What was art like traditionally?
Japanese art is an important part of Japanese life and ranges from many different art and media styles such as ancient pottery, sculpture, ink painting, calligraphy on silk paper, ukiyo-e paintings, woodblock prints, kirigami and origami. Painting is the preferred art in Japan. The recognisable brush strokes and techniques is an important element in this style of art that symbolically is linked with traditional values and stories. Woodblocks became popular during the Edo Period. Fine colourful block prints were printed from special techniques associated with this art. Japanese sculpture is linked with religion of the country, and the medium's use declined with the lessening importance of traditional Buddhism. The country’s traditional ceramics are some of the earliest artefacts of the country, and is important in exploring the lifestyles of the time.
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How did it change?
Art in the 7th, 8th and 9th Century was highly important in Japanese culture. It was connected with the religion Buddhism from Chinese influences. However, the turn of leadership in the Tokugawa Shogunate era, art became primarily secular as Japanese was run by military forces. Japan was closed to contact with Europeans from the 17th to the mid-19th century, when the American Admiral Perry forced the Japanese to open trade with the west. This open up Japanese to become important in the development of both fine arts and decorative arts in Europe and America throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The rapid development of modernisation and westernisation in the Meiji Restoration, 1867, brought changes to traditional customs. In the art world, social changes as well as the introduction of moveable print and photography led to a gradual disappearance of the Ukiyo-e woodblock print. This art was still practiced into the 20th Century by few artist using distinctive line and colour in landscape, portraiture, and other subjects. Ukiyo-e prints had an important effect on the work of Western artists. Artist Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915) depicted the many changes in Meiji society that have become influential in the Japanese art world. His landscapes of the new Tokyo often using devices borrowed directly from the West, that lead to different art expressions such as Creative Print developed by Yamamoto Kanae (1882-1946). Japanese painting tended to be both more abstract and more naturalistic than Chinese painting, depending on the artist and the subject. Individual portraits, scenes of daily life, studies of plants and animals were done, and these images were handled with spontaneity and individualism that captured the basis of each image. |