Japanese art paintings. Contemporary art: Japan

Hokusai, an 18th-century Japanese artist, created a dizzying number artwork. Hokusai worked into old age, invariably asserting that “everything he did before the age of 70 was not worthwhile and not worth attention.”

Perhaps the most famous Japanese artist in the world, he always stood out from his fellow contemporaries for his interest in everyday life. Instead of depicting glamorous geishas and heroic samurai, Hokusai painted workers, fishermen, and urban genre scenes, which were not yet a subject of interest for Japanese art. He also took a European approach to composition.

Here's a short list of key terms to help you navigate Hokusai's work a little.

1 Ukiyo-e are prints and paintings popular in Japan from the 1600s to the 1800s. A movement in Japanese fine art that developed from the Edo period. This term comes from the word "ukyo", which means "changeable world". Uikiye is a hint at the hedonistic joys of the burgeoning merchant class. In this direction, Hokusai is the most famous artist.

Hokusai used at least thirty pseudonyms throughout his life. Despite the fact that the use of pseudonyms was a common practice among Japanese artists of that time, he significantly exceeded other major authors in the number of pseudonyms. Hokusai's pseudonyms are often used to periodize the stages of his work.

2 The Edo period is the time between 1603 and 1868 in Japanese history, then economic growth was noted and new interest to art and culture.

3 Shunrō is the first of Hokusai's aliases.

4 Shunga literally means "picture of spring" and "spring" is Japanese slang for sex. So these are engravings erotic in nature. They were created by the most respected artists, including Hokusai.

5 Surimono. The latest “surimono”, as these custom prints were called, were a huge success. Unlike ukiyo-e prints, which were intended for mass audiences, surimono were rarely sold to the general public.

6 Mount Fuji is a symmetrical mountain that happens to be the tallest in Japan. Over the years, it has inspired many artists and poets, including Hokusai, who published the ukiyo-e series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. This series includes Hokusai's most famous prints.

7 Japaneseism - the lasting influence that Hokusai had on subsequent generations Western artists. Japonism is a style inspired bright colors ukiyo-e prints, lack of perspective and compositional experiments.

Each country has its own heroes of contemporary art, whose names are well-known, whose exhibitions attract crowds of fans and curious people, and whose works are sold to private collections.

In this article we will introduce you to the most popular contemporary artists Japan.

Keiko Tanabe

Born in Kyoto, Keiko won many victories as a child. art competitions, But higher education I didn’t get it in the field of art at all. She worked in the international relations department of the Japanese local government trade organization in Tokyo, a large law firm in San Francisco and at a private consulting firm in San Diego, and traveled extensively. Starting in 2003, she left her job and, having studied the basics of watercolor painting in San Diego, devoted herself exclusively to art.

Ikenaga Yasunari

Japanese artist Ikenaga Yasunari paints portraits modern women in ancient Japanese tradition painting using a Menso brush, mineral pigments, carbon black, ink and linen as a base. Its characters are women of our time, but thanks to Nihonga's style, you get the feeling that they came to us from time immemorial.

Abe Toshiyuki

Abe Toshiyuki is a realist artist who has mastered watercolor technique. Abe can be called an artist-philosopher: he fundamentally does not paint famous landmarks, preferring subjective compositions that reflect internal states the person who is watching them.

Hiroko Sakai

The career of artist Hiroko Sakai began in the early 90s in the city of Fukuoka. After graduating from Seinan Gakuin University and French school Nihon interior design in the field of design and visualization, she founded "Atelier Yume-Tsumugi Ltd." and successfully managed this studio for 5 years. Many of her works decorate hospital lobbies, offices of large corporations and some municipal buildings in Japan. After moving to the United States, Hiroko began painting in oils.

Riusuke Fukahori

Riusuki Fukahori's three-dimensional works resemble holograms. They are done acrylic paint, applied in several layers, and a transparent resin liquid - all this, without excluding traditional methods such as drawing shadows, softening edges, controlling transparency, allows Riusuki to create sculptural paintings and gives the works depth and realism.

Natsuki Otani

Natsuki Otani is a talented Japanese illustrator living and working in England.

Makoto Muramatsu

Makoto Muramatsu chose a win-win theme as the basis for his creativity - he draws cats. His pictures are popular all over the world, especially in the form of puzzles.

Tetsuya Mishima

Most of the paintings by contemporary Japanese artist Mishima are done in oils. She has been painting professionally since the 90s, and has had several solo exhibitions and a large number of collective exhibitions, both Japanese and foreign.

Yayoi Kusama is unlikely to be able to answer what formed the basis of her career as an artist. She is 87 years old, her art is recognized throughout the world. There will soon be major exhibitions of her work in the US and Japan, but she hasn't told the world everything yet. “It’s still on its way. I'm going to create this in the future," Kusama says. She is called the most successful artist in Japan. In addition, she is the most expensive living artist: in 2014, her painting “White No. 28” was sold for $7.1 million.

Kusama lives in Tokyo and has been voluntarily staying in a mental hospital for almost forty years. Once a day she leaves its walls to paint. She gets up at three o'clock in the morning, unable to sleep and wanting to spend her time productively at work. “I'm old now, but I'm still going to create more works and best works. More than I've done in the past. My mind is full of pictures,” she says.

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Yayoi Kusama at an exhibition of his work in London in 1985. Photo: NILS JORGENSEN/REX/Shutterstock

From nine to six, Kusama works in his three-story studio, without getting up from wheelchair. She can walk, but is too weak. A woman works on canvas laid out on tables or fixed to the floor. The studio is full of new paintings, bright works strewn with small specks. The artist calls this "self-silencing" - endless repetition that drowns out the noise in her head.

Before the 2006 Praemium Imperiale art awards in Tokyo. Photo: Sutton-Hibbert/REX/Shutterstock

Across the street will open soon new gallery, and another museum of her art is being built north of Tokyo. In addition, two major exhibitions of her work are opening. “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors,” a retrospective of her 65-year career, opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington on February 23 and runs through May 14, before traveling to Seattle, Los Angeles, Toronto and Cleveland. The exhibition includes 60 paintings by Kusama.

Her polka dots cover everything from Louis Vuitton dresses to buses in her hometown. Kusama's work regularly sells for millions of dollars and can be found all over the world, from New York to Amsterdam. Exhibitions of the Japanese artist's works are so popular that measures are required to prevent crowds and riots. For example, in the Hirshhorn, tickets to the exhibition are sold at certain time in order to somehow regulate the flow of visitors.

Presentation of the joint design of Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama in New York in 2012. Photo: Billy Farrell Agency/REX/Shutterstock

But Kusama still needs outside approval. When asked in an interview whether she had achieved her goal of becoming rich and famous decades ago, she said in surprise: “When I was little, I had a very hard time convincing my mother that I wanted to become an artist. Is it really true that I'm rich and famous?

Kusama was born in Matsumoto, in the mountains of central Japan, in 1929 into a wealthy and conservative family that sold seedlings. But it wasn't happy House. Her mother despised her cheating husband and sent little Kusama to spy on him. The girl saw her father with other women, and this gave her a lifelong aversion to sex.

Louis Vuitton boutique window designed by Kusama in 2012. Photo: Joe Schildhorn/BFA/REX/Shutterstock

As a child, she began experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations. The first time she saw the pumpkin, she imagined that it was talking to her. The future artist coped with the visions by creating repeating patterns to drown out the thoughts in her head. Even at such a young age, art became a kind of therapy for her, which she would later call “art medicine.”

Work by Yayoi Kusama on display at the Whitney Museum of Contemporary Art in 2012. Photo: Billy Farrell Agency/REX/Shutterstock

Kusama's mother was strongly opposed to her daughter's desire to become an artist and insisted that the girl follow the traditional path. “She wouldn’t let me draw. She wanted me to get married,” the artist said in an interview. - She threw away my work. I wanted to throw myself under a train. Every day I fought with my mother, and therefore my mind was damaged.”

In 1948, after the end of the war, Kusama went to Kyoto to study traditional Japanese nihonga painting. strict rules. She hated this type of art.

One of the exhibits from the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Contemporary Art in 2012. Photo: Billy Farrell Agency/REX/Shutterstock

When Kusama lived in Matsumoto, she found a book by Georgia O'Keeffe and was amazed by its paintings. The girl went to the American embassy in Tokyo to find an article about O’Keefe in the directory there and find out her address. Kusama wrote her a letter and sent her some drawings, and to her surprise, the American artist replied to her.

“I couldn’t believe my luck! She was so kind that she responded to the sudden outburst of feelings from the modest Japanese girls, whom she had never met in her life or even heard of,” the artist wrote in her autobiography “Infinity Net.”

Yayoi Kusama in her Louis Vuitton boutique window display in New York in 2012. Photo: Nils Jorgensen/REX/Shutterstock

Despite O'Keeffe's warnings that life was very difficult for young artists in the United States, not to mention single young girls in Japan, Kusama was unstoppable. In 1957, she managed to obtain a passport and visa. She sewed dollars into her dresses to circumvent strict post-war currency controls.

The first stop was Seattle, where she held an exhibition in a small gallery. Then Kusama went to New York, where she was bitterly disappointed. “Unlike post-war Matsumoto, New York was in every sense an evil and violent place. It turned out to be too stressful for me, and I soon became mired in neurosis.” To make matters worse, Kusama found herself in complete poverty. An old door served as her bed, and she fished fish heads and rotten vegetables from trash cans to make soup from.

Installation Infinity Mirror Room - Love Forever (“Room with infinity mirrors - love forever”). Photo: Tony Kyriacou/REX/Shutterstock

This difficult situation prompted Kusama to immerse himself in his work even more. She began creating her first paintings in the Infinity Net series, covering huge canvases (one of them was 10 meters high) with mesmerizing waves of small loops that seemed to never end. The artist herself described them as follows: “White networks enveloping the black dots of silent death against the backdrop of the hopeless darkness of nothingness.”

Installation by Yayoi Kusama at the opening of the new building of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art at the Gorky Park in Moscow in 2015. Photo: David X Prutting/BFA.com/REX/Shutterstock

This obsessive-compulsive repetition helped drive away the neurosis, but it did not always save. Kusama constantly suffered from bouts of psychosis and ended up in a New York hospital. Being ambitious and purposeful and happily accepting the role of an exotic Asian girl in a kimono, she joined the crowd influential people in art and communicated with such recognized artists as Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol. Kusama later said that Warhol imitated her work.

Kusama soon gained a degree of fame and exhibited in crowded galleries. In addition, the artist’s fame became scandalous.

In the 1960s, while Kusama was obsessed with polka dots, she began staging happenings in New York City, encouraging people to strip naked in places like Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge and painting their bodies with polka dots.

Pre-display at Art Basel in Hong Kong in 2013. Photo: Billy Farrell/BFA/REX/Shutterstock

Decades before the Occupy Wall Street movement, Kusama staged a happening in New York's financial district, declaring that she wanted to "destroy the men of Wall Street with polka dots." Around this time she began to cover various items- a chair, a boat, a stroller - with phallic-looking protrusions. “I started creating penises to cure my feelings of aversion to sex,” the artist wrote, describing how this creative process gradually turning the terrible into something familiar.

Installation "Passing Winter" at the Tate Gallery in London. Photo: James Gourley/REX/Shutterstock

Kusama never married, although she had a marriage-like relationship with artist Joseph Cornell for ten years while living in New York. “I didn’t like sex, and he was impotent, so we suited each other very well,” she said in an interview with Art Magazine.

Kusama became increasingly famous for her antics: she offered to sleep with US President Richard Nixon if he would end the war in Vietnam. “Let’s decorate each other with polka dots,” she wrote to him in a letter. Interest in her art itself faded away, she found herself out of favor, and money problems began again.

Yayoi Kusama during a retrospective of her work at the Whitney Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2012. Photo: Steve Eichner/Penske Media/REX/Shutterstock

News of Kusama's escapades reached Japan. They began to call her a “national disaster,” and her mother said that it would be better if her daughter died of the disease in childhood. In the early 1970s, impoverished and failed, Kusama returned to Japan. She registered in a psychiatric hospital, where she still lives, and sank into artistic obscurity.

In 1989, the Center for Contemporary Art in New York staged a retrospective of her work. This was the beginning, albeit slow, of a revival of interest in Kusama’s art. She filled a mirrored room with pumpkins for an installation that was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1993 and had a major exhibition at MoMa in New York in 1998. This is where she once staged a happening.

At the My Eternal Soul exhibition eternal soul") V National Center art in Tokyo, February 2017. Photo: Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock

Over the past few years, Yayoi Kusama has become an international phenomenon. Modern gallery The Tate in London and the Whitney Museum in New York held major retrospectives that attracted huge crowds of visitors, and her iconic polka dot pattern became highly recognizable.

At the exhibition My Eternal Soul at the National Art Center in Tokyo, February 2017. Photo: Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock

The artist has no plans to stop working, but has begun to think about her mortality. “I don’t know how long I can survive even after death. There is a future generation that follows in my footsteps. It would be an honor for me if people enjoy looking at my work and if they are moved by my art.”

At the exhibition My Eternal Soul at the National Art Center in Tokyo, February 2017. Photo: Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock

Despite the commercialization of her art, Kusama thinks about the grave in Matsumoto - not in family crypt, she already got it from her parents - and how not to turn her into a sanctuary. “But I’m not dying yet. I think I will live another 20 years,” she says.

At the exhibition My Eternal Soul at the National Art Center in Tokyo, February 2017. Photo: Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock

Has very rich history; its tradition is vast, with Japan's unique position in the world greatly influencing the dominant styles and techniques of Japanese artists. Known fact That Japan was quite isolated for many centuries is due not only to geography, but also to the dominant Japanese cultural tendency toward isolation that has marked the country's history. During the centuries of what we might call “Japanese civilization,” culture and art developed separately from those in the rest of the world. And this is even noticeable in the practice of Japanese painting. For example, Nihonga paintings are among the main works of Japanese painting practice. It is based on over a thousand years of tradition, and the paintings are usually created with brushes on either Vashi (Japanese paper) or Egina (silk).

However, Japanese art and painting have been influenced by foreign artistic practices. At first, it was Chinese art in the 16th century and Chinese painting and Chinese tradition art, which was particularly influential in several aspects. As of the 17th century japanese painting was also influenced Western traditions. In particular, during the pre-war period, which lasted from 1868 to 1945, Japanese painting was influenced by impressionism and European romanticism. At the same time, new European artistic movements were also significantly influenced by Japanese artistic techniques. In art history, this influence is called "Japaneseism", and it is especially significant for the Impressionists, Cubists and artists associated with modernism.

Long story Japanese painting can be seen as a synthesis of several traditions that create parts of a recognized Japanese aesthetic. First of all, Buddhist art and painting methods, as well as religious painting, left a significant mark on the aesthetics of Japanese paintings; water-ink painting of landscapes in the tradition of Chinese literary painting is another important element recognized in many famous Japanese paintings; paintings of animals and plants, especially birds and flowers, are what are commonly associated with Japanese compositions, as are landscapes and scenes from everyday life. Finally, ancient ideas about beauty from philosophy and culture had a great influence on Japanese painting Ancient Japan. Wabi, which means transient and rugged beauty, sabi (the beauty of natural patina and aging), and yugen (deep grace and subtlety) continue to influence ideals in the practice of Japanese painting.

Finally, if we concentrate on selecting the ten most famous Japanese masterpieces, we must mention ukiyo-e, which is one of the most popular art genres in Japan, even though it is classified as printmaking. He dominated Japanese art from the 17th - 19th centuries, while artists belonging to this genre created woodcuts and paintings with such objects as beautiful girls, Kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers, as well as scenes from history and folk tales, travel scenes and landscapes, flora and fauna and even erotica.

It's always hard to make a list best paintings from artistic traditions. Many amazing works will be excluded; however, this list features ten of the most recognizable Japanese paintings in the world. This article will present only paintings created from the 19th century to the present day.

Japanese painting has an extremely rich history. Over the centuries, Japanese artists have developed a large number of unique techniques and styles that are Japan's most valuable contribution to the world of art. One of these techniques is sumi-e. Sumi-e literally means "ink drawing" and combines calligraphy and ink painting to create a rare beauty of brush-drawn compositions. This beauty is paradoxical - ancient yet modern, simple yet complex, bold yet subdued, undoubtedly reflecting the spiritual basis of art in Zen Buddhism. Buddhist priests introduced solid ink blocks and bamboo brushes to Japan from China in the sixth century, and over the past 14 centuries Japan has developed a rich heritage of ink painting.

Scroll down and see 10 Japanese Painting Masterpieces

1. Katsushika Hokusai “The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife”

One of the most recognizable Japanese paintings is “The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife.” It was painted in 1814 by the famous artist Hokusai. If you follow strict definitions, this amazing work Hokusai cannot be considered a painting, as it is a woodcut of the ukiyo-e genre from the book Young Pines (Kinoe no Komatsu), which is a three-volume shunga book. The composition depicts a young ama diver entwined sexually with a pair of octopuses. This image was very influential in the 19th and 20th centuries. The work influenced more late artists such as Félicien Rops, Auguste Rodin, Louis Aucock, Fernand Knopf and Pablo Picasso.

2. Tessai Tomioka “Abe no Nakamaro writes a nostalgic poem while watching the moon”

Tessai Tomioka is the pseudonym of a famous Japanese artist and calligrapher. He is considered the last major artist in the bunjing tradition and one of the first major artists Nihonga style. Bunjinga was a school of Japanese painting that flourished in the late Edo era among artists who considered themselves literati or intellectuals. Each of these artists, including Tessaya, developed his own own style and technology, but they were all big fans chinese art and culture.

3. Fujishima Takeji “Sunrise over the Eastern Sea”

Fujishima Takeji was a Japanese artist known for his work in developing Romanticism and Impressionism in the yoga (Western style) art movement in late XIX- beginning of the 20th century. In 1905, he traveled to France, where he was influenced by the French movements of the time, particularly Impressionism, as can be seen in his painting Sunrise over the Eastern Sea, which was painted in 1932.

4. Kitagawa Utamaro “Ten types of female faces, a collection of ruling beauties”

Kitagawa Utamaro was a prominent Japanese artist who was born in 1753 and died in 1806. He is certainly best known for a series called "Ten Types female faces. Collection of ruling beauties, themes Great love classical poetry" (sometimes called "Women in Love", containing separate engravings "Naked Love" and "Thoughtful Love"). He is one of the most important artists belonging to the ukiyo-e woodcut genre.

5. Kawanabe Kyosai “Tiger”

Kawanabe Kyosai was one of the most famous Japanese artists of the Edo period. His art was influenced by the work of Tohaku, a 16th-century Kano school painter who was the only artist of his time to paint screens entirely in ink on a delicate background of powdered gold. Although Kyosai is known as a cartoonist, he wrote some of the most famous paintings in Japanese history art of the 19th century century. "Tiger" is one of those paintings that Kyosai used watercolor and ink to create.

6. Hiroshi Yoshida “Fuji from Lake Kawaguchi”

Hiroshi Yoshida is known as one of the most large figures Shin-hanga style (Shin-hanga is an artistic movement in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century, during the Taisho and Showa periods, which revived traditional art ukiyo-e, which took root in the Edo and Meiji periods (XVII - XIX centuries)). He trained in the tradition of Western oil painting, which was adopted from Japan during the Meiji period.

7. Takashi Murakami “727”

Takashi Murakami is probably the most popular Japanese artist of our time. His works sell for astronomical prices at major auctions, and his work is already inspiring new generations of artists not only in Japan, but also abroad. Murakami's art includes a range of mediums and is usually described as superflat. His work is known for his use of color, incorporating motifs from Japanese traditional and popular culture. The content of his paintings is often described as "cute", "psychedelic" or "satirical".

8. Yayoi Kusama “Pumpkin”

Yaoi Kusama is also one of the most famous Japanese artists. She creates in various techniques, including painting, collage, scat sculpture, performance, environmental art and installation, most of which demonstrate her thematic interest in psychedelic colour, repetition and pattern. One of the most famous series of this great artist is the “Pumpkin” series. Covered in a polka dot pattern, a regular pumpkin in bright yellow is presented against a net background. Collectively, all such elements form a visual language that is unmistakably true to the artist's style, and has been developed and refined over decades of painstaking production and reproduction.

9. Tenmyoya Hisashi “Japanese Spirit No. 14”

Tenmyoya Hisashi is a contemporary Japanese artist who is known for his neo-nihonga paintings. He took part in the revival old tradition Japanese painting, which is the complete opposite of modern Japanese painting. In 2000 he also created his a new style butouha, who demonstrates a strong attitude towards the authoritative art system through his paintings. "Japanese Spirit No. 14" was created as part of artistic scheme"BASARA", interpreted in Japanese culture as the rebellious behavior of the lower aristocracy during the Warring States period to deprive the authorities of the ability to achieve ideal image life, dressing in lush and luxurious clothes and acting out of free will, not in accordance with their social class.

10. Katsushika Hokusai “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa”

Finally, " A big wave in Kanagawa" is probably the most recognizable Japanese painting ever painted. It is actually the most famous piece of art created in Japan. It depicts huge waves threatening boats off the coast of Kanagawa Prefecture. Although sometimes mistaken for a tsunami, the wave, as the painting's title suggests, most likely simply has an anomalous greater height. The painting is made in the ukiyo-e tradition.

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Which covers many techniques and styles. Throughout its history, it has undergone a large number of changes. New traditions and genres were added, and the original Japanese principles remained. Along with the amazing history of Japan, the painting is also ready to present many unique and interesting facts.

Ancient Japan

The first styles appear in the most ancient historical period countries, even BC. e. Then art was quite primitive. First, in 300 BC. e., various geometric figures, which were performed on pottery using sticks. Such a discovery by archaeologists as ornamentation on bronze bells dates back to a later time.

A little later, already in 300 AD. e., appear cave drawings, which are much more diverse than geometric patterns. These are already full-fledged images with images. They were found inside crypts, and, probably, the people who are painted on them were buried in these burial grounds.

In the 7th century AD e. Japan adopts writing that comes from China. Around the same time, the first paintings came from there. Then painting appears as a separate sphere of art.

Edo

Edo is far from the first and not latest painting, however, it was she who brought a lot of new things to culture. Firstly, it is the brightness and colorfulness that were added to the usual technique performed in black and gray tones. Most an outstanding artist This style is considered Sotasu. He created classic paintings, but his characters were very colorful. Later he switched to nature, and most of his landscapes were painted against gilded backgrounds.

Secondly, during the Edo period, exoticism, the namban genre, appeared. It used modern European and Chinese techniques that were intertwined with traditional Japanese styles.

And thirdly, the Nanga school appears. In it, artists first completely imitate or even copy the works of Chinese masters. Then a new branch appears, which is called bunjing.

Modernization period

The Edo period gives way to Meiji, and now Japanese painting is forced to new stage development. At this time, genres such as the Western and the like were becoming popular around the world, so the modernization of art became a common state of affairs. However, in Japan, a country where all people revere traditions, the state of affairs at this time was significantly different from what happened in other countries. Competition between European and local technicians is fierce here.

The government at this stage gives preference to young artists who show great promise in improving their skills in western styles. So they send them to schools in Europe and America.

But this was only at the beginning of the period. The fact is that famous critics pretty much criticized western art. To avoid a lot of fuss about this issue, European styles and the techniques began to be banned at exhibitions, their display ceased, as did their popularity.

The emergence of European styles

Next comes the Taisho period. At this time, young artists who were leaving to study in foreign schools, come back to their homeland. Naturally, they bring with them new styles of Japanese painting, which are very similar to European ones. Impressionism and post-impressionism appear.

At this stage, many schools are being formed in which ancient Japanese styles. But it is impossible to completely get rid of Western tendencies. Therefore, we have to combine several techniques in order to please both lovers of the classics and fans of modern European painting.

Some schools are funded by the state, thanks to which it is possible to preserve many of the national traditions. Private owners are forced to follow the lead of consumers who wanted something new; they were tired of the classics.

Painting from the Second World War

After the onset of wartime, Japanese painting remained aloof from events for some time. It developed separately and independently. But this couldn't go on forever.

Over time, when the political situation in the country becomes worse, high and respected figures attract many artists. Some of them began to create in patriotic styles even at the beginning of the war. The rest begin this process only on orders from the authorities.

Accordingly, Japanese fine art was unable to develop particularly during the Second World War. Therefore, for painting it can be called stagnant.

Eternal Suibokuga

Japanese sumi-e painting, or suibokuga, literally means “ink painting.” This determines the style and technique of this art. It came from China, but the Japanese decided to call it their own. And initially the technique did not have any aesthetic side. It was used by monks for self-improvement while studying Zen. Moreover, they first drew pictures and subsequently trained their concentration while viewing them. The monks believed that strict lines, blurry tones and shadows - all that is called monochrome - help to improve.

Japanese ink painting, despite the wide variety of paintings and techniques, is not as complex as it might seem at first glance. It is based on only 4 plots:

1. Chrysanthemum.
2. Orchid.
3. Plum branch.
4. Bamboo.

A small number of plots does not make mastering the technique quick. Some masters believe that learning lasts a lifetime.

Despite the fact that sumi-e appeared a long time ago, it is always in demand. Moreover, today you can meet masters of this school not only in Japan, it is widespread far beyond its borders.

Modern period

After the end of World War II, art in Japan flourished only in major cities, villagers and villagers had enough to worry about. For the most part, artists tried to turn away from the losses of wartime and depict modern life on canvas. city ​​life with all its embellishments and features. European and American ideas were successfully adopted, but this state of affairs did not last long. Many masters began to gradually move away from them towards Japanese schools.

Always remained fashionable. Therefore, modern Japanese painting can differ only in the technique of execution or the materials used in the process. But most artists do not perceive various innovations well.

It is impossible not to mention the fashionable modern subcultures, such as anime and similar styles. Many artists try to blur the line between the classics and what is in demand today. For the most part, this state of affairs is due to commerce. Classics and traditional genres are practically not bought, therefore, it is unprofitable to work as an artist in your favorite genre, you need to adapt to fashion.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, Japanese painting is a treasure trove visual arts. Perhaps, the country in question was the only one that did not follow Western trends and did not adapt to fashion. Despite many blows during the advent of new techniques, Japanese artists were still able to defend national traditions in many genres. This is probably why paintings made in classical styles are highly valued at exhibitions today.