Modernization in Japanese Painting Since the foundation of the country in 1867, the mainstream of Japanese art world was the western art. In ‘Nihonga’ world, the existing authentic parties including ‘Kano School’ declined in line with the fall of the support group. But, Nihonga became revitalized gradually thanks to the policy change of the government that witnessed a good response of traditional craftworks submitted to Vienna International Exposition in 1873 and the activities of Ernest Fenollosa who visited Japan in 1878 and his pupil Okakura Tenshin. The background of such revival is the reflection of the Meiji culture that sought the westernization. Representative artists in this period include Yokoyama Daikan, Shimomura Kanzan and Hishida Shunso. The follow to the western art continued since the defeat at the war in 1945, and Nihonga that failed to create any artistic renovation formed an ‘ancien régime’. Afterwards, there appeared artists who witnessed the western art toward the fall of the ‘modern art’ and genuinely explored a unique art in modern Japan instead of Japanese application of western art, but Nihonga was not changed. Challenging Nihonga Exhibition: artists in 1950s~70s held in Nagoya City art Museum in 2014 showed the situation of Nihonga from the last period to the present. While it was titled with ‘Modernization of Nihonga’, modernization was nothing but a new expression method of ‘motif’ of modernization. Eventually, despite its planning intention to go beyond ‘destruction theory of Nihonga’, I personally think that Nihonga died out already. Therefore, Nihonga must start from the same perspective with the western art, i.e., the painting in general. With such perspective in mind, when the overall ‘painting’ in Japan from the Pacific War was observed, there are some artists who are able to discuss the ‘modernization of Japanese art’ in an essential meaning. Since Hishida Shunso, the common factor and also the greatest uniqueness of modern Japanese art is that it does not describe ‘form and story’ but embodies ‘space’ itself. ‘Space’ is present and breathes in canvas, in painting and in reality. Painting expression itself is ‘Japanese’ and unique in terms of a global perspective.

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