Nihonga

Nihonga is a modern Japanese painting tradition that uses traditional materials and techniques, including mineral pigments, ink, and handmade paper or silk.

Japanese mineral pigments: Finely ground natural or synthetic minerals used as pigments in Japanese painting. Their particles create the saturated colors and granular surfaces associated with many Nihonga works.
Meiji Restoration: The political transformation beginning in 1868 that restored imperial rule and rapidly modernized Japan. Meiji-era reforms brought Western art education and new pressures to define Japanese painting.
Yokoyama Taikan: A Japanese painter who helped establish Nihonga and developed a distinctive, often hazy style. His experiments broadened the tradition beyond strict imitation of older Japanese painting.
Byōbu: A Japanese folding screen, often decorated with painting and used as a movable room divider. Nihonga painters adapt its broad panels to compositions designed across folds.
Nihonga versus Yōga: The historical distinction between Japanese-style painting and Western-style painting in modern Japan. This division organized art education and debate when Nihonga took shape.
Washi: Traditional Japanese paper made from plant fibers such as kozo, mitsumata, or gampi. Its absorbency and texture shape how Nihonga ink and pigments settle.
Okakura Kakuzō: A Japanese art scholar and educator who advocated for Japanese artistic traditions during modernization. His teaching and criticism helped frame Nihonga as a modern alternative to Western-style painting.
Hishida Shunsō: A Japanese painter associated with the early Nihonga movement and its innovative atmospheric effects. His blurred contours challenged established methods of outlining forms.
Kakemono: A Japanese hanging scroll designed to be displayed vertically and stored rolled. Nihonga paintings on scrolls suit changing displays and concentrated, vertical compositions.
Nihonga versus ukiyo-e: A comparison between modern Nihonga painting and the earlier Japanese tradition of woodblock prints and paintings. The contrast separates Nihonga’s modern institutions from ukiyo-e’s print-centered history.

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