Kawamura Kiyoo

Portrait of Katsu Kaishu

Kawamura Kiyoo ( Japanese 川村 清 雄 ; June 13, 1852 in Edo - May 16, 1934 in Tokyo ), real name Atsugorō ( 圧 五郎 ), was a Japanese painter of the Yōga style . He belonged to the first generation of Japanese painters who studied in the United States and Europe.

life and work

Kiyoo was the eldest son of senior officials of the Shogunate and was in the residence of the Kawamura family in Edo ( Tokyo born). He was the grandson of Kawamura Nagataka ( 川村 修 就 ; 1795–1878), who was a commissioner in Niigata at the end of his career . At the age of eight years Kiyoo received by the painter of the fief Tosa- han , Sumiyoshi Naiki ( 住吉内記 ; 1793-1862) his first lessons. When his grandfather was commissioner of the city of Osaka in 1861 , he also went there and studied with the nanga painter Tanomura Chokunyū (1814–1907). Back in Edo he took lessons from the painter of the Tayasu branch of the Tokugawa, Haruki Nammei (1795–1878).

In 1863 he took lessons in English at the instigation of Bakufu and attended the school in Kaiseijo ( 開 成 所 ). There he continued to study painting, first with Kawakami Tōgai , then Western painting with Takahashi Yuichi . In 1871, at the age of 18, he was sent to the United States as one of the Tokugawa family's scholarship holders, where he was supposed to study politics and law. However, in 1873 he went to Paris to study painting. One of his teachers there was Horace De Callias (1847-1921). In 1876 he went to Venice for a few years and then returned to Japan in 1881. In 1889 he participated in the founding of the artists' association Meiji bijutsu-kai ( 明治 美術 会 ). As an admirer of Zeshin , he also learned to paint on a lacquer background.

1929 commissioned Sylvain Lévi Kawamura with a painting. This work, entitled “Founding the Nation” ( 建国 , Kenkoku ), came to the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris. In 1931 Tokugawa Iesato (1863–1940) donated Kawamura's painting Shinten-fu ( 振 天府 ) to the Meiji Memorial Gallery in Tokyo.

Kawamura's preferred subjects were flowers and still lifes, but he also painted portraits and landscapes. His style was western, but the still lifes have a Japanese feel.

photos

• 

  Still life in space, around 1880

• 

  Kawamura
  (2nd from left) in New York

• 

  Fukuzawa Yukichi , 1900

• 

  Yamakawa Kenjirō

• 

  Countess Katsu in court clothes

• 

  Still life

• 

  Fuji with cherries

Remarks

1. ↑ Picturesque reproduction of a photo.
2. ↑ This picture was shown at the exhibition Japanese Painting in Western Style 1985 in the Museum for East Asian Art in Cologne.
3. ↑ First Japanese professor of physics, president a. a. of Tokyo University .

literature

• Nihon no bijutsu (Zs): Meiji no Yoga - Meiji no to-O gaka. Issue 350, 1995.
• Japan Foundation (Ed.): Japanese Painting in the Western Style, 19th and 20th Centuries. Exhibition catalog, Cologne, 1985.
• Laurance P. Roberts: A Dictionary of Japanese Artists. Weatherhill, 1976. ISBN 0-8348-0113-2 .

Web links

Commons : Kawamura Kiyoo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Kawamura is the family name, Kiyoo the first name.