Japanese Art exam Part II

Mingei

("folk arts" or "arts of the people"), the Japanese folk art movement, was developed in the late 1920s and 1930s in Japan. Its founding father was Yanagi Sōetsu (1889-1961).

Bunjin-ga

"literati painting." One of the main schools of painting that arose in the 18th century, although under some western influence, was in fact inspired by the so-called literati artists(bunjin) of China. It was the first major school of Chinese Painting to be emulated by the Japanese since painters of the early Muromachi period, when Japanese artist had succumbed to the beauty of Sung monochrome landscapes. Unlike their Chinese counterparts, most of the leading Japanese bunjin artist painted to earn a living. They seem originally to have been inspired to adopt this particular style because of the influence of Chinese bunjin artist who came to Nagasaki in the 17th century. The fact that the fashion for bunjin art thus emerged from Nagasaki, which had been the center of Portuguese nanban culture and in Tokugawa times includes Dutch as well as Chinese in its foreign community, no doubt helps explain the western influence that can be seen in much bunjin work. The two major artist of this tradition are Ike no Taiga(1723-1776) and Yosa Buson (1716-1783).

Shinhanga

"new prints", "new woodcut (block) prints") was an art movement in early 20th-century Japan, during the Taishō and Shōwa periods, that revitalized traditional ukiyo-e art rooted in the Edo and Meiji periods (17th-19th century). It maintained the traditional ukiyo-e collaborative system (hanmoto system) where the artist, carver, printer, and publisher engaged in division of labor, as opposed to the sōsaku-hanga (creative prints) movement which advocated the principles of "self-drawn" (jiga), "self-carved" (jikoku) and "self-printed" (jizuri), according to which the artist, with the desire of expressing the self, is the sole creator of art. The movement flourished from around 1915 to 1942, though it resumed briefly from 1946 through the 1950s. Inspired by European Impressionism, the artists incorporated Western elements such as the effects of light and the expression of individual moods, but focused on strictly traditional themes of landscapes (fukei-ga), famous places (meishō), beautiful women (bijinga), kabuki actors (yakusha-e), and birds-and-flowers (kachō-e).

Nihonga

("Japanese-style paintings") are paintings that have been made in accordance with traditional Japanese artistic conventions, techniques and materials. While based on traditions over a thousand years old, the term was coined in the Meiji period of Imperial Japan, to distinguish such works from Western-style paintings, or Yōga.

Bijin-ga

("beautiful person picture") is a generic term for pictures of beautiful women in Japanese art, especially in woodblock printing of the ukiyo-e genre, which predate photography.

Sōsakuhanga

("creative prints"?) was an art movement in early 20th-century Japan. It stressed the artist as the sole creator motivated by a desire for self-expression, and advocated principles of art that is "self-drawn" (自画 jiga), "self-carved" (自刻 jikoku) and "self-printed" (自刷 jizuri). As opposed to the shin-hanga ("new prints") movement that maintained the traditional ukiyo-e collaborative system where the artist, carver, printer, and publisher engaged in division of labor, creative print artists distinguished themselves as artists creating art for art's sake. The birth of the sōsaku-hanga movement was signaled by Kanae Yamamoto's (1882-1946) small print Fisherman in 1904. Departing from the ukiyo-e collaborative system, Kanae Yamamoto made the print solely on his own, all the way from drawing, carving and printing. Such principles of "self-drawn", "self-carved" and "self-printed" became the foundation of the creative print movement, which struggled for existence in prewar Japan along with other art movements, and gained its momentum and flourished in postwar Japan as the genuine heir of the ukiyo-e tradition.

Gutai

('Concreteness') Art Association founded 1954 by Yoshihara Jiro. The Gutai group (日本具体美术协会) is the first radical, post-war artistic group in Japan. It was founded in 1954 by the painter Jiro Yoshihara in Osaka, Japan, in response to the reactionary artistic context of the time. This influential group was involved in large-scale multimedia environments, performances, and theatrical events and emphasizes the relationship between body and matter in pursuit of originality.[1] The movement rejected traditional art styles in favor of performative immediacy. Coming about during postwar Japanese reconstruction, Gutai stressed freedom of expression with innovative materials and techniques.[6] Gutai challenged imaginations to invent new notions of what art is with attention on the relationships between body, matter, time, and space. After the war, attitudes regarding cultural exchanging changed amongst nations as the art environment involved great optimism for global collaboration. Since artists were pursuing advances in contemporary art transnationally, the art environment of the time fostered thriving conditions for the Gutai group. For example, with the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951, there was an increase in cultural exchanges between Japan and its new western allies. Gutai artwork began being shown in exhibitions in both American and European cities.

Kamigata-e

('Pictures from the Osaka and Kyoto region')

Ukiyo-e

('Pictures of the floating world') Developed within the publishing industry in the administrative capital Edo. Included both painting and woodblock prints - for the latter, the graphic designer's sketch was carved onto a woodblock owned by the hanmoto. In mid-eighteenth century, Suzuki Harunobu (d. 1770) pioneered improved polychrome woodblock printing called nishiki-e ('brocade prints'). Themes: entertainment spaces and their protagonists: courtesans (bijin-ga) and actors (yakusha-e). From the beginning of the nineteenth century, fūkei-ga ('landscape views') and historical events also emerged as major themes. The Osaka school emerged in parallel with realistic unflattering depictions of actors and courtesans in kamigata-e ('pictures from the Osaka-Kyoto area'). Aesthetic devices: mitate ('parody'), fūryū ('refined taste'), yatsushi ('impersonation').

Nishiki-e

('brocade prints') refers to Japanese multi-coloured woodblock printing; this technique is used primarily in ukiyo-e. It was invented in the 1760s, and perfected and popularized by the printmaker Suzuki Harunobu, who produced a great many nishiki-e prints between 1765 and his death five years later. Previously, most prints had been in black-and-white, coloured by hand, or coloured with the addition of one or two colour ink blocks. A nishiki-e print is created by carving a separate woodblock for every colour, and using them in a stepwise fashion. An engraver by the name of Kinroku is credited with the technical innovations that allowed so many blocks of separate colours to fit together perfectly on the page, in order to create a single complete image. This style and technique is also known as Edo-e

Fūkei-ga

('landscape views') themes of landscapes in Ukiyo-e and prints in general.

Kanō Tan'yū

(1602-1674) was one of the foremost Japanese painters of the Kanō school. His original given name was Morinobu; he was the eldest son of Kanō Takanobu and grandson of Kanō Eitoku. Many of the most famous and widely known Kanō works today are by Tan'yū. In 1617, Tan'yū was appointed by the Tokugawa shogunate to become the shogunate's first official painter.[1] Over the following years, he was given many highly prestigious commissions. Over the 1620s and 1630s, he created a number of large-scale works for Edo Castle, Nijō Castle, Osaka Castle, Nagoya Castle, and Nikkō Tōshō-gū. Prolific in a variety of painting styles, Tan'yū's most famous works are probably those he produced for these large-scale commissions. They are screens and panels, prime examples of the Momoyama style, depicting natural subjects such as tigers, birds and plants, in bright colors and with extensive use of gold leaf. The gold, often used to represent clouds, water, or other background elements, would reflect what little light was available indoors, brightening a castle's dark rooms. Tan'yū was also accomplished, however, in monochrome ink painting based on the prototypical style of the Muromachi period, yamato-e compositions in a style similar to that of the Tosa school, and Chinese style scrolls. His most famous yamato-e work is a narrative handscroll depicting the life of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa shogun and major figure in Japanese history. It was after this commission, in 1640, that the artist first took on the "artist name" of Tan'yū. In addition to being a highly honored and respected painter in his own right, Tan'yū was known as a collector and connoisseur of Chinese paintings. He made sketches and kept records of many of the paintings that passed through his studio, brought to him for authentication.

Edo Period

(1615-1868) 1615-Tokugawa Ieyasu's destruction of Osaka castle marks the official beginning of the Edo period. 1616-Death of Ieyasu. European trading ships are permitted to stop only at Hirado and Nagasaki. 1617-Ieyasu is defied as Tosho Daigongen( Great Incarnation Illuminating the East). 1629-Unhappy with the Shogunates interference in court matters, Emperor Go-Mizunoo abdicates in favor of his daughter who becomes Empress Meisho, the first reigning Empress since the eighth century. 1635- The Shogunate bans travel abroad. The system known as Sankin Kotai, alternative residence, is instituted, requiring Daimyo to set up residence in Edo, dividing their time between the city and their estates in the provinces. 1637-The Shimabara Rebellion against the Government, in which Christians participate, is quelled by the Shogunate. 1640-Christianity is outlawed, and the remaining Japanese Christians are persecuted. 1688-1704-During the Genroku Era Chonin culture enters a period of intense creativity in literature, theater, and the development of popular art forms like Ukiyo-e. 1720-The 8th Tokugawa Shogun Yoshimune lifts the ban on importing foreign books to Nagasaki. 1728-1787-Crop failures lead to widespread famine and economic recession, with consequent social unrest. The government response by instituting conservative reforms aimed at stemming bureaucratic corruption and sending peasants attempting to migrate to the cities back to the land. 1853-Commodore Matthew C.Perry arrives in Uraga. 1862-The Shogunate abandons the Sankin Kotai policy. 1867-1868-The shogunate is overthrown and power is formally returned to the imperial family. Emperor Meiji is enthroned and the imperial capital moved to Edo.

Enkū

(1632-1695) was a Japanese Buddhist monk, poet and sculptor during the early Edo period. He was born in Mino Province (present-day Gifu Prefecture) and is famous for carving some 120,000 wooden statues of the Buddha and other Buddhist icons, many of which were given in payment for lodging on his pilgrimages to temples throughout Japan.

Torii Kiyomasu

(1690s - 1720s) was a Japanese painter and printmaker of the Torii school, in the genre of ukiyo-e. Like the other Torii artists, his primary focus was on Kabuki billboards, advertisements, actor prints, and other related material. Many scholars believe Kiyomasu to have been the younger brother or son of Torii Kiyonobu I, one of the founders of the school, or to have been an alternate art-name (gō) for the same man. The Torii school turned out black and white prints or prints hand-tinted in limited colors.

Itō Jakuchū

(1716 - 1800) was a Japanese painter of the mid-Edo period when Japan had closed its doors to the outside world. Many of his paintings concern traditionally Japanese subjects, particularly chickens and other birds. Many of his otherwise traditional works display a great degree of experimentation with perspective, and with other very modern stylistic elements. The son of a Kyoto grocer, Jakuchū created numerous paintings of domestic fowl, plant life, selfish, and other subjects that had once been considered somewhat mundane for the serious artist. He combined painstaking realism with rich color and a creative exaggeration or distortion of Chosen pictorial elements.

Yosa Buson

(1716-1783) Taiga's friend Buson was both a noted painter and a master of haiku. Like Taiga, he traveled frequently about the country and added much that was Japanese to his essentially "Chinese" landscape. Also, like Taiga, Buson did thoroughly charming caricatures work that was undoubtedly influenced by indigenous Japanese traditions, such as the Animal Scrolls of the priest Toba, pg 223-225.

Ike no Taiga

(1723-1776) Taiga, who was born into a peasant family in the outskirts of Kyoto, was an extremely precocious child, and at the age of fourteen, began painting fans in order to support his widowed mother. Although, he subsequently became known as the founder of the bunjin school in Japan, Taiga's mature painting style is actually quite eclectic and reveals the influences not only of Muromachi monochrome masters and that of Sōtatsu-the Kōrin(Rinpa) school but also of Western art( especially the technique of perspective and depth).

Suzuki Harunobu

(1725 - 15 July 1770) was a Japanese designer of woodblock print artist in the Ukiyo-e style. He was an innovator, the first to produce full-color prints (nishiki-e) in 1765, rendering obsolete the former modes of two- and three-color prints. Harunobu used many special techniques, and depicted a wide variety of subjects, from classical poems to contemporary beauties. Like many artists of his day, Harunobu also produced a number of shunga, or erotic images. During his lifetime and shortly afterwards, many artists imitated his style. A few, such as Harushige, even boasted of their ability to forge the work of the great master. Much about Harunobu's life is unknown.

Maruyama Ōkyo

(1733 - 1795), born Maruyama Masataka, was a Japanese artist active in the late 18th century. He moved to Kyoto, during which he studied artworks from Chinese, Japanese and Western sources. A personal style of Western naturalism mixed with Eastern decorative design emerged, and Ōkyo founded the Maruyama school of painting. Although many of his fellow artists criticized his work as too slavishly devoted to natural representation, it was Popular among Kyoto bourgeoisie, and culminating with the commission for paintings for the renovated Imperial Palace in 1790.

Matsumura Goshun

(1752-1811)Yosa Buson's disciple, then learns from Okyo and after his death continues the Maruyama style from his atelier in Kyoto's Shijo (Fourth Avenue) - hence the name Maruyama-Shijo

Kitagawa Utamaro

(1754-1806) Specialized in prints of beautiful women, ranging from legendary or mythological figures to expensive, elegant courtesans, lowly street-walkers, and respectable middle-class ladies of Edo. His finely rendered images of beauties with intricately detailed hair-styles and garments appear to capture the mood of his subjects at a specific moment in time, and are striking for their combination of naturalism and idealized feminine loveliness.

Totoya Hokkei

(1780-1850) was a Japanese artist best known for his prints in the ukiyo-e style. Hokkei was one of Hokusai's first and best-known students and worked in a variety of styles and genres and produced a large body of work in prints, book illustrations, and paintings.

Tōshūsai Sharaku

(1794-1795 active) produced prints of Kabuki actors, yakusha-e, in close up pictures depicting the head and upper torso. His dramatic, unflattering, and even grotesque portraits, in which facial features twist and eyes glare balefully to convey the emotional state of the performers characters, are riveting in their intensity.

Katayama Tōkuma

(1854 - 24 October 1917) was a Japanese architect who designed the original buildings for the Imperial Nara Museum as well as the Kyoto Imperial Museum and was significant in introducing Western, particularly French architecture into Japan. Coming from Chōshū Tokuma was a protégé of Yamagata Aritomo. In 1879 he graduated from the Imperial College of Engineering. During his late twenties and early thirties he assisted Josiah Conder in designing and building a Western-style residence for Prince Arisugawa Taruhito and then on the new Imperial Palace in Tokyo. During the 1880 he was sent to Europe and America to study interior decoration, including furniture. In 1887 he was appointed as an officer in the construction office of the Imperial Household.

Tatsuno Kingo

(1854 - 25 March 1919) was a Japanese architect born in Karatsu, Saga Prefecture, Kyushu. Tatsuno is most widely known for his work as the designer of the Bank of Japan building (1896) and the Marunouchi building of Tokyo Station (1914). Tatsuno studied architecture at the Imperial College of Engineering where he was a student of the influential British architect Josiah Conder. After his graduation in 1879, Tatsuno journeyed to London in 1880 attending courses at the University of London.During his stay he worked at the architectural offices of the Gothic Revivalist William Burges. Burges died in 1881 during Tatsuno's stay, but before returning to Japan Tatsuno also took the opportunity to travel extensively in France and Italy. On his return to Tokyo, Tatsuno taught first at the Imperial College of Engineering before becoming department head at University of Tokyo.

Meiji Period

(1868-1912) 1868-Imperial rule is restored under Emperor Meiji, and the capital moves to Edo, renamed Tokyo. 1869-Daimyo return their domains to the emperor, and are subsequently appointed governors of their former territories. 1871-The Daimyo-government are dismissed and the country is reorganized into prefectures in the name of national unity. 1872-The first national bank is established, and the first railway is built between Shinbashi and Yokohama. Universal military service is instituted. 1873-The ban on Christianity is lifted and land tax reforms is begun. 1875-1894-Many foreign artist and architects are employed by the Meiji government. The French industrialist Emile Guimet visits Japan and acquires are for the Museum he establishes in Lyon in 1879, the Musee Guimet. Edoardo Chiossone, a Italian print-artist, is invited by the Ministry of Finance to design Japanese bank notes 1876-The British architect Josiah Condor is invited to serve as professor of architecture at the Technical Fine arts school of Tokyo. 1877-The Satsuma rebellion against the Meiji government is defeated. 1878-Ernest Fenollosa is appointed professor at Tokyo University. 1881-Emperor Meiji makes a public promise to create a constitution. The first national political party, Jiyuto, or Liberal Party, is founded by former leaders of the Peoples rights movement. 1885-A cabinet system of government is instituted. 1889-The constitution of the Empire of Japan is promulgated, investing the Emperor with complete sovereignty and declaring him "sacred and inviolable." 1890-The first elections are held for cabinet positions in the government. 1894-1895-The Sino-Japanese war 1904-1905-The Russo-Japanese war. 1912-The death of Emperor Meiji.

Kanae Yamamoto

(1882 - 1946) was a Japanese artist, known primarily for his prints and yōga Western-style paintings. He is credited with originating the sōsaku-hanga ("creative prints") movement, which aimed at self-expressive printmaking, in contrast to the commercial studio systems of ukiyo-e and shin-hanga. He initiated movements in folk arts and children's art education that continue to be influential in Japan.

Tetsugorō Yorozu

(1885 - 1927) was a Japanese painter, noted for his work in introducing the Avant-garde trend, especially cubism into Japanese yōga (Western-style) painting in the early 20th century.

Shōji Hamada

(1894 - January 5, 1978) was a Japanese potter. He was a significant influence on studio pottery of the twentieth century, and a major figure of the mingei (folk-art movement).

Yoshihara Jiro

(1905 - 1972) was a Japanese painter. In 1954, along with Shōzō Shimamoto, he co-founded the avant-garde Gutai group in Osaka. He was a businessman and scion of a family that owned a cooking-oil company, along with a group of young, Hanshin-region artists. Yoshihara had taught Western-style painting before becoming Gutai's leader.[1] Yoshihara wrote the "Gutai Manifesto" in 1956 and was the leader of the so named group of internationally acclaimed avant-garde artists representative of Japan's post-war art world. He worked in surrealist and abstract expressionist painting styles before turning, in his final years, to the repeated depiction of circles reminiscent of "satori," the enlightenment of Zen. This white circle was made by leaving the canvas unpainted while painting the background black. When asked about his circles, Yoshihara said that he could not manage to paint even one circle with satisfaction, an indication of the depths of his pursuit of this form. Indeed, no two of his circles are shaped exactly alike. He was the leader of the Gutai Group until his death in 1972.

Taisho period

(1912-1926) - 'Taisho democracy', ero-guro-nansensu ('eroticism, grotesquerie, nonsense') and the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. Mobo (modern boy) and Moga (modern girl) fashion and café culture 1914: Yokoyama Taikan resurrects the Nihon Bijutsuin ('Japan Art Institute') 1915: establishment of Nika ('Second Division') Exhibition as a protest to government-sponsored exhibitions In woodblock printing, opposition between shin hanga ('new prints' in the ukiyo-e style) and sōsaku-hanga ('creative prints') movements 1926: Yanagi Sōetsu proclaims the mingei ('folk art') movement

Showa period

(1926-1989) 1931 - Japanese invasion of Manchuria (start of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War) 1945 - US launch atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1945 - 1952 US occupation of Japan (ends with San Francisco Security Treaty) 1949 - new Constitution includes Article 9 on renunciation to war and army1950-1953 - Korean War, Japan serves as supply base for US army 1960 - the revision of the US-Japan Security Treaty leads to fierce protests 1964 -Tokyo Olympiad (documentary by Kon Ichikawa) 1967-69 - Protests by 'new left' student organizations 1970 - World Exposition held in Suita city, Osaka 1971 - Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant begins production 1980 - Namco releases Pac-Man (now part of MOMA collection) 1982 - Honda car company opens first US factory

Kuroda Seiki

(August 9, 1866 - July 15, 1924) was the pseudonym of a Japanese painter and teacher, noted for bringing Western theories about art to a wide Japanese audience. He was among the leaders of the yōga (or Western-style) movement in late 19th- and early 20th-century Japanese painting. His real name was Kuroda Kiyoteru, which uses an alternate pronunciation of the Chinese characters. Spent a decade of Study in France, was largely responsible for yōga survival, adopting aspects of Impressionism, Plein-air landscape painting, and hitherto unappreciated types of subjects matter, such as the female nude-for his oil canvas works. He also established the Hakubakai, or "White Horse Society," which staged exhibitions of western style art.

Utagawa Kunisada

(Japanese: 歌川 国貞; also known as Utagawa Toyokuni III (三代歌川豊国); 1786 - 12 January 1865) was the most popular, prolific and financially successful designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints in 19th-century Japan. In his own time, his reputation far exceeded that of his contemporaries, Hokusai, Hiroshige and Kuniyoshi.

Utagawa Hiroshige

(Japanese: 歌川 広重), also Andō Hiroshige (Japanese: 安藤 広重; 1797 - 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his landscapes, such as the series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō and The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō; and for his depictions of birds and flowers. The subjects of his work were atypical of the ukiyo-e genre, whose typical focus was on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603-1868). The popular Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series by Hokusai was a strong influence on Hiroshige's choice of subject, though Hiroshige's approach was more poetic and ambient than Hokusai's bolder, more formal prints. For scholars and collectors, Hiroshige's death marked the beginning of a rapid decline in the ukiyo-e genre, especially in the face of the westernization that followed the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Hiroshige's work came to have a marked influence on Western painting towards the close of the 19th century as a part of the trend in Japonism. Western artists closely studied Hiroshige's compositions, and some, such as van Gogh, painted copies of Hiroshige's prints.

Utagawa Toyokuni I

(Japanese: 歌川豊国; 1769 in Edo - 24 February 1825 in Edo), also often referred to as Toyokuni I, to distinguish him from the members of his school who took over his gō (art-name) after he died, was a great master of ukiyo-e, known in particular for his kabuki actor prints. He was the second head of the renowned Utagawa school of Japanese woodblock artists, and was the artist who really moved it to the position of great fame and power it occupied for the rest of the nineteenth century. Toyokuni's two major pupils were the woodblock print masters Kunisada and Kuniyoshi, but he had a host of students in his school. Indeed, so powerful was the Utagawa school after Toyokuni's time that almost every Japanese print artist of note either had one of these two characters in his gō, or, like Yoshitoshi, was a student of one who did.

Bijutsu

(Literally: "Art/ but especially "Fine Arts)

Yokoyama Taikan

(November 2, 1868 - February 26, 1958) was the pseudonym of a major figure in pre-World War II Japanese painting. He is notable for helping create the Japanese painting technique of Nihonga.

Hishida Shunsō

(September 21, 1874 - September 16, 1911) was the pseudonym of a Japanese painter from the Meiji period. One of Okakura Tenshin's pupils along with Yokoyama Taikan and Shimomura Kanzan, he played a role in the Meiji era innovation of Nihonga. His real name was Hishida Miyoji. He was also known for his numerous paintings of cats. Shunsō was born in 1874 in what is now part of Iida city in Nagano Prefecture. In 1889 he moved to Tokyo to study under Kanō school artist Yuki Masaaki (1834-1904). The following year, he enrolled at the Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō (the forerunner of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music). Shunsō was one year junior to his colleagues Yokoyama Taikan and Shimomura Kanzan; his teacher was Hashimoto Gahō. Shunsō, Taikan and Kanzan were heavily influenced by Okakura Tenshin and Ernest Fenollosa during their time at the Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō.

Kusama Yayoi

(born March 22, 1929) is a Japanese artist and writer. Throughout her career she has worked in a wide variety of media, including painting, collage, soft sculpture, performance art, and environmental installations, most of which exhibit her thematic interest in psychedelic colors, repetition, and pattern. A precursor of the pop art, minimalist and feminist art movements, Kusama influenced her contemporaries such as Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, and George Segal and exhibited works alongside the likes of them. In 1957, she moved to the United States, settling down in New York City where she produced a series of paintings influenced by the abstract expressionist movement. Switching to sculpture and installation as her primary media, Kusama became a fixture of the New York avant-garde during the early 1960s where she became associated with the pop art movement. Embracing the rise of the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s, Kusama came to public attention when she organized a series of happenings in which naked participants were painted with brightly colored polka dots. Although largely forgotten after departing the New York art scene in the early 1970s, Kusama is now acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan, and an important voice of the avant-garde.

Kashihonya

(circulating libraries)- book-lenders, played a prominent role in publishing and distribution industry of Edo period Japan. While many customers purchased books outright from publishers, bookshops or from traveling salesmen, borrowing of books from booklenders, and from one another, was extremely popular.

Gosōtei Hirosada

(fl. c. 1810-1865) was the most prolific Osaka-based designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints during the late Edo period. Like most producers of kamigata-e (上方絵?)—prints originating in the Osaka and Kyoto regions—he specialized in yakusha-e actor prints. Hirosada is particularly known for his diptychs and triptychs, and for his many ōkubi-e portraits of the leading actors on the Osaka kabuki stage during his day.

Mono-ha

(もの派) is the name given to a group of 20th-century Japanese artists. The Mono-ha artists explored the encounter between natural and industrial materials, such as stone, steel plates, glass, light bulbs, cotton, sponge, paper, wood, wire, rope, leather, oil, and water, arranging them in mostly unaltered, ephemeral states. The works focus as much on the interdependency of these various elements and the surrounding space as on the materials themselves. Mono-ha emerged in response to a number of social, cultural and political precedents set in the 1960s. With the exception of Lee Ufan, who was a decade older, most of the Mono-ha artists were just beginning their careers when the violent student protests of 1968-69 occurred. At the same time, there was much protest against the second extension of the US-Japan Security Treaty (known in abbreviated Japanese as Anpo) in 1970, binding Japan into providing logistical support for the US war in Vietnam. Coupled with demands for the reversion of Okinawa by 1972 and the removal of nuclear weapons based there, the climate of protest during this period was symptomatic of a growing distrust of the United States' intentions towards Asia and its dominant position in the bilateral relationship with Japan. The activism of the "Anpo generation" gave rise to a highly intellectual counterculture that was both critical of US "imperialism" and acutely self-aware of its Japanese identity.[3] The Mono-ha artists typically deny involvement with student activist movements at the time, though it is thought that the tense political climate influenced their work, allowing them to grapple with and make sense of their unease and disillusionment with postwar modernity in their different ways. Nobuo Sekine's Phase-Mother Earth is considered to be the initial work of the Mono-ha movement. Originally created in Suma Rikyu Park in Kobe, and without official permission. The work was re-created in 2008 and 2012. It was a large cylindrical tower made of packed earth, which was removed from a cylindrical hole with the same shape.

Shiba Kōkan

(司馬 江漢?, 1747 - 1818) was a Japanese painter and printmaker of the Edo period, famous both for his Western-style yōga paintings, in imitation of Dutch oil painting styles, methods, and themes, which he painted as Kōkan, and his ukiyo-e prints, which he created under the name Harushige, but also producing forgeries of the works of Suzuki Harunobu. He is said to have boasted of his ability to forge the great master so well. He also was engaged in Western learning (Rangaku) in the field of astronomy. He became the first Japanese artist, in 1783, to use copperplate engraving, a print, called View on Mimeguri.

Ogata Kōrin

(尾形光琳?, 1658 - 1716) was a Japanese painter of the Rinpa school. Kōrin was born in Kyoto, to a wealthy merchant who had a taste for the arts and is said to have given his son some elementary instruction therein. Kōrin also studied under Soken Yamamoto, the Kanō school, Tsunenobu and Gukei Sumiyoshi, and was greatly influenced by his predecessors Hon'ami Kōetsu and Tawaraya Sōtatsu. Kōrin broke away from all tradition and developed a very original and distinctive style of his own, both in painting and in the decoration of lacquer. The characteristic of this is a bold impressionism, which is expressed in few and simple highly idealized forms, with an absolute disregard for naturalism and the usual conventions. In lacquer, Kōrin's use of white metals and of mother-of-pearl is notable; but here he followed Hon'ami Kōetsu. An artist of the Rinpa school, he is particularly known for his byōbu folding screens. A screen in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston depicting Matsushima is a particularly famous work, and his Red and White Plum Blossoms in the MOA Museum of Art and Irises in the Nezu Museum are National Treasures of Japan. Korin died at the age of 59. His chief pupils were Kagei Tatebayashi and Shiko Watanabe, but the present knowledge and appreciation of his work are largely due to the efforts of Sakai Hōitsu, who brought about a revival of Kōrin's style.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi

(歌川 國芳?, January 1, 1798[1] - April 14, 1861) was one of the last great masters of the Japanese ukiyo-e style of woodblock prints and painting. He was a member of the Utagawa school. The range of Kuniyoshi's subjects included many genres: landscapes, beautiful women, Kabuki actors, cats, and mythical animals. He is known for depictions of the battles of legendary samurai heroes.His artwork incorporated aspects of Western representation in landscape painting and caricature.

Tanaka Atsuko

(田中 敦子, Tanaka Atsuko; February 10, 1932 - December 3, 2005) was a pioneering Japanese avant-garde artist. Her best-known work is Electric Dress, invented in 1956, a burqa-like costume consisting of electrical wires and lit-up coloured lightbulbs. Tanaka wore the dress to exhibitions. Her inspiration for her signature work Electric Dress was from a pharmaceutical advertisement illuminated by neon lights. The bulky garment expresses the body's circuitry, and acts like a costume. Here, the work lights up sporadically, giving off the sensation of an alien-like creature and, according to Tanaka, "blinks like fireworks." According to the Gutai artists, Tanaka's work symbolized post war Japan's rapid transformation and urbanization. When Tanaka wore her dress for the first time, her face and hands were the only visible subject. She had noticed the trepidation when she had worn it and flipping the switch: "I had the fleeting thought: Is this how a death-row inmate would feel?

Katsushika Hokusai

(葛飾 北斎, 1760 - 1849) was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period.[1] He was influenced by Sesshū Tōyō and other styles of Chinese painting.[2] Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 Fugaku Sanjūroku-kei?, c. 1831) which includes the internationally iconic print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Hokusai created the "Thirty-Six Views" both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji.It was this series, specifically The Great Wave print and Fine Wind, Clear Morning, that secured Hokusai's fame both in Japan and overseas. As historian Richard Lane concludes, "Indeed, if there is one work that made Hokusai's name, both in Japan and abroad, it must be this monumental print-series".While Hokusai's work prior to this series is certainly important, it was not until this series that he gained broad recognition

Sakai Hōitsu

(酒井 抱一?, 1761-1828) was a Japanese painter of the Rinpa school. He is known for having revived the style and popularity of Ogata Kōrin, and for having created a number of reproductions of Kōrin's work. standardized the Rinpa repertoire in printed painting manuals. Moving to Kyoto, Hōitsu began his studies in art in the Kanō school before moving on to study under Utagawa Toyoharu of the ukiyo-e style. He later studied under Watanabe Nangaku of the Maruyama school and Sō Shiseki of the nanga style before finally becoming a painter of the Rinpa school. Hōitsu became a Buddhist priest in 1797, and spent the last 21 years of his life in seclusion. During this time, he studied the work of Ogata Kōrin extensively, as well as that of Kōrin's brother Ogata Kenzan, and produced a number of reproductions of the brothers' works. He also produced two books of woodblock prints of the brothers' work, as well as one book of his own; these were titled Kōrin Hyakuzu (1815), Kenzan Iboku Gafu (1823), and Oson Gafu respectively. Hōitsu's style shows elements of the realism of ukiyo-e, but resembles particularly the decorative style of Ogata Kōrin, which Hōitsu took major steps to revive.

Nagasawa Rosetsu

(長沢芦雪?, 1754-1799) was an 18th-century (Edo period) Japanese painter of the Maruyama School, known for his versatile style. He was born to the family of a low-ranking samurai. He studied with Maruyama Ōkyo in Kyoto. One of the Three Eccentrics, Rosetsu's style ranged from realistic and detailed to bold and highly idiosyncratic, with powerful brushstrokes.

Sengai Gibon

1750 - 1837) was a Japanese monk of the Rinzai (臨在宗) school (one of three main schools of Zen Buddhism in Japan, the others being the Soto school and the much smaller Obaku school.). He was known for his controversial teachings and writings, as well as for his lighthearted sumi-e paintings. After spending half of his life in Nagata near Yokohama, he secluded himself in Shōfukuji (in Fukuoka), the first Zen temple in Japan, where he spent the rest of his life. Though the Rinzai sect is particularly known for its hard-to-understand teachings, Sengai tried to make them accessible to the public. One of his famous paintings shows a circle, a square and a triangle. Sengai left the painting without a title or inscription (save for his signature); the painting is often called "The Universe" when referred to in English. "My play with brush and ink is not calligraphy nor painting; yet unknowing people mistakenly think: this is calligraphy, this is painting." — Sengai Gibon

Okakura Tenshin

Okakura Tenshin (岡倉 覚三?, February 14, 1862 - September 2, 1913) was a Japanese scholar who contributed to the development of arts in Japan. Outside Japan, he is chiefly remembered today as the author of The Book of Tea. Born in Yokohama to parents originally from Fukui, Okakura learned English while attending a school operated by Christian missionary, Dr. Curtis Hepburn. At 15, he entered Tokyo Imperial University, where he first met and studied under Harvard-educated professor Ernest Fenollosa. In 1889, Okakura co-founded the periodical Kokka.[2] In 1887[3] he was one of the principal founders of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (東京美術学校 Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō), and a year later became its head, although he was later ousted from the school in an administrative struggle. Later, he also founded the Japan Art Institute with Hashimoto Gahō and Yokoyama Taikan. He was invited by William Sturgis Bigelow to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1904 and became the first head of the Asian art division in 1910. Okakura was a high-profile urbanite who had an international sense of self. In the Meiji period he was the first dean of the Tokyo Fine Arts School (later merged with the Tokyo Music School to form the current Tokyo University of the Arts). He wrote all of his main works in English. Okakura researched Japan's traditional art and traveled to Europe, the United States, China and India. He emphasised the importance to the modern world of Asian culture, attempting to bring its influence to realms of art and literature that, in his day, were largely dominated by Western culture. His 1903 book on Asian artistic and cultural history, The Ideals of the East with Special Reference to the Art of Japan, published on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War, is famous for its opening paragraph in which he sees a spiritual unity throughout Asia, which distinguishes it from the West: Asia is one. The Himalayas divide, only to accentuate, two mighty civilisations, the Chinese with its communism of Confucius, and the Indian with its individualism of the Vedas. But not even the snowy barriers can interrupt for one moment that broad expanse of love for the Ultimate and Universal, which is the common thought-inheritance of every Asiatic race, enabling them to produce all the great religions of the world, and distinguishing them from those maritime peoples of the Mediterranean and the Baltic, who love to dwell on the Particular, and to search out the means, not the end, of life.[5] In his subsequent book, The Awakening of Japan, published in 1904, he argued that "the glory of the West is the humiliation of Asia."[6]:107 This was an early expression of Pan-Asianism. In this book Okakura also noted that Japan's rapid modernization was not universally applauded in Asia: ″We have become so eager to identify ourselves with European civilization instead of Asiatic that our continental neighbors regard us as renegades—nay, even as an embodiment of the White Disaster itself."[6]:101 In Japan, Okakura, along with Fenollosa, is credited with "saving" Nihonga, or painting done with traditional Japanese technique, as it was threatened with replacement by Western-style painting, or "Yōga", whose chief advocate was artist Kuroda Seiki. In fact this role, most assiduously pressed after Okakura's death by his followers, is not taken seriously by art scholars today, nor is the idea that oil painting posed any serious "threat" to traditional Japanese painting. Yet Okakura was certainly instrumental in modernizing Japanese aesthetics, having recognized the need to preserve Japan's cultural heritage, and thus was one of the major reformers during Japan's period of modernization beginning with the Meiji Restoration. Outside Japan, Okakura influenced a number of important figures, directly or indirectly, who include Swami Vivekananda, philosopher Martin Heidegger, poet Ezra Pound, and especially poet Rabindranath Tagore and heiress Isabella Stewart Gardner, who were close personal friends of his.

Nikkō Tōshōgū

Built on a sacred site as a mausoleum and shrine to the deified Tokugawa Ieyasu in the 1630s, it is a work of remarkable ostentation which required the input of tens of thousands of carpenters, gilders, and laborers, as well as many artists. The two principle buildings are surrounded by two walls, the outer of these is actually a roofed corridor entered through the Yōmei-mon gate, which is richly ornamented with relief carvings and gilding. For the Shinto compound within, architects combined Japanese features, such as the use of fusuma in the interior with an elaborate Chinese-style roofs, bracketing, and ornamented or symbolic motifs. Almost every available surface is covered with decoration, lacquering and gold leaf with brilliant pigments of white, red, blue, and green add to the overall impression of Tokugawa self-aggrandizement. The deification of Ieyasu-a direct challenge to the exclusivity of the divine statues of the emperor-evidently justified the staggering expense of creating this amazing monument.

Gongen-zukuri

Gongen-zukuri (権現造?) is the name of a complex Shinto shrine structure in which the haiden, or worship hall, and the honden, or main sanctuary, are interconnected under the same roof in the shape of an H. One of the oldest examples of gongen-zukuri is Kitano Tenmangū in Kyoto. The name comes from Nikkō Tōshō-gū in Nikkō because, as we have seen, it enshrines the Tōshō Daigongen and adopts this structure.

Heisei period

Heisei period (1989-now) 1986-91 - Bubble economy (Nikkei peak 1991) 1991-2002 (2011) - Lost decade(s) in economy 1995 - Hanshin earthquake in the Kobe Osaka area Sarin Gas attack in Tokyo subway 2011 - Tohoku earthquake and tsunami - Fukushima nuclear reactors explosion 2012 - the newly elected Abe administration appointed Tomomi Inada as the first Minister in charge of "Cool Japan" Strategy.

Hanmoto

woodblock owner

Hanpon

woodblock-printed book

Yoko Ono

Ono is often associated with the Fluxus group, whose founder George Maciunas, her friend during the 1960s, admired and promoted her work enthusiastically, giving Ono her US show at his AG Gallery in 1961. Maciunas invited her formally join the Fluxus group, but she declined because she wanted to remain independent. She did however, collaborate with him Charlotte Moorman, George Brecht, and the poet Jackson Mac Low, among others associated with the group.

Kijin

KINSEI KIJIN-DEN, 5 vols. Kyoto, Edo & Osaka. n.d. [1860's?]: String-bound Japanese-style fukuro toji, in textured blue-grey covers with printed paper title labels. 40 single page and 2 double page b+w woodcuts, largely depicting the subject matter of the title: TALES OF ECCENTRICS FROM RECENT YEARS. Originally printed in 1790, this is a deservedly famous and oft-reprinted work in Japan. The KIJIN-DEN catalogues the eccentricities and eccentrics of the late 18th Century - a time of florescence of the "bunjin" literati ideal in Japan. The bunjin created an esthetically pure environment in the midst of the bustle (and corruption) of everyday life. The initial exemplars were those scholars and artists who withdrew from public life in China after the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the alien Manchus in the mid-17th Century. The KIJIN-DEN represents one of the efforts by the Japanese to domesticate a Chinese cultural import and find native representatives of the literati ideal. The KIJIN-DEN is interesting for its exploration of the art world in Japan - for example, there is a domestic scene of the painters Ikeno Taiga and wife Gyokuran, among others. Indeed, there are many women depicted in the KIJIN-DEN. (See JAPANESE WOMEN ARTISTS 1600-1900) Also see Ryerson 416, Mitchell 364, Hillier/Ravicz 22. The condition is very good over all, the printings are late (this edition being some 60-70 years after the original printing by Hayashi Bunkindô). There was a second series done some few years later, but this first series is complete as issued in 5 volumes.

Kanō Hōgai

Kanō Hōgai (狩野 芳崖?, February 27, 1828 - November 5, 1888) was a 19th-century Japanese painter of the Kanō school. One of the last of the Kanō painters, Hōgai's works reflect the deep traditions of the school, but also at times show hints of experimentation with Western methods and styles. Like his predecessors, Hōgai painted a variety of subjects, but is perhaps most well known for his paintings of falcons, and of dragons. The son of the local daimyo's chief painter, he was sent at the age of 18 to Edo to study painting formally. He would stay there for ten years, and study under Kanō Shōsen'in and other great artists of the time. Hōgai would eventually be called upon for such esteemed commissions as ceiling paintings for Edo Castle. He also received the honor of having some of his works displayed at the 1876 Paris International Exposition. However, despite these honors, the economic turmoil created by the fall of the shogunate in 1868 forced Hōgai to seek to support himself with income via more mundane methods. He worked casting iron, reclaiming land, and running a shop selling writing instruments. In 1877 Hōgai returned to Edo, now called Tokyo, and worked for the wealthy Shimazu clan; this gave him the opportunity to study works by some of Japan's greatest painting masters, including Sesshū and Sesson. In 1884, Hōgai attracted the attention of Ernest Fenollosa, an art critic and collector from New England, who befriended him and bought several of his paintings. Along with Fenollosa, Okakura Kakuzō and Hashimoto Gahō, Hōgai then took part in a Painting Appreciation Society (観画会, kangakai). The Society was created to draw attention to the traditional Japanese arts, particularly classical art of the Heian and Nara periods which was beginning to be seriously neglected, many works sold or even destroyed due to Japan's newfound interest in the West.

Renga

Linked verses, alternating between fourteen and seventeen syllables, in which each verse is composed independently, yet is connected to the preceding and succeeding verses in strict according to a set of conventions. The seventeen syllable haiku from derives from it.

Neo-Confucianism

Not until the Tokugawa period did the Japanese come to study Confucianism with any great zeal. As Buddhism began to fall in popularity and the state became more secular-it was the zen sect( in particular)-that paved the way for the upsurge in Confucian studies during Tokugawa times. Japanese Zen priests had from at least the fourteenth century on assiduously investigated the tenets of Sung Neo-Confucianism, and in ensuing centuries had produced a corpus of research upon which Neo-Confucian scholarship of the Tokugawa period was Ultimately built. It was Chu Hsi's (1130-1200) Neo-Confucianism that was embraced by the Tokugawa Shogunate as orthodoxy. Although Shogunate authorities and Tokugawa-period intellectuals in general had relatively little interest in the purely metaphysical side of Chu-Hsi's teachings, they found his philosophy to be enormously useful in justifying or ideologically legitimizing the feudal structures of state and society that had emerged in Japan by the 17th century. Both Hayashi Razen(1583-1657) and Fujiwara Seika(1561-1619) were instrumental in implementing Confucianism into the Tokugawa Shogunate. Anxious to please their masters-who were strongly imbued with Confucian moral-ism-and reluctant to innovate, the Kanō artist after Kanō Tan'yū (1602-1674) produced little work of real distinction. On the contrary, the best painting was of the Tokugawa period was done by others.

Maruyama-Shijo-ha

Painters of the Maruyama and Shijō schools adopted aspects of Western realism into their work. Maruyama Ōkyo(1733-1795), founder of the Maruyama school, first learned about realistic perspective from pictures made for stereoscopic-European optical instruments which utilized double image pictures to create three-dimensional scenes of famous places. In his own painting Ōkyo combined ink painting methods and decorative elements of the Kano school with a calm naturalism, incorporating shading and high-lighting into his compositions. Matsumura Goshun (1752-1811), who worked with Ōkyo after studying with Buson, eventually left Ōkyo's studio to found his own, the Shijo school. His paintings blended the realism of the Ōkyo with a sensitive handling of brush and ink texture strokes learned from his Nanga mentor. Maruyama-Shijo school- Empiricism derived both from Chinese pharmacology (jp. honzogaku) and from Western knowledge (jp. Rangaku)- Obsession with realistic accuracy and use of sketches- Popular among Kyoto bourgeoisie, and culminating with the commission for paintings for the renovated Imperial Palace in 1790. Western knowledge (jp. Rangaku)- an interest in scientific knowledge originating in Western books obtained from the Dutch trading station in Nagasaki starting from the middle of the 18th c. - Mostly undertaken by a network of Confucian intellectuals looking for updates to the Chinese body of knowledge.- focused on medicine, botany, geography, but also new visual techniques.- Techniques: perspective, foreshortening, copperplate printing.

Rinpa

The Creative, innovative, and dynamic interpretation of classical literary themes by the late Momoyama-early Edo period artist Kōetsu and Sōtatsu inspired later generations of painters and craftsmen known as the Rinpa tradition. Rinpa artist like Ogata Kōrin (1658-1743), and his brother, the potter Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743), and later painters like Sakai Hōitsu (1761-1829) and Suzuki Kiitsu (1796-1858) created bold, often richly colorful compositions. Some of their work was based on episodes or verses from narratives or poetry anthologies of Heian times, and could be vividly abstract in the arrangement of pictorial elements. Rinpa school Centred in Kyoto, starting with the work of Hon'ami Koetsu (1558-1637) and Tawaraya Sotatsu (d. ca. 1640), who the influenced Ogata Korin (1658-1716) Continued the legacy of the yamato-e painting tradition (Tosa school) but updated classical themes to contemporary urban tastes Saturated colours, dynamic compositions, tarashikomi (dripping-in) technique Early 19th c. revival in Edo through Sakai Hoitsu (1761-1828), who standardized the Rinpa repertoire in printed painting manuals.

Katsura Rikyū

The Katsura Rikyū-known as the "Katsura Imperial Villa," was constructed on the left bank of the Katsura River. It was constructed for the Imperial prince Toshihito(1579-1629) and his son Noritada between 1620 and 1624, it epitomizes the style that become known as Sukiya, or "artless" building.

Kanō

The bold dynamism and love of rich color and gold that infuse much of the are of Momoyama period Japan is known through the works of Painters like Kanō Eitoku(1543-1590) and his successors in the Kanō school, masters of sliding panel and screen paintings. Kanō artist and painters of other schools combined elements of Muromachi period ink painting with decorative poly-chrome to produce the large-scale compositions that were such apt expressions of wealth and military prowess of their Daimyo patrons.

oku-eshi and omote-eshi

The term oku-eshi is used to distinguish these four branches of the Kano family from the lower-ranking official painters, termed *omote-eshi 表絵師. specifically the four branches that were oku-eshi of the Kano family: the Kajibashi Kano 鍛冶橋狩野, the Kobikicho Kano 木挽町狩野, the Nakabashi Kanou 中橋狩野 and the Hamacho Kano 浜町狩野.

Tokugawa Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川 家康?, January 31, 1543 - June 1, 1616) was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which effectively ruled Japan from the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Ieyasu seized power in 1600, received appointment as shogun in 1603, and abdicated from office in 1605, but remained in power until his death in 1616. His given name is sometimes spelled Iyeyasu,[1][2] according to the historical pronunciation of he. Ieyasu was posthumously enshrined at Nikkō Tōshō-gū with the name Tōshō Daigongen (東照大権現?). He was one of the three unifiers of Japan, along with his Former Lord Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Nonomura Ninsei and Ogata Kenzan

Two Edo period ceramic artist renowned for their distinctive styles of ceramic ware and decoration were Nonomura Ninsei (1646-1694) and Ogata Kenzan, the younger brother of the flamboyant Rinpa painter, Kōrin. Ninsei, a versatile potter, produced simple but elegantly designed stoneware's for the tea ceremony, but he is best known for his enameled wares, rich with color and gold leaf. One of his most famous pieces, a tea storage jar, is ornamented with a continuous painterly design of rolling hills covered with cherry blossoms. He also created incense burners and other small ceramic objects, sculpted in the forms of animals and birds. The younger Kenzan studied with Ninsei in 1689. A calligrapher as well as a ceramic designer and student of music and Chanoyu, Kanzen applied Rinpa-style designs to everyday potter objects such as earthenware and stoneware bowls and plates. In many instances he used poetic pictorial motifs or Heian period verses inscribed in his own distinctive calligraphy for decoration.

Zenga

Zen painting and calligraphy; a modern term used in two art-historical contexts: broadly for paintings by Zen Buddhist priest of China, Korea, and Japan; and more specifically, for work-usually bold and spontaneous-by Japanese Zen priests from about 1600 to the present, in which the emphasis is on presenting teachings of the Dharma. Zen painting (jp. zenga)- ink painting and calligraphy executed by Zen monks of the Edo period (1615-1868) as a tool for meditation and spiritual teaching. - Zen teachings are frequently transmitted in calligraphy and painting as visual koans (riddles Zen masters pose to help pupils achieve enlightenment). - often comical and intended for a specific person.- themes: Zen patriarchs such as Daruma; Hotei, the god of plenty and carefree hero in legends of spiritual freedom; and the eccentrics Kanzan and Jittoku, who symbolize creative and enlightened living, untroubled by petty thoughts and not concerned with social conventions.

Surimono

are a genre of Japanese woodblock print. They were privately commissioned for special occasions such as the New Year. Surimono literally means "printed thing". Being produced in small numbers for a mostly educated audience of literati, Surimono were often more experimental in subject matter and treatment, and extravagant in printing, than commercial prints. They were most popular from the 1790s to the 1830s, and many leading artists produced them.

Sekine Nobuo

born in 1942, is a Japanese sculptor currently living in both Tokyo, Japan, and Los Angeles, California. He is one of the key members of Mono-ha, a group of artists who became prominent in the late 1960s and 1970s. The Mono-ha artists explored the encounter between natural and industrial materials, such as stone, steel plates, glass, light bulbs, cotton, sponge, paper, wood, wire, rope, leather, oil, and water, arranging them in mostly unaltered, ephemeral states. The works focus as much on the interdependency of these various elements and the surrounding space as on the materials themselves.

Nijō-jō

flatland castle in Kyoto, Japan. Although begun in the time of Hideyoshi, Nijō castle was completed to function as the Kyoto headquarters of the Tokugawa Shoguns. Like the Katsura Imperial villa, it was designed as a series of staggered blocks of space, unlike the Katsura villa, however, it displays an imposing ornamented facade, designed to impress upon first approach. Kanō Tan'yū(1602-1674) or members of his studio painted the audience hall at Nijō castle.

Ehon

is the Japanese term for picture books. It may be applied in the general sense, or may refer specifically to a type of illustrated volume published from at least the mid-Edo period onward, often as chapter books in series.

Yakusha-e

often referred to as "actor prints" in English, are Japanese woodblock prints or, rarely, paintings, of kabuki actors, particularly those done in the ukiyo-e style popular through the Edo period (1603-1867) and into the beginnings of the 20th century. Most strictly, the term yakusha-e refers solely to portraits of individual artists (or sometimes pairs, as seen in this work by Sharaku). However, prints of kabuki scenes and of other elements of the world of the theater are very closely related, and were more often than not produced and sold alongside portraits.

Yōga

or literally "Western-style paintings" is a style of paintings by Japanese artists, made in accordance with Western (European) traditional conventions, techniques and materials. The term was coined in the Meiji period, to distinguish such works from indigenous traditional Japanese paintings, or Nihonga.