上村松園

Born in Kyoto-shi, Kyoto in 1875. Real name Tsune. Shōen was fond of drawing from her childhood and entered the Hokushū (Kanō school-type) course at Kyoto-fu Gagakkō (Kyoto Prefectural School of Painting) in 1887. Although she was eager to practice figure painting, the curriculum at that school required her to study systematically from the basis. As her wish could not be fulfilled immediately, in parallel with the prefectural painting school, she also attended a private art school run by Suzuki Shōnen, a professor at the Hokushū course at the prefectural painting school. The following year, as Shōnen resigned from the prefectural painting school, Shōen also withdrew and officially became a disciple of Shōnen. It was from around this time, c. 1888, that Shōnen named her Shōen, and she assumed this gō (art name). In 1890, Shōen submitted “Beautiful Women in Four Seasons” (whereabouts unknown) to the 3rd National Industrial Exposition and received a certificate of merit. This painting was purchased by the British Prince Arthur, 1st Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, which attracted considerable attention. Thereafter, she continued submitting works and winning awards at exhibitions such as the Japan Art Association Exhibition and Nihon Seinen Kaiga Kyōshinkai (Young Artists’ Exhibition). In 1893, commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, she submitted “Beautiful Women in Four Seasons” (1892, Gifu Plastic Industry Co., Ltd.) to the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition. In order to study painting more extensively, having received Shōnen’s permission, from 1893, she attended Kōno Bairei’s private art school. After Bairei’s death in 1895, she studied under Takeuchi Seihō, a disciple of Bairei. Compared to Shōnen’s harsh, vigorous style, Bairei’s school emphasized gentle brushstrokes. This was very hard for Shōen, but via the training under Seihō, who, based on sketching, endeavored to bring out each person’s originality, she was able to cultivate a style of her own. “Full Bloom” (whereabouts unknown), which she submitted to the 9th Nihon Kaiga Kyōshinkai / 4th Nihon Bijutsuin Tenrankai (Joint Exhibition by Japan Painting Association and Japan Art Institute) in 1900, won a silver medal, and Shōen gained recognition among the art circles. In 1907, Shōen submitted “Long Night” (Fukuda Art Museum, Kyoto) to the 1st Bunten (Ministry of Education Fine Arts Exhibition). Thereafter, with the exception of a few occasions, she continued to submit her works to that exhibition. As she already had a reputation for sophisticated technique, there were reviews that criticized her overemphasis on technique or the lack of originality and ingenuity in her ideas and compositions. It was a time when her teacher Takeuchi Seihō and Tsuchida Bakusen, another pupil of Seihō, also presented figure paintings to the Bunten. Following the bijinga (pictures of beauties) boom, a gallery featuring “bijinga” was set up at the 9th Bunten in 1915, and bijinga got sandwiched between public popularity and art critics’ reproach. Unlike Shōen’s works until then, which were strongly influenced by traditional ukiyo-e and genre paintings, “Daughter Miyuki” (1914, submitted to the Tokyo Taishō Exposition, Adachi Museum of Art, Shimane) and “Flower Basket” (1915, submitted to the 9th Bunten, Shōhaku Art Museum, Nara) dating from that period focus on depiction of the model’s psychology and show that Shōen was groping in search of a style of her own. “Flame” (Tokyo National Museum), which she submitted to the 12th Bunten in 1918, is an extreme representation of the subject’s emotions. The artist herself later revealed that she was in a slump at the time. Traces of continued experiments can be identified in various works such as “Yang Guifei” (1922, submitted to the 4th Teiten [Imperial Fine Arts Academy Exhibition], Shōhaku Art Museum), in which she concentrated on depicting elaborate details, and “Waiting for the Moon” (1926, submitted to the 7th Teiten, Kyoto City Museum of Art), in which she devised a unique composition. Despite being at pains, on the other hand, Shōen’s status among the art circles steadily rose. At the 10th Bunten held in 1916, she qualified as permanently exempt from screening. From 1924, she served on the Teiten committee, and in 1935, became a Teiten counselor. The number of commissions she received to produce paintings gradually increased, too. In 1934, Shōen’s mother, Nakako, died. Nakako had raised Shōen all by herself, and despite the relatives’ opposition, she supported her daughter’s choice to become an artist. In a collection of essays entitled “Seibishō” (ed. Nakamura Tatsuo, Rikugō Shoin, 1943), Shōen wrote, “Not only did my mother give birth to me, but she also gave birth to my art.” (“Haha eno tsuibo” [Cherished memories of my mother], 205.) Thereafter, Shōen seems to having entrusted a feeling of yearning for her deceased mother in some of the works depicting genre scenes of the past. Look, for example, at “Blue Eyebrow” (1934, submitted to the Kyoto Enthronement Memorial Museum of Art Exhibition, Yoshino Gypsum Collection), “Mother and Child” (1934, submitted to the 15th Teiten, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, National Important Cultural Property), and “Twilight” (1941, submitted to the 4th Shin-Bunten [Ministry of Education Fine Arts Exhibition], Kyoto Prefectural Ohki High School). The 1930s was also a period during which one after another major work fit to be described as a compilation of Shōen’s art was produced. “Jo-no-Mai” (Dance Performed in Noh Play) (1936, exhibited on invitation at the Bunten, Tokyo University of the Arts, National Important Cultural Property) is based unusually on a contemporary genre scene, and the artist herself described it as “my supreme ideal of a woman.” (“Sakuga ni tsuite [On Painting]—Jo-no-Mai,” in “Seibishō,” 153.) It took twenty-one years after receiving a request to complete “Snow, Moon and Flowers” (1937, The Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shōzōkan, Tokyo), which was presented to Empress Dowager Teimei. “Lady Komachi Washing Away a Poem” (1937, submitted to the 1st Shin-Bunten, Tokyo University of the Arts) and “Scene from the Noh Play ‘Kinuta’” (1938, submitted to the 2nd Shin-Bunten, Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo）are taken from noh songs, which Shōen indulged in for many years as a hobby. In her later years, during the 1940s. while the number of smaller works increased, Shōen produced many fine works such as “Twilight” (1941, Kyoto Prefectural Ohki High School) and “Late Autumn” (1943, submitted to the Kansai Hōgaten, Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts), which depict the daily life of ordinary citizens of the past. Amidst intensification of the war situation, in 1941, Shōen paid a visit to the front in China with Mitani Toshiko. She also donated works including “Shizuka Gozen, shirabyōshi dancer” (1944, submitted to the Senkan Kennōgaten [Imperial Art Academy Exhibition to Donate a Batteleship], The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) to various exhibitions. She became a member of the Imperial Art Academy in 1941 and an Imperial Artist in 1944. In 1948, Shōen became the first woman to receive the Order of Culture. Her brushwork never deteriorated even in her last work, “Evening in Early Summer” (1949, submitted to an exhibition of works by contemporary masters held at Matsuzakaya, Kyoto City Museum of Art). On August 27, 1949, she passed away in her son Shōkō’s studio, Reikinsō, in Nara, where she had evacuated. Shōen wrote, “I want to depict ideals and longings for female beauty.” (“Seikaken zakki” 棲霞軒雑記, in “Seibishō,” 129.) She consistently painted women, particularly those dressed in styles of the past. She appears to have distanced herself from the art circles of the time, where constant pursuit of new expressions was favored. Yet, even during the period when she refrained from submitting works to exhibitions as she had to look after her sick mother, she reveals in her essays how she traveled secretly to Tokyo to see exhibitions and constantly kept an eye on the trends in the art world. The reason she adopted subjects, hairstyles, and costumes from bygone genre scenes, classical Japanese performing arts and literature, or old paintings was, in part, due to the fact that the contemporary works she observed—particularly those depicting customs of the time—were not necessarily proving successful. Shōen comments, “It’s not that I am particularly fond of looking back on the past. However, by doing so, I believe that my expressions become more profound. [. . .] As for depicting the present as it is now, I have doubts regarding its profundity as a picture. [. . .] Looking at the Tokugawa period, the atmosphere is entirely different. Even the Meiji era is different from the present. The atmosphere of a period conveniently obscures the image. [. . .] It is the past era shielded in beautiful mist that I want to look at.” (“Moya no kanata [Beyond the mist],” “Daimai bijutsu” vol. 11, no. 8, August 1932, 9–10.) Old paintings and the classics were subjects that nihonga (Japanese-style painting) artists of Shōen’s generation all studied once as basic training, but to Shōen, they served as strategic reference items to distinguish her works from other bijinga by her contemporaries. Shōen was the first woman to receive the Order of Culture and is recognized as a leading female artist of modern Japan to this day. Such circumstances were due largely to the fact that she started out as an artist at a time when various systems concerning art such as art schools and art exhibitions were being established. Such systems did not necessarily open the door equally to everyone. Coupled with the social system and the people’s values, many women aspiring to become an artist had to give up. Shōen left many comments on the situation of women artists of her time including her own hardships. From this point of view, it is also important to carefully examine her literary works and remarks and works concerning Shōen. (Nakamura Reiko / Translated by Ogawa Kikuko) (Published online: 2024-04-01)