Page 35 - Designing_Nature_The_Rinpa_Aesthetic_in_Japanese_Art Metropolitan Museum PUB

iii. rinpa in the Modern age names and ideas and, I must confess it, who attribute[s]
a mysterious sense to the music of such and such an

Most of the works that we call Nihonga (Japanese paint- arrangement of syllables. The name of Korin marvel-
ing) today are derived from Chinese models. However, ously suits the art which he represents.
the one thing that we did not get from China or even Korin is in the first rank of those who have car-

from European models, whether old or new, is Rinpa ried to the highest pitch the intuition and the genius
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painting. Therefore, it is useless to seek out what can of decoration.
only be called “pure nihonga” in anything but the
paintings of Kōrin. Among Japanese proponents of traditional painting as a
— KAMISAKA SEKKA, “Kōrin: Revolutionary of Taste” vehicle for promoting modern art was the influential art

(1919) and cultural commentator okakura Kakuzō, also called
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Tenshin (1862 – 1912). In 1898, okakura and his associates
By the early decades of the twentieth century, the idea of established the Japan Art Institute (nihon Bijutsuin) with
a Rinpa or “Kōrin-school” style had become established in the aim of training a new generation of art students to cre-

both the Japanese consciousness and the international com- ate nihonga, or “Japanese painting,” according to modern
munity. From certain viewpoints, in fact, Rinpa was synon- sensibilities while nonetheless relying on earlier Japanese
ymous with the very idea of Japanese art. More precisely, painting models, materials, and techniques. okakura
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perhaps, Rinpa came to serve as a veritable ambassador for had been steered in his mission by his former teacher Ernest
Japanese art, since its aesthetic permeated the lacquerware, Fenollosa, the American-born art critic and professor of

textiles, metal work, ceramics, and cloisonné that were philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University whose enthusi-
then being transmitted to the West. astic though sometimes unsubstantiated observations of
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louis Gonse (1846 – 1921), the great popularizer of Japanese art shaped modern views of East Asian art in the

Japanese art in Europe, was among those who identified West. The exploration of the Asian artistic traditions by
Kōrin as “le plus Japonais des Japonais.” This idea of Kōrin the nihonga artists led to fresh encounters with some of
(and the art associated with him) as being “the most the painting techniques associated with Rinpa, most
Japanese of Japanese” is a rhetorical stance that was later notably the mokkotsu (“boneless,” or no outline) mode
accepted as gospel by many Japanese art critics, who treated and the colorful palette of masters such as Kōrin and

yamato-e, Rinpa, and nihonga as stages in a grand evolu- his successors.
tion in which the Japanese national spirit revealed itself A number of prominent nihonga artists associated
through art. By 1890 Gonse was enthusiastically embrac- with the Japan Art Institute in the generation after

ing Rinpa: okakura, including Hayami Gyoshū and Maeda Seison
(1885 – 1977), absorbed much from the Rinpa tradition and
Korin! I like the name, the turn of it, and the rhythm. even exceeded such later Rinpa artists as Hōitsu, Kiitsu,
. . . I am one of those who believe[s] in affinities of and Koson in terms of compulsive precision of detail.
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a history of rinpa

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