Japan Art: Maruyama Ōkyo
Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-1795) was very creative concerning the medium of art. Accordingly, he impacted the Japanese art scene during the Edo Period.
He fused artistic ideas from his native Japan, the Middle Kingdom (China), and his limited knowledge of Western art.
The British Museum says, “Born a farmer’s son, went to Kyoto to train with the Kano master Ishida Yutei (q.v.), and became a popular and extremely influential artist as well as the founder of a major new painting school. He specialised in a close observation of nature, but also drew on the tradition of Chinese bird-and-flower painting. Second son of Maruyama Tōzaemon, a farmer…”
His life flowed naturally from his farming upbringing to studying under the acclaimed Ishida Yutei. Also, like his mentor, he had an eclectic approach to art.
The Cleveland Museum of Art says, “Okyo was the most influential painter and teacher of his time in Kyoto. His mastery of brush and ink found expression in a variety of Chinese and Japanese subjects, painting styles, and formats. This depiction of a heron on a willow branch is done in a classical Japanese painting (yamato-e) style, utilizing flat areas of colorful pigments set against an expansive background with little or no spatial depth.”
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