Sakakibara Shihō

Sakakibara Shihō ( Japanese 榊 原 紫 峰 ; born August 8, 1887 in Kyōto ; died January 7, 1971 ) was a Japanese painter of the Nihonga direction during the Taishō and Shōwa periods .

life and work

Sakakibara's father designed with great devotion under the stage name芦 江 (Rokō) decorations in the style of “Kyōyūzen” (京 友 禅), which is common in Kyoto. His wish was that what he himself had not achieved on an artistic level should be achieved by his sons. In this way he enabled five of his sons to embark on an artistic career. Best known today are Shihō, the second son, and the younger Taizan (苔 山), born in 1892. Shihō graduated from the “Municipal School for Arts and Crafts” (京都 市立 美術 工 芸 学校, Kyōto shiritsu bijutsu kōgei gakkō) in 1904 ) in Kyoto in the subject Nihonga . In 1909 Sakakibara, together with Irie Hakō , Ono Chikkyoku, Tsuchida Bakusen , Nonagase Banka and Murakami Kagaku , continued his studies at the newly founded "Municipal School of Painting" (京都 市立 絵 画 専 門 学校, Kyōto shiritsu kaiga semmon gakkō), the forerunner institution today's (京都 市立 芸 術 大学), from which he graduated in 1911.

He then continued his education in the study department. With the thesis “Flowers-cloudy” (花 曇 り, Hana-kumori) he won a 3rd prize at the 5th Buntten exhibition. So Sakakibara got off to a good start, but he and his friends did not achieve success with their way of painting on the Bunter. So it came to the establishment of the "Kokuga sōsaku kyōkai" (国画 創作 協会), today's Kokugakai (国画 会) by Sakakibara and his friends. Western painting was used as a direction, but it was modified with the painterly foundations of the art of the screen from the Momoyama period and the Ming and Qing periods .

In 1937 he became a professor at the Municipal School of Painting, took care of his students, but appeared less and less at exhibitions. His work is characterized by detailed, decorative, but restrained pictures of the type "flowers and birds" (花鳥画, Kachō-ga).

In 1962 Sakakibara was awarded the Imperial Prize of the Academy of Arts (日本 芸 術 院 恩賜 賞, Nihon geijutsu-in onshishō) for his services to the Nihonga genre.

Remarks

1. ↑ Colorful ( 文 展 ) is the abbreviation for the annual state art exhibition Mombushō bijutsu tenrankai ( 文部省 美術展 覧 会 ) from 1907 to 1918.

Web links (images)

At the Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art :

• White lotus (白蓮 図), ca.1928
• White heron at the pond (池畔 白鷺), ca.1942

literature

• National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (ed.): Sakakibara Shihō. In: Kyōto no Nihonga 1910–1930. National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, 1986. ISBN 4-87642-117-X .
• Laurance P. Roberts: Sakakibara Shihō . In: A Dictionary of Japanese Artists. Weatherhill, 1976. ISBN 0-8348-0113-2 .

Web links (images)

• Sakakibara: 白蓮 図 "White Lotus", around 1928 (In the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyōto )
• Sakakibara: 雪中 松 に 鷹 "Falcon on a snow-covered fir", 1942 (In the National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo )

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