Yabu Meizan ( ja, 藪明山, birth name Yabu Masashichi (), January 20, 18531934) was a Japanese artist and workshop owner known for painting on porcelain. His studio produced high-end

Satsuma ware is a type of Japanese pottery originally from Satsuma Province, southern Kyūshū. Today, it can be divided into two distinct categories: the original plain dark clay made in Satsuma from around 1600, and the elaborately decorated ivory-bodie ...

, primarily for the export market. That term was originally coined for artistic painted porcelain from the Satsuma Province. Eventually it expanded to include low-quality porcelain that was mass-produced for export, whereas Meizan was one of the artists who continued the tradition of high artistic quality while also successfully exporting. He is regarded as the "prince" of this medium and today his works are sought after by collectors.

Biography

Khalili Collection Japanese Meiji Art S30

Yabu Meizan was born on January 20, 1853, in Nagahori,

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

. In 1880 he opened his workshop in Osaka, employing and training artists. Wares were brought from the kiln of Chin Jukan in Satsuma Province to Osaka to be decorated. The American art museum founder Charles Parsons recounts a visit to Meizan's workshop in his book ''Notes of a Trip around the World in 1894 and 1895''.

"He is very celebrated. He had 17 men and boys at work, all decorating. He makes the designs and watches them carefully in executing the work. Some are very wonderful workers. All is order, neatness and silence, no words spoken."

Meizan actively marketed his work internationally as well as domestically, taking an active role in organising the presentation of Japanese wares at world's fairs. This led to acclaim as well as sales. His success inspired another workshop to use his name and imitate his style, without matching his subtlety or detail. His career declined during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

as the war and economic turmoil made it difficult to run an export business. Japanese art was also falling out of favour with American and European buyers, who gradually turned to China.

Style

Meizan's works are characterised by minute decoration applied using copper plate designs. These engraved copper plates were used to print the designs on paper, which would then be cut to provide stencils for painting on vases or plates. His decorations used Chinese and

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

subjects until the 1890s, when he adopted more Japanese symbolism, such as fishermen or fighting

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

. He would draw from or copy popular prints by artists including

Hiroshige Utagawa Hiroshige (, also ; ja, 歌川広重 ), born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format l ...

. Over the course of his career, the designs included more and more detail. A single work might depict thousands or flowers or butterflies, or hundreds of people in a procession. Towards the end of his career he took a different approach, covering whole vases in a single motif. This new artistic direction, which may have been inspired by critics' opinions, was a commercial failure at the time; buyers much preferred the crowded style.

Exhibitions

From 1885 to 1916, Meizan displayed his art works at a number of national exhibitions and

world's fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...

s, winning multiple medals. These included the Fourth Kyoto Exhibition of 1885 (where he won a bronze medal), the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1899 and again in 1900, the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition of 1904 and the London Japan–British Exhibition of 1910. For the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition, Meizan was appointed as secretary of the Japan Exhibits Association, organising the arrangement and decoration of the hall. His final international exhibition was the 1915

Panama–Pacific International Exposition The Panama–Pacific International Exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco, California, United States, from February 20 to December 4, 1915. Its stated purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely s ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. Outside of Japan a large collection of his art works form part of the Khalili Collection of Japanese Art. The

Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...

and the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

also hold pieces. Works by Meizan were included in exhibitions drawn from the Khalili Collections at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, in 1994 and 1995, in the Wilmington Arts Centre,

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

, in 1999, Portland Art Museum in 2002, and in the

Van Gogh Museum The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opene ...

, Amsterdam, in 2006.

Gallery

File:MET 136074.jpg, Bowl, late 19th century File:Khalili Collection of Japanese Meiji Art S148.jpg, Vase, circa 1890 File:Yabu Meizan - Bowl with a Multitude of Women - Walters 492280 - Profile.jpg, Bowl with a multitude of women, circa 1904 File:Khalili Collection of Japanese Meiji Art S128.jpg, Bowl, circa 1910

References

Sources