Japanese-style painting that uses mineral pigments, and occasionally ink, together with other organic pigments on silk or paper. It was a term…
Tenshin, Okakura (1863–1913)
Okakura Tenshin, also known as Okakura Kakuzô, was a Japanese scholar and writer whose major works include The Ideals of the East with Special Reference…
Hijikata Tatsumi (1928–1986)
Hijikata Tatsumi is considered to be the founder of butoh, though titles such as instigator or ringmaster may be more appropriate. Hijikata premiered his first…
Gutai
Gutai Art Association [Gutai Bijutsu Kyōkai] [具体美術協会] was an influential post-World War II Japanese avant-garde collective with an outward-looking mindset. Founded in 1954 in Ashiya,…
Shinnanga
Shinnanga [新南画], or “neo-nanga,” is a term that came into use during the Taisho period (1912–1926) to describe new interpretations of literati-style painting by Japanese…
Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886-1965)
Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886-1965) was a leading novelist, playwright and theorist of the Taishō and Shōwa eras. Although best known as a novelist, Tanizaki’s plays also…
White Savages Group
The White Savages Group (Baek-man Heo) was founded in 1930 when Kim Yong-jun (1904–1967) published his manifesto “Upon Founding the White Savages Group” in a…