Kuroda Seiki

Maiko Girl. Oil on canvas. 1893. Important Cultural Property. Tokyo National Museum.

• Born: 1866
• Died: 1924
• Japanese: 黒田清輝 (Kuroda Seiki)

Kuroda Seiki was a prominent Western-style ("yôga") oil painter, art teacher, and proponent of Western-style painting.

Born into a prominent samurai family in Satsuma han, he journeyed to Paris in 1884 with the intention of studying law and pursuing a career in that field. He ran into a number of other Japanese there, however, including Paris-based art dealer Hayashi Tadamasa and painter Yamamoto Hôsui, who recognized in Kuroda a talent for painting. They recommended him to Raphael Collin, an Academic painter who had recently become quite popular for his plein-air works in a more impressionistic style. Seiki began studying under Collin, and in addition to receiving training in the basics of proper (highly realistic) Academic-style oil painting, he was also encouraged to experiment with plein-air painting, and with impressionistic styles.

One of his works was accepted by a Salon in 1891, and two years later, his painting Morning Toilette was shown at the Salon, the Salon des Beaux-Arts. Morning Toilette would cause quite a scandal when shown in Tokyo shortly afterwards, being one of the first full nudes (in the highly realistic Western style & oil painting medium) ever displayed in a Japanese art exhibition.

References

• Japan & Paris. Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2004. p32.