Maruyama Ōkyo
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, born Maruyama Masataka, was a Japanese artist active in the late 18th century. He moved to Kyoto, during which he studied artworks from
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
, Japanese and Western sources. A personal style of Western naturalism mixed with Eastern decorative design emerged, and Ōkyo founded the
Maruyama school Maruyama may refer to: * Maruyama (surname), a Japanese surname and list of people with the name * Maruyama, Chiba, a town in Japan * Maruyama Park in Kyoto * Mount Maru (disambiguation), a number of different mountains in Japan * 5147 Maruyama, a ...
of painting. Although many of his fellow artists criticized his work as too slavishly devoted to natural representation, it proved a success with laypeople.


Early career

Ōkyo was born into a farming family in Ano-o, in present-day Kameoka, Kyoto. As a teenager, he moved to Kyoto and joined the townspeople (''
chōnin was a social class that emerged in Japan during the early years of the Tokugawa period. In the social hierarchy, it was considered subordinate to the samurai warrior class. Social Class The ''chōnin'' emerged in ''joka-machi'' or castle ...
'') class. He apprenticed for a toy shop, where he painted the faces onto dolls. The shop began selling European stereoscopes, novelties that when looked into presented the illusion of a three-dimensional image. It was Ōkyo's first look at Western-style perspective,Sullivan 16. and in 1767 he tried his hand at one of the images. He created ''Harbour View'', a small picture in single-point perspective. Ōkyo soon mastered the techniques of drawing stereoscope images (', eyeglass pictures). Ōkyo decided to pursue a career as an artist. He first studied under Ishida Yūtei, a member of the Kanō school and ultimately a bigger influence on Ōkyo than the stereoscope images.Mason 319. During these formative years, Ōkyo studied Chinese painting as well. He particularly admired the works of
Qian Xuan Qian may refer to: *Guizhou, abbreviated as ''Qián'' (黔), province of China *Mace (unit), or Qian, one of the Chinese units of measurement, equal to 5g *Qian (hexagram), the first hexagram of the ''I Ching'' *Qian (surname), a Chinese surname ( ...
, a 13th-century painter known for his detailed flower drawings, and Qiu Ying, a 16th-century figure painter.Paine 226. In fact, the "kyo" in Ōkyo's name was adopted in tribute to Ch'ien Hsüan. Ōkyo even briefly adopted the Chinese practice of signing his name with one character, so for a time he was known as Ōkyo En. He studied the works of
Shen Quan Shen Quan (; c. 1682–1760) was a Chinese painter during the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). His courtesy name was Nanpin (南蘋) and his sobriquet was Hengzhai (衡斎). His works became influential in Japanese Edo period art. Biography Shen ...
, a Chinese artist who lived in Nagasaki from 1731 to 1733 and painted images of flowers. However, Ōkyo did not like the artist's treatment of
proportion Proportionality, proportion or proportional may refer to: Mathematics * Proportionality (mathematics), the property of two variables being in a multiplicative relation to a constant * Ratio, of one quantity to another, especially of a part compare ...
, preferring the works of Watanabe Shikō. He also studied Ming and
Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...
paintings.Noma 150. Perhaps most significantly, Ōkyo eagerly studied any Western paintings or prints he could find.


Success

Ōkyo's first major commission came in 1768 from Yūjō, abbot of a temple in Ōtsu called Enman'in. Over the next three years, Ōkyo painted '' The Seven Misfortunes and Seven Fortunes'', a depiction of the results of both bad and good karma. The three scrolls total about 148 ft (45 m) in length. Ōkyo tried to find models for the people depicted in them, even for the shocking images such as a man being ripped in two by frightened bulls.Mason 320. His introduction to the work states that he believed that people needed to see reality, not imaginary images of Nirvana or Hell, if they were to truly believe in Buddhist principles. Other painters were critical of Ōkyo's style. They found it to be overly concerned with physical appearances, alleging that he was too beholden to the real world and produced undignified works. Nevertheless, his style proved popular with the public, and commissions came in to do Western-style
landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
s, decorative screens, and nudes. He did life drawings and used them for material in his paintings.Sadao 223. Ōkyo was probably the first Japanese artist to do life drawings from nude models. The subject was still considered pornographic in Japan. During his career he painted for wealthy merchants, the
shogunate , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakur ...
, even the emperor.Paine 228. The public's perception of Ōkyo's skill is evident in a legend recounted by Van Briessen. The story goes that a '' daimyō'' commissioned Ōkyo to paint a "ghost image" of a lost family member. Once the work was completed, the ghost image came off the painting and flew away.


Maruyama school

Success prompted Ōkyo to start a school in Kyoto, where he could teach his new style. He was a talented art teacher, and he soon took on many students. He taught them to rely on nature to render images in a realistic picture of light, shadow, and forms. The school grew popular, and branches soon appeared in other locations, including Osaka. Much of the school's work is today preserved at Daijō-ji, a temple in Kasumi (
Hyōgo Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and has a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to the southeast, an ...
). Noteworthy pupils include Ōkyo's son, Maruyama Ōzui,
Nagasawa Rosetsu was an 18th-century (Edo period) Japanese painter of the Maruyama School, known for his versatile style. He was born to the family of a low-ranking samurai. He studied with Maruyama Ōkyo in Kyoto. Biography There are conflicting versions of ...
, and
Matsumura Goshun Matsumura GoshunAccording to standard references, his name is ''either'' Goshun, modelled after Chinese habit, ''or'' Matsumura Gekkei. ( jap. ; April 28, 1752 (traditional: Hōreki 2/3/15) – September 4, 1811 (traditional: Bunka 8/7/17)
. Goshun joined Ōkyo's school in 1787. That year, the Maruyama school took a commission to paint screens for Daijō-ji. Later that year, Kyoto suffered a devastating fire, so Ōkyo and Goshun moved into a temple called Kiunin. The two became fast friends, and Ōkyo refused to regard their relationship as that of a teacher and student. Goshun later went on to found the Shijō school.


Style

Ōkyo's painting style merged a tranquil version of Western naturalism with the Eastern decorative painting of the Kanō school.Sadao 214. His works show a Western understanding of highlight and shadow. His realism differed from previous Japanese schools in its devotion to nature as the ultimate source with no regard for sentiment. Ōkyo's intricately detailed plant and animal sketches show a great influence from European nature drawings. An album of leaves in the Nishimura Collection in Kyoto (now in handscroll form) depicts several animals and plants, each labeled as if in European guidebook. Still, Ōkyo's works remain Japanese. Unlike European painting, Ōkyo's images have very few midtones. Moreover, he follows the Eastern tradition in depicting objects with very little setting; often his pictures feature a single subject on a plain background. The result is a more immediate naturalism with a decorative and reflective feel. This was achieved through skillful brush handling; Ōkyo painted with a broad, flat brush, which he would load with more paint on one side. This created broad strokes that vary in paint coverage. Nature was not his only subject; many works by Ōkyo depict normal scenes from life in Kyoto's commercial area. His ''Geese Alighting on Water'', painted at Enman'in, Ōtsu in 1767, is an early example of his mature style. The subject is treated as a part of nature; nothing philosophical is implied as had been done with such imagery in the East Asian tradition. Likewise, ''Kingfisher and Trout'', painted in 1769, features a bird near the top of the image, waiting for a fish. The trout swims under a large rock near the center. Bird, fish, and stone all appear as they do in nature, creating a matter-of-fact, comprehensible, and natural-looking piece. Later in his oeuvre, ''Pine Trees in Snow'', executed in 1773 for the wealthy Mitsui family, is realistic despite being in the Japanese idiom of ink on a gold background. The two six-panel screens show tree bark and pine needles separated by differing brush strokes, and the white snow seems to weigh down the branches. The bark is painted in the ''
tsuketate Ink wash painting ( zh, t=水墨畫, s=水墨画, p=shuǐmòhuà; ja, 水墨画, translit=suiboku-ga or ja, 墨絵, translit=sumi-e; ko, 수묵화, translit=sumukhwa) is a type of Chinese ink brush painting which uses black ink, such as tha ...
'' technique, which uses no outlines, just dark and light shades to create the illusion of volume. ''Hozu Rapids'', painted in 1795, is one of Ōkyo's later works. On two eightfold screens it depicts a tree and a cluster of rocks with some dragons. The work thus shows Ōkyo's ability to render the natural elements in a convincingly realistic fashion. However, the dragons, according to art critics such as Paine, demonstrate a weakness; they are treated academically, thus losing their grand, legendary essence.Paine 227–228.


Notes


See also

* Yūrei-zu


References

* Mason, Penelope (2005). ''History of Japanese Art''. 2nd ed, rev. by Dinwiddie, Donald. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc. * Noma, Seiroku (1966). ''The Arts of Japan: Late Medieval to Modern''. Kodansha International. * Paine, Robert Treat, and Soper, Alexander (1981). ''The Art and Architecture of Japan''. 3rd ed. Penguin Books Ltd. * Sadao, Tsuneko S., and Wada, Stephanie (2003). ''Discovering the Arts of Japan: A Historical Overview''. New York: Kodansha America, Inc. * Sullivan, Michael (1989). ''The Meeting of Eastern and Western Art''. Berkeley: The University of California Press. * Van Briessen, Fritz (1998). ''The Way of the Brush: Painting Techniques of China and Japan''. North Clarendon, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing.


External links


Bridge of dreams: the Mary Griggs Burke collection of Japanese art
a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Maruyama Ōkyo (see index) {{DEFAULTSORT:Maruyama, Okyo 1733 births 1795 deaths Japanese Buddhists Japanese painters 18th-century Japanese artists 18th-century Buddhists Buddhist artists History of art in Japan