Takahashi Yuichi

Takahashi Yuichi (Jap.高桥 由 一, born February 5, 1828 in Edo, † July 6, 1894 ) was a Japanese painter of the Western style of painting (yoga ).

Life

Takahashi was born as the son of the vassal of the Sano - Han ( province Shimotsuke, now Tochigi prefecture ) Takahashi Genjuro in Edo. Early interest in painting, he began among the painters of the Kano school Kanō Dotei, after studying with Kanō Tangyokusai, but had to give it up due to time constraints. In 1862 he got a job in the " Bansho shirabe - sho ", the establishment of the shogunate to the study of Western writings, where he studied under Togai Kawakami ( 1827-1881 ) Western painting. Oil painting, he studied under Charles Wirgman. In the Meiji period, he got a job in the " Daigaku Nanko ", a precursor institution of the University of Tokyo. In 1873 he opened his own art school " Tenkairō ". His students included, inter alia, Harada Naojiro (1863-1899), who continued his studies in Munich.

Work

Already centuries earlier Hiraga Gennai had to deal with oil painting. Further, for example, Shiba Kokan mention of oil painting and studied the engravings created in a Western manner. Takahashi must have Shibas known and appreciated works: he created a posthumous portrait of him. But Takahashi was the one who was at the beginning of the Meiji period with his painting on the spot, when the country opened up to the West and Western art.

Deeply impressed by the high degree of realism, Dutch painters of his time he created using oil paint still life with that of his new time for Japan Technique. He was the first master of the Japanese oil painting of Mejii period, remained for some of his contemporaries but rather incomprehensible.

His motives were both everyday things, such as flowers or food, such as tofu, fish and shellfish, but also landscapes. He was also known for portraits of people of his time. He became famous by doing the image Bijin (美人) a Oiran and through the portrait of the philosopher Nishi Amane. The portrait Bijin, and one of the three still lifes sake (鲑) of a salmon about 1877 were classified as Important Cultural Property of Japan.

Takahashi can be seen as a representative of the radical opening of Japan. He cut himself his Samurai braid, the Chonmage, off and saw his mission in the learning of Western painting, though he was by this time almost 40 years old. He opened his own art school, organized exhibitions and was the editor of an art magazine. Direct contact was to the English painter and cartoonist Charles Wirgman, the less detailed the contemporary Japan documented living in Yokohama.

Exhibitions (selection)

• Yuichi Takahashi Museum of Art in Kotohira, Japan
• 2012: University of the Arts and Tōkyō National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto ( Momak )
• 2013: The Museum of Modern Art, Hayama

Collections

• Takahashi Collection at the Pola Museum of Art, Hakone
• The Collection in the Temple Kotohira- gū owns 27 paintings by Takahashi, which is seen as a permanent exhibition at the Takahashi Yuichi building. Among other things, " Futamigaura ," and the still life " tofu " and " Tai".
• The permanent exhibition in APMOA - Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya - also includes works by Takahashi, such as the still life " kitchen equipment " from 1878/79 and the landscape Shinobazu no ike (不忍 池, " Shinobazu Pond" ) from 1880.