Inheritance and Evolution of Chinese Painting in Japan:From Ink Painting to Modern Ink and Wash Painting

ABSTRACT:“Ink and wash painting”is also known as “suibokuga” in Japan, is a monochrome style of ink painting. But in Japan, this well-known genre is neither identical with “Song and Yuan Dynasty Painting” and “literati painting” which are traditionally recognized as classifications nor with the general concepts of “Chinese painting,” “watercolor,” or “brush painting.” Japan had been learning greatly from Chinese arts and cultures brought back from China by the imperial embassies to Tang dynasty (630-894) and the imperial embassies to Ming dynasty (1401-1547) and then distinctively developed its own artistic style. However, suibokuga was established as an independent genre in Japan than following the categorization in China. This type of painting was introduced to Japan in the 13th century known as Kamakura period in Japanese history, being practiced for centuries across Muromachi, Momoyama, and Edo.

Influenced by the Westernization brought about by Meiji Restoration, suibokuga, the foundation of Japanese culture, completely disappeared from Japanese college system after Tokyo University of the Art set up the western painting department and Japanese painting department. This genre no longer dominated Japanese painting field and started spreading among the civilian population since then. In addition, Yokoyama Taikan (1868-1958), together with the other artists, developed a new style called “Mourou-tai” (Blurred Style), representing that Japanese painting has departed from suibokuga featured with the line drawing originated from China. Although suibokuga has disappeared from academic field, Japanese artists who have worked actively in modern and contemporary art fields such as Kaii Higashiyama, Matazō Kayama and Yokoyama, unexpectedly present extensive classic pieces of modern ink painting. Therefore, this paper, with art as the core logic thinking, will examine the relevance between the modern ink painting and suibokuga in terms of development by analyzing different works from the perspective of space imagery including graphology and painterly, abstract and concrete. And the author will have a further exploration on the historical view and techniques presented in the art works.

Key words: suibokuga; modern Japanese suibokuga; space imagery; formal analysis

Liu Suzhen: Associate Professor National Taiwan University of Arts, Painting and Calligraphy Arts Department, Taipei, China. Sliu9jp@hotmail.com

Huang Junjia: Associate Professor, School of Arts, Minjiang University, Taipei, China. Yhcc31209209qq.com