Japanese artists of the 18th century. Japanese classical painting: the most famous names
Japanese painting is absolutely unique direction in world art. It has existed since ancient times, but as a tradition it has not lost its popularity and ability to surprise.
Attention to traditions
The East is not only about landscapes, mountains and the rising sun. These are also the people who created his story. These are the people who keep the tradition alive Japanese painting for many centuries, developing and enhancing his art. Those who made a significant contribution to history are Japanese artists. Thanks to them, modern ones have retained all the canons of traditional Japanese painting.
Manner of execution of paintings
Unlike Europe, Japanese artists preferred to paint closer to graphics than to painting. In such paintings you will not find the rough, careless oil strokes that are so characteristic of the Impressionists. What is the graphic nature of such art as Japanese trees, rocks, animals and birds - everything in these paintings is drawn as clearly as possible, with solid and confident ink lines. All objects in the composition must have an outline. Filling inside the outline is usually done with watercolors. The color is washed out, other shades are added, and somewhere the color of the paper is left. Decorativeness is precisely what distinguishes Japanese paintings from the art of the whole world.
Contrasts in painting
Contrast is another characteristic technique used by Japanese artists. This could be a difference in tone, color, or the contrast of warm and cool shades.
The artist resorts to this technique when he wants to highlight some element of the subject. This could be a vein on a plant, a separate petal, or a tree trunk against the sky. Then the light, illuminated part of the object and the shadow under it are depicted (or vice versa).
Transitions and color solutions
When painting Japanese paintings, transitions are often used. They can be different: for example, from one color to another. On the petals of water lilies and peonies you can notice a transition from a light shade to a rich, bright color.
Transitions are also used in the image of the water surface and sky. Looks very nice smooth transition from sunset to dark, deepening twilight. When drawing clouds, they also use transitions from different shades and reflexes.
Basic motives of Japanese painting
In art, everything is interconnected with real life, with the feelings and emotions of those involved in it. As in literature, music and other manifestations of creativity, in painting there are several eternal themes. These are historical subjects, images of people and nature.
Japanese landscapes come in many varieties. Often in paintings there are images of ponds - a favorite piece of furniture for the Japanese. Decorative pond, several water lilies and bamboo nearby - this is what it looks like ordinary picture 17-18 centuries.
Animals in Japanese painting
Animals are also a frequently recurring element in Asian painting. Traditionally it is a prowling tiger or a domestic cat. In general, Asians are very fond of and therefore their representatives are found in all forms of oriental art.
The world of fauna is another theme that Japanese painting follows. Birds - cranes, decorative parrots, luxurious peacocks, swallows, inconspicuous sparrows and even roosters - all of them are found in the drawings of oriental masters.
Pisces - no less actual topic for Japanese artists. Koi carp are the Japanese version of goldfish. These creatures live in Asia in all ponds, even in small parks and gardens. Koi carp is a kind of tradition that belongs specifically to Japan. These fish symbolize struggle, determination, and achieving your goal. It’s not for nothing that they are depicted floating with the flow, always with decorative wave crests.
Japanese paintings: depiction of people
People in Japanese painting are a special theme. Artists depicted geishas, emperors, warriors and elders.
Geishas are depicted surrounded by flowers, always wearing elaborate robes with many folds and elements.
Sages are depicted sitting or explaining something to their students. The image of the old scientist is a symbol of the history, culture and philosophy of Asia.
The warrior was portrayed as formidable, sometimes terrifying. The long ones were drawn in detail and looked like wire.
Usually all the details of the armor are clarified using ink. Often naked warriors are decorated with tattoos depicting an eastern dragon. It is a symbol of Japan's strength and military might.
Rulers were depicted for imperial families. Beautiful clothes and decorations in men’s hair are what such works of art abound in.
Landscapes
Traditional Japanese landscape - mountains. Asian painters have succeeded in depicting a variety of landscapes: they can depict the same peak in different colors, with a different atmosphere. The only thing that remains unchanged is the obligatory presence of flowers. Usually, along with mountains, the artist depicts some kind of plant on foreground and draws it in detail. The mountains and cherry blossoms. And if they paint falling petals, the picture evokes admiration for its sad beauty. The contrast in the atmosphere of the picture is another wonderful quality Japanese culture.
Hieroglyphs
Often the composition of a picture in Japanese painting is combined with writing. The hieroglyphs are arranged so that they look beautiful compositionally. They are usually drawn on the left or right of the painting. Hieroglyphs can represent what is depicted in the painting, its title, or the name of the artist.
Japan is one of the richest countries in history and culture. All over the world, the Japanese are generally considered to be pedantic people who find aesthetics in absolutely all manifestations of life. Therefore, Japanese paintings are always very harmonious in color and tone: if there are splashes of some bright color, it is only in the semantic centers. Using paintings by Asian artists as an example, you can study color theory, correct representation of form using graphics, and composition. The technique of execution of Japanese paintings is so high that it can serve as an example for working with watercolors and performing “washing” of graphic works.
If you think that all great artists are in the past, then you have no idea how wrong you are. In this article you will learn about the most famous and talented artists of our time. And, believe me, their works will remain in your memory no less deeply than the works of maestros from past eras.
Wojciech Babski
Wojciech Babski – modern Polish artist. He completed his studies at the Silesian Polytechnic Institute, but associated himself with. IN Lately draws mainly women. Focuses on the expression of emotions, strives to obtain the greatest possible effect using simple means.
Loves color, but often uses shades of black and gray to achieve best experience. Not afraid to experiment with different new techniques. Recently, he has been gaining increasing popularity abroad, mainly in the UK, where he successfully sells his works, which can already be found in many private collections. In addition to art, he is interested in cosmology and philosophy. Listens to jazz. Currently lives and works in Katowice.
Warren Chang
Warren Chang is a contemporary American artist. Born in 1957 and raised in Monterey, California, he graduated with honors from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1981, where he received a BFA. Over the next two decades, he worked as an illustrator for various companies in California and New York before embarking on a career as a professional artist in 2009.
His realistic paintings can be divided into two main categories: biographical interior paintings and paintings depicting people at work. His interest in this style of painting dates back to the work of the 16th century artist Johannes Vermeer, and extends to subjects, self-portraits, portraits of family members, friends, students, studio interiors, classrooms and homes. Its goal is to realistic paintings create mood and emotion through the manipulation of light and the use of muted colors.
Chang became famous after switching to traditional fine arts. Over the past 12 years, he has earned numerous awards and honors, the most prestigious of which is the Master Signature from the Oil Painters of America, the largest oil painting community in the United States. Only one person out of 50 is given the opportunity to receive this award. Warren currently lives in Monterey and works in his studio, and he also teaches (known as a talented teacher) at the San Francisco Academy of Art.
Aurelio Bruni
Aurelio Bruni – Italian artist. Born in Blair, October 15, 1955. He received a diploma in scenography from the Institute of Art in Spoleto. As an artist, he is self-taught, as he independently “built a house of knowledge” on the foundation laid in school. He began painting in oils at the age of 19. Currently lives and works in Umbria.
Bruni's early paintings are rooted in surrealism, but over time he begins to focus on the proximity of lyrical romanticism and symbolism, enhancing this combination with the exquisite sophistication and purity of his characters. Animated and inanimate objects acquire equal dignity and look almost hyper-realistic, but at the same time they do not hide behind a curtain, but allow you to see the essence of your soul. Versatility and sophistication, sensuality and loneliness, thoughtfulness and fruitfulness are the spirit of Aurelio Bruni, nourished by the splendor of art and the harmony of music.
Aleksander Balos
Alkasander Balos is a contemporary Polish artist specializing in oil painting. Born in 1970 in Gliwice, Poland, but since 1989 he has lived and worked in the USA, in Shasta, California.
As a child, he studied art under the guidance of his father Jan, a self-taught artist and sculptor, so he early age, artistic activity received full support from both parents. In 1989, at the age of eighteen, Balos left Poland for the United States, where he school teacher and part-time artist Katie Gaggliardi encouraged Alkasander to enroll in art school. Balos then received a full scholarship to the University of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he studied painting with philosophy professor Harry Rozin.
After graduating in 1995 with a bachelor's degree, Balos moved to Chicago to attend school visual arts whose methods are based on creativity Jacques-Louis David. Figurative realism and portrait painting were most Balos' works in the 90s and early 2000s. Today Balos uses human figure in order to highlight the features and show the shortcomings of human existence, without offering any solutions.
The subject compositions of his paintings are intended to be independently interpreted by the viewer, only then will the paintings acquire their true temporal and subjective meaning. In 2005, the artist moved to Northern California, since then the subject matter of his work has expanded significantly and now includes freer painting methods, including abstraction and various multimedia styles that help express ideas and ideals of existence through painting.
Alyssa Monks
Alyssa Monks – modern American artist. Born in 1977, in Ridgewood, New Jersey. I began to be interested in painting when I was still a child. Studied at the New School in New York and State University Montclair and graduated from Boston College in 1999 with a B.A. At the same time she studied painting at the academy Lorenzo Medici in Florence.
Then she continued her studies in the master's degree program at the New York Academy of Art, in the department of Figurative Art, graduating in 2001. She graduated from Fullerton College in 2006. For some time she lectured at universities and educational institutions throughout the country, she taught painting at the New York Academy of Art, as well as Montclair State University and Lyme Academy of Art College.
“Using filters such as glass, vinyl, water and steam, I distort human body. These filters allow you to create large areas of abstract design, with islands of color peeking through - parts of the human body.
My paintings change the modern view of the already established, traditional poses and gestures of bathing women. They could tell an attentive viewer a lot about such seemingly self-evident things as the benefits of swimming, dancing, and so on. My characters are pressed against the glass of the shower window, distorting own body, realizing that they thereby influence the notorious male gaze on a naked woman. Thick layers of paint are mixed to imitate glass, steam, water and flesh from afar. However, up close, the amazing physical properties oil paint. By experimenting with layers of paint and color, I find a point where abstract brushstrokes become something else.
When I first started painting the human body, I was immediately fascinated and even obsessed with it and believed that I had to make my paintings as realistic as possible. I “professed” realism until it began to unravel and reveal contradictions in itself. I am now exploring the possibilities and potential of a style of painting where representational painting and abstraction meet – if both styles can coexist at the same moment in time, I will do so.”
Antonio Finelli
Italian artist – “ Time Observer” – Antonio Finelli was born on February 23, 1985. Currently lives and works in Italy between Rome and Campobasso. His works have been exhibited in several galleries in Italy and abroad: Rome, Florence, Novara, Genoa, Palermo, Istanbul, Ankara, New York, and can also be found in private and public collections.
Pencil drawings " Time Observer"Antonio Finelli takes us on an eternal journey through inner world human temporality and the associated scrupulous analysis of this world, the main element of which is the passage through time and the traces it makes on the skin.
Finelli paints portraits of people of any age, gender and nationality, whose facial expressions indicate passage through time, and the artist also hopes to find evidence of the mercilessness of time on the bodies of his characters. Antonio defines his works by one thing, common name: “Self-portrait”, because in his pencil drawings he not only depicts a person, but allows the viewer to contemplate real results the passage of time within a person.
Flaminia Carloni
Flaminia Carloni is a 37-year-old Italian artist, the daughter of a diplomat. She has three children. She lived in Rome for twelve years, and for three years in England and France. She received a degree in art history from the BD School of Art. Then she received a diploma as an art restorer. Before finding her calling and devoting herself entirely to painting, she worked as a journalist, colorist, designer, and actress.
Flaminia's passion for painting arose in childhood. Her main medium is oil because she loves to “coiffer la pate” and also play with the material. Similar technique she recognized the work of the artist Pascal Torua. Flaminia is inspired by great masters of painting such as Balthus, Hopper, and François Legrand, as well as various artistic movements: street art, Chinese realism, surrealism and Renaissance realism. Her favorite artist is Caravaggio. Her dream is to discover the therapeutic power of art.
Denis Chernov
Denis Chernov - talented Ukrainian artist, born in 1978 in Sambir, Lviv region, Ukraine. After graduating from Kharkov art school in 1998 he remained in Kharkov, where he currently lives and works. He also studied in Kharkov state academy design and arts, department of graphics, graduated in 2004.
He regularly participates in art exhibitions, on this moment more than sixty of them took place, both in Ukraine and abroad. Most of Denis Chernov's works are kept in private collections in Ukraine, Russia, Italy, England, Spain, Greece, France, USA, Canada and Japan. Some of the works were sold at Christie's.
Denis works in a wide range of graphic and painting techniques. Pencil drawings are one of his most favorite painting methods, a list of his topics pencil drawings is also very diverse, he paints landscapes, portraits, nudes, genre compositions, book illustrations, literary and historical reconstructions and fantasies.
Each country has its own heroes of contemporary art, whose names are well-known, whose exhibitions attract crowds of fans and curious people, and whose works are sold to private collections.
In this article we will introduce you to the most popular contemporary artists Japan.
Keiko Tanabe
Born in Kyoto, Keiko won many victories as a child. art competitions, But higher education I didn’t get it in the field of art at all. Worked in the department international relations worked at a Japanese local government trade organization in Tokyo, at a large law firm in San Francisco, and at a private consulting firm in San Diego, and traveled extensively. Starting in 2003, she left her job and, having studied the basics of watercolor painting in San Diego, devoted herself exclusively to art.
Ikenaga Yasunari
Japanese artist Ikenaga Yasunari paints portraits modern women in ancient Japanese tradition painting using a Menso brush, mineral pigments, carbon black, ink and linen as a base. Its characters are women of our time, but thanks to Nihonga's style, you get the feeling that they came to us from time immemorial.
Abe Toshiyuki
Abe Toshiyuki is a realist artist who has mastered watercolor technique. Abe can be called an artist-philosopher: he fundamentally does not paint famous landmarks, preferring subjective compositions that reflect internal states the person who is watching them.
Hiroko Sakai
The career of artist Hiroko Sakai began in the early 90s in the city of Fukuoka. After graduating from Seinan Gakuin University and the French Nihon School of Interior Design in design and visualization, she founded Atelier Yume-Tsumugi Ltd. and successfully managed this studio for 5 years. Many of her works decorate hospital lobbies and offices. large corporations and some municipal buildings in Japan. After moving to the United States, Hiroko began painting in oils.
Riusuke Fukahori
Riusuki Fukahori's three-dimensional works resemble holograms. They are done acrylic paint, applied in several layers, and a transparent resin liquid - all this, without excluding traditional methods such as drawing shadows, softening edges, controlling transparency, allows Riusuki to create sculpture painting and gives the work depth and realism.
Natsuki Otani
Natsuki Otani is a talented Japanese illustrator living and working in England.
Makoto Muramatsu
Makoto Muramatsu chose a win-win theme as the basis for his creativity - he draws cats. His pictures are popular all over the world, especially in the form of puzzles.
Tetsuya Mishima
Most of the paintings are modern Japanese artist Mishima is made in oil. She has been painting professionally since the 90s and has several personal exhibitions And a large number of collective exhibitions, both Japanese and foreign.
Yayoi Kusama is unlikely to be able to answer what formed the basis of her career as an artist. She is 87 years old, her art is recognized throughout the world. There will soon be major exhibitions of her work in the US and Japan, but she hasn't told the world everything yet. “It’s still on its way. I'm going to create this in the future," Kusama says. She is called the most successful artist in Japan. In addition, she is the most expensive living artist: in 2014, her painting “White No. 28” was sold for $7.1 million.
Kusama lives in Tokyo and has been voluntarily staying in a mental hospital for almost forty years. Once a day she leaves its walls to paint. She gets up at three o'clock in the morning, unable to sleep and wanting to spend her time productively at work. "I'm old now, but I'm still going to create more work And best works. More than I've done in the past. My mind is full of pictures,” she says.
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Yayoi Kusama at an exhibition of his work in London in 1985. Photo: NILS JORGENSEN/REX/Shutterstock
From nine to six, Kusama works in his three-story studio, without getting up from wheelchair. She can walk, but is too weak. A woman works on canvas laid out on tables or fixed to the floor. The studio is full of new paintings, bright works strewn with small specks. The artist calls this "self-silencing" - endless repetition that drowns out the noise in her head.
Before the 2006 Praemium Imperiale art awards in Tokyo. Photo: Sutton-Hibbert/REX/Shutterstock
Across the street will open soon new gallery, and another museum of her art is being built north of Tokyo. In addition, two major exhibitions of her work are opening. “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors,” a retrospective of her 65-year career, opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington on February 23 and runs through May 14, before traveling to Seattle, Los Angeles, Toronto and Cleveland. The exhibition includes 60 paintings by Kusama.
Her polka dots cover everything from Louis Vuitton dresses to buses in her hometown. Kusama's work regularly sells for millions of dollars and can be found all over the world, from New York to Amsterdam. Exhibitions of the Japanese artist's works are so popular that measures are required to prevent crowds and riots. For example, in the Hirshhorn, tickets to the exhibition are sold at certain time in order to somehow regulate the flow of visitors.
Presentation of the joint design of Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama in New York in 2012. Photo: Billy Farrell Agency/REX/Shutterstock
But Kusama still needs outside approval. When asked in an interview whether she achieved her goal of becoming rich and famous decades ago, she said in surprise: “When I was little, I had a very hard time convincing my mother that I wanted to become an artist. Is it really true that I'm rich and famous?
Kusama was born in Matsumoto, in the mountains of central Japan, in 1929 into a wealthy and conservative family that sold seedlings. But it was not a happy home. Her mother despised her cheating husband and sent little Kusama to spy on him. The girl saw her father with other women, and this gave her a lifelong aversion to sex.
Louis Vuitton boutique window designed by Kusama in 2012. Photo: Joe Schildhorn/BFA/REX/Shutterstock
As a child, she began experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations. The first time she saw the pumpkin, she imagined that it was talking to her. The future artist coped with the visions by creating repeating patterns to drown out the thoughts in her head. Even at such a young age, art became a kind of therapy for her, which she would later call “art medicine.”
Work by Yayoi Kusama on display at the Whitney Museum of Contemporary Art in 2012. Photo: Billy Farrell Agency/REX/Shutterstock
Kusama's mother was strongly against her daughter's desire to become an artist and insisted that the girl follow traditional way. “She wouldn’t let me draw. She wanted me to get married,” the artist said in an interview. - She threw away my work. I wanted to throw myself under a train. Every day I fought with my mother, and therefore my mind was damaged.”
In 1948, after the end of the war, Kusama went to Kyoto to study traditional Japanese nihonga painting with strict rules. She hated this type of art.
One of the exhibits from the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Contemporary Art in 2012. Photo: Billy Farrell Agency/REX/Shutterstock
When Kusama lived in Matsumoto, she found a book by Georgia O'Keeffe and was amazed by its paintings. The girl went to the American embassy in Tokyo to find an article about O’Keefe in the directory there and find out her address. Kusama wrote her a letter and sent her some drawings, and to her surprise, the American artist replied to her.
“I couldn’t believe my luck! She was so kind that she responded to the sudden outburst of feelings from the modest Japanese girls, whom she had never met in her life or even heard of,” the artist wrote in her autobiography “Infinity Net.”
Yayoi Kusama in her Louis Vuitton boutique window display in New York in 2012. Photo: Nils Jorgensen/REX/Shutterstock
Despite O'Keeffe's warnings that life was very difficult for young artists in the United States, not to mention single young girls in Japan, Kusama was unstoppable. In 1957, she managed to obtain a passport and visa. She sewed dollars into her dresses to circumvent strict post-war currency controls.
The first stop was Seattle, where she held an exhibition in a small gallery. Then Kusama went to New York, where she was bitterly disappointed. “Unlike post-war Matsumoto, New York was in every sense an evil and violent place. It turned out to be too stressful for me, and I soon became mired in neurosis.” To make matters worse, Kusama found herself in complete poverty. An old door served as her bed, and she fished fish heads and rotten vegetables from trash cans to make soup from.
Installation Infinity Mirror Room - Love Forever (“Room with infinity mirrors - love forever”). Photo: Tony Kyriacou/REX/Shutterstock
This difficult situation prompted Kusama to immerse himself in his work even more. She began creating her first paintings in the Infinity Net series, covering huge canvases (one of them was 10 meters high) with mesmerizing waves of small loops that seemed to never end. The artist herself described them as follows: “White networks enveloping the black dots of silent death against the backdrop of the hopeless darkness of nothingness.”
Installation by Yayoi Kusama at the opening of the new building of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art at the Gorky Park in Moscow in 2015. Photo: David X Prutting/BFA.com/REX/Shutterstock
This obsessive-compulsive repetition helped drive away the neurosis, but it did not always save. Kusama constantly suffered from bouts of psychosis and ended up in a New York hospital. Ambitious and determined, and happily accepting the role of an exotic Asian woman in a kimono, she joined the circle of influential people in the arts and associated with such recognized artists as Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol. Kusama later said that Warhol imitated her work.
Kusama soon gained a degree of fame and exhibited in crowded galleries. In addition, the artist’s fame became scandalous.
In the 1960s, while Kusama was obsessed with polka dots, she began staging happenings in New York City, encouraging people to strip naked in places like Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge and painting their bodies with polka dots.
Pre-display at Art Basel in Hong Kong in 2013. Photo: Billy Farrell/BFA/REX/Shutterstock
Decades before the Occupy Wall Street movement, Kusama staged a happening in New York's financial district, declaring that she wanted to "destroy the men of Wall Street with polka dots." Around this time she began to cover various items- a chair, a boat, a stroller - with phallic-looking protrusions. “I started creating penises to cure my feelings of aversion to sex,” the artist wrote, describing how this creative process gradually turning the terrible into something familiar.
Installation "Passing Winter" at the Tate Gallery in London. Photo: James Gourley/REX/Shutterstock
Kusama never married, although she had a marriage-like relationship with artist Joseph Cornell for ten years while living in New York. “I didn’t like sex, and he was impotent, so we suited each other very well,” she said in an interview with Art Magazine.
Kusama became increasingly famous for her antics: she offered to sleep with US President Richard Nixon if he would end the war in Vietnam. “Let’s decorate each other with polka dots,” she wrote to him in a letter. Interest in her art itself faded away, she found herself out of favor, and money problems began again.
Yayoi Kusama during a retrospective of her work at the Whitney Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2012. Photo: Steve Eichner/Penske Media/REX/Shutterstock
News of Kusama's escapades reached Japan. They began to call her a “national disaster,” and her mother said that it would be better if her daughter died of the disease in childhood. In the early 1970s, impoverished and failed, Kusama returned to Japan. She registered in a psychiatric hospital, where she still lives, and sank into artistic obscurity.
In 1989, the Center for Contemporary Art in New York staged a retrospective of her work. This was the beginning, albeit slow, of a revival of interest in Kusama’s art. She filled a mirrored room with pumpkins for an installation that was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1993 and had a major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1998. art MoMa in NYC. This is where she once staged a happening.
At the exhibition My Eternal Soul in National Center art in Tokyo, February 2017. Photo: Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock
Over the past few years, Yayoi Kusama has become an international phenomenon. The Tate Modern Gallery in London and the Whitney Museum in New York held major retrospectives that attracted huge crowds of visitors, and its iconic polka dot pattern became highly recognizable.
At the exhibition My Eternal Soul at the National Art Center in Tokyo, February 2017. Photo: Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock
The artist has no plans to stop working, but has begun to think about her mortality. “I don’t know how long I can survive even after death. There is a future generation that follows in my footsteps. It would be an honor for me if people enjoy looking at my work and if they are moved by my art.”
At the exhibition My Eternal Soul at the National Art Center in Tokyo, February 2017. Photo: Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock
Despite the commercialization of her art, Kusama thinks about the grave in Matsumoto - not in family crypt, she already got it from her parents - and how not to turn her into a sanctuary. “But I’m not dying yet. I think I will live another 20 years,” she says.
At the exhibition My Eternal Soul at the National Art Center in Tokyo, February 2017. Photo: Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock
Japanese classical painting has a long and interesting story. The fine arts of Japan are presented in different styles and genres, each of which is unique in its own way. Ancient painted figurines and geometric motifs found on bronze dotaku bells and pottery shards date back to 300 AD.
Buddhist orientation of art
The art of wall painting was quite well developed in Japan; in the 6th century, images on the theme of Buddhist philosophy were especially popular. At that time, large temples were being built in the country, and their walls were everywhere decorated with frescoes painted based on scenes from Buddhist myths and legends. Ancient examples of wall paintings are still preserved in the Horyuji Temple near the Japanese city of Nara. Horyuji murals depict scenes from the life of Buddha and other gods. The artistic style of these murals is very close to the pictorial concept popular in China during the Song Dynasty.
The painting style of the Tang Dynasty gained particular popularity in the middle of the Nara period. The frescoes discovered in the Takamatsuzuka tomb date back to around the 7th century AD from this period. Artistic technique, formed under the influence of the Tang dynasty, subsequently formed the basis of the painting genre of kara-e. This genre maintained its popularity until the appearance of the first works in the Yamato-e style. Most of the frescoes and paintings are by unknown authors; today, many of the works from that period are kept in the Sesoin treasury.
The growing influence of new Buddhist schools such as Tendai influenced the broad religious focus of Japanese fine art in the 8th and 9th centuries. In the 10th century, which saw a special progress in Japanese Buddhism, the genre of raigozu, “welcome paintings” appeared, which depicted the arrival of Buddha in the Western Paradise. Early examples of raigozu, dating back to 1053, can be seen at the Bedo-in Temple, which survives in the city of Uji, Kyoto Prefecture.
Changing styles
In the middle of the Heian period it was replaced by Chinese kara-e style The Yamato-e genre comes, which for a long time becomes one of the most popular and sought-after genres of Japanese painting. The new pictorial style was mainly used in painting folding screens and sliding doors. Over time, yamato-e also moved to horizontal emakimono scrolls. Artists who worked in the emaki genre tried to convey in their works all the emotionality of the chosen plot. The Genji-monogatari scroll consisted of several episodes connected together, artists of that time used quick strokes and bright, expressive colors.
E-maki is one of the oldest and most outstanding examples otoko-e, image genre male portraits. Portraits of women are highlighted in separate genre onna-uh. Between these genres, in fact, just like between men and women, quite significant differences are visible. The onna-e style is colorfully represented in the design of the Tale of Genji, where the main themes of the drawings are romantic subjects and scenes from court life. Men's style otoko-e is predominantly artistic image historical battles and others important events in the life of the empire.
The classical Japanese art school became fertile soil for the development and promotion of the ideas of contemporary art in Japan, in which the influence of pop culture and anime can be clearly seen. One of the most famous Japanese artists of our time can be called Takashi Murakami, whose work is dedicated to depicting scenes from Japanese life in the post-war period and the concept of maximum fusion fine art and mainstream.
Among the famous Japanese artists of the classical school we can name the following.
Tense Xubun
Syubun worked at the beginning of the 15th century, devoting a lot of time to studying the works of Chinese masters of the Song Dynasty; this man stood at the origins of the Japanese visual genre. Shubun is considered the founder of the sumi-e style, monochrome ink painting. He made a lot of efforts to popularize the new genre, turning it into one of the leading areas of Japanese painting. Syubun's students were many who later became famous artists, including Sesshu and the founder of the famous art school Kano Masanobu. Many landscapes were attributed to Xubun, but his most famous work is traditionally considered “Reading in a Bamboo Grove.”
Ogata Korin (1658-1716)
Ogata Korin is one of the greatest artists in the history of Japanese painting, the founder and one of the brightest representatives artistic style rimpa. Korine boldly moved away from traditional stereotypes in his works, forming his own style, the main characteristics of which were small forms and bright impressionism of the plot. Korin is known for his special skill in depicting nature and working with abstract color compositions. "Plum blossom red and white" is one of the most famous works Ogata Korina, his paintings “Chrysanthemums”, “Waves of Matsushima” and a number of others are also known.
Hasegawa Tohaku (1539-1610)
Tohaku is the founder of the Japanese Hasegawa school of art. For early period Tohaku's creativity is characterized by the influence of the famous school of Japanese painting 
Kano, but over time the artist formed his own unique style. In many ways, Tohaku’s work was influenced by the works of the recognized master Sesshu; Hosegawa even considered himself the fifth successor of this great master. Hasegawa Tohaku’s painting “Pines” has gained worldwide fame; his works “Maple”, “Pines and flowering plants" and others.
Kano Eitoku (1543-1590)
The Kano school style dominated the visual arts of Japan for about four centuries, and Kano Eitoku is perhaps one of the most famous and prominent representatives this art school. Eitoku was favored by the authorities, the patronage of aristocrats and wealthy patrons could not but contribute to the strengthening of his school and the popularity of his works, no doubt very much talented artist. The eight-panel Cypress sliding screen, painted by Eitoku Kano, is a true masterpiece and shining example the scope and power of the Monoyama style. Other works by the master, such as “Birds and Trees of the Four Seasons”, “Chinese Lions”, “Hermits and a Fairy” and many others, look no less interesting.
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)
Hokusai – greatest master genre of ukiyo-e (Japanese woodcut). Hokusai's creativity received global recognition, his fame in other countries is not comparable to that of most Asian artists, his work " A big wave in Kanagawa" became something like business card Japanese fine art on the world art scene. On your own creative path Hokusai used more than thirty pseudonyms; after sixty, the artist devoted himself entirely to art, and it was this time that is considered the most fruitful period his creativity. Hokusai's works influenced creativity Western masters impressionism and the post-impressionist period, including the works of Renoir, Monet and van Gogh.
