Studio: international art (57.1913)

Japanese Paintings

opposition, this association professing to encourage
the “ true ” style of Japanese painting. The attitude
of the committee of judges of the Annual Art
Exhibition towards the artists of the “ Old ” school
became so marked that the Minister of Education
was recently questioned in the House of Lords on
the subject.

The contention between the two schools
reached its climax at the time of the Fifth Annual
Exhibition of Art in 1911, when four of the judges
sent in their resignations. They were Mochizuki
Kimpo; Masuzu Shunnan, whose Rabi Storm is
included among our illustrations; Takashima
Hokkai, whose Landscape may also be found
among our reproductions; and Sakuma Tetsuen,
all of whom profess to belong to the “ Old ”
school and who have served on the committee for
four consecutive exhibitions. According to their
opinion, it is but a natural consequence of the
tendencies of the present day that the greater

This friction dates back to the time when the
Annual Art Exhibition was created by law with a
government subsidy and placed under the Depart-
ment of Education, Baron Makino being then at the
head of the Department. From the very beginning
the exhibition was generally recognised to be more
or less in favour of the new movement then gaining
ground in the art world of Japan. The great
majority of the judges were members of the Tokyo
School of Fine Arts. Opposed to this institution
stood the Nihon Bijutsu Kyokai, an old and in-
fluential art society which, under the leadership of
Masao Gejo, a member of the House of Lords,
champions the “Old” school. The feeling current
among certain sections of Japanese painters against
the Mombusho Exhibition may be judged by the
fact that the Kokuga Gyokuseikai was organised in
232

LANDSCAPE BY TAKASHIMA HOKKAI

BY MASUZU SHUNNAN

“RAIN storm”