Kobayakawa Shusei
Kobayakawa Shûsei was a Nihonga painter, known in particular for his paintings related to WWII.
Originally from Hyôgo prefecture, his birth name was Mitsumaro. After dropping out of the Kyoto City Painting School (Kyôto shiritsu kaiga senmon gakkô), Shûsei studied under Taniguchi Kôkyô and Yamamoto Shunkyo. He was selected to exhibit in the Bunten for the first time in 1914. From 1931 onwards, he traveled to China and Southeast Asia in conjunction with the military campaigns, painting images of the war.
His famous works include paintings titled "Evening of Venus" (Venus no yoi), "Capital of Paradise" (Jakkô no miyako), and the 1968 work "Shield of the Country" (Kuni no Tate), which depicts a dead soldier lain out on the ground, in military uniform, his face covered with a hinomaru flag.
Following the war, he began studying the production of religious paintings. He died in 1974.
References
- "Kobayakawa Shûsei," Nihon jinmei daijiten 日本人名大辞典, Kodansha, 2009.