Studio: international art (57.1913)

Japanese Paintings

“the water” (six-panelled screen)

BY OTAKE CHIKUHA

“IN THE.YOUNgJgRASS ” (SIX-PANELLED SCREEN)

number of high awards should go to the pro-
ductions of the “New” school, but they maintain
that the giving of these awards to experimental
productions not worthy of the name of art must
prove detrimental to the true spirit of art, and
tearing that the present tendency will lead to
destroying the best characteristics of true Japanese
painting, they cannot 'look on calmly at the sad and
inevitable end while on the committee.

It is needless to say that they are denounced by
their opponents, who insinuate that these “ Old ”
school painters merely copy the skeleton of the
productions of artists who worked in the latter
part of the Tokugawa period (1603-1868) and can
hardly be called the true Old Masters of Japanese
art. They also claim that the adherents of the

BY KONOSHIMA OtCOKU

“ New” school have in them the spirit of the real
old masters to which they are trying to give new
expression, and maintain that there is no danger
of losing the best qualities of their national art.

Putting aside the arguments of both parties, we
reproduce here for our readers’ judgment some of
the more prominent works shown at the exhibition
of 1911. Two of them, In the Young Grass, by
Konoshima Okoku of Kyoto, and The Water, by
Otake Chikuha of Tokyo, were awarded second
prizes, the highest bestowed at any of the annual
exhibitions. The Iwo Girls in a Shower, by
Kitano Tsunetomi of Osaka, was one of the seven
which received third prizes.

The unfriendly feeling between the two scnools
was brought to the highest pitch when towards the

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