History of Japanese Paintings

Because of the development of the Shingon and Tendai sects of Buddhism in Japan in the 8th and 9th centuries, religious paintings, especially those featuring mandalas, became the mainstay. Among the different styles of mandalas, the Vajrayana mandala and the Kurashina mandala were the most common, and were mainly expressed in the form of hanging scrolls or temple frescoes. Early examples include the frescoes of the five-storied pagoda at Daigoji Temple in southern Kyoto.

In the middle of the Heian period, the status of Tang-e began to be replaced by Yamato-e, which was originally used as paintings on screens and paper doors. In the late Heian period, Yamato-e evolved into a new style that included ekimaki. The subject matter of ekimaki included novels, such as the Tale of Genji, historical works such as the Eki of the Companions of the Great Nayan, and religious works. Ekimaki artists invented a system of pictorial conventions that were used to convey the emotional content of different scenes. The Tale of Genji is divided into several individual events, whereas Yonda Nayan Eigyō uses a coherent narrative style of expression, and vivid images are presented in light but vivid colors and quick brush strokes. The "Sanjoden Night Maki" of the "Benz Monogatari Eriki" is also a famous example of the above technique. In the Edo period, the style of painting was inherited from the Azuchi-Momoyama period, and a new field was created. The Rinpaku school was a school of painting that emerged at the beginning of the Edo period and utilized bold and flamboyant techniques to express traditional themes. The Rin school painter Omoya Souta evolved a decorative style that used brightly colored figures and motifs of the natural world against gold leaf backgrounds to recreate classic literary themes. A century later, the Rin School painter Mitsuhiko Ogata reinvented Omoya Souta's style and made it his own.

Meanwhile, Nanban art began to be cultivated in the Azuchi-Momoyama period and matured until the Edo period. It used foreign styles to depict foreigners. It developed around the port of Nagasaki, which was the only port opened after the Tokugawa Shogunate imposed the Japanese lockout. As a result, Chinese and Western artistic influences were introduced. Its schools of painting, such as the Nagasaki School and the Maruyama Shijo School, incorporated Chinese and Western influences into Japanese elements.

Additionally, the Southern School of Japanese painting developed during the Edo period. It began with the imitation of Nanzong literati painting, which was introduced in the 18th century by the Yuan dynasty in China. Later on, the literati painters changed their techniques and themes drastically, resulting in a mixture of Chinese and Japanese painting styles. Famous artists include Ike Daiya, Urakami Yudo, and Xie Wumura, Tanemura Takeda, Tani Fumio, and Yamamoto Umeyoshi.

Because of the Edo Shogunate's austerity and social policies, the extravagant style of painting spread only among the upper class, while in contrast, folklore painting developed in the civil society. Its subjects included ordinary citizens, kabuki, prostitutes, and landscapes. In the 16th century, folkloric painting developed into ukiyo-e, which was mass-produced using the woodblock printing technique, and became a key medium in the mid-to-late Edo period. With the Meiji Restoration in 1868, which put an end to the Shogunate rule, Japan entered the modern age and joined the international community. Japan actively absorbed the modern culture of Europe and the United States, but at the same time, Japan did not abandon its traditional culture, but combined the modern Western culture with the traditional Japanese culture, based on the tradition and adapted to the modern times, so as to create a new modern Japanese culture. Japanese screen painting is no exception, its modernity, ethnicity, decorative are very strong.