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Although the extensive research on Meiji painting produced during the past quartercentury reveals the rhetoric of Ernest F. Fenollosa (1853–1908) and his erstwhile pupil and colleague, Okakura Kakuzō, pen-name Tenshin (1862–1913), to be at variance with our current apprehension of reality, their views continue to dominate the prevailing narrative regarding the development of modern Japanese art.1 Art historians still subscribe, in varying degrees, to their premises that (1) Japanese art declined during the waning decades of the Edo era, resulting in a dilution of traditional values and skills, (2) the Meiji government ’s indiscriminate policies of Westernization and their official espousal of Western art threatened the survival of the traditional arts, (3) the plight of their two progenitors, Kanō Hōgai (1828–1888) and Hashimoto Gahō (1835–1908), exemplified the vicissitudes experienced by artists of that generation during the transition from Edo to Meiji, and (4) their efforts to resuscitate and renovate the traditional arts, culminating in the establishment of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, rescued Meiji painting from excessive Westernization and sterile academicism. Indeed, Victoria Weston maintains: As the story of modern Japanese painting is commonly told, it began with Fenollosa and Okakura and their campaign to turn Japanese art from its fascination with Westernization back to the appreciation and expression of qualities that, though contemporary , were intrinsically Japanese. . . . Their campaign polemicized the field to create two villains: Westernization and stagnation. Always, they were the stewards of Japanese painting, overseeing its regeneration as a modern national painting.2 Weston further claims that “Okakura’s rhetoric . . . helped shape how Japanese art history was taught in the West. Okakura molded his explanation of the trends in Meiji art to support and enhance the position of the Japan Art Institute,”3 which under the leadership of his principal disciple, Yokoyama Taikan (1868–1955), became, by virtue of longevity, the dominant Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) organization of the Taishō (1912–1925) and Shōwa (1925–1989) eras.4 This chapter will contest each of these issues and, by surveying the career of more than a dozen artists regarded as the leading painters of that period, demonstrate that not only did these painters successfully negotiate the Meiji Restoration, but that in varying 2 Ellen P. Conant Japanese Painting from Edo to Meiji Rhetoric and Reality 2. Japanese Painting from Edo to Meiji | 35 ways they actually anticipated and implemented the stylistic and ideological premises of Fenollosa and Okakura. Furthermore, it was they and their pupils, rather than the iconic painters and disciples of Fenollosa and Okakura, who were responsible for what is generally regarded as the later efflorescence of modern Japanese painting. Historic Background Specialists in Edo painting and prints have been primarily interested in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which culminated in a galaxy of luminaries who flourished in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. By contrast, even the ablest of their pupils have received far less attention, while most members of the succeeding generation, regardless of their contemporary renown, are consigned to an art history oblivion that encompasses the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century. This half-century lacuna has been construed as indicative of the “degradation of Japanese painting” posited by Fenollosa and Okakura to justify their role as the resuscitators and renovators of Japanese painting. The remarkable creativity and innovation evident in the field of painting and prints during the last quarter of the eighteenth century was accompanied by technical advances in various other mediums—metal, cloisonné, ceramics, and particularly the yūzen method of textile dying—that made possible more complex compositions and pictorial motifs beyond the capacity of most artisans. Many entrepreneurs consequently sent their ablest craftsmen to study with prominent painters, from whom they also commissioned new designs, thereby enlarging the painters’ scope and opportunities.5 Artists also continued to act as tutors to wealthy, educated members of various social strata who wished to master painting as an accomplishment (geinō) or skill (gijutsu). There were, in addition, many artists regarded as amateur in the sense that they earned their livelihood by other means.6 Japanese painters, moreover, dating back to the three Ami (San’Ami), also served as keepers, connoisseurs, and authenticators of shogunal and private collections. These duties subsequently devolved to members of other schools, particularly the official Kanō academies. Painters were also influenced by efforts of “National Learning Scholars” (Kokugakusha) and antiquarians to recover and reinterpret their artistic past while eagerly absorbing and adapting new influences from...

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