Exhibition Outlines

During the mid Edo period, the Kyoto painting circles were activated by the several painters with originality appearing one after another, among which Maruyama Okyo presented a unique realistic painting style, and raised many pupils to create the school known as the Maruyama School. They participated in the construction of the Imperial Palace, and gradually became a major painting school approaching the Kano and Tosa Schools, and later, branch schools such as Shijo School, Hara School, and Mori School were also created. The Maruyama School that expanded its range by the end of the Edo period, was to play a leading role among the new painting circles that developed in the new modern era.

In the new Meiji period, painters who succeeded Okyo's painting style such as Kono Bairei and Mori Kansai, participated in the establishment of the art society, Jounsha and the Kyoto-fu Gagakko (Kyoto Prefectural School of Painting), and were active as the main figures among the Kyoto painting circles. Furthermore, during the end of the Edo period to early Meiji period, some painters moved to Tokyo (Edo) such as Kawabata Gyokusho, Murase Gyokuden, and Nomura Bunkyo. Gyokusho especially raised many pupils, and later established a painting school, and also became a professor of the Tokyo School of Fine Art, playing an important role in expanding the Maruyama School painting style in Tokyo. The Maruyama School painters of both Kyoto and Tokyo participated in the interior decorations of the Meiji Imperial Palace, such as the cedar sliding door paintings, and many other paintings to decorate the detached palaces and various Imperial villas, and also were designated as Imperial Court Artists. Furthermore, since the Taisho period, within the new trend to respect each painters' individuality, the appearance of Takeuchi Seiho, pupil of Bairei, and Yamamoto Shunkyo, pupil of Kansai, who achieved the modernization of the Maruyama School, cannot be overlooked.

In this exhibition, we will overview the works of the painters in the Maruyama School among our collection, from Okyo and his pupils, to the painters who are related to the Maruyama School since the Meiji era, and introduce how the existence of the Maruyama School that was handed down from the early modern era, to the modern era, added rich air to modern Japanese painting.