Yoga
Yoga, or Western-style painting, emerged in Japan in 1855 as a result of efforts by the Japanese government to establish a bureau (Bansho Shirabesho) for the study of Western documents. The Western paintings that formed one part of this bureau were studied not for their aesthetic value, but rather for the insights they might yield in understanding Western technology through the study of styles and materials.
Takahashi Yuichi (1828–1894) was a central figure at this time. He entered the Bansho Shirabesho and became the first artist to consider the Western concept of objective and subjective interpretations. He later studied Western painting techniques under Charles Wirgman, of the Illustrated London News, and was important in founding Kokka, Japan's first scholarly art journal, in 1889.
The establishment of the Technical Fine Arts School (Kobu Bijutsu Gakko) in 1877 enabled the Japanese to study under Italian artists. The school was interested in providing training in drafting and cartography; however, the Westerners who taught at Kobu Bijutsu Gakko had a strong impact on the development of yoga. One such painter was Antonio Fontanesi (1818–1881). A follower of the Barbizon school, for whom the dominant colors were browns and golds, Fontanesi was teacher to the artists Yamamoto Hosui (1850–1906) and Asai Chu (1856–1907).
The popularity of Western-style painting declined in the 1880s in favor of Japanese-style work. As a result, the Meiji Art Society was established in 1889 to promote Western-style art through its annual exhibitions, which led, in the 1890s, to a revival of popular interest in yoga. However, in the first half of the 1890s, a rivalry developed between the artists trained by masters of the Barbizon school and those who had been strongly influenced by the light colors of the French Impressionists. Kuroda Seiki (1866–1924), who spent ten years in France, influenced other Japanese artists who painted in the Western style. By 1896 the strained relationship between the two approaches led Kuroda and others to separate from the Meiji Art Society and form the White Horse Society. It was through the exhibitions of these societies that Western-style painting was promoted, creating an appreciation and interest in yoga that would influence later generations of artists in Japan.
Further Reading
Harada Minoru. (1974) Meiji Western Painting. Trans. by Murakata Akiko. New York: Weatherhill.
Rosenfeld, John M. (1971) "Western-Style Painting in the Early Meiji Period and Its Critics." In Tradition and Modernization in Japanese Culture, edited by Donald H. Shively. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Takashima Shuji and J. Thomas Rimer, with Gerald D. Bolas. (1987). Paris in Japan: The Japanese Encounter with European Painting. Tokyo: Japan Foundation.
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