was a famous and revolutionary Japanese painter

Japanese painting

is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competition between native Japanese aesthetics and adaptation of...

 and lacquer

Lacquer

In a general sense, lacquer is a somewhat imprecise term for a clear or coloured varnish that dries by solvent evaporation and often a curing process as well that produces a hard, durable finish, in any sheen level from ultra matte to high gloss and that can be further polished as required...

er of the late Edo period

Edo period

The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

 and early Meiji era. In Japan, he is ironically known as both too modern, a panderer to the Westernization movement, and also an overly conservative traditionalist who did nothing to stand out from his contemporaries. Despite holding this odd reputation in Japan, Zeshin has come to be well regarded and much studied among the art world of the West, in England and the United States in particular.

Zeshin was born and raised in Edo

Edo

, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...

 (modern-day Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

). His grandfather Izumi Chobei and his father Ichigoro were shrine carpenters (miyadaiku) and skilled wood carvers. His father, who had taken his wife's family name of Shibata, was also an experienced Ukiyo-e

Ukiyo-e

' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...

painter, having studied under Katsukawa Shunshō

Katsukawa Shunsho

was a Japanese painter and printmaker in the ukiyo-e style, and the leading artist of the Katsukawa school. Shunshō studied under Miyagawa Shunsui, son and student of Miyagawa Chōshun, both equally famous and talented ukiyo-e artists. Shunshō is most well known for introducing a new form of...

. This, of course, gave him an excellent start on the road to being an artist and craftsman. At age eleven, Kametaro, as Zeshin was called in his childhood, became apprenticed to a lacquerer named Koma Kansai II.

At age 13, the young man who would become Zeshin abandoned the name Kametaro and became Junzo. Koma Kansai decided that his young charge would need to learn to sketch, paint, and create original designs in order to become a great lacquerer. He arranged for young Shibata to study under Suzuki Nanrei, a great painter of the Shijō school

Shijo school

The Shijō school , also known as the Maruyama-Shijō school, was an offshoot school of the Maruyama school of Japanese painting founded by Maruyama Ōkyo, and his former student Matsumura Goshun in the late 18th century. This school was one of several that made up the larger Kyoto school...

. Shibata then took on yet another artist's name, abandoning Junzo and signing his works "Reisai," using the Rei from Suzuki Nanrei, and the sai from Koma Kansai.

It was during his time with Nanrei that he was given the name Zeshin, which he would stick with for the rest of his life. The name has a meaning similar to "this is true" or "the Truth", a reference to an old Chinese tale of a king who held an audience with a great number of painters. While nearly all of the painters afforded the king the proper respect, bowing before him and comporting themselves appropriately, one arrived half-naked, did not bow, and sat on the floor licking his paintbrush; the king exclaimed "now, this is a true artist!" And from this the name Zeshin was taken.

Zeshin learned not only the basics of painting and sketching, but also Japanese tea ceremony

Japanese tea ceremony

The Japanese tea ceremony, also called the Way of Tea, is a Japanese cultural activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of matcha, powdered green tea. In Japanese, it is called . The manner in which it is performed, or the art of its performance, is called...

, haiku

Haiku

' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

 and waka

Waka (poetry)

Waka or Yamato uta is a genre of classical Japanese verse and one of the major genres of Japanese literature...

 poetry, history, literature and philosophy. This would form the foundation of his training in not only the techniques of the traditional arts, but also, and perhaps more importantly, the aesthetic and philosophy of Japanese traditional art. Many of his works from the period of his studies with Nanrei were fan paintings. The great ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi was impressed with these fan paintings and, approaching the young painter, began a friendship which would last for many years.

Zeshin later studied under other great artists of the Kyoto school

Kyoto school (art)

The Kyoto school was a collection of several styles and schools of Japanese painting of the late Edo period. Though there are many broad similarities between the styles within the school, these styles display key differences that separate them...

, including Maruyama Ōkyo

Maruyama Okyo

, born Maruyama Masataka, was a Japanese artist active in the late 18th century. He moved to Kyoto, during which he studied artworks from Chinese, Japanese and Western sources. A personal style of Western naturalism mixed with Eastern decorative design emerged, and Ōkyo founded the Maruyama school...

, Okamoto Toyohiko, and Goshin

Goshin

Goshin is a bonsai created by John Y. Naka. It is a forest planting of eleven Foemina junipers , the earliest of which Naka began training into bonsai in 1948. Naka donated it to the National Bonsai Foundation in 1984, to be displayed at the United States National Arboretum; it has been there...

. Though he would later be known primarily for his work with lacquers, Zeshin excelled at traditional ink painting, and produced many works of traditional subjects such as tigers and waterfalls. Though Japanese masters (sensei) are often quite egotistical and arrogant before their students, one of Zeshin's teachers is reputed to have made the comment that "just as you cannot appreciate the size of Mt. Fuji while standing upon it, so you cannot truly appreciate my skill and reputation while in Kyoto; when you return to Edo you will realize my incredible import and your great fortune in having studied under me." Zeshin, on the other hand, is reputed to have told his own students that he did not wish them to be known as "a pupil of Zeshin's, but rather as a great artist who studied under a man called Zeshin."

Koma Kansai died in 1835, and Zeshin inherited the Koma School workshop. He took on a young man by the name of Ikeda Taishin as a pupil; Taishin would remain his pupil and close friend until his death in 1903. Zeshin married in 1849 and named his first son Reisai, but lost his mother and his wife both soon afterwards.

In the 1830s and 1840s, Japan suffered an economic crisis, and artists were strictly limited, by law, in their use of silver and gold, both nearly essential for traditional styles of lacquer decoration. Zeshin compensated by using bronze to simulate the look and texture of iron, and with a variety of other substances and decorative styles to keep his work beautiful, while remaining traditional and doable. Many of his pieces could be said to embrace the concept of wabi

Wabi-sabi

represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete"...

, that is, beauty and elegance in the very simple, as exemplified by the Japanese tea ceremony

Japanese tea ceremony

The Japanese tea ceremony, also called the Way of Tea, is a Japanese cultural activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of matcha, powdered green tea. In Japanese, it is called . The manner in which it is performed, or the art of its performance, is called...

. Although very few of his Edo period (pre-1868) pieces survive, it is evident in many of his later pieces that he would use, at times, a very simple and nearly colorless style of decoration, while continuing to use the traditional designs such as flowers and reeds.

Beginning in 1869, Zeshin was commissioned to work for the Imperial government, and created many works of art for them which are sadly no longer extant. These included a set of gold-lacquered chairs for the Imperial Palace

Kokyo

is the main residence of the Emperor of Japan. It is a large park-like area located in the Chiyoda area of Tokyo close to Tokyo Station and contains several buildings including the main palace , the emperor left Kyoto Imperial Palace for Tokyo...

 decorated in a sakura

Sakura

A cherry blossom is the flower of any of several trees of genus Prunus, particularly the Japanese Cherry, Prunus serrulata, which is sometimes called sakura after the Japanese . Many of the varieties that have been cultivated for ornamental use do not produce fruit...

(cherry blossom) motif. He was later made Japan's official representative to several international expositions, including Vienna in 1875, Philadelphia the following year, and Paris. One year before his death in 1891, Zeshin was granted the immense honor of membership in the newly-created Imperial Art Committee. The honor of Imperial Commissioned Artists was only granted to 53 artists between 1890 and 1944.

Today, one of the greatest collections of Zeshin's works is the Khalili Collections of London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, containing over 100 works by the artist.

Style

In addition to inventing the form of urushi-e

Urushi-e

Urushi-e , literally meaning "lacquer picture," refers to two types of Japanese artworks: paintings painted with actual lacquer, and particular woodblock printing styles which use regular ink but are said to resemble the darkness and thickness of black lacquer.-Prints:Urushi-e woodblock prints were...

, painting with lacquer, Zeshin also experimented greatly with the technical elements of using lacquer. He mixed his lacquers with a variety of substances to achieve different colors and textures, and to control the consistency and flexibility of the lacquer. He mixed certain substances with the lacquer to ensure it would not crack when his urushi-e scroll paintings were rolled up. He used bronze in his lacquer to simulate the appearance and texture of iron, and cereal starch to thicken his lacquer to simulate, at least in some respects, the effect of Western oil painting

Oil painting

Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...

.

Zeshin remains, in fact, the only artist to be successful in the medium of urushi-e, as it requires specially treated paper, and a very particular consistency of lacquer to be used as paint. Zeshin also revived a complex lacquer technique called seikai-ha to produce wave forms; this technique is so difficult it had not been used for over a century.

However, although he used many revolutionary elements in his work, both technically and creatively, Zeshin's works were always, on the whole, very traditional. In the brand-new medium of lacquer painting, he would paint traditional subjects like birds and flowers, insects, waterfalls and dragons. He copied a famous painting of a tiger by his teacher Maruyama Okyo, in lacquer. A red, black and gold lacquer picnic set by Zeshin serves as another good example of this revolutionary traditionalism. The picnic set is made in very traditional style, almost entirely of red and black lacquer with gold decorations of leaves and branches. However, on the serving tray is a series of butterflies and dragonflies, inlaid into the surface of the serving tray and carved out of iridescent seashell.

Zeshin's signature was always quite subdued, and on occasion he would be playful with the idea of the signature. There is a decorative tsuba (sword handguard) made by him on which an ant, displayed in relief in lacquer, is carrying away the "shin" character (真) of Zeshin's signature to the other side of the piece.

It has been said that much of Zeshin's work strongly represents the aesthetic concept of iki

Iki (aesthetic ideal)

Iki is a traditional aesthetic ideal of human behavior or volition in Japan, roughly "chic, stylish". The basis of iki is thought to have formed among urbane commoners in Edo in the Tokugawa period...

(粋), which might be translated as "chic". The Edo concept of iki, known as sui in Kansai

Kansai

The or the lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Mie, Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo, and Shiga. Depending on who makes the distinction, Fukui, Tokushima and even Tottori Prefecture are also included...

, was described most authoritatively by Kuki Shūzō

Kuki Shuzo

was a prominent Japanese academic, philosopher and university professor.-Early life:Shūzō was the fourth child of Baron Kuki Ryūichi a high bureaucrat in the Meiji Ministry for Culture and Education...

, but like the English ideas of chic, cool, and stylish, the precise colors, patterns, and other stylistic elements that constitute iki are nearly impossible to pin down. Nevertheless, that said, Zeshin's works are often labeled as iki, and considered to have just the right balance of tradition with the new, being beautiful but not gaudy and simple but not boring and smart but not arrogant. His style has been compared by some to haiku

Haiku

' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

, in that its beauty and meaning is more powerful in what is not shown than by what is.

Shibata's art

• Entitle: Hannya retrieving her arm
• The Genius of Japanese Lacquer: Masterworks by Shibata Zeshin Japan Society
  Japan Society (New York)
  Founded in 1907, Japan Society is a nonprofit, nonpolitical organization that aims to brings the people of Japan and the United States closer together through understanding, appreciation and cooperation...
  
   Exhibition (March 21 - June 15, 2008)

External links

• Recent retrospective reviewed by C.B.Liddell