HISEN - Top Quality Image Edition

【YOKOYAMA TAIKAN】 ... more

by Yokoyama Taikan

Title

HISEN - Top Quality Image Edition

Artist

Yokoyama Taikan

Medium

Painting - Watercolor

Description

【YOKOYAMA TAIKAN】
「HISEN」
（Top Quality Image Edition）

横山大観 「飛泉」（1900）【最高画質版】

滝とつばめが舞う風景を描いた作品


【Yokoyama Taikan】
(横山 大観, 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. His real name was Sakai Hidemaro.

Taikan was extremely influential in the evolution of the Nihonga technique, having departed from the traditional method of line drawing. Together with Hishida Shunsō, he developed a new style, eliminating the lines and concentrating on soft, blurred polychromes. While Yokoyama's works tended to remain faithful in general to the traditional Rinpa school style, he experimented with various techniques borrowed from Western painting methods. However, such a cutting-edge technique was severely criticized by other traditional painters. His style, which was called "Mourou-tai(Blurred style)" (which nowadays exactly depicts his painting's character), meant the lack of energy and vitality sarcastically. He later turned almost exclusively to monochrome ink paintings, and came to be known for his mastery of the various tones and shades of black. A number of his works have been classified as Important Cultural Property by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

His trip to Calcutta in 1902 was immensely important for the evolution of global Modernism, as it resulted in a seminal exchange both of technique and motif with the important early Indian Modernist Abanindranath Tagore.

In the pre-World War II era, Taikan was sent to Italy by the Japanese government as an official representative of the Japanese artistic community. Because his teacher Okakura Tenshin was a nationalist (known as a loyal philosopher in the Meiji era as well), Taikan was very much influenced by his thoughts. Consequently, he repeatedly used Mount Fuji as a motif of his paintings, and even presented them to the Imperial family. During World War II, he donated his earnings from the sales of his paintings to the national military, and this resulted in his interrogation, accused as a suspected war criminal by GHQ. In 1935, he was appointed to the Imperial Arts Academy (the forerunner of the Japan Art Academy), and in 1937, he was one of the first people to be awarded the Order of Culture when it was established in 1937. He was also awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, first class.

On 26 February 1958, Yokoyama Taikan died in Tokyo at the age of eighty-nine; his former house is now open to the public as the Yokoyama Taikan Memorial Museum. His brain is preserved in formaldehyde at the University of Tokyo Medical School.


【横山大観】（YOKOYAMA TAIKAN / よこやま たいかん）
1868年11月2日（明治元年9月18日） - 1958年（昭和33年）2月26日）
日本の美術家、日本画家。常陸国水戸（現在の茨城県水戸市下市）出身。近代日本画壇の巨匠であり、今日「朦朧体（もうろうたい）」と呼ばれる、線描を抑えた独特の没線描法を確立した。帝国美術院会員。第1回文化勲章受章。死後、正三位勲一等旭日大綬章を追贈された。茨城県名誉県民。東京都台東区名誉区民。本名、横山 秀麿（よこやま ひでまろ）。

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July 29th, 2018