東山魁夷

Born in Yokohama in 1908. Real name Shinkichi. His father worked at a ship chandler, Suzuki Yahei Shōten, but set up his own business, and the family moved to Kobe in 1911. Higashiyama spent a rather reclusive boyhood in Nishidemachi, near the port. After Hyogo Prefectural Daini Kobe Junior High School, he entered the Japanese-Style Painting Department at Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkō (Tokyo Fine Arts School, present-day Tokyo University of the Arts). Together with Hashimoto Meiji, Katō Eizō, Yamada Shingo and other classmates, he was taught intimately by Matsuoka Eikyū and Yūki Somei. After graduating from Tokyo Fine Arts School, he went on to the graduate course and studied under Yūki Somei. Intending to study Western art, he decided to go abroad, and soon after completing the graduate course, went to study in Germany. In Germany, he attended lectures on European and Japanese art history at Berlin University. However, having been notified that his father was critically ill, he returned to Japan in two years’ time. Higashiyama’s work was first accepted at the governmentally organized exhibition in 1929, while he was a student at Tokyo Fine Arts School. Thereafter, although his works were accepted, affected by the blank while studying abroad, he spent a period of not so brilliant success. Just before World War II came to an end, at age 37, he was drafted into the army. Impressed by the view of Aso he saw while receiving military training, he resolved to become a landscape painter. Before World War II, Higashiyama worked on a variety of subjects including human figures, suburban landscapes, grazing horses, and mountain scenes. His artistic style was, on the one hand, elaborate and temperate yōga (Western-style painting)-like, while, on the other hand, he simplified his motifs employing thick contours. He experimented with the latter style in the works he submitted to art groups such as Nihonga-in and Dainichi Bijutsu-in, at which the artists pursued expressions fit for a new era. After World War II, Higashiyama restarted by temporarily resuming the former style. “Zanshō” 残照 (Afterglow) (1947, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), which depicts the top of Mount Kano in Kimitsu-shi, Chiba, won special recognition at the 3rd Nitten (Japan Fine Arts Exhibition) and proved a chance for Higashiyama’s name to become known. Then, in 1950, “Michi” 道 (Road) (The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), which was presented at the 6th Nitten was received favorably not only by experts but also among the public, and Higashiyama attracted attention as an up-and-coming nihonga artist of the time. Before that, in January 1948, Sōzō Bijutsu, the predecessor of the present SOGA-kai Association of Japanese Painting, was established with the aim of “creating Japanese paintings based on a global perspective.” Although his former classmates took part in this group, Higashiyama did not. He remained at the Nitten and delved deeply into his artistic style. There, moving away from realistic depiction, he reconstructed his paintings based on sketching with simple compositions, simplified forms, and tranquil colors to imbue the image with pensive sentiment. From “Road” onward, this tendency was revealed markedly in works such as “Shūei” 秋翳 (Autumn Colors) (1958, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), “Seikyō” 青響 (Green Echoes) (1960, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), and “Yukifuru” 雪降る (Silent Snow) (1961, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo). During this period, “Kōkon” 光昏 (Twilight) (The Japan Art Academy, Tokyo), which Higashiyama submitted to the 11th Nitten in 1955, won the 12th Japan Art Academy Prize the following year. In 1959, he received a commission from the Imperial Household Agency to paint a mural for the Tōgūgosho (Crown Prince’s Palace) and completed “The Sun and the Moon in Four Seasons” the following year. In 1965, Higashiyama was appointed as a member of the Japan Art Academy and also became a director of the Nitten organization that year. Having achieved such social recognition, in 1962, Higashiyama went on a sketching tour to the Nordic countries. The fruit of this journey was presented at an exhibition of Nordic landscapes held at Nihombashi Takashimaya, Tokyo in 1963. “Eishō” 映象 (Reflected Images) (1962, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) and “Byakuyakō” 白夜光 (Polar Summer Night) (1965, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) are also results of this trip. From 1965, following Kawabata Yasunari’s advice, Higashiyama turned his attention to Japanese landscapes. “Asaake no ushio” 朝明けの潮 (Dawn Tide) (1968), a large mural for the new Imperial Palace depicts a Japanese seascape. At an exhibition featuring the four seasons of Kyoto (1968, Ginza Matsuya, Tokyo), he presented a series of works depicting Kyoto including “Toshi kuru” 年暮る (End of the Year) (1968, Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo) and “Hanaakari” 花明り (Bright Cherry Blossoms) (Daiwa Securities Group Inc., Tokyo). Based on his achievements that year, in 1969, Higashiyama was awarded the 10th Mainichi Geijutsu Taishō (Grand Prize of the Mainichi Newspaper Fine Art Prize), the Order of Culture, and Person of Cultural Merit. At the end of 1970, having given careful consideration of a request to paint the murals for the Mieidō at Tōshōdaiji (Nara), Higashiyama decided to paint the fusuma panels. He began research on the temple and Priest Jianzhen (Ganjin in Japanese), and chose mountains and seas as his subject matters. As Part One, he completed “San’un” 山雲 (Mountain Clouds) and “Tōsei” 濤声 (The Sound of Waves) in 1975. He then went sketching in China and completed “Kōzan Gyōun” 黄山暁雲 (Huangshan Mountains in Morning Mist), “Yōshu Kunpū” 揚州薫風 (Fresh Breeze on Yangtze River [Balmy Breeze in Yangzhou]) and “Keirin Gesshō” 桂林月宵 (Moonlit Evening in Guilin) as Part Two in 1980. In 1981, he dedicated “Zuikō” 瑞光 (Auspicious Lights), paintings to decorate the reliquary containing a statue of Priest Ganjin. In Part Two of the fusuma paintings, Higashiyama undertook sumi ink painting for the first time. After ten years of working on the paintings for the Mieidō at Tōshōdaiji, Higashiyama dedicated the rest of his life to painting and social contribution. He responded to one after another request to hold retrospectives in Japan and abroad, and the funds he earned from permission to create reproductions and lithographs of his works were given to create the UNESCO Prize for the Promotion of the Arts and for the conservation of Japanese paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. When his hometown was hit by the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake in 1995, he promptly contributed a donation. In his later years when he refrained from going on long trips, based on the sketches he had done in the past, he depicted a visionary world unrestrained by actual views. In 1999, leaving “Yūboshi” (note1) 夕星 (Evening Star) (Nagano Prefectural Art Museum)unfinished, he died aged 90 on May 6. “Afterglow” reflected the state of mind of the Japanese people following their defeat in World War II, and “Road” matched the atmosphere of the time, when the special procurement boom during the Korean War cast a ray of hope. As these examples indicate, while straightforwardly depicting a landscape, Higashiyama never forgot to turn his eyes to the society and endeavored to share thoughts and stories with the people viewing his works. Higashiyama was also a talented writer and wrote many essays on the thoughts expressed in his paintings, life, art, or nature. Such essays were published and read by many people, which helped to spread appreciation of his paintings among the public. The fusuma paintings for the Mieidō at Tōshōdaiji and the series of essays on that project he contributed to the art magazine “Geijutsu shinchō” particularly attracted attention and raised him to a national painter. His literary works are recorded in “Higashiyama Kaii gabunshū (Essays by Higashiyama Kaii on his paintings)” (10 vols., Shinchōsha, 1978–79) and many other art books and continue to convey the artist’s thoughts to younger generations who do not know Higashiyama. During his lifetime, in 1969, Higashiyama donated his most important works including those submitted to the Nitten to the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, which had moved to Takebashi. Furthermore, in 1987, he donated final paintings, studies, sketches, underdrawings, etc. which he had kept at home collectively to Nagano Prefectural Shinano Art Museum (the present Nagano Prefectural Art Museum), where a Higashiyama Kaii Gallery has been constructed to put the works on permanent view. (Tsurumi Kaori / Translated by Ogawa Kikuko) (Published online: 2024-04-18） Note 1. The reading 'Yūboshi' is based on the artist's Catalogue Raisonné, catalogue number 1255, published in 2004, and is endorsed by the museum where the work is housed.