Kyosai at the Royal Academy on the 21st, April 2022

 Kyosai at the Royal Academy on the 21st, April 2022

 

Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-1889 is regarded as the successor in Japanese art to Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) who helped to shape the Ukiyo-e (floating world) painting style.  Whereas Japan had been relatively isolated from the outside world for 260 years, Kyosai witnessed the arrival of the first western fleet and increasing Westernisation. 



This was initiated by the Meiji dynasty in 1868 when the Tokugawa shogunate was toppled and imperial power restored after centuries of decline.  The emperor had come to represent spiritual power whereas, the Shogun (meaning roughly ‘army commander’) the secular, military power of the Japanese state.  Although the Shogun was technically the emperor’s servant, the emperor had been marginalised and deprived of significance for centuries.  The Meiji restoration signified the decline of the shogunate.  The emperor moved his seat of power from Kyoto to Edo, formerly the capital of the shogunate, re-naming it Tokyo.



Meiji, meaning Enlightened Rule, represented a historic alteration in Japanese foreign and domestic policies.  Regional landlords or daimyos voluntarily surrendered their land to the emperor and increasing reliance on Western experts and Western products like meat and beef became a new normal. 



Kyosai, therefore, lived in turbulent times.  He initially studied under Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861) an adept of the ukiyo-e (floating world) style.  Ukiyo-e had different connotations, meaning “erotic” or “stylish” and signified “living for the moment…like a gourd carried along by the river current.” (Asai Ryoi, Ukiyo Monogatari – Tale of the Floating World, 1661).  After studying under Kuniyoshi, Kyosai then studied in the Kano school, the dominant school of art in Japan organised by the shogunate and the samurai.  It was here that Kyosai learnt to incorporate Kano-style ink techniques into his drawings. 



In Night Procession of 100 Demons (1871/89, ink and gouache on paper) an ancient Japanese tradition that stated that household items more than 100 years old are transformed into demons that come out at night and are vanquished at sunrise.  Pots, potlids, and plates protrude from the demons.  Thick, austere black lines are complimented by pastel shades of blue, pink, and grey. 



Many of Kyosai’s works represent the natural world, such as Egrets over lotus pond in the rain (1871/89, ink on paper).  Works like this evoke the traditional stillness and minimal concentration of a Japanese haiku.  In other paintings like Fashionable picture of the Great Frog Battle (1864, colour woodblock print triptych), the battle at the Hamaguri Gate of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto which led to the overthrow of the Tokagawa shogunate, the use of animals allowed Kyosai to evade censorship. 



Comic and satirical effects began to appear in Kyosai’s art, especially in relation to the increasing Westernisation which was occurring in later 19th century Japan.  In Skeleton Shamisen player in top hat with dancing monster (1871/78, ink and light colour on paper), Westernisation is the target.  People may wear different disguises, such as top hats, Kyosai intimates, but a samurai sword still sticks out from behind the skeleton.  The artist seems to say that tradition will overcome modernisation.  Other encroachments, such as the arrival of Christianity, are satirised in Kyosai’s work Five Holy Men (1871/87, ink and light colour on paper) where Christ is depicted on the cross waving a Japanese fan. 



Attempts to satirise Western fashions and customs did not stop Kyosai from incorporating Western techniques such as perspective, shading, and the study of anatomy, into his paintings.  In works like A Beauty in front of King Enma’s mirror (1871/89, ink colour and gold on silk) Kyosai broke with convention by using a complex technique to depict comic content.



Erotic and satirical, religious, and secular, Kyosai’s paintings depict a world in flux where static symbols and tradition itself, were beginning to be questioned.  This exhibition is an excellent accompaniment to the British Museum’s recent Hokusai exhibition.  In the late nineteenth century Japanese art was beginning to capture the attention of Western artists like Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin who began to incorporate Japanese elements into their own painting.  This exhibition shows us how influence was also flowing in the opposite direction.



Paul Murphy, Royal Academy, April 2022



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