Painting and sculpture by Meiji and Taisho, Tokyo National Museum
At the end of the Edo Period, the shogunate and the clan artifacts and works of each clan who exhibited at the World’s World Exposition in Europe are acclaimed as excellent accessories, the interest from Europe to Japanese crafts rises, possibility of becoming export goods earning foreign currency Was opened. However, in Japan there is no strict discrimination between “art” like “the West” and “crafts”, Japanese artworks are generally regarded as decorative and crafty and placed lower than European art.
By the modernization after the Meiji Restoration and the dramatic change of society, the Japanese art until then was greatly shaken. The artist who was based on the Shogunate such as the Kano school because of the Meiji Restoration lost its power and Japanese paintings are centered on Ukiyoe and literary drawings which had developed since the late Edo period. The government promptly introduced a Western style “fine art” (pure art) to prepare a style of art that is not ashamed of European countries, and a foreign movie introducing Western painting law such as perspective law was established, in the Meiji era 9 (1876) opened the Faculty of Art School for the purpose of application to the fields of architecture and urban planning, Western art education by foreigners was started, employed by Fontanese and others, a Western painter from the art department art school And sculptors became the centerpiece of the Japanese Art Fair in the first half of the Meiji era.
On the other hand, paintings of Japanese factions were regarded as old and crisis survived. Along with the fall of the traditional art gallery and the fall of the Buddha Buddha and the Daimyo family, a lot of excellent works of art overflowed the old market goods market and flowed out to the West due to aggressive buying and selling of artists Tadashi Hayashi et al. In 1879, the Dragon Pocket Association (Japan Art Association) was formed by People’s Sono, the Dragon Pond Association, as well as protecting and fostering Japanese traditional art, as a trading item for acquiring foreign currency It attracted attention and raised campaign of exposition and joint promotion meeting.
Eventually the modernization has come to an end, and this time, movement to explore nationalism and unique art as a nation state happens, and eyes will be turned to Japanese art again. Ernesto Fenollosa and Okakura Tenshin and others wrote the history of Japanese art in a short period of time in response to the request to write a commentary on “Japanese Art History” for the exhibition of the World Exposition from the government. Although this is the prototype of the history of Japanese art which we currently know, at that time, the writers who were deemed unsuitable for overseas introduction fell off the list and as a result were forgotten for a long time.
Fenollosa · Okakura Tenshin and others talked about its excellence · identity in order to protect and nurture Japanese art from the harm of rapid modernization, after opening school of Tokyo Art school, Western painting was once repulsed by the hand of Tenshin and others, People from departmental art school compete against each other by making Meiji Fine Art Association. Meiji Fine Art Association and Western painters and others, while introducing the Impressionists of Paris residents’ introduction of Impressionists and returning from overseas study abroad, the Meiji Art Festival and the Western painters and others got mixed up and took active activities while incorporating the latest European painting movement.
The temple centers are exiled from the Tokyo Art School due to internal conflict, and form the Japan Art Institute together with Yokoyama Taiman and Shimomura Kayama. Many Japanese painter writers also studied in Europe, including Takeuchi Takeuchi of Kyoto paintings and others. As a result of this movement, Japanese paintings were born as a new ethnographic art incorporating influences of paintings of the factions and Western paintings.
The art world from the late Meiji era to the Taisho period was introduced aesthetic · cosmopolitan Western art and literature in the magazine “Shirakaba” which was launched in 1873, coupled with the growth of national power symbolized by the victory of the Russo-Japanese War Among young people, anti – naturalism style paintings such as Fauvism and Cubism were preferred, and a trend seeking a free expression symbolizing individuality was seen.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education set up the Imperial Art Institute in Taisho 8 years to overcome the stagnation of the public exhibition, abolish the traditional literary exhibition, hold a new Imperial Art Institute exhibition (Emperor exhibition), and at the Emperor exhibition, While being an outdoor fictionalist painter, it was creating a unique style incorporating Fauvism and other avant-garde style.
In the Showa era, limitations on freely artistic activities and suppression become remarkable. The number of artists to be served also increased, and several art groups were dissolved or absorbed by even larger organizations under the guidance of the government. Activities that resisted like the rumors of the freshman painting society formed in 1964 were also seen, but it was not enough. Under wartime times, many artists painted war paintings and joined war cooperation in order to raise the warfare of the people. This is Tsuguharu Fujita, Saburo Miyamoto, Kenichi Nakamura etc.
We will exhibit mainly paintings and sculptures by Meiji and Taisho. Established the Ministry of Education Expo in 1872 and opened as the opening of the exhibition, the exhibition work at the World’s Fair, the work of Imperial Architects, and the relationship Okakura Tenshin was enrolled from, the author of the Japanese Academy of Fine Arts We have many works that have important meanings in thinking about modernization of Japanese art such as masterpiece work. We will introduce Japanese modern art through Meiji, Taisho and Showa before the war.
In this Japanese painting, you see a work expressed by a new interpretation of a painter, such as traditional subjects such as “Imperial prince” drawn with the dramatic composition of Yasuda Yukihiko, Imamura Shikaro’s ” I will.
Tokyo National Museum
Tokyo National Museum collects and preserves cultural assets spanning the Toyo region widely, mainly in Japan as a comprehensive museum in Japan, for public viewing and conducts research related to this and educational dissemination project etc. , Aims to preserve and utilize cultural properties that are valuable national assets.
From April 1, 2007, the National Museum belonging to the National Museum of Japan and the National Institute for Cultural Properties to which the National Museum of Japan belongs were integrated, and the “National Institute of Cultural Properties” was launched. We will promote the preservation and utilization of cultural properties, which are precious national assets under the new corporation, more efficiently and effectively.