, also known as Watanabe Shōtei, was a Japanese

Nihonga ''Nihonga'' () is a Japanese style of painting that typically uses mineral pigments, and occasionally ink, together with other organic pigments on silk or paper. The term was coined during the Meiji period (1868–1912) to differentiate it from ...

painter who was one of the first Japanese painters to visit Europe, attending the 1878 International Exhibition in Paris and being awarded a medal. He blended Western realism with the delicate colours and washes of the

Kikuchi Yōsai , also known as Kikuchi Takeyasu and Kawahara Ryōhei, was a Japanese people, Japanese painter most famous for his monochrome portraits of historical figures. Biography The son of a samurai named Kawahara of Edo, he was adopted by a family ...

school, introducing a new approach to ''kachōga'' (bird-and-flower painting).

Biography

Born as Yoshikawa Yoshimata in

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

, he was later adopted by the family of his father's literary friend, Watanabe Mitsue. His early studies were at age sixteen under

(1788–1878) after which he spent a brief time in the studio of the painter and lacquer artist,

Shibata Zeshin was a Japanese lacquer Japanese painting, painter and print artist of the Edo period, late Edo period and early Meiji era. He has been called "Japan's greatest lacquerer", but his reputation as painter and print artist is more complex: In Japa ...

(1807–1891). In 1878 he travelled in the United States and Europe, remaining in Paris for three years and becoming the first Nihonga artist to live in Europe with the aim of studying Western painting. Travel abroad was extremely difficult for Japanese artists in the early

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

(1868–1912), and it is unknown how Shōtei managed this. A few years earlier, in 1875, he had produced designs for an export company, which may have provided him with the necessary contacts. His works have enjoyed great popularity in the West, and a large number are to be seen in both European and American collections. Watanabe Seitei Summer

On his return from Europe, Seitei created designs for ceramics and

cloisonné Cloisonné () is an ancient technology, ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects with colored material held in place or separated by metal strips or wire, normally of gold. In recent centuries, vitreous enamel has been used, but inla ...

, working with the cloisonné artist

Namikawa Sosuke Namikawa is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *, Japanese photographer *, Japanese voice actor * Namikawa Sōsuke (1847–1910), Japanese cloisonné artist * Namikawa Yasuyuki Namikawa Yasuyuki (1845–1927) — orig ...

(1847–1910), leading to acclaim from abroad. He maintained a prodigious output of paintings and illustrations, producing three outstanding albums: ' ('Picture album of Seitei's bird and flower'), 1890–91; ' ('Bird and flower album'), 1903; and the last series published in 1916 also entitled '. Watanabe Shotei also edited and contributed to the art magazine ' (The World of Art), of which the first number was published by Wada Tokutaro in the year Meiji 23 (1890) and printed by Yoshida Ichimatsu with the blockcuts carried out by Goto Tokujiro. Besides Watanabe's illustration and that of Yoshitoshi Kyosai, there were ten other artists who contributed. Twenty-two of his bird and flower prints were published by Okura Yasugorō in 1916. During his life he received many awards, in expositions in and out of Japan. He became a major inspiration to the following generation of Nihonga artists, notably

Mizuno Toshikata () is a Japanese sports equipment and sportswear company, founded in Osaka in 1906 by Rihachi Mizuno. Today, Mizuno is a global corporation which makes a wide variety of sports equipment and sportswear for table tennis, boxing, badminton, gol ...

(1866–1908) and

Kaburagi Kiyokata was the art-name of a Nihonga artist and the leading master of the ''bijin-ga'' genre in the Taishō and Shōwa eras. His legal name was Kaburaki Ken'ichi. The artist himself used the reading "Kaburaki", but many Western (and some Japanese) sourc ...

(1878–1973).

Gallery

File:Watanabe Shotei10.jpg, Bird and

Magnolia ''Magnolia'' is a large genus of about 210 to 340The number of species in the genus ''Magnolia'' depends on the taxonomic view that one takes up. Recent molecular and morphological research shows that former genera ''Talauma'', ''Dugandiodendr ...

File:Watanabe Shotei55.jpg, ''

Chrysanthemum Chrysanthemums ( ), sometimes called mums or chrysanths, are flowering plants in the Asteraceae family. They are native to East Asia and northeastern Europe. Most species originate from East Asia, and the center of diversity is in China. Co ...

'' File:Watanabe Shotei44.jpg,

Seagull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the subfamily Larinae. They are most closely related to terns and skimmers, distantly related to auks, and even more distantly related to waders. Until the 21st century, most gulls were placed ...

s over the Waves File:MET DP211825.jpg, Album leaf, ca. 1887.

Notes

References

* Conant, Ellen P.; Steven D. Owyoung and J. Thomas Rimer. (1995). ''Nihonga: Transcending the Past: Japanese-Style Painting, 1868-1968.'' St. Louis, Missouri: Saint Louis Art Museum. * Merritt, Helen and Nanako Yamada. (1995). ''Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints, 1900-1975.'' Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ;
OCLC 247995392

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Watanabe, Shotei 1852 births 1918 deaths 19th-century Japanese painters 20th-century Japanese painters