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Japanese Painting And National Identity: Okakura Tenshin And His Circle, Victoria Weston

Victoria Weston

Japanese Painting and National Identity is the first monograph in English to address the art and philosophy of a group of Meiji painters regarded by many as seminal figures in the development of modern Japanese painting. Lead by the outspoken and widely published art critic Okakura Tenshin, this group, including artists Yokoyama Taikan, Shimomura Kanzan, Hishida Shunsô, and others, wrestled with the vexing problem of how to modernize traditional media, methods, and styles while keeping the results authentically Japanese. Yet they saw themselves not just as artists but as servants of the nation. Their task, they believed, was to give …