Japan Art and Yasui Sotaro: Eclectic Landscapes
Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
The Japanese artist Yasui Sotaro (1888-1955) witnessed momentous changes. This includes the dynamic Meiji Period (1868-1912), openness during the Taisho Period (1912-1926), extreme nationalism during the early Showa Period, and post-war poverty and gradual recovery.
Yasui Sotaro studied under the acclaimed Asai Chu, who sadly died in 1907 when he was still a teenager. In France, he studied under Jean-Paul Laurens at the highly acclaimed Académie Julian.
The Artizon Museum says, “After returning from France, Yasui Sotaro found himself unable to paint as he wished, due to the differences in landscape, light, models, and the social context of art. After fifteen years of struggle, he achieved what came to be called the Yasui style: clean lines, lively palette, and effective use of black to highlight colors. That style began to bloom in about 1929 in his paintings of the human figure and soon appeared in his still lifes. This rose-scented painting of roses in an Imari vase, against a lacquer black background, is a quintessential work from that early period.”
Distinguished art pieces by Yasui Sotaro include Autumn at Lake Towada, A Suburb of Kyoto, Black-haired Woman, Early Summer, Girl in New-Year Clothes, Landscape in the Boso Peninsula, Oirase Stream, Portrait of Chin-Jung, Portrait of a GIrl, Roses, and Shiroyama in Autumn.
The Hiroshima Museum says, “A Western-style painter in Japan. He was active in the Showa period, called ‘The Epoch of Yasui and Umehara’, with his rival, UMEHARA Ryuzaburo. He made a powerful style of painting, called ‘The Yasui Style’, with deformations, omissions, (and) distinctive colors.”
https://www.artizon.museum/en/collection/category/detail/260
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