Japanese paintings and its styles
This article gives us a picture on the evolution of Japanese painting, the influential factors on this and the various forms of painting.
One of the most popular art forms in Japan is Painting. Chinese painting style has lot of influence on the Japanese style of painting and these are beautiful, nice and sometimes very complex or intricate. In the period of Muromachi (1338-1573), Chinese style of paintings was established or introduced in Japan, due to the invasion of Chinese trade. Noblemen of Japan started buying these Chinese paintings to decorate their houses and thus started liking the Chinese painting style. This affinity by the painters of Japan for the Chinese paintings made them adopt the style for creating nice masterpieces that would appeal to the taste of Japan. In other words, Chinese style of paintings were the fore runner for Japanese paintings.
Japanese painters who were in the period of Muromachi depicted a deeper sense of space and every painting portrayed a story. Painting on landscapes developed in the period of Momoyama (1573 - 1603) and these are normally depicted on very big screens. During the period of Edo (1603 - 1867), a complete different way of painting emerged where gold leaf backgrounds were given to the paintings to get a holy mosaic effect that belonged to the Western Medieval period. Ukiyo-e style of painting emerged involving woodblock printing at the same time. Thus, Japanese paintings are rich in their medium of portrayal and this makes them very fascinating.
Japanese painting had an influence from the styles of western too in the period of Meiji (1868 - 1912). Various schools for painting were open in Japan and every school followed the style of their interest. Suibokuga points to a painting that uses black ink for paintings. This had a unique mark of Zen Buddhism having inherited from China.
Kano Motonobu (1476 - 1559) along with this father Kano Masanobu established the Kano school for painting, which started in a revolt against the Suibokuga way of painting using black ink. Kano school used vibrant and bright colors and did lot of experiments with thick compositions that had flat and large areas. These are the source of stimulation for the designs of Ukiyo-e. Nanga style of painting was very prominent in the period of Bunsai and Bunka.
Paintings of Japanese have captured many people’s hearts due to their artistic beauty and sense of space in their paintings. Artists of Japan used a vast range of mediums for their paintings. Most well-known subjects of Japanese paintings were women, reputed places, landscapes and wonderful views. Decorating with black and white is one of the most myriad ways to harness the power of this dynamic decorating duo.