was a
Japanese painter. He taught part-time in
Taiwan at the
University of Taipei
University of Taipei (UT; ) is an institution of higher education in Taipei, Taiwan. It has two campuses in Taipei metropolitan area and is the only university under the administration of Taipei City Government.
Established by the merger of Ta ...
and as full-time instructor at the Taiwan Mandarin Institute.
He promoted modern
western art education in Taiwan and was considered a pioneer of
art education. In Taiwan, he initiated the art and culture monthly meeting and the
tea party (1913–1916). He came to Taiwan to actively promote watercolor paintings in schools and off-campus, through platforms such as the Taiwan Daily News and
Taiwan Times
The ''Taiwan Times'' () is a newspaper based in Taiwan. The newspaper began publishing on 25 August 1971. Wang Hsing-ching
Wang Hsing-ching (; born 1946), who has a pseudonym of Nanfang Shuo (南方朔, Nánfāng Shuò), is a journalist, politi ...
. He published paintings and articles "The Latest Watercolor Painting Method", "Extracurricular Painting Posts", "Mountain Purple Water Ming" and directed the Seven Star Painting Society, the Taiwan Watercolor Painting Society, the Keelung Asian Painting Association, as well as school art workshops and courses for amateurs. In the 1920s Taiwan's painting circles included
Lee Shih-chiao, Huang Yibin (黄奕滨),
Li Mei-shu
Li Mei-shu () (13 March 1902 – 6 February 1983) was a Taiwanese painter, sculptor, and politician. Born to an upper-class family in Sankakuyū (), Japanese Taiwan (modern-day Sanxia District, New Taipei City).
Education
Li Meishu began to ...
, Ni Jianghuai (倪蒋怀),
Ran In-ting and
Lee Tze-fan.
Ishikawa advocated for the Taiwanese government to hold a sponsored art exhibition and found the Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition. Taiwan has a tradition of running a competitive art exhibition where Ishikawa served as an examiner. This tradition has continued for more than eighty years and is regarded as a symbol of the important work and modernization of the government's culture and art sectors.
Biography
Early life
Ishikawa Kinichiro was born on 8 August 1871, in
Shizuoka
Shizuoka can refer to:
* Shizuoka Prefecture, a Japanese prefecture
* Shizuoka (city), the capital city of Shizuoka Prefecture
* Shizuoka Airport
* Shizuoka Domain, the name from 1868 to 1871 for Sunpu Domain, a predecessor of Shizuoka Prefecture
...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. He was a
watercolor painter of Taiwanese Western art education and visited
Japanese-era Taiwan to study. He is recognized as one of the torchbearers of modern Taiwanese Western art. His father was a former official of the
Tokugawa government during the
bakumatsu (late Tokugawa Shogunate). He was infatuated with painting, but his father did not approve of his artistic pursuits.
Education
In 1888, he entered the Tokyo Telecommunications School of the Ministry of Communications. In order to sustain his interest in painting, aside from using prints of English works to engage in self-study, he also studied Western paintings under Shoudai Tameshige.
In 1889, he entered the Ministry of Finance’s Printing Department and joined the Meiji Fine Art Society.
He traveled, with the English watercolor painter
Alfred East (1849-1913) acting as his Japanese language translator, and this experience inspired his interest in watercolors. By 1906, he began to publish essays in the watercolor magazine "Mizue" (Water Painting). He began to teach watercolor painting in Taiwan in 1906.
Work and public life
![Kinichiro Ishikawa - Government House, Taiwan (1916)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Kinichiro_Ishikawa_-_Government_House%2C_Taiwan_%281916%29.jpg)
Due to his proficiency in the English language and his painting ability, Ishikawa worked as an official translator of the
Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office.
In 1900, he left for
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
as a result of the Boxer Rebellion and, from 1904 to 1905, he was stationed in
Manchuria during the
Russo-Japanese War. While engaged at various military posts, he had several opportunities to draw battlefield scenes.
In 1907, he visited Taiwan for the first time as a military translator for the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office. From 1910 onwards, he served as an instructor at Taiwan Governor-General's National Language School’s Painting Division. In 1913, he organized other Japanese literati in Taiwan to form the
Bancha
is a type of Japanese green tea. It is harvested from the second flush of ''sencha'' between summer and autumn. (The first flush is harvested for ''shincha''.)
It can be found in a number of forms such as roasted, unroasted, smoked, matured or ...
Society and promote cultural activities in Taiwan.
By 1916, he resigned his teaching position and returned to Japan to paint
en plein air while traveling and hosting exhibitions. In 1922, he fulfilled a longstanding wish, traveling to
Europe and painting en plein air at places like
Paris,
London,
Rome and
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
. In 1923, his home in
Kamakura
is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 persons per km² over the total area of . Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939.
Kamak ...
was destroyed during the
Great Kantō earthquake
Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements
* Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size
* Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent
People
* List of people known as "the Great"
*Artel Great (born ...
, indefinitely shutting down his art activities.
In 1924, at the invitation of Taipei Normal School’s Dean Shihota Syōkichi, Ishikawa returned to Taiwan to teach once again. He continued teaching in Taiwan until his retirement in 1932, and then went back to Japan. During Ishikawa’s second sojourn in Taiwan, he actively promoted watercolor and fine art activities.
Contributions to art
Aside from teaching formal classes, he also organized and led en plein air painting field trips on holidays. He advised several art groups, such as the Chi-Hsing Painting Society, Taiwan Watercolor Painting Society, Keelung Asia Art Society, and Taiwan Painting Studio. In addition, along with other artists such as Shiotsuki Toho and Gohara Koto, he participated in the planning and judging of the 1st Taiwan Art Exhibition (Taiten).
He published articles and works in publications. He also published Scenic Beauties Collection and Extracurricular Painting Guides.
His contributions to the promotion and development of Taiwan art education were held in high esteem. Students like Ni Chiang-huai, Huang Yi Bin,
Lan Yinding
Ran In-ting (; 1903–1979), also known as Lan Yinding, was a Taiwanese watercolour artist whose work is recognised around the world for its expressive rendition of Taiwan's landscape. He was able to capture the essence of his subjects with flui ...
, Li Chefan and
Chen Zhiqi
Chen Zhiqi ( Chinese: 陳植棋 16 January 1906 - 13 April 1931, aged 25) was a Taiwanese painter.
Early life
Born and raised in ''Sui-teng-ka'' (modern-day Xizhi District, Taipei), Chen Zhiqi was a forthright and bold person by nature, with n ...
, received help and inspiration from Ishikawa. Ishikawa Kinichiro traveled throughout Taiwan to compose en plein air paintings and his works depict the natural scenery and historical monuments of the island. His brushwork was light and agile, colors were bright and appealing and he had a distinctive style of capturing
pastoral
A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...
scenes in a romantic,
nostalgic atmosphere. Taiwan's
Acacia
''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus na ...
, Zhantan trees (Melia azedarach) and old houses were often the subjects of his paintings.
See also
*
Taiwanese art The artistic heritage of Taiwan is extremely diverse with multiple major influences and periods.
History
Stonecutters of the Changbin culture began to make art on Taiwan at least 30,000 years ago. Around 5,000 years ago jade and earthenware w ...
References
Footnotes
Citations
External links
Kinichiro Ishikawa ArtworksStarting Out from 23.5°N: Chen Cheng-po, Academia Sinica Digital Center (ASDC)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kinichiro, Ishikawa
Taiwanese painters
1871 births
1945 deaths
Artists from Shizuoka Prefecture
20th-century Japanese painters