Nihonga — One of the World's Most Historically Significant Art Forms

When you hear the word "Nihonga" (Japanese-style painting), what comes to mind is something like a very old, traditional performing art. In fact, though, the concept itself was born only quite recently — while at the same time, paintings have been made with the same technique for thousands of years. Pinning down where its history begins turns out to be rather difficult.

Still, this much can be said: Nihonga brought a great transformation to modern Japanese society. And perhaps it carries a historical significance deeper than that of any artwork from abroad.

Once you know its history, you should be able to find a deeper resonance even when you look at Nihonga today.

The Concept of "Nihonga," Born in a Japan Pursuing Modernization

The concept of Nihonga was born in 1882 (Meiji 15). It began when Ernest Fenollosa, a foreign advisor who had come from the United States, used the term in a speech at the Ryūchikai (the forerunner of the Japan Art Association) to distinguish Western painting from Japanese painting.

Fenollosa established the concept of Nihonga in order to promote Japan's outstanding culture. It was a response to the demands of the Meiji government, which aimed to "enrich the nation and strengthen the military" (fukoku kyōhei) and to stand on equal footing with the Western powers.

Ever since the country opened at the end of the Edo period, Japanese artworks had crossed the seas, and their appeal gave rise to "Japonisme," a vogue for Japanese taste centered on the countries of Europe. From this Japonisme, the Meiji government reasoned that by putting its energy into art, it could gain a foothold toward being recognized by the Western powers.

The Appeal of Nihonga as Seen by Europeans

So why did Japanese painting draw the attention of Europeans? It was because Japanese painting had an appearance that Europeans could scarcely have conceived of. Two reasons can be given.

1. Simple, flat depiction

Source: Okumura Masanobu, Uki-e Depiction of a Kabuki Theater (Wikimedia Commons)

First, Japanese painting has the following characteristics, and compared with Western work it is considered extremely simple:

• No depiction of shadow
• Outlines are drawn clearly
• Little expression of color

Elements like these were seen by Europeans as "new — precisely for that reason!" For example, the British diplomat Rutherford Alcock said the following about Japanese painting:

The Japanese do not produce painting, for they lack light and shade, which are elements essential to the art of painting. Rutherford Alcock, Art and Art Industries in Japan

Nihonga, drawn flat, without perspective or a sense of depth — to Europeans it was so original that it hardly fit the category of painting at all.

2. Depicting everyday scenes

What first made Nihonga known to Europeans was the ukiyo-e printed on the wrapping paper of exported goods. The defining feature of ukiyo-e is that it "captures casual scenes of everyday life."

For instance, Katsushika Hokusai, known for the Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, depicted a cooper at work making a tub in his print Fujimigahara in Owari Province (Bishū Fujimigahara).

Source: Katsushika Hokusai, Fujimigahara in Owari Province (Wikimedia Commons)

European painting of the time generally carried strong religious or political overtones — works based on mythological motifs, portraits of those in power, and the like. Nothing like ukiyo-e, depicting everyday life, existed, and that too was strikingly novel to European painters.

In fact, even famous works such as Monet's Water Lilies and Van Gogh's The Red Vineyard are said to have been born under the influence of ukiyo-e's characteristic of "depicting the everyday."

Breaking Free from Anonymity: The Culture of Inherited Schools

Having received such high praise from Europeans, the Meiji government set out to market Nihonga's appeal still further. As a first step, the Ryūchikai, led by Fenollosa, held two exhibitions of Nihonga at the Paris Salon beginning in 1883 (Meiji 16).

But in fact, at these exhibitions, Nihonga did not earn very good reviews.

Looking at the genre of Nihonga itself, there is no question it was something new, without precedent in Europe. Yet when Nihonga works were compared with one another, they all looked alike.

Nihonga had its respective schools — the Kanō, Tosa, and Shijō schools, for example — and a culture in which painting methods were handed down as traditional craft. To put it plainly, a custom had taken shape of passing down, from master to pupil, the making of similar pictures.

This kind of traditional-performing-art aspect comes to be regarded, from the standpoint of fine art, as a lack of individuality. For this reason, the Nihonga exhibitions were poorly received.

Even so, Fenollosa had anticipated this result, and from then on, together with the art critic Okakura Tenshin, he set about promoting technical innovation in Nihonga.

Fenollosa and Tenshin sought to bring innovation to a Nihonga deemed "anonymous" by incorporating Western elements into it — depth, shading, and a richer tonality.

As a result, Nihonga was renewed by painters who answered this call, such as Kanō Hōgai and Hashimoto Gahō. In this way, the ground was laid for Nihonga to hold its own even against Western painting, and Nihonga came to be a great driving force behind Japan's modernization.

Source: Kanō Hōgai, Merciful Mother Kannon (Hibo Kannon) (Wikimedia Commons)

Nihonga: Carrying On Humanity's Oldest Technique

As described so far, the concept of Nihonga was born only from the Meiji era onward. That said, we know that long before then, from around the Heian period, paintings in Japan were already being made with the same technique.

Take, for example, the Tale of Genji Scrolls, regarded as Japan's oldest picture scrolls. There is no great difference between the technique used in them and the technique used in Nihonga from the Meiji era onward.

Source: The Tale of Genji Scrolls (Wikimedia Commons)

More than anything, an important element handed down from that era still survives in Nihonga today. That element is iwa-enogu (mineral pigments).

Iwa-enogu is a paint made by mixing pigment from crushed mineral ore with animal nikawa (glue) — that is, a collagen substance obtained from animal hides. This iwa-enogu can, in fact, be called humanity's oldest painting material.

In the Paleolithic era, said to be more than 30,000 years ago, people acquired a means of communication by carving pictures into cave walls with stone. To add color to those stone-carved pictures, they thought to affix sand of various colors to the walls. And what they used to make the sand stick was the fat of the animals they had eaten.

The very technique by which Paleolithic people tried to affix sand to walls has been carried on in iwa-enogu.

Western oil paint mixes plant-based oil with pigment; acrylic paint mixes resin with pigment. The only one that uses animal-based oil is iwa-enogu. In that sense, Nihonga can be called painting that uses humanity's oldest technique.

It came to be recognized as a single genre only very recently. Yet Nihonga, as we have seen, continues to carry on a technique older than that of any other work of art.

Together with the fact that it supported Japan's modernization in the Meiji period, from today's Nihonga, too, you should be able to feel — distinctly — the breath of each era.

Sources

• Nihonga to wa Nan datta no ka: Kindai Nihonga Shiron (What Was Nihonga? A Historical Essay on Modern Japanese Painting), by Yoshida Ryō
• Nihonga o Egaku Yorokobi (The Joy of Painting Nihonga, All-Color Edition), by Senju Hiroshi
• "Tai-Seiyō to shite no Nihonga no Sōshutsu to Saikō" (Creating and Reconsidering Nihonga as a Counterpoint to the West), by Ono Fumiko and Majima Hidenori
  https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/uaesj/48/1/48_129/_pdf/-char/ja