Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Japanese-Style painting (nihonga) »

Nihonga (literally “Japanese painting”) is a term that arose in 1880s Japan in order to distinguish existing forms of painting from newly popularized oil painting, and even today it is a category of artistic production apart from contemporary art at large. In this sense, nihonga is the oldest form of a broader worldwide category of “tradition-based contemporary art.” While nihonga was supposed to encompass any form of “traditional” painting, however, in practice it was held together by a recognizable style. When nihonga stopped fulfilling certain material or stylistic criteria, it ceased to be distinguishable from the rest of artistic production. This led to a conundrum in which nihonga, constituted in an age of Orientalism by Western and Japanese fears about the loss of a truly “Japanese” form of painting, has been obliged to reaffirm and reiterate what Kitazawa Noriaki has called its “sad history” of segregation in order to avoid extinction. By examining a series of paintings and written statements that blur the line between nihonga and the rest of modern-contemporary artistic production, I question the practicality and the benefits of continuing to uphold nihonga and tradition-based contemporary as discrete categories of contemporary art.

The phenomenon of globalization has led to a growing interconnectedness across nations and regions, giving rise to extensive cross-cultural exchanges, establishment of commercial alliances, and significant societal transformations. This paper examines the embedded dynamics between the West and the East by analyzing three paintings of Hishida Shuns, the Morotai technique he developed, and the Nihonga movement in the Meiji Period, which opposed the dominance of Western paintings by insisting on traditional Japanese paintings and art styles. This research has identified three Nihonga paintings that Shuns created in the three stages of his career and a text he wrote near the end of his life (during the final phase of the Nihonga movement), which explains the development of the Morotai technique and discusses the progression of the Nihonga movement in the Meiji period. In the discussion, the paper compares the West and East with respect to five aspects: the embedded Western bias in the Nihonga movement, the comparison between Nihonga and Yoga, the Western perception of the Morotai technique and the Western Gaze on the East, the shift in Japans national identity, and the localization of the globalized West in domestic Japanese society. The paper concludes that the success of the Nihonga movement and of Morotai-style paintings show that domestic Eastern culture actively sought to maintain its position under the pressure of Western influx by integrating Western ideas and Eastern techniques.

The aim of the present paper is to show how the school of nihonga is produced institutionally by superimposing features of the traditional paradigm of art-making onto a modern art form in order to “naturalise” it in the Japanese context. It is based on the personal experience of the author as a researcher at the nihonga department of the Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku (National University of Arts and Music) in 7995-97 and has in part been motivated by the conviction that it is far too early to proclaim the problem of “the distinctive” feel “of Japanese culture” a false problem, that the search for national identity in painting and analyzing “the incompatibility of imported styles and domestic sensibility” is still a point at stake among the Japanese artists and art-critics. This conviction is rather vividly supported by public statements of practicing artists on what the Japanese-style painting is, by the exhibitions focusing on the indigenous elements in Japanese art and by the many hours of communication with nihonga artists and students, especially with the well-known Japanese-style painter Okamura Keizaburo whose creative work is a good testimony to the meaningfulness of the problem raised. As the position of the author of this article was swinging from the critical stare of the outside observer to the empathic participation of nearly an insider; this experience will be treated as a sort of a field-work, though the author was not conscious of his activity as of a kind of “anthropology of art” back then.

Durant les années 1920 et 1930, le Japon et la France ont eu des échanges culturels particulièrement riches. Les artistes japonais sont venus en nombre à Paris pour étudier la peinture à l'occidentale, certains allant jusqu'à concourir dans des Salons parisiens ; au moins 200 d'entre eux ont exposé dans les Salons de Paris. Du côté japonais, on observe par exemple 32 expositions collectives organisées en France pendant cette période autour d'artistes japonais, soit du fait du gouvernement impérial, soit à l'initiative des artistes eux-mêmes. Plus de 70 expositions individuelles dans les galeries parisiennes leur ont été dédiées. Du côté français, le marchand d'art Herman d'Oelsnitz et la Société d'art franco-japonaise ont ainsi organisé pas moins de 23 expositions d'art français au Japon. En 1928, des chefs-d'œuvre du musée du Luxembourg ont été envoyés à Tokyo, tandis qu'une exposition d'art japonais a eu lieu au musée du Jeu de Paume en 1929. Issus de cette exposition, en dehors des 13 peintures achetées par l'État français, 81 peintures et 31 objets d'art ont été vendus à des collectionneurs privés. En outre, 19 gravures ont été achetées par l'État français. Ces relations particulièrement intenses nous conduisent à nous demander : pourquoi les artistes japonais sont venus à Paris ? Concernant les expositions d'art japonais, quels ont été les critères de sélection adoptés par le Japon ? Comment les artistes japonais et leurs œuvres étaient-ils perçus en France ? Sur quel type d'œuvres se concentraient les acquisitions en France, la peinture de style japonais (nihonga) ou la peinture de style occidental (yōga), ou encore les deux ? Les analyses ouvriront la voie à une meilleure compréhension des échanges dynamiques entre le Japon et la France, échanges dont l'importance se retrouve également dans les enjeux spécifiques du monde de l'art d'aujourd'hui
During the 1920s and 1930s, Japan and France enjoyed particularly rich cultural exchanges. Many Japanese artists came to Paris to study Western painting, some going so far as to compete in Parisian Salons. At least 200 artists exhibited at the parisiens Salons. On the Japanese side, for example, 32 group exhibitions of Japanese artists were organised in France during this period, either by the imperial government or on the initiative of the artists themselves. More than 70 solo exhibitions in Parisian galleries were also dedicated to Japanese artists. On the French side, the art dealer Herman d'Oelsnitz and the Société d'art franco-japonaise organised no fewer than 23 exhibitions of French art in Japan. In 1928, masterpieces from the Musée du Luxembourg were sent to Tokyo, while an exhibition of Japanese art was held at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in 1929. After this exhibition, apart from the 13 paintings bought by the French state, 81 paintings and 31 decorative arts were sold to private collectors. As for prints, 19 were bought by the French State. These particularly intense relations lead us to ask questions such as: why did Japanese artists come to Paris? What selection criteria did Japan adopt for exhibitions of Japanese art? How were Japanese artists and their works perceived in France? What type of work was acquired in France, Japanese-style painting (nihonga) or Western-style painting (yōga), or both? The analyses will pave the way for a better understanding of the dynamic exchanges between Japan and France, exchanges whose importance is also reflected in today's art world